Episodios

  • The Hero Who Saved... A Flag

    The Hero Who Saved... A Flag
    Apr 7 2026

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    Hidden History in Savannah, Georgia

    Step into the hidden battlefield beneath the quiet beauty of Savannah and uncover the untold story of Sergeant William Jasper, one of the most fearless, yet forgotten heroes of the American Revolutionary War. From the thunder of cannons at Battle of Sullivan’s Island near Charleston to the brutal chaos of the Siege of Savannah, this immersive walking tour traces Jasper’s daring raids, legendary flag rescue, and heroic final stand.

    Discover the truth behind the legendary rescue at Jasper Spring, the harsh reality of guerrilla warfare in the Southern colonies, and the powerful legacy preserved today in Madison Square. This is more than history. It’s the story of courage, sacrifice, and the man who refused to let the flag fall.

    If you’re searching for Revolutionary War stories, Savannah history tours, or untold American hero narratives, this is a journey you don’t want to miss. Subscribe for more deep dives into forgotten history, historic sites, and powerful stories from America’s past.



    We''ve changed out name to Lens On History.
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    21 m
  • A Genius History Barely Remembers

    A Genius History Barely Remembers
    Apr 7 2026

    This episode of Lens on History uncovers the remarkable and largely forgotten, story of Edward Greene Malbone, one of the most talented early American artists, now buried in Colonial Park Cemetery. If you’ve ever wondered how people preserved memory and identity before photography, this story of miniature portrait painting in early America reveals an intimate world few history books explore.


    Working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Malbone mastered the delicate art of watercolor on ivory, creating miniature portraits often just a few inches in size. These American portrait miniatures were not meant for museums—they were deeply personal objects, carried close to the heart, exchanged between loved ones, and treasured across distances in a rapidly changing post-Revolutionary America. His work offers a rare window into the emotional life of the early United States, capturing faces, relationships, and identity during the era following the American Revolution.


    In this Savannah, Georgia history episode, we explore how Malbone’s career took him from Newport, Rhode Island to major cultural centers like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, before ultimately bringing him to the Lowcountry. His connection to Savannah and Southern patrons placed him at the heart of elite social networks, where miniature portraits became symbols of refinement, intimacy, and remembrance.




    We''ve changed out name to Lens On History.
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    13 m
  • The Cursed Silk Dress Balloons 32.078098° -81.082878°

