 In 1994, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was released and became a New York Times bestseller. In 1993, one year before the book's release, Random House hired a Savannah-based photographer named Jack Lee to take a photograph to be the book cover. John Barrett, the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, suggested that Mr. Jack Lee go scout out Bonaventure Cemetery for a nice spooky and eerie shot. At this point, Bonaventure Cemetery was a rural cemetery right east of Savannah that had been long forgotten. And after two days of scouring the cemetery for the perfect shot, right at the last minute just as the sun was setting, Jack Lee spotted a statue known as the bird girl. He took a shot of this statue and took some time adjusting it with the light. This shot ended up being one of the most iconic book covers of all time. But before we go any further, please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce, and today we're going to talk about Gracie Watson, Bonaventure Cemetery's most famous little ghost. As I said in the first video, which you can go back and watch if you want to, that I had planned on just doing an episode on Bonaventure Cemetery. However, it occurred to me that most people don't know the story of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and for those who are familiar with it, might assume that Bonaventure Cemetery has a bigger role to play in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil than it actually does. I knew if I just did a video on Bonaventure Cemetery without even mentioning Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I would probably get a ton of emails and messages asking me why I never mentioned the book. So here it goes. Now in part one, we talked about why cemeteries are so important to our story. If you remember the root doctor that helped Jen Williams with his trial called cemeteries gardens. She also talked about the witching hour of good and bad spells. If you remember from 11.30 p.m. to 12.00 a.m. midnight is the time to do good magic in the Garden or Cemetery. And then from 12 a.m. to 12.30 a.m. is the time for the bad magic in the Garden or Cemetery. This is why we get the title Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Again, if you refer back to the part one in the link, I do have another video I did on Gola culture in the past. I'm not going to go again too much into that because it's redundant at this point. And if you haven't seen that video, you're more than welcome to go watch it. Now again, as I said in the intro, Bonaventure Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in Savannah. It was also forgotten about for a very long time until the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The book in the movie gave the cemetery a bit of a kick and has upped tourism. Now with that being said, the statue of the bird girl doesn't have anything to do with the story. It was just a really good shot. The family that had the bird girl statue in their plot had absolutely nothing to do with any of the families involved in our story. In fact, none of the people who died in our story are even buried in Bonaventure Cemetery. The closest person we have that's buried there is Johnny Mercer, who was the great grandson of General Mercer who originally built the house. Johnny Mercer was also a very famous songwriter from Savannah. And if you remember, no Mercer ever lived in the Mercer house. However, if you have seen the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, there is an opening shot of Johnny Mercer's grave site in Bonaventure Cemetery. But if you're not familiar with that specific cemetery, you probably would have no idea that it was Bonaventure Cemetery. Now Danny Hansford, the 21 year old murder victim is buried in Greenwich Cemetery, which is pretty close to Bonaventure. But Jim Williams himself is buried in Gordon, Georgia near Macon in his family plot, so his grave isn't anywhere near Savannah. Now our Ruth Doctor Valerie, she passed away a few years ago and she is also buried in the area. However, for Ruth Doctors, their graves stay pretty hidden. In fact, if you try to find her grave online, the grave they give you and find a grave is not actually her grave. You see, if you can remember from our Gala video, I said that a lot of times these Ruth Doctors upon death will have their graves vandalized, not vandalized negatively, but a lot of people believe that if you take the dirt from a Ruth Doctors grave, you will carry the essence and the power of that Ruth Doctor with you. So a lot of times these famous Ruth Doctors are hidden in burials so that people will not take from their grave. In 1997, three years after the book was released, they decided to make a movie. Clint Eastwood was going to direct it. At this point, the story of the Mercer House, of this murder in Savannah blew up even more. And of course, it drove up tourism, which was great for the city. However, all of a sudden, Bonaventure Cemetery was seeing way more foot traffic than it usually had. And unfortunately, because of that, the bird girl statue had to be moved. The city felt like the leaving this iconic statue, what turned into