by Aaron Mahnke
That’s the path Alice Riley took to reach Savannah. She’d been recruited from Ireland, and boarded a ship with nearly a hundred others just like her—poor, Irish, young, and single. The Atlantic crossing was treacherous, though, and by the time the ship arrived in Georgia, winter storms and a lack of food had left only six women and thirty-four men alive. Alice was thankful to be among the living.
She served for a brief time in the home of a widower named Richard Cannon, but she was eventually reassigned to a farm on a small island in the river, called Hutchinson’s Island. Her new master there was an old, unhealthy man named William Wise, and he was quite the piece of work.
William Wise was a gentleman of status who had lost his family fortune back in England. He had requested permission to travel to Georgia, boarded the ship with a woman he claimed was his daughter, and then set sail. A day or two later, his request was denied, but it was too late. And that “daughter” turned out to actually be a prostitute. Needless to say, most people didn’t like William Wise.
Still, Savannah represented the same hope for him as it did for people like poor Alice—a chance to start over and build something better. However, he did so on the backs of others, with a number of indentured servants working on his farm and in the home. We’ve already met Alice, but another of those servants was a young man named Richard White.
Richard and Alice became fast friends, and because both of them were assigned to work inside the house, they saw a lot of each other. They also, if the legend is true, saw far more of William Wise than either of them wanted, because they were in charge of his bathing.
While Wise sat in the large basin, it was Alice’s job to clean his body and wash his hair. Richard would then dry and comb it. The journey from England had made Wise rather ill, and he spent most of his days alone in bed, but those moments in the water were different. He came alive, tormenting both Alice and Richard. And they hated it.
As you can imagine, this was a lot to deal with. It pushed the limits of their patience, and dehumanized them in a way that neither of them had ever experienced before, whether back home or here in this new land of hope. But thanks to the legal constraints of their agreement, they could do nothing other than grin and bear it. They were little more than prisoners in that house, so they pushed their disgust and hatred deep down inside themselves.
We don’t know exactly what happened on March 1, 1734, to set Alice and Richard off. We don’t have a recording of what they experienced, or even a full understanding of what the months leading up to it had been like. But we can all agree that everyone has a breaking point. For some, it’s right below the surface, while others have more endurance. What we do know is that Alice and Richard both hit theirs on the same day.
It happened during one of those baths. Wise provided more of his typical rude and creepy behavior, and continued to humiliate Alice and Richard. Then, with her anger finally reaching a boiling point, Alice took the rag that she was cleaning the old man with and wrapped it around his throat.
Rather than stop her, Richard moved closer to help, forcing the old man’s head beneath the surface of the water. Together, both servants held their breath as they waited for his to run out. Soon enough, it did; William Wise was dead.
They ran, of course—attempting to make their way to the Isle of Hope, ironically—but they were easily captured. Then they were held until James Oglethorpe was available to preside over their trial. They were guilty of the first murder in Georgia, after all. This had to be done right. But when it came time for a verdict, Alice threw a wrench in their plans, telling them all that she was pregnant.
Sure enough, she was. Judging by the events that led up to her trial, we can probably guess that Richard White was the father, although I think it’s impossible to rule out William Wise. Either way, that pregnancy delayed her fate…for a while, at least.
In late December 1734, Alice gave birth to a baby boy. Perhaps in an effort to sway Oglethorpe’s decision, she named the child James, after him. It didn’t work, though; the child was taken away and she was placed in jail to await her execution. She never held her baby again.
There’s no record of what happened to Richard White, although without a pregnancy of his own, the odds are pretty high that he’d been executed months before the birth. On January 19, 1735, Alice was taken from her jail cell and transported to the place where she would meet the same fate. She rode in the back of a horse-drawn wagon that brought her to Wright Square, where it parked beneath a tall tree.
Then she was asked to stand, and a rope was thrown over a high branch, one end looped around her neck. She screamed for her baby, calling out his name and scanning the gathered onlookers for someone who might have been cruel enough to bring James to his mother’s execution, but he wasn’t there.
They say she cursed everyone there, but that’s not unique. We’ve all heard stories of curses muttered from the gallows, and it’s one of those elements that always adds an extra bit of drama to the tale. Still, she cursed them. She cursed Oglethorpe, the man who drove the wagon, even the trees there in the park.
When she was done, someone gave a nod, and the horse slowly walked away, pulling the wagon out from under her.
Moments later, Alice Riley was dead.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS
Every city has a nuanced history. Sure, not all are as old as Savannah, but there’s no shortage of places where humans have settled in and built new lives. But we’re far from perfect, and if Savannah is any indication, people brought a lot more than their hopes and dreams to its port; they brought their flaws.
Today you can still walk past the old cotton warehouses on River Street where slaves worked under horrible conditions, ground down by the economic machine. Some of these warehouses still have stalls with chains in them, where newly arrived slaves were locked up until they were sold.
