THE OLD SORREL WEED HOUSE

By Liz Reed

If you read the last issue, then you know my daughter and I had gone on a road trip to Savannah, Georgia. While there, we stayed at the Marshall House, which had a lot of activity of its own as you read about in the last issue.

We loved to take walks at night after it cooled down. We would go through the area parks and stop at some of the historical homes and sites. I always carry a K2 Meter to see if we pick up activity. We did pick up some activity by the Jewish burial grounds in one square.

But, I have to say that the Old Sorrel Weed House blew us away not once, but twice. When we stopped at a place by the front of the house, my daughter pulled up the history and read out loud about it off her phone. On this particular time, my K2 meter was lighting up to red, which means a strong direct “yes” answer to all the history she was reading online. The phone can sometimes interfere with the K2 meters, so we keep them separated.

The Sorrel Weed House was built in the 1830s for Francis Sorrel, a wealthy merchant, and his family. The family lived there for over twenty years. In the 1850s, Henry D. Weed bought the home from Francis Sorrel and lived there until 1914. After that, the house sat empty until 1940.

The Sorrel Weed house was the boyhood home of Brigadier General Moxley Sorrel. He fought for the Confederate Army. Robert E. Lee visited the home in 1861 and 1862, and in 1870s shortly before his death. Francis and Robert had been friends since the 1830s.

The tragic history of the house is that Francis’s second wife, Matilda, died by suicide. The story goes that Matilda caught her husband having an affair with one of the slaves, went up to the second story balcony and jumped, landing in the courtyard headfirst onto the stone yard. A few days later, a group of masked men arrived and hung the slave woman. Francis Sorrel was one of the men who stood and watched the men hang his slave.

While standing outside, we started asking questions and found out we were talking with Molly, the slave. She was letting us know that she felt guilty for what happened. We explained to her that it wasn’t her fault, that she was being taken advantage of. She seemed to take that answer as she left us and answered no more questions.

Now, we took two trips to Savannah and, on the second trip, we decided to take a tour of the Sorrel Weed house. A ghost tour with a little investigation was included. Oh, boy, was I excited and ready for this. Of course, we came with whatever equipment we could fit in my daughter’s backpack. We walked into this house thinking we were ready.

We had a wonderful tour guide who gave us history and ghost stories along the way. When we got to the area that they say Matilda jumped from above, he said that people have claimed to see Matilda falling to her death. Some of our equipment went off. We lingered behind a little and found nothing that would set the equipment off. My daughter then held some equipment higher up in the air by the window, and the equipment went off. There was a chair by the window where Matilda is seen falling that puts off some energy also.

Our next stop was the basement where the kitchen was. It was cooler down there, so it didn’t heat up the upper part of house in the hot Savannah days. We were ready for the basement as we had heard some stories about activity down there.

The tour guide told us how the kitchen was run. He then told us his ghost story. It seems he was covering a private investigation, and the people had seen someone walking past the window. The guide had seen it on the camera and ran down to the group and asked them if they saw that. They answered “yes” and said they saw someone walked past the window. The guide explained to them that it was impossible to see the whole body as you walked by the window outside. You would only see the bottom of the legs of someone walking by. They were in the basement, not at street level. We then moved on into the area where my daughter, Jamie, and I were dying to get into.

The other side of the basement was used as a surgical room by Moxley Sorrel. Once he left the army, he decided to use his medical talents and perform surgeries on soldiers and others. They had his table and, in some cases, they had some of his surgical tools and bullets that he removed from soldiers, along with an old wicker wheelchair. Rumor has it moving on its own. However, we didn’t experience that. After he told us the stories of this area, we were allowed to do a little investigating. We headed to the equipment and table. As we got to the table, my daughter said “ Wow! Well, here we go” Her K2 meter had hit red and was answering her questions. I went over to the other case of tools and had the same thing happen. We could have stayed there all night, but we had one more stop left on the tour: the slave quarters where Molly was supposed to have been hung.

We entered the slave quarters, which was a very tiny area. It had an upstairs that was the sleeping quarters and supposed to be the area where Molly was hung from the rafters. It, too, was very small and had a bedroom off to the side that a single bed and dresser fit in. The guide was telling us that we would be the first tour to be told this. They had just that day found out the last name of Molly. Her full name was Molly Speed. Now to a lot that doesn’t mean too much, but to my daughter and me, it was mind blowing. My son from my first marriage had the last name of Speed and that side of the family were known to be slave owners with ties to Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, my son has passed away, so the story continues with my daughter and me to see if we can find any connection between the two. We need to go back and do a private night time investigation.

Who knows? I may end up with a third part to this adventure!