an iconic statue, on this public land would result in some vandalization. You see, Bonaventure Cemetery is open to the public, no admissions from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Of course, there are tours, but anybody is welcomed just to stroll on into the cemetery. I've just walked into Bonaventure Cemetery myself before just to walk the grounds. And so soon after the movie was released in the late 90s, the bird girl was moved. She's been moved around to multiple museums, and in 2014, she was moved to the Jepsen Center for the Arts in Savannah. She's available for anyone to see her at this particular location. So now that we've gotten out of the way, let's get into the real superstar of the Bonaventure Cemetery. Now a lot of people are buried there. It's 160 acres. It's huge. I could probably do a three-hour episode on every single famous person or famous ghost that lives in this cemetery. However, none are as famous or as loved than Gracie Watson. Gracie Watson was only six years old when she died. And before anybody asks, no, I'm not related to Gracie Watson. Yes, we have the same last name, but our families come, my Watson line comes from a totally different area of the United States. Gracie Watson died in 1889 of pneumonia. Gracie was the only child of W.J. Watson and his wife, Margaret Francis Watson. The couple managed and owned a hotel called the Polansky Hotel. This hotel is no longer in Savannah, Georgia. Margaret Francis Watson, Gracie's mother, really, really wanted her family to be a part of the Upper Class Society of Savannah. The couple had moved down to Savannah from New England and really wanted to rise their ranks from middle class to the High Society. And so Margaret Francis decided that she was going to use her hotel for this purpose. On evenings, she would have these beautiful lavish parties and would invite all of the High Society into the hotel. She would serve them free drinks, free food, and they would socialize. And her plan worked. They became respected members of Savannah Society. But the most popular of this family was Little Gracie. You see at the parties, Little Gracie would come down with her adorable attitude and act like the perfect little hostess. When the night got too late and Gracie grew bored, she would see her way off to the stairs and she would play behind the stairs by herself. It became a running joke that when the guests couldn't find Gracie anymore, they knew it was time to go because it had gotten too late. However, sadly, a few days before Easter in 1889, Little Gracie succumbed to pneumonia. Not only did this devastate her parents, but her death devastated the whole town. Everybody loved Little Gracie. She was Savannah's daughter. Little Gracie Watson was buried at Bonaventure Cemetery. Her father handed a photograph over to a man named John Walls to construct a statue of his daughter. The statue that still sits at Bonaventure Cemetery is one of the most life-like statues one will ever see. And according to people of the time, the statue looked so much like Gracie. As Gracie's parents started to mourn from her death and pick their lives back up again, her mother had the propensity to see Gracie running around and hiding behind the stairs. Was this a hallucination or was it her ghost? I don't know. But regardless, it became too painful for the Watsons to stay in Savannah. So they packed up, they left town, and went back up to New England, leaving the body of their daughter behind in Bonaventure Cemetery. To this day, Gracie Watson's gravesite is one of the most visited graves in Savannah, Georgia. In fact, according to the AJC or the Atlanta Journal Constitution, her gravesite is one of the most visited gravesites in the whole state of Georgia. Now there is a wrought iron fence that goes around her gravesite because so many people go to Bonaventure Cemetery to pay their respects to little Gracie. Many people who go to visit Bonaventure Cemetery will see a little girl around the age of 6 in a long white dress slip in and out of the wrought iron fence that goes around Gracie's burial site. Now as they get closer and run after the child, she simply disappears. It is also common for people to leave flowers and toys at Gracie's gravesite and if those flowers and those toys are removed, her statue cries tears of blood. Other people say that they see the ghost of little Gracie playing around the area where her parents' hotel would have been. The building has since been torn down, but that doesn't stop this little girl from coming back to her place to see if she can find her family. So next time you're in Savannah, go to Bonaventure Cemetery, but don't go there because of midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. As you see, the stories that already existed in Bonaventure Cemetery are way more fascinating than the ones people think are connected to it from a movie. Go to see little Gracie, bring her a toy, and bring her some flowers. After all, she is Savannah's daughter. Thank you guys again for sitting through another story. Thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music, and Todd Roderick for being our editor, and I will see you guys tomorrow. Bye!