 Oh the tangled webs we weave. William Shakespeare said that. And today's story is a scandalous love affair that left two dead and resulted in one of the most haunted houses in America. But before we continue, remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Welcome to Esso Terrick Atlanta. My name is Bryce and today we're going to talk about the Sorrel Weed House in Savannah, Georgia. Remember Savannah is one of the three sisters of the South. Those sisters are New Orleans, Charleston, and of course Savannah. Now if you can remember New Orleans is known as the Wicked Sister, Charleston as the Beautiful Sister, and Savannah as the dirty sister. Now as I've mentioned before, my family is from the Low Country of South Carolina. So genetically my loyalties lie in Charleston. And having descendants, being a descendant from Charleston, I'm not supposed to theoretically look highly down at Savannah. Savannah is the dirty little sister of Charleston. However, I quite like Savannah. Savannah is salacious. It wears its scandals proudly. Charleston hides its scandals behind manicured lawns, beautiful front porches. But Savannah, Savannah is a fun place. Savannah is the home of SCAD or the Savannah College of Art and Design. This is a very famous art school. Savannah also plays a big part in the story of Forest Gump. In fact, for most of the movie, when Forest Gump is sitting on the bench, he is in Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is also famous for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a book that we have spoken about in a prior video. Savannah is one of the oldest cities in our nation. It is filled with cobblestone streets. And of course, it's very haunted. Savannah is called Savannah because it was placed on the Savannah River. Now, even though it's technically a river town, it is very, very close to the coast. Now, for those who have visited Savannah, you know that one of its main attractions is River Street. And in a future video, we will get into River Street, what River Street was, what it is now, and some of the scandalous stories that involve this area of town. But as I said, Savannah was founded as a city on the Savannah River by the British in 1733. Now, in 1733, this is right before the American Revolution. And the province of Georgia was a royal estate during the American Revolution. Now, in the beginning, Savannah was considered the capital or the British capital of this colony. Now, of course, as we mentioned in a lot of our Rome videos, having access to a river was super important for most of the colonization of the New World. The river was the highway of that time where boats could come and go easily. But of course, in the late 1700s, we had the American Revolution, where we basically told England to get lost, we got this. And Savannah had played a very important part in the American Route Revolution. From September 16th to October 18th of 1779, they had the Siege of Savannah. And the Siege of Savannah does play a part in the story of the Sorrel Weed House today. In fact, part of its haunting are British soldiers that got taken out during the siege and just don't know that they're dead and that the war has been lost by them. In fact, at the basement of the Sorrel Weed House, you apparently is where you see a lot of these British soldiers still hanging out. And a lot of paranormal investigators from what I read believe that this siege, this battle played a really important part in the hauntings of the house because you see the house apparently was built on top of where this battle happened. Now, in my opinion, as somebody who grew up in the deep and haunted south, I recognize that yes, there are spirits still left over from this battle. However, I don't think they play as an important part of creating the hauntings or the multiple hauntings that exist in the house as maybe some of these paranormal investigators think. Because a lot of these older cities like Savannah, like Charleston, there were a lot of battles that happened not just with the American Revolution, not just with the Civil War, but between the natives and the colonists. The whole soil of the south has been bloodied multiple, multiple times. So for me, this is just one little part of its history. It's not the end all be all to the hauntings that a lot of paranormal experts think it is. So let's get into the good stuff. The Sorrel Weed House was built in 1837 for a man named Francis Sorrell. At this point, it was just the Sorrell House. Now, Francis Sorrell was a shipping merchant in Savannah, a little bit like our Godfrey Barnsley was back from our Gone with the Wind episode. So obviously, Francis Sorrell was a very wealthy, very prominent man in Savannah during his time. He built this huge mansion for his family. In fact, Francis Sorrell was such an influential man in our history that even during the American Civil War, he had Robert E. Lee coming down to stay at the house. One of his sons went to fight in the Confederate side of the war. This was not a man to be passed over. He definitely made an imprint into American history. Now, as far as the house is concerned, not only did we already have the apparent British soldiers in the basement from the siege on Savannah right before the house was built, but one of Sorrell's sons was a doctor. And as we talked about in Green Manor, it was common back in the day for doctors to see patients at their houses. So Sorrell's son would see trauma patients in the basement of this