1820 Federal-style brick mansion on Columbia Square built by master-builder Isaiah Davenport (1784-1827, died of yellow fever); its 1955 preservation launched Savannah's historic-preservation movement and the museum has operated since 1963.
324 East State Street, Savannah, GA 31401
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Admission charged for guided tours; check museum website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Historic 1820 mansion with multiple levels; the first floor is partially accessible but upper floors require stairs.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1820 · Federal-style brick mansion by master-builder Isaiah Davenport · 1955 preservation effort launched the Historic Savannah Foundation · Catalyst for Savannah's modern historic-preservation movement · Member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation · Operating museum since 1963
Isaiah Davenport (1784-1827) emigrated from Rhode Island to Savannah in the early 1800s and quickly became one of the city's leading master-builders. He served Savannah variously as alderman, fire master, constable, and as a member of the board of health. Around 1820 he completed construction of his own Federal-style brick residence at 324 East State Street on the northeast civic block of Columbia Square, with five bays facing the square and a dramatic curved entrance staircase.
Davenport died of yellow fever on September 16, 1827, at age 43, leaving the home to his widow Sarah and seven children. Sarah Davenport operated the home as a boarding house until 1840, when she sold the property to the Baynard family.
By the mid-twentieth century the Davenport House had been subdivided into apartments and had fallen into severe disrepair. In 1955, when the structure was threatened with demolition to make way for a parking lot, seven Savannah women formed the Historic Savannah Foundation specifically to save it. Their effort succeeded — they purchased the house, undertook a major restoration, and reopened it as a historic house museum in 1963. The campaign is widely credited as the launching point for Savannah's modern historic-preservation movement, which subsequently saved much of the city's surviving colonial and antebellum architecture.
The museum is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Historic Sites program. Its interpretive programming includes annual October reenactments dramatizing Savannah's recurring yellow-fever epidemics, framed as historical education connected to Davenport's own death from the disease.
Sources
The Davenport House Museum itself does not market the property as a haunted attraction; its interpretive program centers on architecture, the Davenport family, the 1955 preservation campaign, and the broader social history of early-Republic Savannah. Paranormal reports come primarily through Ghost City Tours, US Ghost Adventures, and visitor anecdote.
The most commonly reported apparition is a young girl, sometimes described as wearing nineteenth-century clothing, seen on the upper floors and in the bedrooms. Tour-operator lore associates her with one of Savannah's many yellow-fever-era child mortalities; given the high child mortality of the 1820s and 1854 epidemics, the tradition does not identify a specific historical individual. Hauntbound notes the lack of a specific named child connected to the home.
A second strand of folklore centers on a phantom cat. Multiple ghost-tour sources describe the sensation of a cat brushing against visitors' legs in upstairs rooms, the sound of meowing in empty spaces, and occasional dark shapes moving along the floor at the edge of vision. The Davenport family's domestic life is documented to have included pets, though no specific cat is identified in surviving records.
All paranormal reports come through ghost-tour operator material and visitor anecdote rather than independent investigation. Hauntbound treats the museum primarily as a historic site of preservation significance, with paranormal lore secondary to its documented role in Savannah's preservation history.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Guided tour of the 1820 Federal-style brick mansion built by master-builder Isaiah Davenport. The tour interprets early-Republic Savannah, the Davenport family, the building's near-demolition in 1955 that launched the Historic Savannah Foundation, and the home's restoration as Savannah's foundational historic-preservation museum.
The museum's annual October interpretive programming uses the home as a setting to dramatize Savannah's recurring yellow-fever epidemics — Isaiah Davenport himself died of yellow fever on September 16, 1827. The program is designed as historical education rather than as a haunted attraction.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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