A few months ago, I introduced y’all to my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Thorne. He’s the feisty young dude who, at twelve years old in 1848, rode a horse from the Lowcountry all the way back to a family farm in central New York. That part of the story comes later, and today we find him in Savannah on April 8, 1848, almost exactly 178 years ago, just weeks before starting his northward journey from Charleston, SC. Here’s an excerpt from his diary:
8th of April. Saturday To day (sic) we took a ride during which we saw among other things some wild magnolia trees as large as a common sized oak. They do not bear as handsome a flower as those which are cultivated. We also saw a wild turkey running in the woods. It was the first wild one that we had ever seen at liberty.
How cool is that? Here we are today, smack in the middle of the 2026 turkey season, and the turkeys were running through the woods just the same back then. No matter whether or not you are a hunter, the sight of a big tom turkey in the wild, his beard nearly dragging on the ground, is always a cause for excitement. And young Samuel caught the fever.
As a sidebar to the story of Samuel’s life and his interest in nature, he became an avid outdoorsman, and he hunted and fished all his life. The first inklings of that passion appear throughout his 1848 diary as he experienced Lowcountry wildlife in the raw. Even as an old man, more than half a century after 1848, Samuel could be found in the woods or on the sea.
Samuel’s April 8th outing included seeing a cemetery:
We saw the contemplated burying ground for the people of Savannah. It has but two gravestones in it. They were erected by the guards of this city to the honor of Col. Tattnel and wife.
Wow, there’s a really interesting backstory to that comment because the Tattnals (the correct spelling of the prominent Savannah family name) were the owners of Bonaventure plantation, a large landholding upon which much of Savannah is built today. In the 1840s the Savannah city administration sought a suitable municipal cemetery, and the Tatnall burial ground became the now renown Bonaventure Cemetery. At the time of Samuel’s visit, the only people interred in the burial ground were Colonel Josiah Tatnall (1764-1803) and his wife, Harriet Fenwick Tatnall.
As I have previously written, the Bonaventure Cemetery, now an important tourism attraction, was once home to the 1938 bronze sculpture, “Bird Girl,” by Sylvia Shaw Judson, a picture of which adorns the iconic cover of John Berendt’s 1994 blockbuster novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In 1997, city authorities moved the statue to Savannah’s Telfair Museum to protect it against vandalism and theft.
Samuel’s April 8th sightseeing adventure continued into the afternoon:
We also saw the place where the great Polish general Pulaski fell. It was in the suburbs of the city under a large weeping willow.
Anyone who has visited Savannah as a tourist has probably put the Pulaski monument on their ‘to-be-seen’ list. The current site of the monument might have been the location visited by Samuel. However, there’s considerable controversy about where the famous Polish general actually died, let alone where he was buried. The Casimir Pulaski Foundation has the full story on Pulaski’s demise and likely burial site here. Thus, where Samuel actually visited is not clear from his diary, but he mentions it was in the Savannah suburbs. If the place he visited was anywhere near the current site of the Pulaski monument, those suburbs are smack in the middle of the city today.
April 8, 1848, was a big day in young Samuel Thorne’s life, and he had the amazing opportunity to see an emerging southern city in the early days of its growth. Many more exciting days would follow as Samuel prepared for his horseback journey to the north, and having the young man’s perspective of notable places as they were 178 years ago is an extraordinary window into the Lowcountry of yesteryear.
I’ll be back with more on this extraordinary young man, my great-great-grandpa, as his journey unfolds. But on April 8, 1848, young Samuel ended the day in comfort:
We took tea at Mr. Crabtree’s this evening and had quite a pleasant time.