1819 English Regency mansion on Oglethorpe Square designed by William Jay — National Historic Landmark with intact urban slave quarters; Telfair Museums property where Marquis de Lafayette addressed Savannah in 1825.
124 Abercorn Street, Savannah, GA 31401
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Telfair Museums admission ticket grants access to Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters plus Telfair Academy and Jepson Center. Check museum website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Historic 1819 mansion with multiple levels; the ground floor and slave quarters are partially accessible but the upper floors require stairs.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1819 · National Historic Landmark (1976) · Preeminent English Regency residential architecture in North America · Designed by William Jay (1792-1837) · Marquis de Lafayette addressed Savannah from the south veranda on March 19, 1825 · Intact urban slave quarters with original haint-blue ceiling paint · Savannah's first historic-house museum (opened 1954)
Cotton merchant Richard Richardson and his wife Francis Bolton commissioned a residence in 1816 from English-born architect William Jay (1792-1837), who had relocated to Savannah from Bath, England. Jay completed his designs before his twenty-first birthday, and the resulting mansion — known initially as the Richardson House — is widely recognized as North America's preeminent example of English Regency residential architecture. The building features Greek Revival detailing, a curved cast-iron veranda on the south facade, and an early American example of indoor plumbing.
Richardson suffered severe financial losses three years after the home's completion and lost the property. The Bank of the United States held the building for several years; subsequently, Mrs. Mary Maxwell ran a lodging house in the structure for approximately eight years. On March 19, 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette, then on his triumphal U.S. tour, stayed at the lodging house and addressed an enthusiastic crowd from the cast-iron veranda on the south facade.
In 1830, attorney, congressman, lawyer, and Savannah mayor George Welshman Owens purchased the property for $10,000. The home remained in the Owens family for the next 121 years. In 1951, Margaret Thomas — George Owens's granddaughter and the last private owner — bequeathed the mansion to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (today's Telfair Museums), making it Savannah's first historic-house museum.
The property includes an intact urban slave quarters building behind the main house — a rare survival in American historic preservation. The quarters retain original haint-blue ceiling paint applied by enslaved workers, and the museum's interpretive program gives substantial attention to documented enslaved residents including Hagar, Marshall, and other named individuals who labored at the Owens household. The Owens-Thomas House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 (Library of Congress HABS reference number HABS GA-272).
Sources
The Owens-Thomas House is one of the few Savannah museums that explicitly does not market itself as a haunted attraction; the Telfair Museums' interpretive program centers on William Jay's architecture, the documented lives of the Owens family, and the enslaved laborers who worked the urban estate. Paranormal reports come through Savannah ghost-tour operators and visitor anecdote.
The most commonly reported apparition is the 'Lady in Grey,' a female figure in nineteenth-century mourning dress described walking the garden behind the main house and occasionally on the ground floor of the mansion. Tour-operator lore identifies the figure as Margaret Thomas (the last private owner, who lived in the home into the 1950s), though no source provides physical descriptions or photographs that would corroborate the identification. Hauntbound notes the figure is described in clothing consistent with the nineteenth century, which would be inconsistent with Margaret Thomas's actual lifetime — flagging the identification as ghost-tour tradition rather than documented fact.
A second figure, described as a black-haired man in 1830s formal dress, is reported in the front parlor. Tour-operator lore associates the figure with the George Welshman Owens era (1830-1856), but no specific named individual is identified.
A third recurring report describes the smell of pipe tobacco accompanied by visible smoke appearing briefly in unoccupied rooms, particularly upstairs. The Owens household is documented to have included pipe smokers, but no specific connection is drawn in the sources.
Hauntbound treats the property primarily as a National Historic Landmark of profound architectural and social-history significance, with paranormal lore secondary to its documented role in interpreting urban slavery and English Regency architecture. The narrative of enslaved residents — Hagar, Marshall, and others identified in surviving Owens family records — is presented in the museum's interpretive program as historical fact, not as a haunted attraction; Hauntbound follows that editorial framing.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Guided tour of one of North America's preeminent examples of English Regency architecture, designed by William Jay and completed in 1819. The interpretive program covers the mansion's owning families (Richardson, Owens, Thomas) and gives substantial attention to the documented lives of the enslaved laborers who worked the urban estate. The slave quarters retain rare original paint and structure.
The Owens-Thomas House is a regular stop on Savannah ghost-tour itineraries, which discuss the home's reported phenomena from public sidewalks on Abercorn Street and around Oglethorpe Square. Ghost tours do not enter the museum.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Savannah, GA
Construction of the Regency-style brick townhouse at 10 East Oglethorpe Avenue began in 1818 for James Moore Wayne, a Savannah mayor and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice; the home was completed in 1821. In 1831 the Gordon family acquired the property, and on October 31, 1860, Juliette Magill Kinzie 'Daisy' Gordon was born there. She founded Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912. The Girl Scouts purchased the property in 1953 and opened it as a museum in 1956; the home was designated Savannah's first National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Savannah, GA
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Cincinnati, OH
The Cincinnati Art Museum was founded in 1881 and opened to the public in its current Eden Park building on May 17, 1886. It is one of the oldest art museums in the United States and houses an encyclopedic collection spanning 6,000 years of art history. Reuben Springer led the founding fundraising; the building has been expanded repeatedly into the 21st century.