Moon River Brewing Haunting- The History.

Moon River Brewing Company is a prominent Savannah, Georgia building that has harbored years of turbulent history and many accounts of haunted activity. It began as the city’s first hotel in 1821 but even during its building stages it suffered some tragedy. At the beginning of 1820, fires swept through Savannah, destroying many buildings and slowing its completion. Upon opening, it was called The City Hotel. It had a luxury branding that appealed and catered mostly to the affluent in its beginnings. Its guests included not just wealthy businessmen but also people of high political and military power. Prostitution also flourished behind its closed doors. In the south, it was common for wealthy individuals or families to travel with their slaves. As such, holding cells would often be kept in hotel basements to confine slaves during the stay. It’s also likely that they were chained down in the basement.

There was a lot of friction between various hotel bar patrons throughout its tenure. One of the most well known feuds of the bar was between James Stark, a man labeled as the town drunk, and Philip Minis who was a local doctor. It was reported that Stark continually harassed Minis. He threatened him, called him names, and made anti-semitic remarks to insult him. The two commonly fought and reportedly had even challenged each other to a duel. The duel did not turn out to be a traditional one, as the feud instead culminated inside the city hotel one day in 1832. It is said that around the top of the second stairway landing, the floor just above where the moon river bar is today, Philip Minis shot James Stark. Stark fell down the stairs and was dead upon hitting the stairway landing below. Minis claimed that Stark had reached into his pocket as though to draw his pistol. The court found Philip not guilty by reason of “Justifiable homicide” and his action was instead dubbed “An affair of honor”.

Another major account of violence involving the hotel is not as talked about but is historically documented. In fact, I found a New York Times archive that captures and restates the article that was published on the 8th page on November 29, 1860.

The article was a written account taken from James Sinclair himself, describing the brutality he endured during his stay at the hotel. James Sinclair was a man born in New York that ventured to Savannah when he found himself out of work. He planned on making his way to Augusta, where his brother lived, in order to find carpentry work. Once his ship docked in Savannah, he took up lodging at The City Hotel. At this time, tensions surrounding slavery and North vs. South were high in Savannah and the civil war was nearing. Fellow patrons of the hotel were unwelcoming of Sinclair because he was a Yankee. They continued to question him about himself and why he was there. Unsatisfied with his answers, a vigilante committee demanded he leave the city and he refused. Within a few hours of his refusal, a mob of men accosted him outside the hotel. They pulled out weapons and dragged him through the streets. He was beaten tirelessly and, from his own words, “quids of tobacco were thrown into my eyes, blinding my sight and causing intense pain”. He was taken to the city park, accused of tampering with slaves, forcibly stripped to the nude, and was lashed with cat o’ nine tails, all while the other beatings continued. Eventually, the angry mob told him he could re-dress and they would give him a head start before shooting at him. He ran the side alleys back to the city hotel only to be turned away from further lodging. The next day he boarded a ship back to New York.

In the trenches of the civil war, the friction and violence between locals and northern guests became too high. With the other simultaneous events surrounding the civil war, the hotel was pressured to close its doors and did so in 1864. During General Sherman’s March into Savannah, the building became a make shift hospital for wounded soldiers.

Savannah in general was plagued by disasters in the 1800s. These misfortunes included multiple fires, a hurricane, and swarms of mosquitos that brought with them yellow fever epidemics (referred to by locals as “yellow jack”). This disease was a torturous one- causing extreme abdominal pain and internal intestinal bleeding. Patients would heave up voluminous amounts of black vomit (what we now know in medicine to signify the color of digested blood). The disease got its name from the yellow color that overcame individuals with the virus- what we know today as being jaundice and a sign of liver failure. The most detrimental outbreak of yellow fever in Savannah occurred in 1820. At the time, they did not know how the disease was spreading, so in order to attempt to avoid further spread, many people who died from this disease were not given a proper burial. In fact, at the northern end of Colonial Park Cemetery, there is a mass grave of the yellow fever victims from the year 1820. It is recorded that 666 people are buried in that mass grave, though the sign marking its memoriam states “almost 700” as it seemed ominous to post the number 666. The “fortunate” souls that did receive a proper burial may have not been so fortunate after all. It turned out that another result of having yellow fever was going into a coma. The patient’s heart beat and breathing would slow to the point they were not detectable, so as a result, they would be declared dead- and BURIED ALIVE. Reportedly, coffins have been uncovered from that cemetery that have scratch marks on the lids. By September 15th 1820, only 1500 of the original population of 5000 remained in Savannah. The virus was not extinguished there, however, and effected the city throughout the remainder of the 19th century, with the next major outbreak occurring in 1876.

Thus, after the City Hotel closed, the building served again as a hospital in 1876 during that epidemic. During that time, the 3rd and 4th floors housed a multitude of fatally ill adults and children. Most of whom met their painful deaths within its walls. The basement of the building, the same basement that is under moon river brewing today, would have served as a holding area for the bodies. A tunnel system beneath the building that stretches throughout the Savannah underground was believed to have served as a path to move the bodies stealthily to the cemetery. This could have been a way to conceal from the public the rapid death rate that was claiming the residents of the city. It was also considered a safe way to move the bodies without spreading infection. While some stories say that people also actually used the tunnels to try to hide from catching yellow fever.