house. Now I don't know specifically if anybody died in the basement while being serviced by Sorrell's son, but I imagine that there probably were a few deaths if he was a trauma doctor. Now remember, this was the 1800s. So obviously trauma situations probably didn't have as good of an outcome as they have nowadays in modern medicine. But I definitely believe some of the spirits stuck in this Sorrell weed house are probably those of Sorrell's son's patients. I didn't read anything scandalous. I don't think that his son was doing anything wrong to these patients. I think it was just simply he was a trauma doctor and dealing with a lot of traumatized and horrible cases down in the basement. Now it is said that Francis Sorrell does haunt this house, but one of the more famous ghosts is of his wife Matilda Sorrell. Now you have to remember that before the American Civil War, a lot of the white people of the South owned slaves. And even though Sorrell's house was not a plantation, there were still urban slaves. In fact, behind the Sorrell house is a carriage house where these slaves lived. Now it is said that Matilda Sorrell, according to some letters that have been researched since, dealt with bouts of melancholy. Now what that says to me is that Matilda Sorrell probably dealt with some depression. However, her suicide was caused by her husband's infidelity. Now if Matilda Sorrell had a better grasp on her mental health, and of course this wasn't her fault, again this is the 1800s, we don't know hardly anything about mental health at this point. But apparently Francis Sorrell's infidelity pushed Matilda Sorrell to jump from the second story balcony into the courtyard to her death. She was 54 years old at the time. Now Francis Sorrell was having an affair with a servant, a slave by the name of Molly. Now there's not a whole lot of information on Molly, of course. I don't know how old she was, and who is to say whether she was a willing participant in this affair. Who knows, we have no idea. Now two weeks after Matilda committed suicide, Molly was found hanging in the carriage house where she lived. Some records say that Molly also committed suicide. However, it is believed that one of Sorrell's children, if not multiple of his children, murdered Molly because of their mother's death. In fact, it is widely believed that she was murdered because Molly too haunts the house, and people have stated that they can hear her screaming and begging for her life. And so today at the Sorrell Weed House, you have three spirits that were caught in somewhat of a love triangle in life, still stuck together in death. Now, in my opinion, the bad guy in that little triangle is the husband Francis Sorrell. And I really do hope that Matilda and Molly are giving him hell from the afterlife. Now something really interesting about this family, one of the Sorrell's children constructed a monument for their family. And this monument is at the Laurel Grove Cemetery north in Savannah. Now, apparently at this time in our history, I don't know if this was a state issue, or if this was some sort of like a Christian thing, a religious issue. But people who committed suicide were not to be buried with their family. So Matilda herself is, her body is in an unmarked grave in plot number 504. And it is rumored that Molly's body was buried on the property of the Sorrell House. Now in 1862, the Weed family took ownership of this house, hence why it's called the Sorrell Weed House. And they stayed with this house until 1914. And then in 1954, the state of Georgia made this house a national landmark. To this day, this house is not a private residence. It is owned and operated as a museum and a place to tour. Some parts of the house are blocked off. Some people say they've been allowed to go into the carriage house while some others say they weren't allowed at that time. Again, this is one of the most haunted houses in the United States. You can do day tours in the house and you can do night tours for the haunted parts of the house. And if you do find yourself in Savannah, Georgia, and you do happen to go into the Sorrell Weed House, please have some respect for those that live there. Have respect for the history that's happened there. And if you happen to see a ghost, maybe inform them that they can move into the light. I know hauntings are fun for us, but sometimes I feel like it's selfish of us to keep spirits entrapped into a place of tragedy. Of course, some ghosts decide to stick around, but of course, most don't even know they're dead. And even though hauntings are fascinating because they give us hope that there is an afterlife. And again, for the spirits that choose to stick around, that is their choice to stay here, the intelligent hauntings that is. But for the ones that are stuck in a cycle of trauma, like it seems like Molly is stuck in a cycle of trauma, I believe it would be good of us to try to get her to cross over. It's pretty sad to keep a spirit stuck in a cycle of trauma purely for our own entertainment. Anyway, that's our story today. I'm going to do a whole series on Savannah, Georgia. So you'll see scandalous Savannah on the channel. And I'll put all those stories about Savannah in that one series. Thank you guys so much for tuning in for another story. Again, thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music, for Todd Roderick for editing, and to you guys for being a part of our community. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.