Calhoun Square, Savannah
Few of Savannah’s squares have survived in a form that even loosely resembles their appearance in centuries past. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, devastating fires that swept across the city destroyed many of the buildings then standing. More recently, the wrecking ball and redevelopments have changed many of the squares – and the streets that surround them – beyond measure.
Calhoun Square, however, not laid out until after Savannah’s worst fires were in its past and otherwise preserved from change perhaps more by coincidence than for any definite reason, provides probably the best example of how Savannah might once have looked.
It alone of all Savannah’s squares still retains each of its original buildings: homes erected in the 1850s and 1860s; the old Massie School house, built soon after the square was laid out; and the imposing Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church.
The square itself, like most parks, has only improved over the years, its now mature trees casting a deep and welcome shade over its lawns and old brick walks.
See also:
– The Haitian Monument
– Savannah’s must-see sights
– Monterey Square (west of Calhoun) – Mercer-Williams House and Congregation Mickve Israel
– Whitefield Square (east of Calhoun) – historic Black Beth Eden and First Congregational churches
– Lafayette Square (north of Calhoun) – Cathedral of St John the Baptist, the Andrew Low House and the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home
Calhoun Square Things To Do
Massie Heritage Center
The Massie Heritage Center fronts on the southern side of the square. The Center was formerly a public school, operated for Savannah’s white children since 1856, but closed in the 1970s. The buildings (designed by noted Savannah archtitect John Norris and listed on the National Register of Historic Places) have since been put to new use as a museum for promoting the understanding of Savannah’s history.
→ More details and visitor info
Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church
On the western side of the square is the Wesley Monumental Methodist Church, established in 1868 as a tribute to John and Charles Wesley, early residents of Georgia and founders of Methodism. The current Gothic-style building was completed in 1890.
Who Was Calhoun?
The square was named for the recently deceased John C Calhoun (1782-1850). A politician and political theorist, Calhoun served as Senator for South Carolina, Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He also served as vice president under two presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, between 1825 and 1832.
An advocate of slavery, a defender of the “minority rights” of southern slaveholders against the non-slaveholding North and the right of states to nullify federal laws that opposed their own interests, besides his support for the expansion of slavery into what would become the American West, Calhoun had many supporters in his native South.
Coming so soon after his death and the Compromise of 1850 the previous year, the naming of one of Savannah’s new squares for John Calhoun was perhaps intended to be one of the city’s most aggressively political commemorative acts.
In the years since, however, Calhoun has become an increasingly contentious figure in American history, denounced for his racism and his support for slavery. The city is currently considering a proposal to rename Calhoun Square to Jubilee Square in recognition of Jubilee Freedom Day, marking the end of enslavement in Savannah.
History Of Calhoun Square
Calhoun Square was laid out in 1851, one of the last squares – along with Troup Square to its northeast and Whitefield Square to its immediate east – to be created according to Savannah’s plan.
Calhoun Square, like all Savannah’s Historic District squares, was laid out on the city’s common lands surrounding its already built up areas. The specific area in which Calhoun Square is located, however, is believed to have once been the site of an early 19th century burial ground: most probably the Strangers Burial Grounds, reserved for the interment of people who died while visiting Savannah.
The present location of Calhoun Square may also be the burial place of some of Savannah’s Black residents who died in the early 19th century.
The official location of the ground set aside by the city for the burial of people of African descent was further to the east, under the present Whitefield Square, but in the absence of any clear markers designating the ground and its boundaries, many people were inevitably buried outside of its limits.
A human skull was unearthed in Calhoun Square in the early 2000s, and it is estimated that several hundred people, mostly enslaved, may have been buried here and in the vicinity.
More Savannah Squares
– Chatham Square
– Chippewa Square
– Columbia Square
– Crawford Square
– Ellis Square
– Franklin Square
– Greene Square
– Johnson Square
– Lafayette Square
– Liberty and Elbert Squares
– Madison Square
– Monterey Square
– Oglethorpe Square
– Orleans Square
– Pulaski Square
– Reynolds Square
– Telfair Square
– Troup Square
– Warren Square
– Washington Square
– Whitefield Square
– Wright Square