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<div>One of the oldest urban parks in America, Forsyth Park dates back to the&nbsp;1840s with the donation of ten&nbsp;acres of&nbsp;land William Hodgson. Georgia&nbsp;Governor John Forsyth later added a donation of additional land to be added to the park, which was&nbsp;dedicated in 1851. At that time, the&nbsp;park was named "Forsyth Park" and became one of the leading social and recreational areas of the city.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div>One of the highlights of the park is the&nbsp;fountain at the north end of the park. At this location, French commander&nbsp;Comte D'Estaing ordered his men to&nbsp;dig&nbsp;siege&nbsp;trenches. The commander hoped to create a network of trenches northward towards the&nbsp;British earthworks, but his plan was not completed.&nbsp;&nbsp;During the 1850s, those who designed the city park took inspiration from the&nbsp;French and their&nbsp;urban renewal efforts in Paris. City planners hoped Forsyth Park would be a center of community life and increase the city's reputation. The historic fountain was completed in 1858 and designed to rival the&nbsp;fountains&nbsp;found in Paris and Peru. In honor of&nbsp;St. Patrick's Day, the water in the fountain is dyed green each year on March 17. Today, the park has many beautiful walking paths and&nbsp;a garden. In recent years, community members have discussed the meaning of the park's&nbsp;Confederate monument, with some believing that it should be removed.&nbsp;</div>

Forsyth Park fountain remains one of the most photographed places in all of Savannah.

Information about the park from Historic Savannah 

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AT thirty acres in size, Forsyth Park is the largest park in the city of Savannah and full of historical markers. Long before this land became a park, it was used by the rebel patriot army and their French allies in 1779 during the American Revolution. 


Forsyth Park 

The Owens-Thomas House &amp; Slave Quarters is located in the heart of the Historic District of Savannah. The English-born architect William Jay also designed the nearby Telfair Mansion, now the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, but the Owens-Thomas House is one of the most well-preserved examples of Jay's work in the Savannah area. The two-story home was completed in 1819 for Richard Richardson, a well-known bank president, shipping merchant, entrepreneur, and slave trader, his wife, Frances, and their six children.Although William Jay served as the architect, it was John Retan who built the home, along with numerous enslaved men who were under Retan's charge. On the east end of the property sat a carriage house and slave quarters, which housed the nine enslaved men, women, and children owned by Richard Richardson. The Richardsons ended up living in the home for just three years, and during that time, the family was plagued by tragedies. Two of their children passed away, one in 1822, the same year Frances died. Around that time, Richard's bank, the Savannah Bank of the United States, failed and he sold his home and moved to New Orleans. Richard Richardson died in 1833 on the seas while returning home from a voyage to France.The Bank of the United States took charge of the house in 1824 and leased it to Mary Maxwell, who operated it as a boarding house. The next year, Maxwell played hostess to the Revolutionary War hero, Marquis de Lafayette, and his son. Lafayette was in Savannah to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution, and it was reported that he even gave a speech on the balcony.In 1830, George Owens, a prominent attorney from Savannah, purchased the home for $10,000 at auction. Owens would go on to be the mayor of Savannah, a state senator and representative, and then a United States congressman. The Owens family made a few changes to the home before moving in, adding three rooms to the second story at the back of the house. The family resided in the home during the winter months and lived in their homes in Philadelphia, New York, Europe, and north Georgia in the summer. During the time the Owens family lived in the house, they kept around nine to fifteen enslaved people. Upon the death of Owens' granddaughter, Margaret Gray Thomas, in 1951, the house was transferred to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences and, in 1954, it opened as a museum.In addition to touring the main house, visitors also may view the Carriage House, the beautiful Parterre Garden, and the Butler's Pantry. On the north half of the building, the Slave Quarters can be found. A two story building, three rooms were placed on each level and around nine to fifteen enslaved people lived there from 1819 to the Civil War. After that time period, this building became a servants' quarters, the overwhelming majority of servants being African Americans. The Owens-Thomas House also holds priceless decorative arts that date from 1790 to 1840 and either were made in England, the United States, or France. The Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters is a priceless piece of architecture in one of the most historic areas in the South, telling the story of prominent Southern families and the enslaved people who built and ran it.

