Legends 15: Bonaventure Cemetery

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Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So, if you're ready, let's begin.

It seems that there's a name for everything.

A group of flamingos, for example, is known as a flamboyance.

The fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth is called arachabutyrophobia.

And people who are passionate about cemeteries are said to be taphophiles.

Taphophilia is defined as a love for death rituals, funerals, and cemeteries.

Someone with this special fondness might linger in cemeteries and draw the graves they see, or do rubbings of the headstones.

They also take plenty of photographs and are sometimes called grave hunters or even gravers.

But there is one cemetery that echoes in the minds of taphophiles everywhere and Georgia in specific.

In fact, it's one of the most beautiful burial sites in America, but its long and sordid history has endowed it with a dark reputation.

The souls interred there are said to churn and wail for a peace that never comes.

It turns out a number of those who have been laid to rest in its soil were just as troubled in life as they are in death.

Some ended things on their own, while others had their lives taken from them without warning.

It's such a turbulent place that even the gravestones have been known to act out toward visitors, which is why this place is often spoken of in whispers, so as not to disturb the restless spirits, still searching for their salvation.

So come along with me on a journey to the south as we walk among the ill-fated brides and haunted statues that occupy the grounds of one of the most haunted spots in Savannah, Bonaventure Cemetery.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends.

Savannah, Georgia is considered by many to be the most haunted city in America, no doubt in large part to the notable and notorious cemetery that sits just three miles from downtown.

Bonaventure Cemetery is located on the banks of the Wilmington River.

It occupies over 100 acres of land, purchased way back in 1846, but the first body wasn't buried there until three years later.

Originally, they called it Evergreen Cemetery of Bonaventure.

Of course, that's a bit of a mouthful, so the locals started simply calling it Bonaventure, and the moniker stuck.

Its establishment was part of the Victorian rural cemetery movement, which envisioned these burial places as peaceful, idyllic landscapes where people could take leisurely walks or maybe have a picnic among the dead.

In fact, these sites spurred the development of public parks across the United States.

Now, Bonaventure is not without its problems.

The land it sits on used to be part of a 600-acre plantation, also named Bonaventure, founded 100 years prior.

It belonged to two families, one named Tattnall and the other named Mulrein.

These families had long remained loyal to King George during the time of the Revolution, and when Josiah Tattnell II's wife passed away, she was buried on the property.

In a way, Bonaventure has always been a cemetery.

During and after the war, the land served a number of purposes.

It was an escape route for British royal governor James Wright, as well as a hospital for wounded French and Haitian soldiers following the first siege of Savannah.

In fact, historians believe some of these soldiers remain buried in unmarked graves all over the property.

But the Tettnell family eventually sold the land off in 1846 to local businessman Peter Wiltberger.

He began its conversion into a formal cemetery before his death in 1853, at which point his son William took over the project.

Now, the mythology surrounding Bonaventure started circulating only a year after its formal establishment.

In 1859, a special correspondent to New Orleans Daily Piccayune newspaper wrote of a troubled clergyman who sadly took his own life there.

He had hoped that his body would be buried in its peaceful shades.

Then, almost a decade later, a 29-year-old naturalist named John Muir stopped by during his famous thousand-mile walk.

He'd come from Indiana on his way to Florida between September and October of 1867 with only a handful of items in tow.

He carried with him a backpack, inside of which were a comb, a towel, a plant press, a Bible, a copy of Paradise Lost by Milton, his journal, and one thing that no traveler should ever be without, a change of underwear.

His journal wasn't published until 1916, though, two years after his death, but within its pages are notes about his trip to Bonaventure.

There, thought I, is an ideal place for a penniless wanderer.

There, no superstitious, prowling mischief maker dares venture for fear of haunting ghosts, while for me, there will be God's rest and peace.

He'd been waiting for money from his brother back in Wisconsin, which still had not yet shown up.

So Muir spent five nights in the cemetery, sleeping in a small hut that he built for himself, far from the walking paths where people could see him.

He was honestly smitten with its beauty, writing later, Almost any sensible person would choose to dwell here with the dead rather than with the lazy, disorderly living.

John Muir went on to found the Sierra Club and was later known as the unofficial father of the national parks, a passion which was undoubtedly inspired, at least in part, by his trip to Bonaventure.

The city of Savannah wound up buying the site in 1907 and changing the name once and for all to Bonaventure Cemetery.

Its beauty has been expounded on by local tour guides, historians, and John Muir himself.

He noted specifically its live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.

Elsewhere throughout the cemetery are azaleas and camellias that provide pops of color to help balance the depressing gray hues that permeate any graveyard.