The movement of corpses is not all that the tunnel system is rumored to have been used for throughout it’s days. Other claimed uses for the tunnels included bootlegging of liquor, prostitution, movement and sale of people for use as slaves, and shanghaied sailors. Shanghaied is essentially a term for kidnapping. This was back in the day of pirates when the need for sailors to work the ships was high but the desire to work them was low. Payments were given to anyone who could bring new sailors to work the ship. Instead of networking and recruiting, they would essentially get a strong looking man sloshed at the bar, inebriated enough to where he passed out, and would drag his body through the tunnels to the boat. By the time he sobered up, he was out at sea with no way to escape. At the back of Moon River Brewing’s basement, the entrance to the tunnels is sealed off today, but could still remain a pathway for the paranormal.

So, with all the history the Moon River Brewing building has endured, it’s not usually questioned by believers that the building is haunted. The question seems to be- WHO is haunting it? After becoming a coal and lumber warehouse and eventually a supply store, it eventually sat vacant for nearly 2 decades when a hurricane blew off its roof in 1979. It wasn’t opened as Moon River Brewing until 1999, but since it’s opening (and even through its remodeling), it has seemed evident that this building hosts an array of hauntings. In the main bar, staff and patrons have witnessed glasses and bottles flying off of shelves, seemingly being thrown, and breaking. Cameras have caught chairs and other items moving around “on their own”. Loud noises such as bangs and footsteps can be heard from areas of the building where no one is present. Voices, whispers, and whistling have also been heard with no apparent earthly source. Full-bodied apparitions have appeared to patrons and don’t always seem shy, sometimes being seen by multiple witnesses at once. This includes an account of a man dressed in confederate soldier fatigues near the telephone booth, a lady in white pacing the 3rd floor stairway, and a woman walking towards the main bar as though to order a drink but instead disappearing into thin air.

A spirit or multiple spirits there apparently do not like attempts to renovate the 3rd or 4th floors. During multiple attempts to do so, the renovating fatefully has always been put to a stop. Tools have gone missing and workers have said they were pushed off their ladders, subsequently leaving the job site. In the late 1990s when the restaurant was preparing to open, a job foreman’s wife brought him lunch and was shoved by an unseen force down the 3rd floor stairs. The job foreman called off the project after that and reportedly never returned. As a result, the 3rd and 4th floors remain “caught in time”- dark, dusty, and vacant. In fact, those floors are caution taped off and have limited access to only a select number of people. Though the top floors have been featured in popular television shows and YouTube channels, there is only one tour group that is allowed to take ghost hunters onto those floors of the building. Truth in Evidence Haunted Tours (who I just so happened to do my paranormal investigation with).

Other accounts of spirit activity include shadow figures in various parts of the building, particularly the bar area and the basement. A figure of a young boy has been encountered so frequently that he has even revealed a name- Toby. Toby tends to try to play hide and seek type games with people but some who have played into his games have ended up being pushed. Other more malicious entities have straight up attacked people. Aside from being shoved down the stairs, people have reported the feeling of being choked (primarily in the basement). At least a couple of paranormal investigators believe they were under temporary possession while within the building- staring off, acting strangely, and losing memory of what happened to them during that time, essentially “blacking out”. There is an alternate theory about Toby that I find very intriguing. Some believe that Toby is not a little boy at all but instead a vengeful male spirit attempting to trick people by posing as a child. I’m going to pose yet another theory here- maybe Toby is a child but a more aggressive energy is interrupting and interfering with his play time. A brick circle that once took up space on the 4th floor had a plethora of rumors surrounding it. These rumors range from origins of a seance circle aimed at warding off evil spirits to a “ritual pit” designed to summon demons. I got information during my tour that leads me to believe the circle was not as nefarious as some say, but I also believe the energy you put towards something is sometimes the energy you can get back. If this is true, the energy could be effected by the intention each person brings. The brick circle was recently dismantled (apparently too many investigators kept taking the bricks).

The general opinion of which floor of the building is the most active or most aggressive depends on who you talk to. It seems there are lots of votes for the basement as well as the 3rd and 4th floors. Which leads us back to who may be causing this activity. Is it a still drunk and volatile James Stark? Did James Sinclair’s spirit return to Savannah to issue a payback? Are there lost souls of those who lost their lives to yellow fever and war still looming within its walls? Who is the lady in white and is she the one who hates remodeling so much? Is Toby a child or a malicious evil entity? Does the land or building itself serve as a vortex for energies in general? Perhaps it’s a combination of all these factors and more.

You can view my investigation of the 3rd floor in the video below. I won’t reveal too much, but we definitely experienced some of the historically haunted claims including unexplained footsteps, a game of “hide and seek”, and, a foul-mouthed angry male energy.