Sorrel-Weed House, Savannah Georgia

We picked up a couple of flyers on the Sorrel-Weed House while in Savannah, and the home is mentioned in every tourist book about the city.

This has become a big attraction for the ghost hunters crowd.  In fact, most of the tours promoted are for people looking for ghosts.

We opted for a basic, during the day history tour which was simply convenient for us. 

We arrived and bought our tickets for the tour.  We then waited briefly for our tour to start in a small gift shop.  I was a little let down that there really wasn't anything unique in the gift shop, just a few small items that could be found at any of the other local shops.

The staff was very friendly, and they seemed to enjoy talking to all of the tourists.  They made several restaurant recommendations.

There was one other couple on our tour with us, and we all enjoyed the small group tour.

Above the gift shop/waiting for your tour to begin area, is the first stop on the house tour, an area where slaves lived.  On the way up the stairs, a spindle from the stair case fell as we passed.  it did the same thing on the way down.  Make of that what you will (actually, it was obviously very loose).

As you can imagine, this was a very interesting area.  I would describe this part of the property as well preserved.

We had a great guide named Don, who told us a lot of history about the building and the area.  He did throw in the ghost stories and that sort of thing too.

We left the first building and stood in a nice garden area for a bit.  Don pointed out to us that the bricked walk way had finger prints in some of them.  It looked like someone took a couple of fingers and poked into many of the bricks.  We were told that the slaves who made the bricks did this.

Next Don took us into the main home right next door.  In it's more recent years, it had been divided, somewhat, into apartments.  It still had a great old house vibe in many areas though.

One particular area had been used by a doctor at one time to do surgeries.  Don talked about how surgeries at that time were not what we think of now when we hear the word surgery.  He explained clearly that the surgeries were mostly the cutting off of limbs with not much available to help with or to mask the pain.

We were told about the house being the home to Confederate General Moxley Sorrel.

It is interesting that the home of Sorrel is literally right next to the home that Sherman used as a Headquarters during his March to the Sea.  Don lead an interesting discussion about this towards the end of the tour.

The Sorrel-Weed house is going through many renovations, even right now.  Because of this, access to certain areas is restricted, though they are hoping to open those places up on tours soon.  We were able to go out and enjoy the view from a balcony area.

After our tour we talked to the other couple who had enjoyed Don's presentation with us.  They were from Illinois, and one of them had been a student at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design).  They talked at length about all of the history and great historic buildings in town.  Even though they have seen most of it before, they still get excited about taking a house tour they hadn't taken before.