
The Haunted Hampton-Lillibridge House
Posted: 01.17.2025 | Updated: 01.21.2025
Savannah, Georgia. It’s a city that defies expectations and truly has something for everyone. From lush scenery to storied history to colonial architecture to the finest cuisine, Savannah truly has something for everyone. Perhaps it’s the Southern hospitality or the spooky atmosphere that warm summer nights in Georgia provide, but this city is also known for hosting quite a few ghosts. One of the more mysterious sources of these ghost sightings is the Hampton-Lillibridge House, a curious residence that is still in use today. However, whether the living or the dead truly own this place is still up for debate.
Keep reading to learn more, and be sure to book our in-person ghost tour with Savannah Terrors to get an even more detailed look at Georgia’s spookiest places. You may just catch a glimpse of one of these Southern ghosts while you’re there!
Is the Hampton-Lillibridge House Haunted?
Ultimately, we’ll let you decide. However, the evidence does seem to stack up the more one analyzes the history of this curious Georgia home. From being the only home in Savannah to have ever gone through an exorcism to its uncanny knack for surviving disaster after disaster, it’s clear that this house has something strange going on with it.
History of the Hampton Lillibridge House
To begin to understand the haunted history of the Hampton-Lillibridge House, it’s actually necessary to understand the history of firefighting in Savannah. And to do that, one has to go all the way back to the 1700s.
This century was when Georgia, and by extension, Savannah, was really beginning to establish its identity as a British colony and, later on, as its own state. Part of that identity was in its use of clapboard houses. Clapboard was both a style and a material consisting of long, thin boards to cover up the walls and roofs of homes.
For a burgeoning Georgia where wood was plentiful, and iron and concrete wasn’t, this proved to be a popular choice for homes. This design helped protect against the weather and was relatively quick and easy to install.
Raging Fires
However, while clapboard might have done its job to protect against rain and hail, its wooden slats proved highly vulnerable to fire. Given that most of the buildings in Savannah were wooden clapboards, fire became a persistent problem and a fear of the locals. Indeed, when the Hampton-Lillibridge House was constructed in 1796, the Savannah Board of Aldermans had just been formed a few years prior. Its first order of business? To improve fire safety.
In 1791, the city got its first firehouse, and in 1794, two volunteer fire companies sprung up. In the year the house was built by enigmatic Rhode Islander Hampton Lillibridge, a fire from a bakery spread through Savannah and destroyed over 200 buildings, including Christ Church, Georgia’s first church. Miraculously, the Hampton-Lillbridge House remained untouched.
After a few more smaller fires afflicting the area, 1820 saw an even greater fire rip through Savannah. In fact, at the time, it was the largest fire America had ever seen. It destroyed almost 500 buildings, nearly the entirety of the town. Inexplicably, this house survived again.
Spirits and Hauntings
This is a recurring theme with the Hampton-Lillibridge House – unexplained happenings and survival against the odds. Here’s a glimpse of just some of the unexplained phenomena this unassuming residential house has been the site of over the centuries.
After the original owner died, Jim Williams, a professional architectural restorer and antiquities dealer, purchased the house. For literature connoisseurs, this is the same Jim Williams, who is the main character of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Despite Williams’ expertise, however, restoring this particular house proved difficult.
The workers Williams hired to do the job were slow, and it wasn’t because they were lazy. Instead, they were often beset by tools going missing or doors shutting on them at inconvenient times. They’d also hear loud voices and footsteps throughout the house, even at times when the house was supposed to be empty.

Eventually, the job was done, but these workers weren’t the only ones who heard voices. Later on, Williams’ neighbors would report that they, too, heard the sounds of voices emanating from the Hampton-Lillibridge House.
And they were more detailed with their descriptions than the more tight-lipped workers. They described the voices as belonging to a woman (or women), and they always seemed to be screaming in terror.
That wasn’t the only thing the neighbors have reported seeing either. A persistent sighting of a man dressed in a black suit and bowtie is often seen gazing out of an upstairs window. The man doesn’t look like any of the house’s owners, past or present, and doesn’t react to passersby outside.
Crypts and Exorcisms
It wasn’t just ghostly voices and missing tools that Williams’ crew discovered. While excavating the property, they actually came upon a crypt underneath the foundation of the house. At the time, the prevailing wisdom was that it wasn’t their problem, so the crypt was sealed back up and reburied without much fanfare.

Perhaps this is the source of all the ghostly sightings that have come from Hampton-Lillibridge since: ghosts tormenting those who dared disturb their final resting places. Alternatively, perhaps ghosts in the crypt protected the Hampton-Lillibridge House from all the various fires and natural disasters that have afflicted Savannah over the years.
In any case, the concerns about ghosts in the house grew great enough to warrant professional help. In 1963, the homeowners sought the aid of a professional exorcist, a bishop from the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.
Yes, that job isn’t just limited to horror movies; it’s a real professional whose primary duty is to clean a building or person of demons. While the exorcist being called in the 1960s is a matter of historical record, whether or not the exorcism was actually successful or not is debatable.
To this day, while lower in number than in the preceding centuries, an odd tale of ghosts or a strange sighting from the Hampton-Lillibridge House will surface.
Perhaps that crypt needs another look after all?
Haunted Savannah
From surviving multiple deadly fires to playing host to some truly frightening unexplained phenomena, it seems clear that the Hampton-Lillibridge House isn’t going anywhere any time soon. From withstanding physical disasters to staying alive in people’s hearts and minds as a premier haunted spot in Georgia, this house is, if nothing else, a survivor.
If you want to learn more about Savannah hauntings or Georgia ghosts in general, be sure and browse some of our collected resources below.
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Sources:
- https://www.savannah.com/haunted-historic-sights-in-savannah/
- https://hauntsofamerica.blogspot.com/2011/04/most-haunted-house-in-savannah.html
- https://www.travelchannel.com/destinations/us/ga/savannah/articles/haunted-savannah
- https://www.savannahga.gov/2618/Savannah-Fire-History
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