And if you have a chance, visit the First African Baptist Church, one of the first black churches in America, and look for holes in the wood floor. They’re small holes, maybe the diameter of a pencil, arranged in an old African pattern. But they’re also breathing holes. The church, you see, was once part of the Underground Railroad, and slaves who passed through would hide beneath the floorboards until it was safe to move on.
It’s a past we’d like to forget, and at the same time we would do well to remember it. Humans aren’t just debris floating through life on a river of tragedy; most of the time, we craft that pain ourselves.
For Alice Riley and Richard White, that pain and suffering ended up destroying their lives. It’s said that Alice’s body was left hanging from that tree for three days before it was taken down. Less than two months later, her infant son, James, passed away as well. It’s a tragic story that’s left a dark mark on the pages of Savannah’s history—a mark that some say can still be found, if you know where to look.
Local legend says that the tree from which Alice was hanged in Wright Square is the only one there with no Spanish moss growing on it. It’s a sign, they say, of the blood that was spilled so cruelly. Or maybe it’s a product of the curse Alice shouted out from beneath it. Whatever the reason, it’s a reminder of what she did, and the price she paid.
Back on Hutchinson’s Island, where Alice and Richard worked for William Wise, other remnants of their grim tale can be found. Some visitors to the island have reported seeing a man and woman in eighteenth-century clothing. They’re always described as hiding in the shadows, huddled together as if avoiding someone, but disappear the moment you glance away.
The most common report, though, is that of a pale woman seen walking through Wright Square. They say she wears an old, weathered dress, and approaches people at night with thin, outstretched arms.
“Do you know where he is?” she asks the people who see her, a mournful expression on her face. “Where’s my baby?”
EPILOGUE
Across the street from the southeastern corner of Lafayette Square, on Abercorn Street, is a large, historic mansion with a complex past. It’s old, too, having been built in 1873 for a wealthy man named Samuel Hamilton. He earned his fortune a variety of ways, including war profiteering during the Civil War, and set up his home to be a reflection of his social status and achievements. He would even go on to be mayor of the city for a time.
He was also an avid collector of art, in much the same way as his contemporary in Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner. His mansion there on Abercorn Street was full of valuable paintings that he loved to show off. So much so that he set up the house as a private museum of sorts, which included protecting what was inside. Guards worked in the house around the clock, including a man on the roof armed with a rifle.
Local legend says that one morning, after it was noticed that the guard had failed to come down from the top of the mansion, someone was sent up to retrieve him. What they discovered, though, was the man’s corpse lying in a pool of his own blood, but no discernible cause of death or sign of theft inside the house. When other guards refused to take his place, Hamilton himself sat up through the night, rifle in hand, for a number of months—that is, until he became ill and passed away in 1899.
The second owner of the house, Dr. Francis Turner, took over in 1915, and set up his medical practice in the basement of the building. Turner was also well respected and socially prominent, hosting frequent parties at the mansion. Whenever he did, though, it was said that his children were forced to stay upstairs, where they would be out of the way.
They usually passed the time playing billiards, but on one fateful night the girls became bored and rolled a few of the balls down the staircase. One of the girls slipped, though, and tumbled down the steps. Her injuries, they say, were fatal.
Today the mansion serves as a local inn, but it’s also home to a number of unexplainable sights and sounds. The figure of an older man smoking a cigar has been reported on the roof of the building, while guests indoors have heard sounds they can only describe as billiard balls dropping to the floor somewhere above them.
Savannah is indeed a beautiful city, but like so many old communities in our world, that façade hides a darker underbelly. The people who live there today may no longer have to deal with yellow fever or slave markets, but there are still shadows everywhere.
And if the Hamilton-Turner Inn is any indication, that darkness has never really checked out.
WHEN THE TRUCKER pulled up to the tollbooth on Route 895 in Virginia, it was the middle of the night and the look on his face was one of confusion and fear. The tollbooth attendant listened to the man’s story, and then sent him on his way.
The state highway is referred to as the Pocahontas Parkway, so maybe the man’s story was just a play on the name’s motif. But when the highway department received more than a few phone calls that night from distressed motorists, each telling essentially the same story, the authorities began to take notice.
What the trucker saw—what all of them claimed to have seen—was a small group of Native Americans standing on the median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of traffic near Mill Road. The trucker described them as standing motionless in the grass, each holding a burning torch. He’d assumed they were picketing, of course. After all, the parkway is rumored to cut through land that’s sacred to local Native American tribes. But the middle of the night didn’t seem like the right time for a peaceful protest. So it didn’t sit well with him. Or the others who claimed to see the very same thing.
The Times-Dispatch caught wind of the story, and soon people were flocking to the Mill Street overpass to see if they, too, could catch a glimpse of the ghosts. And that’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? We all want to see the ghosts. To witness history press its face against the glass of the present. To cheat reality, in a sense.