    The Cursed Silk Dress Balloons 32.078098° -81.082878°
    Apr 17 2023
    Hey, Everyone!Today I’m going to tell you about a rather fashionable weapon of war…I have a story about the Confederate Air Corps… and their airships made from silk dresses… Or so the legend goes.It is a tragic and twisted story from the beginning all the way to the very sad end. These balloons seemed to be tinged by a curse.     It was back in 1862 in a pre-dawn light when Savannah gas plant supervisor James Smedberg braced himself against the wall of a brick well to shut off… as he called it… an “intolerable gas flow” and found his hand resting on the still lifeless face of a man suspended on the side of the pit where the valve was located.Smedberg said the man was hanging by the jaws, between a flange on one side and the brickwork on the other.Two men were dead, another lay at the bottom of a twenty-four-foot dry well used for running gas and oil pipes for the facility.Around the spot, other plant workers staggered and fell across the work yard like drunken chickens around a barnyard moonshine tank.Nearby a short rope held the partially inflated Gazelle, an experimental Confederate observation balloon tied to a winch that was staked to the ground of the gasworks terrace.The day was supposed to be a festive occasion with bleachers for military and city bigwigs, but then all hell broke loose.I’m JD Byous. Welcome to History By GPS, where you travel through history and culture GPS location by GPS location.Remember, the other GPS locations mentioned in this story can be found on HistoryByGPS.COM or on the show notes of your podcast provider… Apple, Google Podcast… and others.This is part of three interesting historical events that happened years apart at this exact location… which is…32.078098° -81.082878°.The other two episodes were the Don’t Tax Me Bro story and the Yankee in the Garden episode. So, check them out if you haven’t. You’ll hear about this guy, Smedberg mentioned in one of them.Okay, back to the balloon that had a gas problem…And at my age… boy, I know the feeling.Now, I will tell you that I had come across this story… about the Confederate balloon… in my studies about the American Civil War. And I will tell you that I am not a scholar of that war by any means. I am a scholar of the places I lived and how things like the Revolutionary and Civil War affected them.But this incident came to my attention almost by accident. When I was going through old newspaper accounts of things that happened at the area in Savannah called Trustees’ Garden I came across a one or two sentence notice in a Richmond, Virginia newspaper that said that on May 29 1862 two men died in an accident at the Savannah gas works.So I set it aside and pretty much forgot about it.Later, I was researching the Savannah gas works and found an article written by James Smedberg about how it was necessary to use pine wood to make gas because of the scarcity of coal during the war. In it he talked about the deaths and that it happened when they were inflating a balloon for the military.It became evident that the only balloon possible was the first gas balloon built by the Confederate Army to use to spy on Union forces.Okay, back to business… I imagine that a gas leak was evident when Superintendent Smedberg arrived at the Savannah gasworks just before sunrise at 4 o’clock on that May 29 morning.He must have smelled smell the fumes before he stepped onto the property.See, coal and wood gas give off a putrid odor like the oil used in the cracks of sidewalks or creosote piers and telephone poles. It’s unlike today’s odorless natural gas, which needs the added chemical mercaptan to give a scent to escaping fumes.Gas retort ovens for cooking coal or wood to manufacture gas.President Abraham Lincoln’s Union blockade created a shortage of coal for the Confederacy. Residential and industrial products like coal supplies could not get into the city… or out of, for that matter.So the buoyancy for lifting the Confederate Army balloon, Gazelle, required gas that was cooked from Southern yellow pine wood. Some reported that wood gas was thicker and burned better than standard coal, but both forms have a similar smell.For the gasworks crew, it was time for the morning shift change when Smedberg circled the building to get onto the holding tank terrace where the fumes emanated.The pungent, nauseating stench would have socked Smedberg in the nose like a punch during a Saturday night boozer.[1] He later wrote that Several plant workers “were badly asphyxiated.”Two Irish immigrants, Martin Brannan, and William Harper were dead.One had broken his neck in a fall down the maintenance well and could not be removed because of the heavy flow of gas from the pipe that was supposed to be filling the balloon. The stokers of the redoubt ovens, ordinarily tough and hard-as-nails men… were in a panic. Their eyes were blood red and burning from the fumes. Some lay on the coal-tar-stained ground ...
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    45 m
  • Yankee in the Garden 32.078098° -81.082878°

