Wright Square Savannah: The Hanging Square Curse & Tomochichi’s Restless Spirit

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listener. Savannah, Georgia is a city designed with intention, every square carefully placed, every street aligned in a grid that was meant to bring order to a new world. But beneath that order is something far less controlled. Because when General James Oglethorpe established the Colony of Georgia in seventeen thirty three, he envisioned a place of structure, fairness, and even reform, a stark contrast to the chaotic and often brutal colonies that came before it. And yet, even in a city built on ideals, punishment still had a place.

0:36 Speaker 1: Right Square is one of Savannah's original four squares, laid out in that very first city plan, and from the beginning it served a dual purpose civic center by day and something far darker when required, because in the early days of the colony, this square became the site of public executions, where justice was not hidden away, but displayed, where the consequence senses of crime were meant to be seen, felt, and remembered by everyone who lived there, and they were. Executions in colonial Georgia were not rare events, and Right Square quickly earned a reputation as the place where sentences were carried out where gallows were erected, where crowds gathered, and where the final moments of the condemned became part of the city's living memory, so much so that locals began referring to it as Hanging Square, a name that, while no longer official, has never fully disappeared.

1:35 Speaker 1: But the darkness of Right Square doesn't begin or end with executions, because at the heart of the square's history is a man whose story complicates everything we think we know about it. Tomachichi, the leader of the Yamacraw people, was instrumental in the founding of Savannah, forming a crucial alliance with Oglethorpe that allowed the English settlement to survive in its earliest and most vulnerable days, and his influence extended far beyond local politics, because in seventeen thirty four, he traveled to England with Oglethorpe, meeting King George the Second, advocating for his people and helping shape the future of the colony in ways that few indigenous leaders were ever given the opportunity to do.

2:21 Speaker 1: When Tomochichi died in seventeen thirty nine, he was buried in Wright Square with full honors, a ceremony that included military recognition, a testament to the respect he had earned, and for a time his grave stood as a symbol of cooperation between cultures, a rare moment of mutual acknowledgment in a period often defined by conflict. But that respect, according to local tradition, did not last. As Savannah grew, as streets were expanded and the city evolved, Tomochichi's burial site was disturbed, and while historical accounts differ on the exact details the war, widely held belief is that his remains were either moved or lost during construction, replaced years later by the monument that now stands in the square, a tribute that to some feels more like an apology than an honor.

3:14 Speaker 1: And that's where the story begins to shift, because alongside the documented history of executions and colonial development is a growing body of first hand accounts that suggest right Square is not entirely at rest. Visitors reporting sudden drops in temperature and oppressive heaviness in the air, the unmistakable sensation of being watched, and whispers that seem to come from nowhere, fading the moment you try to listen more closely. Some claim to have seen figures near the monument at night, shadowy forms that do not move like living people.

3:49 Speaker 1: Others describe hearing footsteps behind them, only to turn and find the square completely empty. And then there are the more unsettling reports, people who say they felt physically unwell while standing in certain areas of the square, dizzy, nauseous, overwhelmed, as though the space itself was reacting to their presence. And while skeptics might dismiss these experiences as imagination, suggestion, or the natural eeriness of a historic place after dark, there is something difficult to ignore about the consistency of these reports, the way they echo across time, across visitors who had no prior knowledge of the square's reputation, who arrived expecting nothing and left with something they couldn't quite explain.

4:39 Speaker 1: Adding to this is the broader historical context of Savannah itself, a city that endured repeated outbreaks of disease, including devastating yellow fever epidemics in the late seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds, events that claimed thousands of lives and often required rapid burials, sometimes in locations that were never fully docked documented. And while Right Square is not officially recorded, as a mass burial site. Its long history as a central gathering place means it existed within a city where death was frequent, sudden, and often chaotic.

5:12 Speaker 1: So when you stand in Right Square today, surrounded by moss draped oaks and softly lit paths, it's easy to see the beauty, easy to feel the calm. But if you stay long enough, if you let the noise of the modern world fade just a little, you might start to notice something else, something quieter, something heavier, something that doesn't quite belong to the present. And maybe that's because it doesn't. Maybe Right Square isn't just a place where history happened. Maybe it's a place where history never quite left.

5:45 Speaker 1: And now, dear listener, a quick word from tonight's sponsor, because even historically cursed locations deserve cutting edge innovation.

5:55 Speaker 2: Have you ever been standing in a three hundred year old square, minding your own business when suddenly you feel like you've personally offended someone who died in seventeen forty two. Well, now there's a solution. Introducing Past Life Apology, the first app designed to help you apologize for things you may or may not have done in previous lifetimes. Simply open the app, select the century you're currently being judged by, and it will generate a sincere, historically appropriate apology, like I deeply regret any involvement I may have had in colonial misunderstandings.

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6:36 Speaker 1: Until next time. Keep your voice low, your respect high, and if you ever feel like the ground beneath your feet is trying to tell you something, you might want to listen at a.

7:38 Speaker 2: M B a um behind them had been