Each year, thousands of people around the world claim that they have seen a ghost. They tell their stories, and pass along their goosebumps like some communicable disease. But the reality is that most of us never see a thing. History is often nothing more than a distant memory.
In some places, though, that history floats a bit closer to the surface.
A SEAT OF CONFLICT
When the English arrived in what is now Virginia way back in 1607, they found the land heavily populated by the original inhabitants of the region. The English called them the Powhatan, although that was just the name of their leader. If you don’t recognize his name, that’s understandable, but everyone certainly remembers his daughter, Pocahontas.
Before Richmond was Richmond, the land where it now stands was an important Powhatan settlement. In 1607, a party from Jamestown traveled inland and claimed the location as their own. Possession of the land bounced back and forth between the Native Americans and the English for years, but in 1737 the tribe finally lost and Richmond was born.
Early on, Richmond played host to important figures in the American Revolution. Patrick Henry, the man who shouted “Give me liberty, or give me death!,” did so from St. John’s Church right there in town. And in the middle of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson served as the governor of Virginia out of Richmond.
Less than a century later, Richmond became a key city in the Confederacy as the Civil War tore the country apart. From its munitions factory and railroad system to the seat of the new government under Jefferson Davis, the city was powerful. And right at the center of it all is Belle Isle.
It sits right there in the James River, between Hollywood Cemetery to the north and Forest Hill to the south. It’s easy to overlook on the map, but far from being an afterthought, Belle Isle is actually home to some of the most painful memories in the history of the city.
Before the English arrived and Captain John Smith stood atop the rocks there, it belonged to the Powhatan. Shortly after the English took control of it in the early 1700s, it was a fishery, and then in 1814 the Old Dominion Iron and Nail Company built a factory there. Positioned on the river, where the strong current never tired, it was in the perfect location to harness the power of the water.
As the ironworks grew, so did its footprint. The factory expanded. A village was built around it, and a general store even popped up to serve the hundreds of people who called the island home. But they wouldn’t be the only ones to live there.
In 1862, Confederate forces moved onto the island and began to fortify it. Their plan was to use the isolated island as a prison camp, and they began to transport Union captives there by the thousands. Over the three years it was in operation, the prison played host to more than thirty thousand Union soldiers, sometimes more than ten thousand at a time. And the crowded space and resentful feelings between the Confederate and Union sides led to deplorable conditions.
In 1882, after living with memories of the prison camp for nearly two decades, New York cavalry officer William H. Wood wrote to the editor of the National Tribune with his observations.
Many froze to death during the winter, others were tortured in the most barbarous manner. I have seen men put astride a wooden horse such as masons use, say five feet high, with their feet tied to stakes in the ground, and there left for an hour or more on a cold winter morning. Often their feet would freeze and burst open.
He also wrote of their lack of food:
A lieutenant’s dog was once enticed over the bank and taken into an old tent where it was killed and eaten raw. Your humble servant had a piece of it. For this act of hungry men, the entire camp was kept out of rations all day.
There were only a few wooden shacks to house the prisoners, so they lived out their days completely exposed to the elements. Blistering heat, freezing cold, rain, and frost. All of it contributed to the suffering of the men who were held there. Estimates vary depending on the source, but it’s thought that nearly half of those who were brought there—that’s clos
e to fifteen thousand—never left alive.
Today, Belle Isle is a public park haunted by a dark past, and by those who lived and died there long ago. You can’t see their ghosts, but you can certainly feel them. It’s a heavy place. Visitors to the island claim to have felt its dark past in the air, like the stifling heat of an iron forge.
But there are other places in Richmond that are said to be haunted as well. Unlike Belle Isle, though, these locations aren’t in ruins, or nearly forgotten by the living. They’re right in the middle of everyday life, and each one has a unique story to tell.
They have their own past. And according to those who have been there, it can still be seen.
MEMORIES LOST
Technically, Wrexham Hall is in Chesterfield County, just south of Richmond. But when you speak to people about the city’s deeply haunting past, it’s always brought up as a perfect example of local lore. And while it doesn’t have a large number of stories to tell, what it does offer is chilling enough.
The house was built at the end of the eighteenth century by Archibald Walthall, who left the home to his two daughters, Polly and Susannah. It was Susannah who later sold her childhood home, but she stipulated that the new owners must always preserve the family graveyard.
Time and the elements, though, have allowed the site of the burial ground to slip from memory. And according to some, that’s why Susannah has returned to Wrexham Hall, perhaps in an effort to make sure some piece of the past is remembered.
It was years after her death, when the home was owned by a man named Stanley Hague. He and a handful of other men had been working in the field near the house when they looked up to see a woman in a red dress sitting on the front porch. They all saw her, and even commented to each other about it. It was hard to miss that bright red against the white home.