    Yankee in the Garden 32.078098° -81.082878°
    Mar 13 2023
    Hey, everyone!Did you hear that?Somebody said, “The Yankees are coming!”Actually, we hear that all the time here in Savannah, Georgia.Today it would mean they were coming down for a few days of vacation… But back in 1864, it didn’t mean they were stopping in town to catch dinner at Sweet Potatoes Kitchen and buy a couple of tee shirts down on River Street.It would have been a little more distressing when those words were spoken around South Georgia.And so… to go with that… here’s a great story about a Union Prisoner of war in Savannah at the end of the American Civil War who heard those words and was very relieved…His story… gives you a perspective that you don’t often hear.Because in 1864, Union soldier Frederick Emil Schmitt and others endured the stench of filth and death in the infamous Confederate Civil War Prison camp near Andersonville, Georgia.Andersonville_Prison by John L Ransom former prisoner.But out of a stroke of genius and luck, he ended up in Savannah, hiding from the Rebels and waiting for the arrival of the army of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.Union Major General, William T. Sherman.He has a great story that almost fell into obscurity. Sick around and I’ll give you my take on it.I'm JD Byous. Welcome to History by GPS, where you travel through history and culture, GPS location by GPS location. So click on your favorite map app and follow along.The coordinates for the location talked about in the podcast 32.078098° -81.082878°Now… on to our story… which, by the way… is one of three interesting historical events that happened years apart at this same location… we’re talking physically on the same spot of ground within a ten-yard circle.You’ll find those stories noted at the website too.For this episode the spot plays an important role in the life of Frederick Schmitt because he ended up hiding within this small tiny circle on the globe.If you recall the story of Andersonville, almost 13,000 of 43,000 Union prisoners died from hunger and disease during the years the prison was operating… 1861 to 1865...Now… I might add that similar conditions were experienced in Northern prisoner-of-war camps. There were no picnic either… but you don’t hear as much about them.The South lost the war in case you haven't heardAnd… as is always espoused… The victor writes the history.What made things worse in the South was that the population was low on food and provisions, which made prison life a living hell.By the way, JD Huitt over at The History Underground on YouTube has a great episode about the conditions at Andersonville. I’ll put the link in the show notes. It’s well worth a look.Okay… There at Andersonville… One day Frederick Schmitt’s luck changed in October 1864 when he noticed a group of prisoners by the main gate being placed in rank and file as if they were getting ready to march outside. It was drizzling rain when he saw his chance for a difference in scenery.But who was Frederick Schmitt?Great question! I’m glad you asked. It fits right in with the next part of the story.Schmitt came to America from Bavaria in 1859, settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and enlisted in the Union Army on February 10, 1864. He held the rank of private in Company D, of the 3rd New Jersey Cavalry regiment under Colonel Andrew J. Morrison.By June 1864, he was in the Union Calvary under Major-General James H. Wilson and found himself captured after the rebels raided his position outside of Richmond, Virginia. His friends and officers couldn’t find him and thought he was dead and they listed him as being killed in action.So, most of his military life… military experience… was in Prison.In 1919 he wrote his memoir of being a POW when he was 77 years old, fifty-five years after his experience in the South.But… ironically… his story wasn’t published until 1958, when his daughter gave it to the Wisconsin Historical Society.So, I guess there’s hope for some of the articles I wrote back in my newspaper days…Not much is known about Schmitt. I do know that he was an engineer, and I did find a master’s thesis written at the University of Wisconsin in 1904 by a Frederick Schmitt.It was on mass transit, you know, street trolleys, and things like that, and as far as I can tell, he was in that field… being an engineer, so he could have written it, I suppose.However, I suspect it may have been a son or someone else since he… Frederick… would have been 62 years old by that time.Then again… I got my history degree at the ripe old age of 53, so who knows.His recollection of the prison is an intriguing story in that it… bends, the typical narrative about Andersonville with an interesting perspective. It tells of his kindness toward his captors in a way that other prisoners did not record nor recollect afterward. At least as far as I’ve seen.Schmitt said… and I quote…, “Personally, I witnessed no cruelties to individuals, except ...
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    25 m
  • Don't Tax Me Bro! 32.078098° -81.082878°