The Owens-Thomas House &amp; Slave Quarters was built in 1819 for successful cotton merchant and banker, Richard Richardson and his wife, Francis Bolton. It was designed by the English architect William Jay, one of the first trained architects in the country. He designed the house in the English Regency style and it features many interesting architectural elements such as curved walls and doors, indirect lighting in the drawing room, a bridge in the upstairs hall, and one of the finest staircases in the South. Today the house is one of three buildings that comprise the Telfair Museum, the oldest public art museum in the South. It features a decorative arts collection consisting of Owens family furnishings as well as American and European objects dating from 1790-1840. Behind the house are an English-themed garden and one of the earliest intact urban slave quarters in the South.

Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters

Located in the heart of Savannah for the family Kehoe family and their ten children, this historic house has been well-preserved and in the historical part of the Columbia Square neighborhood. William Kehoe arrived in America at the age of ten when his family immigrated from Wexford, Ireland in 1842. Growing up in the Old Fort District, William apprenticed at an iron foundry and rose to the position of foreman. Eventually, William purchased the foundry and later created a new foundry near the riverfront which became one of Savannah’s most successful businessmen. In 1868, William met and married Anne Flood. With a successful business and a fast-growing family, William purchased this lot of land across from their first home in Columbia Square for $950. Designed by DeWitt Bruyn for William Kehoe and his growing family of 12, this home was built for $25,000 and was finally completed by May 1892. The family stayed in the Kehoe family until 1930 when it was sold in an estate sale. Three decades later, the property was home to a boarding school, then the Goette Funeral Home. In 1980, Joe Namath purchased the home for $80,000 with the desire of turning it into a nightclub and disco. This plan led to opposition among residents of Columbia Square, and Namath responded by remodeling the home and selling the restored property for $350,000. The new owners of the home continued the work of restoration for two years before opening a bed and breakfast. In 2003 HLC Hotels purchased the property and continues to operate the bed and breakfast. The home has a reputation for paranormal activity, with locals and guests sharing stories of being visited by the haunted spirits of the Kehoe family. The family lost their twin boys after they were playing and fell into the home's chimney., and guests have reported the sounds of footsteps that sound like children running up and down the halls of the home. Guests have also claimed to see their ghost in the second-floor bedrooms or to hear young voices even though the bed and breakfast is only open to adult guests. The Queen Anne-style home features brass and marble chandeliers, two fireplaces, a courtyard garden, music rooms as well as Victorian-era antiques. This home now serves as a bed and breakfast for adult guests with thirteen guest rooms, and two include private balconies overlooking Savannah.

Located in the heart of Savannah, this historic home was constructed for the family of William Kehoe starting in the late 1880s. The home was completed in May of 1892 at a cost of $25,000, and Kehoe and his descendants lived in the home until 1930. In the years that followed, the home was used as a boarding school, a funeral home, and was even the property to quarterback Joe Namath from 1980 to 1992. In recent years, the home has served as a bed and breakfast. 

The Kehoe House 

Isaiah Davenport was a master builder from New England and learned carpentry through an apprenticeship in New Bedford Massachusetts. From 1809 to 1827, Davenport was an extremely successful&nbsp;master builder in the port city of Savannah, Georgia. There were silhouettes of Davenport's family members in his home, however, there are no artifacts describing what he may have&nbsp;looked like, therefore Davenport lives on through his unique&nbsp;architecture. This house served as his home, office, business card, and advertisement, as it was one of the largest and most exquisite&nbsp;homes in Savannah when it was built in 1820. A local architectural historian was quoted as saying, "there was a Davenport house on every block of Savannah."1 Davenport resided in the home until his death in 1827. After his death, Davenport's wife, Sarah, converted the home into a boarding house. Sarah lived in this home until 1840, and when she passed the home was sold to the Baynard family from South Carolina. The Davenport home stayed in the Baynard family until the late 1940s and had become run down from its use as a boarding home. In the 1930s the home was measured&nbsp;by the Historic American Buildings Survey. However, it faced demolition in 1955 due to the&nbsp;trend of destroying old buildings in Savannah, Georgia&nbsp;and converting the space into parking lots or shopping malls in in the 1950s. One woman,&nbsp;Anna Colquitt Hunter, was not going to let that happen to the Davenport House.2 Anna Colquitt Hunter spent the majority of her childhood in Savannah, Georgia and attended Agnes Scott College in&nbsp;Decatur, Georgia where she dropped out of college prior to graduation to get married. Hunter's husband died an unexpected and untimely death, and she was left a widow in her 40s. In order to support herself and her three children, Hunter became a journalist and writer for the&nbsp;Savannah Morning News and the Savannah Evening Press. In 1943 she became a field director for the Red Cross at the age of 51. Hunter was quite the traveler in her 50s as she became the Director of R&amp;R for troops in North Africa and Italy. In 1945 Hunter returned to Savannah and her job writing for the local newspapers, but this time she was a literary and art critic. This position enabled her to publish multiple poems and short stories and become a painter. Hunter's preservation tendencies were born through her art; she painted portraits of historic landmarks in Savannah and plantation culture. She became a true preservationist in 1955 when she galvanized the movement of saving historic structures in Savannah, Georgia, starting with the Davenport House.3 In 1955 Anna Colquitt Hunter was outraged at the destruction of historic structures in Savannah, Georgia. She gathered six women who she knew could make a difference and formed the Historic Savannah Foundation, these ladies are now&nbsp;historically known as, "The Seven Ladies." The HSF raised enough money to purchase the Davenport House before a local funeral parlor could purchase and destroy the historic home, and that was just the beginning of their movement.&nbsp;The Historic Savannah Foundation created a revolving fund that saved many historic structures from being destroyed. Any time they a historic structure went on the market, HSF purchased the building, historically restored it, and placed it back on the market- only to be sold to someone who saw the benefit of living or working in a historic structure. The money made from reselling&nbsp;the structure went back into the fund so that it could be used to purchase more historic structures in need.&nbsp; The Davenport House was the original headquarters for the Historic Savannah Foundation, now located at 321 E York Street.The first floor of the Davenport House was historically restored and opened to the public in 1963, and as the HSF moved to another building, the second and third floors were renovated and opened to the public as well. The mid-1990s held a&nbsp;re-restoration process for the Davenport House to serve a more authentic experience for museum visitors, complete with&nbsp;accurate wallpaper and furnishings that reflect the inventory taken at the time of Isaiah Davenport’s death in 1827.&nbsp;The Davenport House Museum sees approximately 35,000 visitors annually through its guided tours and education programs.4

