Savannah’s Old Sorrel-Weed House offers architectural-history tours every day, ghost tours each night and late-night paranormal investigations. The programs run during Halloween week and throughout the year at the Madison Square mansion, 6 West Harris Street.
The house’s history includes documented ties to slavery, alongside ghost stories that are not all supported by archival evidence.
A house shaped by Savannah’s history
Construction of the mansion took place from 1835 to 1840. Architect Charles B. Cluskey gave it Greek Revival and Regency features, along with a Mediterranean-villa influence linked to the French-Caribbean background of its first owner. In 1954, the property became Georgia’s first state historic landmark.
Francis Sorrel, a shipping merchant born in Haiti in 1793, moved into the house with his second wife, Matilda, in 1840. He participated in Savannah’s slave trade. The couple hosted gatherings of roughly 400 people that extended into Madison Square.
Savannah businessman Henry D. Weed purchased the house in 1859. His family moved in around 1862, while Sorrel relocated next door. The Weed family owned the property until 1914.
Matilda Sorrel’s death and the legends
Matilda died in 1860 after suffering severe injuries, including a concussion, in a fall or jump from a window. Ghost lore says she took her own life after discovering Francis with an enslaved woman named Molly, who the story says was then killed or hanged.
Grace said historical records place Matilda’s death at 12 West Harris Street, next door, rather than inside the Sorrel-Weed House. Grace also said archival evidence for Molly is largely absent. The history of enslaved labor at the property, however, is documented.
Stories visitors hear inside
In Francis Sorrel’s study, a desk cabinet—one of the house’s few original furnishings—sometimes opens on its own, according to Grace. Visitors often report anxiety, headaches or nausea after entering.
Guides describe a roughly seven-foot shadow figure called “Shadow Man” moving through the basement breezeway. About 11 people enslaved by Sorrel worked in the basement each year. Some accounts identify the figure as one of them; others connect it to the Siege of Savannah. Grace said an unmarked grave believed to be near the house contains about 1,200 soldiers.
The basement also held a surgery room where Dr. Frank Sorrel, Francis’s second-oldest son, performed more than 500 operations. Grace said about 55% of his patients died. Visitors report seeing shadows and hearing knocks, scratches and footsteps; Grace also said a six-year-old girl named Matilda Ann, described as the first person to die in the house, appears on the stairs.
Yolonda Harris
News Now Georgia
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