    Don't Tax Me Bro! 32.078098° -81.082878°
    Mar 5 2023
    Hey, everyone.We’ve got a great story for this episode.Today we’re going to talk about two historical events that were separated by 100 yards but were a decade apart in history.They also tie in geographically with two other historical events that took place on the same GPS location that we are looking at today.Those are in different episodes.Well, back in 1765, things were getting hot here in Savannah, Georgia. And we’re not talking weather kind of hot. We’re talkin’… if things had gotten out of hand, the American Revolution could have started a decade earlier… kind of hot.So… why all the fuss?Stick around, I’ll give you my take on it…I’m JD Byous, and this is History by GPS, where you travel through history and culture GPS location by GPS location.You can find transcripts of the show at HistoryByGPS.com or on the show notes for Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and other podcast platforms for the coordinates of where these events happened.As for the main location…Here are the coordinates… 32.078098° -81.082878°Okay, back to a hot time in Savannah.The first incident in 1766 was over a little paper stamp.People got really riled up over this little stamp.So why get aflutter about a small piece of paper… it only cost a few pennies?Here’s why… It incident took place on the northeastern corner of Savannah’s Historic District in what locals call the Old Fort District.Today the Charles H. Morris Center at Trustees’ Garden is on top of the bluff where Colonial Era Fort Halifax once stood.Now, this spot is just a few feet away from Savannah’s world-famous Pirates’ House Restaurant, which is in a building that sits on the location of the old fort headquarters… and may, in fact… after pouring through old records and studying the construction of the facility… I suspect a section of the structure is the same building used by the British before and during the Revolution.See, right outside of that building is where things got heated… nine years before the start of the American Revolution. Georgia and the other colonies were political tender spots that were growing into tinderboxes and were ready to blow.The Pirates’ House in 1939.The area outside… it was open land stretching to the gates of the town one-quarter mile to the west. The Sons of Liberty – Liberty Boys – had gathered around the fort’s walls, screaming and demanding they be let in.Captain John Milledge and his British Royal Rangers were on the parapets and were determined keeping them out.The uproar was over the British Parliament’s passing of The Stamp Tax of 1765, which put a levy on several paper items. In addition to that law, the American Revenue Tax of 1764, a Sugar Tax, had already inflamed the residents the year before. Like other imposed taxes, the paper tax mandated payment in British Pounds, not in colonial currency.See, each colony had its own monetary system with different values based on the English pounds, shillings, and pence. However, ALL colonial currencies were worth LESS than the British equivalents.On top of that, Much of the commercial currency was in barter. Barter being the practice of trading product for product. People paid with rum, or tobacco, or some other commodity.Which is one reason the tax man wanted to be paid in British pound sterling. Barter is difficult to access and tax for many reasons. And it’s difficult for those paying taxes because they have to exchange their goods for currency… first to Colonial script… which was hindered by a chronic shortage of paper or coin specie… then it was exchanged for British currency.And the total per stamp cost was around 2 shillings, 6 pence, which equalled 54 pence… pennies.During the days leading up to the American Revolution, the “obnoxious” stamps represented taxation by the Crown. The levy covered things like playing cards, magazines, newspapers, and legal documents.Now, the stamps that were to be distributed in Georgia were stored at Fort Halifax. That’s where the hubbub came up. Royal Governor James Wright placed them there for protection against the local Sons of Liberty, who vowed to burn them.After the Liberty Boys marched on the fort. Governor Wright wrote in a report, “And on the 1st appearance of Faction & Sedition I ordered in Some of the Rangers from each Post & made up the Number here at Savannah 56 Privates & 8 officers and with which & the assistance of Such Gents as were of a Right Way of thinking I have been able in a great Measure to Support His Majesties Authority.”This guy writes crazily. This guy didn’t know what a period or a comma was.…So in other words he brought in 64 soldiers who thought the way he did and had them armed and ready to defend the stamps and the king’s authority to issue them.James Wright held the Sons of Liberty in absolute disdain. In another report, he complained that “the Liberty Boys, as they call themselves, had assembled together to the Number of about 200 ...
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    20 m
  • The Hurricane that Broke Savannah 32.079861° -81.091488°