Among the cemetery's more famous denizens are musician Johnny Mercer and poet Conrad Aiken, both of whom can be visited via a free tour offered by the Bonaventure Historical Society.

But don't let the beauty fool you.

The burial ground's pastoral scenery hides some truly spooky legends, and unlike the dead who are interred beneath the soil, the stories are very much alive.

John Muir may have written about the oak trees that soar high above the gravestones with their long moss that hangs down with a sense of sadness, but he didn't mention Bonaventure's angel statues.

According to local legend, they're said to change their facial expressions and even their locations in the blink of an eye.

According to one report, it's been said that people have turned their backs to the angels for a moment, only to turn around again and catch them standing feet away from where they had originally been.

Dr.

Who fans, be forewarned.

Then there's the sound of crying heard near one baby's grave, as well as children giggling beside another.

One of Bonaventure's more famous spiritual residents, though, has been Corrine Lawton, who died at the age of 30 in 1877.

She had been the daughter of a Confederate soldier, Brigadier General Alexander Robert Lawton, who was buried in the family plot with her parents' grave located behind hers.

Their burial site is marked with the statue of Jesus standing at the gate of heaven.

But Corrine's grave also bears her own statue, one that depicts a woman draped in a loose-fitting garment staring off into the distance.

She holds one palm upward in her lap, and there is a wreath propped up on her legs.

The statue's creator, Italian sculptor Benedetto Civiletti, was quoted as saying that that the woman was supposed to be looking up to heaven with a sad resigned expression.

She is similar to the mourning lady statues popular during the Victorian era, but this figure is more than a monument.

She has been said to smile at people that she likes who walk by, and those who give her a frown are met with a similar expression.

Corrine's father had the statue commissioned in 1879 to stand over her original gravesite in Savannah's Laurel Grove Cemetery, but she and and the monument were moved to Bonaventure in 1898 after the death of her mother.

So, how did Corrine Lawton die?

Well, that story explains why her statue faces away from the rest of the family's graves.

According to the legend, Corrine met a man well below her status.

Her wealthy and respected family forbade her from marrying him.

Instead, they arranged a marriage with another man, someone from Savannah with money and cachet.

Of course, she had no interest in marrying that guy, but her father gave her no choice.

This wedding was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not.

So Corrine, refusing to give up her independence, stole her father's horse the day before the wedding.

She rode it to the edge of the Savannah River and jumped in, drowning herself.

While evidence points to her engagement to a man named Ulysses Wade, it's unclear as to whether their union was forced.

It seems that the suicide legend may be due in part to Corrine's epitaph, which reads, allured to brighter worlds and led the way.

Historians believe that it's more likely that she died of a short illness, given that her frail condition, her high fever, and final moments were recorded by her mother in a personal diary.

But Corrine Lawton's story is one of many that have become a part of Bonaventure's history.

Of course, avid readers may recognize the cemetery's other claim to fame, John Barrent's 1994 non-fiction novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The book has generated several legends about the place, including the subject of its famous cover, The Bird Girl Statue, which is a story for a little later.

Within Midnight's Pages is a story told by a woman named Mary Hardy about the plantation house that once stood on the land where Bonaventure is located today.

She claimed it burned to the ground in the late 1700s during a dinner party.

While guests were eating their meals, the butler approached the host and calmly whispered that a fire had spread to the roof and was out of control.

The host, refusing to let his party end, tapped his silverware against the glass as though he was proposing a toast and instructed everyone to take their plates outside into the garden.

The servants picked up the dinner table and surrounding chairs and carried them outside where everyone resumed eating.

The host then proceeded to tell funny stories to entertain everyone, after which the guests toasted him, the house, and their delicious dinner.

When the tributes were over, the host threw his crystal glass against a nearby oak, and then everyone else did the same.

As Barrett wrote in his book, tradition has it that if you listen closely on quiet nights, you can still hear the laughter and the shattering of crystal glasses.

Even today, tour guides like to mention an eerie experience they claim is common in that spot.

The sounds of celebrating voices and breaking glass.

You can tell a lot about a place by how much traffic it gets.

In Bonaventure Cemetery, one of the most visited graves belongs to a girl who died at the age of six.

Her name was Gracie Watson, although everyone today just calls her little Gracie.

She was born on July 10th of 1882, the only child of W.J.

and Francis Watson.

The family had come to Savannah after Gracie's father was hired to manage the opulent Pulaski House Hotel.

During the 19th century, the Pulaski House was a hotspot for many big events in town and a destination for a number of important guests over the years.

