The Pirates' House

Started as a gardener's cottage in 1734 for America's first experimental garden, then turned into a sailors' inn. The Herb House next door goes back to 1754 — it's considered the oldest building in all of Georgia.

The Pirates' House is one of America's most haunted restaurants and Savannah's oldest building, with the adjoining Herb House dating to 1754. Built in 1794 just a block from the Savannah River, this tavern was a favorite haunt of pirates and sailors who came for strong drink and wild nights - though not everyone left alive.

Robert Louis Stevenson immortalized the Pirates' House in his 1883 novel "Treasure Island." The tavern is where the fictional Captain Flint died in an upstairs room, shouting with his last breath, "Darby, bring aft the rum!" Long John Silver declared, "I was with Flint when he died at Savannah." Though Flint was fictional, many visitors claim to have encountered his ghost in the building - perhaps unaware that death is supposed to end where fiction begins.

The dark tunnels beneath the tavern tell a more sinister true story. For decades, unsuspecting men were plied with free alcohol until they passed out, then dragged through underground passages to the riverfront where they awoke on ships already miles at sea. "Shanghaiing" wasn't outlawed until 1811, and countless men were sold into forced labor through this very building. Screams still echo from the sealed-off tunnels.

Employees report the constant presence of spectral seamen, with heavy boots heard stomping through the building after closing time. Glasses and bottles hurl themselves from shelves. Shadowy figures in 18th-century clothing wander the dining rooms. A mysterious little boy and a woman in a blue dress appear throughout the building, their origins as murky as the tunnels below. Workers feel the eerie presence of those who enjoyed the tavern in centuries past - and some who never got to leave.