    The Hurricane that Broke Savannah 32.079861° -81.091488°
    Feb 27 2023
    32.079849° -81.091614°Hey, everyone!Is this a great day for a podcast, or what?No storms… no bad weather… at least not for me where I am.Sorry if you are. You know the old saying… If you don’t like the weather stick around… It’ll change.So stick around I’m going to tell you a story about a bad day… weather wiseSee, in Savannah and South Georgia, back in 1881, they had a really bad day.A devil of a hurricane…The carnage started several miles south of the city where at the sportsman’s club on Wolf Island, the home of the club’s caretaker, Mr. Stokes, was ripped from the foundation and pushed into the river. Floodwaters crashed in the doors and windows and swept his wife and children into the river. His entire family drowned. Only Stokes survived and walked over sixty miles to Savannah to report the event.I’m JD Byous. Welcome to History by GPS, where we travel through history and culture GPS location by GPS location. So, click on your favorite map app and follow along. Today I’m going to give you a general GPS location which right in the main square of the city, Johnson Square, then, you can find the other places mentioned on our website, HistoryByGPS.com.Now… that location in Johnson Square is where the weather station kiosk used to sit… before the storm… and the coordinates are32.079861° -81.091488° From East Broad Street to West Broad Street few buildings escaped the fury and damage of the storm.” As you may know, West Broad is now MLK Blvd should you be visiting Savannah…This hurricane predated the naming of storms by almost seventy years. In 1881 it was called simply “Hurricane Five” and was only a class 2 hurricane, but Seven hundred people died in the area around the city, with 355 of that total within the city limits. It was one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history.[1]The Mayor’s Report for the year reported that “A hurricane of unparalleled violence occurred on the 27th of August last, doing great damage to property in the city and vicinity. … and all of the buildings belonging to the city were more or less injured… The fire alarm telegraph wires were broken in many places and leveled to the ground, and a great number of shade trees blown down. The fences and railings enclosing the parks and squares and at Laurel Grove Cemetery were partially blown down and crushed by falling trees.”As one newspaper described, the Class 2 hurricane that hit Savannah in August 1881 was one of “unparalleled violence… all of the buildings belonging to the city were more or less injured.” And almost all of the buildings in the city had wind or rain damage. In the Atlantic, it started as a tropical storm and rolled to the northeast through the Lesser Antilles Island on August 22, and then it bounced up… off of Florida and headed to Savannah. By August 24, it reached hurricane strength. On August 27, it hit land directly at the mouth of the Ogeechee River at high tide, pushing a fifteen-foot storm surge.In Savannah, wind gusts blew the city wind gauge away after recording a wind speed of 80 miles per hour. The intense damage resulted because Hurricane Five, though it was only estimated to be class two in strength, well, it came to Savannah… and it stayed for two days.Hmmmm… that’s about the same length of time the tourists hang around here.Anyway…Small but slow storms can do as much or more damage as larger storms.After wreaking havoc on the area, the hurricane beelined due west.At the old savannah Morning News building on the corner of Bay and Whitfield Streets, the squall peeled the roof like a key-rolled tin top on a sardine can. The damage was severe because the water came through the ceiling into the editorial and make-up departments, then into the press and paper storage rooms. As one Alabama newspaper described, “The compositors finished their work ankle-deep in water.”[2] The news must get out you know…At City Market, the buildings sustained damage – many of those structures are still there – Also damaged was the old Exchange buildings that stood where the gold-domed City Hall stands today. The trees around the area fell and smashed fences, business signs, and lampposts, strewing trash debris across the streets and intersections. Johnson Square in Savannah where the weather kiosk was located.The black communities along the waterways were hardest hit. David Bowens, his wife, and his children were washed into the river, -- all of them drowned. South of Savannah, on Shad Island, just downstream from Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River, Henry Douglas’ wife and four children were lost when the surge rose and swept them into the marsh. Other huts on the waterways suffered the same fate. All of the residents of Douglas’ small fishing settlement died in the storm, with the exception of Douglas.The plantation of former Fort McAllister commander Major George W. Anderson on the Ogeechee Road was hit with winds strong ...
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    15 m
  • One Duel. One Died. One Didn't 32.077938° -81.082580°

