Skulduggery at the Pirate's Tavern

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
​The Pirate's House in Savannah, Georgia is over 250 years old. It's said to be one of the oldest and most haunted structures in the state. 

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The Pirates House c.1940

A city block from the Savannah River, in the shadow of Fort Wayne a section of land was set aside for a colonial garden known as the Trustees' Garden set up by James Oglethorpe in 1733. Its design was based on the Chelsea Botanical Garden in London.

Herbs like thyme, marjoram and lavender scented the air, and both peach trees and cotton were also cultivated and thrived; both of these became staples for farmers in the state.

The first small building provided housing for a gardener, who would sleep upstairs in the loft. It was known as the Herb House, and was built of bricks made of clay taken from under the bluff on the nearby river. 

Twenty years later, the ten-acre botanical gardens fell into disuse, and being a port city, soon a tavern and inn were erected there to accommodate men arriving in ships from around the world. One was known as the Old Pirates' House and the Herb House eventually became The Flint House. Sailors gathered there to trade stories, drink rum and much skulduggery was planned within its walls.

Sea captains would pay to have drunken sailors kidnapped, and brought to their ships waiting to leave for foreign lands. Secret tunnels would run from the rum cellar to another tunnel on River Street. Fights, some ending in murder occurred many times inside the building.
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The tavern was made famous in the book Treasure Island written by Robert Louis Stevenson, since it was one of two real places used by the author. In the story the character Captain Flint would die upstairs in a room, being done in for his love of rum. He was a nefarious man, who even murdered his crew to keep secret the place where he buried his treasure. This was booty he had accumulated after sailing the high seas on his ship the Walrus.

A passage from the book reads:​

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'I saw him dead with these here deadlights,' said Morgan. 'Billy took me in. There he laid, with penny pieces on his eyes.'

'Dead—ay, sure enough he's dead and gone below,' said the fellow with the bandage, 'but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint's. Dear heart, but he died bad, did Flint.'

'Ay, that he did, observed another. Now he raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang. Fifteen Men were his only song, mates, and I tell you true, I never rightly like to hear it since. It was main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as clear—and the death haul on the man already.'

The fictional pirate, Captain Flint's death scene was set in the Pirate's House

Eventually the area around the tavern became rundown, and abandoned and Mary Hillyer renovated it in 1945 in a seven year project. It reopened in 1953 as a tea house. Eventually it became a restaurant and jazz club. 

Shadow people are seen here, many think they are the wraiths of old sailors who spent their best, or perhaps their worse moments in the old tavern.

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The Pirate's House c.1995

​Staff working alone report the feeling of being watched. When they turn around they see a sailor dressed in a style of long ago looking at them. He slowly vanishes. The clomping of footsteps is heard throughout the structure, especially when it is closed and patrons are not about. Items fly off shelves for no reason. Tourists have taken pictures from the outside and captured faces peering out from one of the windows.

Down in the basement, moans are heard, perhaps coming from those who were shanghaied to serve on ships. Then sometimes laughter is heard in the main part of the building, perhaps in remembrance of when rum flowed freely, and tall tales were told of life upon the sea.

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