Bonaventure Cemetery
Aug 11th, 2005 | 04:14 PM
#1
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Joined: Mar 2003
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Bonaventure Cemetery
My husband and I would like to tour Bonaventure Cemetery. We will not have a car. I've seen many post suggesting "The Book Tour" There are so many. Looking for tour companies that you had a positive or not so positive experience. Thank You.
Aug 12th, 2005 | 05:31 AM
#4
Joined: Jun 2004
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Bonaventure is worth touring and has been toured well before "The Book". It is an incredibly beautiful spot. Our just graduated-college daughter lived with us briefly while we were living there and when we suggested she accompany us out there one day, she went only grudgingly, mumbling something about cemeteries, but humoring us. Well....when we got back, she grabbed her camera and drove back out there herself, that same afternoon. LOL It was that good, even to the cemetery skeptic.
I'm not sure if the book tours go out there or if they take in primarily the around-town spots. We moved away 8 years ago, but at that time it was a part of one of the Greyline (or the like) tours of the city, although there was discussion of banning the buses from Bonaventure even then. Some of the longer tours took in the cemetery and Bluffview area...also gorgeous.
It is not so much which tour company is good, but which operator you get within the company that makes or breaks the experience. You just need to find a city tour that also takes in Bonaventure...no matter which company.
I'm not sure if the book tours go out there or if they take in primarily the around-town spots. We moved away 8 years ago, but at that time it was a part of one of the Greyline (or the like) tours of the city, although there was discussion of banning the buses from Bonaventure even then. Some of the longer tours took in the cemetery and Bluffview area...also gorgeous.
It is not so much which tour company is good, but which operator you get within the company that makes or breaks the experience. You just need to find a city tour that also takes in Bonaventure...no matter which company.
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Aug 12th, 2005 | 07:23 AM
#8
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 750
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Marie is correct. I just googled it and it appears that the "Bird Girl" statue was moved from the cemetery in 1997 to the Telfair Museum.
No wonder I was unable to find it while walking about the Savannah Historic District a couple of years ago.
No wonder I was unable to find it while walking about the Savannah Historic District a couple of years ago.
Aug 12th, 2005 | 07:23 PM
#9
Joined: Aug 2005
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The book tour information that Fodor's provides on this website has some inaccuracies and holes in it.
First, Jim Williams killed Hansford in self defense. He was acquitted of it when he was finally persuaded to change venue to a place less press coverage saturated and less biased enough to pay attention to the unassailable proof of his innocence presented at trial.
Berendt had been a frequent visitor to the city for years, after meeting up with Mo Fetzer, who readers will know as Luther Driggers. The two spent considerable gay time together in Key West, where Mo also owned property.
As the big confession scene never happened, Fodor's characterization of the book as "Berendt's creative nonfiction" is more than a bit of a stretch -- creative, yes, but nonfiction, no, although many of the side stories are true enough for tourist use.
The Armstrong Mansion was owned by Jim Williams and temporarily used as his workplace but it was never his residence -- although the city scions who lunched at the Oglethorpe Club across the street were nearly apoplectic that it might become so.
"All of those trials" did not take place at the Chatham County Courthouse, although some did.
Frank W. 'Sonny' Seiler's last name has two of the letter 'e', not one. The characterization of Sonny as Uga's "keeper" is not how I would describe their relationship.
Jim Williams' jail cell was not "modified to allow him to conduct his antiques business." Nor were any of the other urban legends about his incarceration (such as having his meals catered from Elizabeths on 37th) that floated around the minds of the city's venal citizens at the time anything more than that.
Spencer Lawton, the closet case who prosecuted Williams, did so four times, not three, before Jim was finally acquitted. It is one of the few times in the history of American jurisprudence that a person suffered four trials for the same charge -- a sad waste of time for all involved as Jim should never have been charged to begin with.
Mercer House did not become "Jim Williams's Taj Mahal", despite the fact that he once asked -- stone cold sober, too -- that he be entombed there after his death (and that every other property he restored in that city be purchased and demolished.) He later changed his mind. Mercer House is thus neither a tomb nor a memorial.
Lest anyone confuse the meaning of "Serena's gentlemen callers" as applies to Mo Fetzer, be it known that Mo's sexual tastes run to the near-pubescent boys who typically came from the African American neighborhood east of Drayton Street -- the same neighborhood he threatened to poison should Lee Adler be successful at having it cross that dividing line. Although Mr. Fetzer was once married, it was to a lesbian named Jo, who, last I knew, was happily involved in a longterm relationship with another woman with whom she raises goats on a farm.
First, Jim Williams killed Hansford in self defense. He was acquitted of it when he was finally persuaded to change venue to a place less press coverage saturated and less biased enough to pay attention to the unassailable proof of his innocence presented at trial.
Berendt had been a frequent visitor to the city for years, after meeting up with Mo Fetzer, who readers will know as Luther Driggers. The two spent considerable gay time together in Key West, where Mo also owned property.
As the big confession scene never happened, Fodor's characterization of the book as "Berendt's creative nonfiction" is more than a bit of a stretch -- creative, yes, but nonfiction, no, although many of the side stories are true enough for tourist use.
The Armstrong Mansion was owned by Jim Williams and temporarily used as his workplace but it was never his residence -- although the city scions who lunched at the Oglethorpe Club across the street were nearly apoplectic that it might become so.
"All of those trials" did not take place at the Chatham County Courthouse, although some did.
Frank W. 'Sonny' Seiler's last name has two of the letter 'e', not one. The characterization of Sonny as Uga's "keeper" is not how I would describe their relationship.
Jim Williams' jail cell was not "modified to allow him to conduct his antiques business." Nor were any of the other urban legends about his incarceration (such as having his meals catered from Elizabeths on 37th) that floated around the minds of the city's venal citizens at the time anything more than that.
Spencer Lawton, the closet case who prosecuted Williams, did so four times, not three, before Jim was finally acquitted. It is one of the few times in the history of American jurisprudence that a person suffered four trials for the same charge -- a sad waste of time for all involved as Jim should never have been charged to begin with.
Mercer House did not become "Jim Williams's Taj Mahal", despite the fact that he once asked -- stone cold sober, too -- that he be entombed there after his death (and that every other property he restored in that city be purchased and demolished.) He later changed his mind. Mercer House is thus neither a tomb nor a memorial.
Lest anyone confuse the meaning of "Serena's gentlemen callers" as applies to Mo Fetzer, be it known that Mo's sexual tastes run to the near-pubescent boys who typically came from the African American neighborhood east of Drayton Street -- the same neighborhood he threatened to poison should Lee Adler be successful at having it cross that dividing line. Although Mr. Fetzer was once married, it was to a lesbian named Jo, who, last I knew, was happily involved in a longterm relationship with another woman with whom she raises goats on a farm.