The Davenport House, built in 1820, was the first building saved by the Historic Savannah Foundation in 1955. Savannah was a seedy city in the 1950s, and many historic buildings were demolished instead of restored during this time in efforts to improve the city. Savannah writer and artist, Anna Colquitt Hunter, formed a coalition with six of her friends to fight a local funeral parlor from purchasing the Davenport House. Hunter and her friends successfully raised the funds needed to purchase the Davenport House and saved it from demolition. The seven ladies of the Historic Savannah Foundation formed a revolving fund so they could save any historic structure that faced the fate of demolition. Today the Davenport House has been preserved and now serves as a house museum.

The Isaiah Davenport House

Central of Georgia, which was founded in 1833 as Central Rail Road Canal Company but changed its name a few years later, started building the structures in 1851 and continued to do so until the early 1920s. The company did build shops and other buildings in the 1830s but these did not survive.&nbsp;Central of Georgia grew to become one of the largest companies in the South. By the beginning of the Civil War, it owned 229 miles of track, 59 locomotives and 729 rail cars. The war, however, proved detrimental to the company's fortunes. The Confederate government ordered railroad companies to send&nbsp;rolling stock to other companies that transported&nbsp;the most&nbsp;troops and military goods/equipment. The need for passenger service increased as well and this reduced the demand for freight service. The company was able to make&nbsp;profits on passenger service but maintenance of tracks was difficult because they were being constantly used. Additionally, the ravages of the war itself as well as&nbsp;General Sherman's "March to the Sea" destroyed the company's&nbsp;tracks and cars, amounting to 140 miles of track, 14 locomotives, and 97 cars. The company rebounded from the war and started to make profits again from freight service in 1867. It repaired destroyed rail lines and added 1,500 more miles of track. The company started to use&nbsp;diesel steam engines in the 1940s but maintaining and repairing them in the shops at the complex proved to be unsuitable. As a result, the company gradually shifted operations to Macon. In 1963, the Southern Railway Company bought Central of Georgia and finally closed all operations at the complex. The museum opened in 1989 and is operated by the Coastal Heritage Society.&nbsp;

The Georgia State Railroad Museum is housed in the former repair shops of the Central of Georgia Railroad complex, the most complete antebellum train facility in the country. The buildings and the nearby passenger depot and train shed are, together, a National Historic Landmark. Many of the buildings are open to visitors including the partial roundhouse, partial machine shop, tender frame shop, and Blacksmith shop. The roundhouse still features an operational turntable. Several cars and other rolling stock are on display, including the oldest portable steam engine, and there is an even a hand car that visitors can ride. Train rides are also offered. The buildings are also part of the National Register of Historic Places District, Central of Georgia Railroad: Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities.

Savannah Hike

Forsyth Park

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