Best Haunted Graveyards: Bonaventure
On the outskirts of Savannah sits a massive cemetery, as old as our nation and steeped in as much history. For the locals, this wasn’t just a place for endings. It was a place of reflection, of visiting with lost loved ones and honoring ancestors.
I spent an afternoon here just walking the cemetery lanes, stopping to place my flashlight and see if a spirit wanted to say hello wherever I felt there might be an energy. About an hour into my walk, I found myself near the Bryan family plot when the light turned on and someone seemed to want to say hello.
For ghost hunting, I use a mini maglite that twists on and off. This is important, as a click on/off doesn’t work. I twist it so that it’s just barely turned off, but easy for a spirit to use energy to jump the circuit and turn the light on and off at will. I use yes and no questions and allow the spirit to use the light to answer — yes (light on) and no (light off). Read more on my method of ghost hunting in this post.
Photo credit: Explore Georgia
My guess is this was the first time this spirit had talked to anyone. It took awhile for it to get control of the light, and even once it seemed to do so, it wasn’t consistent. This made it difficult to get really clear answers, but from what I could glean, it was a man. This was his family plot (Bryan) and he commonly visited it in life. It was a place of reverence, not a place of fear for his people. Afterwards, I did some research on Bonaventure and it was normal for families to visit their plots after church on Sundays to pay respect to ancestors. The cemetery plots owned by the great families in old Savanah were considered part of the families land wealth. To have a plot in Bonaventure was a great honor and source of pride.
Because I didn’t know anything of the history of the Bryan family, I spoke with the gentleman of the history of the area, family pride and love, and he seemed grateful to have just made contact and shared a few moments with me. The light grew weak pretty quickly and I thanked him for his time.
The sun was beginning to set and the pink light began to canvas the tree lined avenues of the graveyard. As I walked back towards the exit, I paused at a civil war statue and placed my light on the marble base. The light turned on again, but this time the spirit wasn’t able to get control.
At two other spots in town around old houses I was able to pick up activity with the light turning on and off, answering a few questions before the spirit seemed to loose energy or desire to talk. All in all, there is no doubt in my mind Savannah has many spirits roaming its vast grounds. Its energy is thick and palpable. I look forward to returning to continue the hunt.