Interestingly enough, the hotel was built by Peter Wiltberger, who had founded Evergreen Cemetery.

Gracie Watson was a beloved fixture at the Pulaski.

The Bonaventure Historical Society refers to her as a, and I quote, Victorian version of the famous Eloise of the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

She was known to dance around the lobby and sing to the guests, putting on shows for them.

And then, early in the morning of April 22nd of 1889, Gracie passed away.

It was the day after Easter.

The local papers listed her cause of death as blood poisoning superinduced by a severe attack of pneumonia.

She was only six years old at the time.

Her funeral took place at the Pulaski Hotel, and she was buried at Bonaventure, back when it was still known as Evergreen Cemetery.

Her grave, originally marked by a basic tombstone, looked similar to others around her, but her grief-stricken father wanted more.

So, in 1890, he commissioned a local sculptor named John Walls to make a life-size marble statue of his daughter.

Working off of photographs of Gracie, Walls crafted a sculpture that looked eerily like her, and her form was shaped to make it look like she was leaning with one arm on an ivy-covered stump seated on a platform with the word, Gracie, etched in ornamental letters.

And that statue has become a popular attraction at Bonaventure.

So much so that it's now surrounded by a wrought iron fence, which was installed back in 1999 after the statue had been subjected to years of vandalism.

Its nose had been chipped off by people throwing stones at it.

Over time, exposure to the elements wore it down even further.

Eventually, Gracie's parents left Savannah.

They were buried in Mananz, New York upon their death, far from their little girl back in Georgia.

In fact, one reason Gracie gets so many visitors today is because people feel so sorry that she's all by herself in Bonaventure.

Although, it could also be another reason.

You see, some say that rubbing the statue will bring you good luck, while others claim that putting a quarter on the statue's hand and walking around it three times in a circle will cause the quarter to vanish.

But of course, not all legends are as wholesome as those.

It's been rumored that if you steal a gift from her gravesite, her statue will cry blood.

Whether that might be the spirit of Gracie herself is up for debate, especially since witnesses have spotted her ghost everywhere.

Immediately following her death, her mother and the hotel staff claim to hear her laughter echoing through the hallways, as though she was still there, playing and entertaining guests.

Today, a little girl in a white dress has been seen running around and playing in Savannah's Johnson Square before disappearing into thin air.

Johnson Square, by the way, was the original location of the Pulaski Hotel.

As I mentioned earlier, Bonaventure Cemetery is home to a special statue known as Bird Girl.

Standing at 50 inches tall and made of bronze, Bird Girl was sculpted by artist Sylvia Shaw Judson back in 1936.

Judson's work was so revered, it appeared in several notable art museums and even in the White House.

Funny enough, Bird Girl does not have a single bird anywhere on the statue.

Instead, it depicts a girl with her head tilted to the left and a shallow bowl held up in each hand.

It had been modeled on an eight-year-old girl named Lorraine Greenman from Chicago.

Now, Lorraine's father had been a tailor, raising his family on what little he made.

Their lives were rough, but he and his wife did their best to elevate their daughters culturally, even if they couldn't do so financially.

So, Lorraine and her sister often wore nice clothes and attended dance classes regularly.

Judson, the sculptor, happened to be in the audience of one of their dance recitals when she laid eyes on Lorraine.

She immediately knew that she would be the perfect model for her planned sculpture.

It had been commissioned by a family in Massachusetts who wanted a bird feeder for their garden.

Of the four statues that were made, one went to that Massachusetts family while another ended up in Washington, D.C.

The third stayed in Illinois, but the fourth had been purchased for the Trosdell family plot at Bonaventure Cemetery.

Lucy Boyd Trosdell, who had bought the sculpture, named her Little Wendy.

In 1993, publishing company Random House commissioned local photographer Jack Lee to shoot the cover for John Barrent's upcoming novel, Midnights in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Several scenes in the novel took place in Bonaventure, and Barrent suggested to Lee that it might be a good place to shoot for the cover.

He spent two days in the cemetery snapping photos, but it was toward the end of his second day when he spotted the bird girl statue.

The sun had begun to set, so he worked quickly, taking his shot with the sculpture perfectly centered and light pouring through the oak trees around her.

And as you've probably guessed, Midnights in the Garden of Good and Evil became a bestseller.

And as a result, Bonaventure Cemetery turned into a major tourist destination.

People flocked to Savannah to see the iconic statue that had been featured on the book's cover.

And pretty soon, those crowds turned into a problem.

Nearby plots were trampled by careless visitors, and some even tried to take pieces of the sculpture home with them.

One person managed to back up his truck and make off with the sundial from the cemetery.

