This is one location in Savannah that needs a curse broken and mighty demons roam here but they got to be sent back......THE PIRATES HOUSE....READ In 1754 the people of Savannah decided the need for the botanical garden was no longer relevant. Savannah was quickly becoming a port town and The Herb House was transformed into an Inn and tavern for seaman visiting from abroad.[2] The Pirates House Inn constantly hosted seaman, pirates and the underbelly of the society; in time, it earned a reputation of being a place the general public avoided. It did not earn this reputation by rumour. Many drunken sailors have gone missing from the Pirates House. Captains that were in need of men often came to the Pirates House to find drunken, vulnerable sailors. Many of these sailors travelled here from distant lands on merchant ships. If they went missing in Savannah it would be difficult to find what happened to them. Savannah is home to many underground tunnels and the Pirates House is the entrance to one of them. These tunnels are thought[by whom?] to have been built for different times for different purposes. A portion of the tunnels are said to have been built during the yellow fever epidemic that took place in Savannah during the 1800s to hide the bodies of the dead from the general public. The other tunnels were possibly used as hideouts in the underground railroad system. Another section of tunnels found under a hospital in Savannah is thought[by whom?] to have been used as a morgue.[3] In the cellar of the Pirates House there is a tunnel, now sealed off, that, purportedly, leads to the Savannah River. According to a tour guide(by the name of Chris)with Old Savannah Tours, hard liquor had been prohibited by law in Savannah and the cellar of the Pirates House was originally used to smuggle barrels of rum into the city. City officials were, supposedly, aware of the presence of the contraband, but were given free access to the libation in exchange for their silence on the matter. The tunnel is also said to have a more notorious purpose. The captains would wait until an unsuspecting sailor was drunk and flog them over the head. The unconscious sailors would be taken through the tunnel by crew members led by the captain. The sailors would then awake to a life of bondage on the pirates ship. The people of Savannah soon coined the term shanghaied because the sailors were thought to have been taken off to China, never to be seen or heard from again. It was also explained, by the same tour guide with Old Savannah Tours, that many tortures and murders occurred in the cellar of the Pirates House. The story goes that trap doors were installed in the floor of the tavern and that drunk sailors who had passed out were chained and dropped into the cellar below. Should they sustain an injury in a fall and were unable to work on a ship, then they were murdered in the cellar and their bodies later disposed of.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 05:26:54 +0000