Forsyth Park Inn

A fourteen-year-old girl named Lottie poisoned her biological mother with oleander tea at this 1893 Queen Anne Victorian, not knowing their true relationship until the funeral. Guests see Lottie as her teenage self in the hallways and garden, and a second presence believed to be Anna also appears to visitors who know nothing of the backstory.

Captain Aaron Flint Churchill warned his close friend, Titanic captain Edward Smith, not to make that maiden voyage. A letter surfaced decades later proving it. Churchill had sailed every ocean voyage Smith ever made, except the last one.

Churchill earned his nickname 'Rudder' after an 1866 Atlantic crossing where, as first mate, he was repeatedly lowered into the ocean by rope to secure a broken rudder during storms. He married Lois in 1874, moved to Savannah, founded the Churchill Steamship Line, and around 1893 built this Queen Anne Victorian at the corner of West Hall and Whitaker Street. The house overlooked Forsyth Park and its famous fountain. He was known around town as the strongest man in Savannah.

Churchill and Lois couldn't have children, so they adopted their niece, a girl named Lottie. In 1899, Lois's sister Anna moved into the house to recover from an illness. Then everything fell apart.

Fourteen-year-old Lottie walked in on Churchill and Anna in an embrace. The nature of it depends on who's telling the story. Her response doesn't. She picked oleander from the garden and brewed it into Anna's afternoon tea. Oleander is one of the most toxic plants in the southeastern United States. Every part of it kills.

Anna died. At the funeral, Lottie learned the truth: Anna wasn't her aunt. Anna was her biological mother. The adoption had been a family arrangement, kept secret from Lottie her entire life. The woman she poisoned was the woman who gave birth to her. She was committed to an asylum and never came out.

Churchill died in the house on June 10, 1920. Lois followed in 1929. The building cycled through owners over the next seventy years, operating as a boarding house and then an apartment building. Lori and Richard Blass purchased the property in January 2000 and converted it into the bed and breakfast that runs today.

Lori had her introduction to the house early. She was searching for her keys in the kitchen when the door swung open and the keys were flung at her. Not dropped. Flung. During renovations, tools vanished from rooms and turned up in completely different parts of the building.

Guests see Lottie. She appears as her fourteen-year-old self, moving through the hallways, the garden, the second-floor landing. She's shy. She vanishes when anyone looks directly at her. Staff say she's helped employees find lost items more than once, as if she's trying to make up for something.

Rooms 10 and 11 in the basement get the most reports. Room 8 on the second floor runs a close third. Bathroom doors swing on their own. Guests describe their feet being tickled in the middle of the night. Voices come from hallways where nobody's standing.

One couple had their television turn on by itself, flip channels, and land on coverage of the 2004 Scott Peterson murder trial. The TV shut off, then did it again. The couple hadn't heard of Lottie until they mentioned it at checkout. Author James Caskey called it 'the soul of a departed murderess, turning on the television to check the progress of another accused murderer.'

A second presence shows up too. Guests who know nothing about the inn's history describe a woman distinct from Lottie, older, quieter. They only learn about Anna when they ask the staff on their way out.

The Forsyth Park Inn sits at 102 West Hall Street, one of the last surviving Queen Anne Victorians in Savannah's historic district. The view of the fountain from the front rooms is among the best in the city. The ghost story underneath it all is a family tragedy: a teenager, a misunderstanding, oleander in a teacup, and a truth that arrived one funeral too late.