The statue was eventually moved into hiding by the Trosdell family before it was donated to Savannah's Telfair Museum.

Today, Bonaventure's landscape has changed considerably, and cemetery officials refuse to reveal the location of the Trosdel plot to tourists.

But that doesn't stop them from hunting for it, nor does it quell the rumors that the statue is haunted by the ghost of Lorraine Greenman, the young girl who posed for it.

Although, that's not likely, considering she died just last year, in 2022, at the age of 94.

She lived a full, peaceful life, and according to her obituary, she was extremely proud to have been the model for the bird girl statue.

Judging by our tour today through Savannah's most famous graveyard, there's a big lesson we can all take away.

The people we love might eventually pass, but their stories stories have the potential to live forever.

And amazingly, Bonaventure isn't the only burial ground in Savannah that's home to legend.

We've got one more storied location to share with you.

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Believe it or not, Bonaventure isn't the only haunted burial ground in Savannah.

One of the oldest in the city is Colonial Park Cemetery, having been founded a century before Bonaventure.

It grew rapidly too, essentially tripling in size by 1789.

But space is never limitless, so it eventually filled up and closed to burials in 1853.

Today, there are over 9,000 graves there, and many of them have stories to tell.

Visitors to Colonial Park have claimed to hear mysterious voices while walking its paths.

Shadowy apparitions have also been seen.

Where did they come from?

Well, local ghost tours assert that the cemetery had been the city's unofficial dueling grounds for years.

This belief was most likely spread thanks to the presence of two dueling politicians on the property.

Declaration of Independence signer Button Gwinnett, then a rival named Lachlan McIntosh.

It probably doesn't help that the victim of another high-profile duel, James Wilde, is also buried there.

Its dueling ground status is up for debate among historians, but one dark moment from the past is undisputed.

Colonial Park Cemetery is home to a mass grave for 700 victims of yellow fever.

On top of all of that, during the Civil War, Union soldiers who camped there were said to have desecrated the the cemetery altering headstone inscriptions with their bayonets moving graves around and even looting burial vaults and that couldn't have made the spirits feel at peace but colonial park is probably best known for one particular ghost René Rondelaire in fact his story is talked about so often the cemetery goes by the nickname Rene's Playground Rene was born in a blue-collar area of savannah called Folly's Alley, somewhere between the 1770s and the 1800s.

He was allegedly a big baby too, weighing in at a whopping 16 pounds.

According to the legend, the doctor had to break his mother's pelvis in order to deliver him, and some say that he was covered in fur when he arrived.

Little is known of his childhood, but by the time he was fully grown, they say he measured well over 7 feet tall.

He spoke no English and knew only a limited amount of French since his mother Maria was of French descent.

Renee was known to stalk Folly's alley at night, catching all kinds of animals like stray cats and dogs or squirrels to play with.

Unfortunately, he didn't understand certain concepts like right and wrong or dead and alive.

So, when he played with these creatures, he would inevitably break their necks due to his unwieldy strength.

One legend spoke of a wall that was erected to protect the townspeople from Renee.

It had been designed to keep him in his home, but proved to be ineffective.

He would simply break out and roam the streets in search of things to play with.

Until one day, when it became clear that the cats and dogs he had killed weren't enough, that was the day the body of a young girl was discovered in Folly's alley and her neck had been broken.

Rene's neighbors believed that he'd been responsible and so they formed a mob to carry out their own brand of law and order.

Once they found him, a group of men lifted him up and strung a noose around his neck before hanging him from a large oak tree.

It's said that he dangled there for some time, kicking and twitching and struggling to breathe.

His neck was so thick that it wouldn't break easily.

Now, some stories say that he was hanged in the cemetery itself.

Other versions claim that he was hanged in Warren Square, about a quarter mile away.

It's also been rumored that he was killed in a nearby swamp.

Unfortunately, the mob's justice was anything but swift because children continued to be murdered in the neighborhood.

Perhaps Renee had been innocent the whole time.

As for the oak tree from which he was hanged, it still stands there today and is widely believed to live within the borders of Colonial Park Cemetery.

Those who visit the site have mentioned seeing René Rondelaire's ghost hanging from it.

Many others have witnessed him walking through the graveyard.

But there's one more interesting piece that casts a shadow over the whole story.

There is no evidence that René Rondelaire ever existed.

It's been suggested that the tale may have been influenced by Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein or by the character of Lenny from John Steinbeck's of Mice and Men.

Perhaps we'll never know.

As they say, dead men tell no tales, even when they're said to roam through one of Savannah's Legendary haunted cemeteries.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Cassandra de Elba.

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