A Savannah Ghost Story

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
On September 28, 1889 Sarah Ann Adams, 25, died at her father's home situated on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. The cause of death was consumption. It wasn't long before an apparition was seen at the house, but it wasn't Sarah haunting it.

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Who was haunting the Adams' cabin?

​Two days later, neighbors visited Sarah's father, Daniel Adams after her funeral. He told them that he had taken a large dose of opium and whiskey. They took him to another neighbor's house, where he dropped into a deep sleep from which he could not be roused, and he died later that evening. It was believed he committed suicide due to despondency over his daughter's death.

Only two months later in December, 1889, a story appeared in The Democrat & Chronicle describing the haunting of the Adams home:

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The log house in which he (Daniel Adams, age 65) lived is at present unoccupied and is situated about two and a half miles east of Savannah, and the place of his burial is about 1/8 of a mile nearly back of the cabin.

The only near neighbors to this house are a family named Nicholls and one by the name of Spoor, and from these people come stories about their seeing strange lights at night in the old cabin and hearing unearthly yells coming from within its walls, besides witnessing a ghostly apparition at intervals.

​Two young men state that on a dark, rainy night a few evening since they paid a visit to the old house and taking a position just outside of a rear window, after waiting some time without discovering anything were about to leave when suddenly the figure of a tall, spare man with thin, gray whiskers, and a slow stooping gait appeared within the cabin, walking slowly through the room as if in search of something. The young men say that they made a move to enter the house when the apparition disappeared as quickly as it came.

Savannah Cemetery, New Castle, PA

​Savannah Cemetery (Pennsylvania) has a history of strange hauntings, but there was a place that was to be avoided at all costs. On the road between East New Castle and Savannah Cemetery roads, around 1880, a soldier in the German Army met another to settle a score with a duel.

He received a saber wound so close to his brain that even though he survived his mind became deranged. One day he shot himself through the heart. He chose a spot under the spreading branches of a white oak tree, and a large stone, which he sat upon when he committed the act had marks of blood upon it. The man's hat and shoes were buried directly under the tree, however they would continuously be uncovered by unseen hands, no matter how many times the items were reburied.

​The blood-marked stone and the tree always was recognized as having an uncanny atmosphere about it. The years went by and twice the white oak was struck by lightening. It was badly shattered by the first strike, and then split in two and destroyed with the second hit. Some thought that once the tree was gone, which had acted as a marker for the unhappy spirit of the German soldier, he would move on, but many were not so sure. 

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Cartoon depicted body snatchers as Disturbers of the Dead

The Grave Digger's Story
Reported to a Philadelphia Press reporter in 1882

This reporter interviewed a grave-digger who told of all the hypocrisy he had seen in the course of his job. He then went on to retell his own story.

He said, "I feel talkative today, and I know grief. Great God! Do I not? Walk a little with me."

​They walked to an area of the cemetery near the river walk. He pointed to a plain slab marked only with initials and a date. He continued his story:

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There lies my past my present and my future. Thirty-five years ago I was a doctor with a rising practice, and she who lies there was to have been my wife. One June evening we saw each other for the last time, but we little thought so then. I was going on a fortnight's journey, and when I returned we were to be married, and that evening we were arranging all the particulars for the wedding. She was the picture of health, and her parting words to me were: 'James, I am glad you are going away for awhile, I shall try and get thinner; look how fat my arms are.'

I do not know how it happened, but I did not receive a letter from her while on my journey, though I afterward heard she wrote several, and I posted one every day. I returned to the city fifteen days subsequently by a late train, and, feeling tired, I postponed going to her house until the morning. I had no suspicions of the frightful thing that had happened while I was absent.

However, I did not get to bed that night. At my rooms, waiting for me, were a party of students, who told me they had purchased the body of a young woman from a resurrection man, and would I help them dissect the corpse? I pleaded fatigue, but they begged hard, so I went with them to the hospital, and getting out my instruments, approached the body. It was covered entirely with a sheet, except one arm, and I suggested that we should experiment on the limb and leave the remainder of the body for the next day.

Accordingly the incisions were made, and I was preparing to dislocate the arm from the elbow, when some one suggested that it would be better to remove it from the shoulder, and drew aside the cloth. With a shriek of horror I recognized the dead features of the girl to whom I was to have been married on the following Thursday.

I can speak calmly of it now. Years have soothed the frightful anguish of that night. For months I was an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and when I slowly recovered I was an altered being. I had lost all idea of my profession. I was a wreck in every way. They took me to her grave. Her body had been willingly relinquished by the students, and it had been re-interred in this cemetery instead of the suburban churchyard where its repose had been so ruthlessly disturbed.

Here, where I am standing now, they told me the story of her death. A severe cold, congestion of the lungs and the breaking of a blood vessel had killed her ten days after I had bidden her good-bye. They had written to me, but the letter had miscarried. On the night of her burial (the day I returned), her fresh grave was robbed and the corpse sold to the students with the result I have just related.

​I haunted the cemetery for months, and at last got the appointment of grave-digger so that I could constantly be near her. It is 35 years ago now, and I have grown into a common laboring man, coarse in my speech, low in my habits, a grave-digger. What does it matter? She and I will be united sooner or later, now I am always with her.

​He paused, knelt down and kissed the tombstone, and once more he became the cynical grave digger