    One Duel. One Died. One Didn't 32.077938° -81.082580°
    Feb 21 2023
    One Duel. One Died. One Didn’t.32.077938° -81.082580°Hey, everyone!What a great day for a podcast!Do we have a great country or what?Yes… our country has problems… all countries have problems.But at the time of the forming of our nation during the American Revolution, things got pretty bad, not just in the way the war was going, but in the political landscape of the founding fathers. Tensions were high between the early patriots.Some said that in 1777, at the early phases of the fighting, Georgia’s war-time President was murdered by poisoning.Yes or no, his death definitely had suspicious circumstances surrounding it… but no one could prove foul play. When Archibald Bulloch died… some people suspected that a man named Button Gwinnett had something to do with it. The wake of that incident washed over emotions, heated tempers, and created mistrust among Georgia’s founding fathers.As a result, two American patriots fought a duel in Savannah, and one of them died. But today, we’ll look into WHERE the duel took place.By the way, you’ve heard of six degrees of separation? President Theodore Roosevelt, who was born 81 years later, has a link to these events and this duel. I’m JD Byous. Welcome to History by GPS, where you travel through history and culture, GPS location by GPS location. So, click on your favorite map app and follow along.Ready?… Here are the coordinates for today’s spot.It is 32.077938° -81.082580°Now, you’re going to find that this location is in the middle of a grassy park on the east side of town. But it is an important spot, and here’s the story behind it.The President was a guy named Archibald Bulloch, a member of the Continental Congress and a veteran of the fight for freedom.As an interesting note… Bulloch had to leave the meetings of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and make a hasty trip to Georgia to help defend Savannah from an imminent British attack. If he had stayed in Pennsylvania, he would have been Georgia’s fourth signer of the Declaration of Independence.You remember the others… Lyman Hall, George Walton, and Button Gwinnett.Archibald BullochAlso… if Bulloch had not died when he did, one signer of the Declaration of Independence might have lived a little longer.So, to clarify… Bulloch was the first President and Commander in Chief of Georgia… in the temporary government… in the soon to be new State while the war with England was still going on. After his death, he was replaced by the ambitious and recent English immigrant… a guy named, Button Gwinnett.The President’s death and the suspicions surrounding it… illuminate the power struggle that was taking place among the American Rebel leadership.Factional game-playing was debilitating the security of the Revolution, the state, and especially the city of Savannah.Gwinnett is often remembered as a mystery man with a cloudy past. A decade earlier, when he immigrated from England, he purchased St. Catherines Island off of the South Georgia coast.His investment failed, leaving him up to his eyeballs in debt. So, he was forced to sell his property in 1773. He turned to politics three years later, and the political winds pushed him into public office and a position in the newly formed Georgia Assembly.Okay, where the GPS coordinates will take you are to a recently elevated section of lawn that is within a few feet of the spot where in 1777, Button Gwinnett fought a duel with a guy named Lachlan McIntosh.Trustees’ Garden in Savannah, Georgia and the location of the duel.The rift between the patriots was due to differing political opinions and the resultant insults that went with them. Gwinnett, a member of the Continental Congress, was a candidate for a position as brigadier general in the 1st Regiment of the Continental Army… But Georgia’s one-house General Assembly gave the position to McIntosh. That decision made Gwinnett furious.See, Gwinnett rose to the office of Speaker of the Georgia Assembly… the \top /dog position So after Bulloch’s death, HE, Gwinnett, became the President.In taking office, he carried with him the belief that he was a wronged man… so Gwinnett started getting even with the people who opposed him.In his power quest, Gwinnett began purging his opponents’ from their positions in the assembly and in the military. He ordered McIntosh to march on an ill-conceived and ill-planned campaign to seal off the border from British Florida. I said, “ill-conceived.” The expedition was a disaster.The debacle created shouts of accusation from both sides, both pointing blame at each other.And Gwinnett was set on using the failure to take over command of the military and oust McIntosh. But the stubborn Scotsman McIntosh refused to be blamed and refused to give up his position.In the political chess game, Gwinnett attacked Lachlan’s brother, George McIntosh, and called him a traitor. Gwinnett charged that George had...
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    20 m
  • He Slept on a Grave 32.042645° -81.046146°.

    He Slept on a Grave 32.042645° -81.046146°.
    Feb 14 2023
    32.042645° -81.046146° Other coordinates are at the end of the notes.Hey, everyone!Okay… okay… A while back, I heard a story of a famous person doing something that I would never do. I doubt that any of you would either, but, hey, what do I know. Anyway…I ask myself this question…Why would a young man… anWhy would a young man… an intelligent and educated young man… hike 700 miles, walk into a strange cemetery where he had never been and knew no one buried there… then unknowingly lie down on an important grave and go to sleep?educated and young man… hike 700 miles, walk into a strange cemetery where he had never been and knew no one buried there… then unknowingly lie down on an important grave and go to sleep?You may know the guy. It was John Muir, who was a naturalist and a conservationist and is remembered as one of the fathers of the US National Park system.Today there are mountains, forests, parks, and two John Muir Trails, one in California in the Sierra Nevada and one in Tennessee in the Cumberland Mountains.So, why did he come to the cemetery/ and which grave did he sleep on?Stick around, we’ll look at the clues, and I’ll tell you my take on it.I’m JD Byous… Welcome to History by GPS, where you travel through history and culture, GPS location by GPS location.You can find transcripts of the show and all of the coordinates of where these events happened at our website, HistoryByGPS.com.Okay, get your pencil and paper and I’ll give you the first location and you can follow us on your favorite map app.Okay, this one is in the back end of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GeorgiaIt’s at the coordinates … 32.042645° -81.046146°. Now, this location marks the grave where I suspect Muir slept. And it is an important grave.But first, a little background on the grave-sleeping guy.John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and his family emigrated to the United States where he grew up in Wisconsin.He was hard-working and inventive. Loved botany and geology and traveled and studied his scientific passions around Wisconsin, and the states around it, and up into Meaford, Ontario, Canada.When he was in his twenties, he left the farm and attended college, and became an excellent woodworker, ending up in a carriage factory in Indiana.A freak accident left him blind for a short time, and when he regained his sight decided that working in a factory wasn’t for him… he wanted to see the world.When he through to Savannah, Georgia, he was on his famous 1000-mile walk to the gulf, which started in Louisville, Kentucky, and ended in Cedar Key, Florida. From there, he ended up in Yosemite Valley, where he changed history.As for his stay in Bonaventure… he was there for about five nights.That was in October, 1867.So, what are the differences in Bonaventure today you ask?Well… I’m glad you did.The birds still chirp and gather seeds. The squirrels still scamper through the oaks, and today, Spanish moss waves in the wind just as it did when Muir visited.I guess you could say that life among the dead at Bonaventure Cemetery is just… life… a lot like Muir described it back then. He wrote quite a bit about the plants and animals he found.But, today, there are more graves… there are a lot more graves. So, why Bonaventure? It was several miles outside of the main city back then.Muir wrote that on October 8, 1867, he was waiting for a package… a parcel of cash that was supposed to be mailed by his brother. But IT had not reached Savannah.So… low on money… he searched for a place to spend the night. The first night he said he went to the meanest looking lodging house that he could find, as he said, “on account of its cheapness.”It was probably on Bay Street at that time because it was a rough waterfront range filled with cheap bars and lodging houses.[Bay Street and the Customs House,After a night’s sleep in a cot, he only had enough money to buy a few days’ worth of food. Again, he went to the post office –which by the way, for you who have visited Savannah – was in the basement of the old Customs House on Bay Street.Well, the package still had not arrived.So he wandered around the streets, sightseeing, and studying plants in the gardens of the large homes, of which Savannah had many. There still are.Then after a while, he found the road to Bonaventure, which was at that time called the old Thunderbolt Road.Today, the route is divided into three sections – Wheaton Street, Skidaway Road, and Bonaventure Road.He said… that on the route to the cemetery, he wandered along Savannah’s sandy eastern bluff, looking for a safe place to rest under the stars.I’ve looked for the dunes as he described and it is hard to tell that they ever existed… They’re buried under warehouses, parking lots and apartment buildings.He wrote that he was very thirsty after walking so long in the muggy heat… a dull, sluggish, coffee-colored stream ...
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    19 m