Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

The Savannah River winds around Hutchinson Island, and the city is built in the form of an elongated crescent, about three miles in length, on its southern shore. It is on a bluff about forty feet above the stream, this bluff being about a mile wide at its eastern end, and broadening as it extends westward. Surrounding it are the low lands occupied by market gardens, for Savannah is a great place for market gardeners, and helps to supply the northern market in early spring.

The streets of Savannah are laid out east and west, nearly parallel to the river, with others crossing them at right angles, north and south. They are wide, and everywhere shaded with trees, many of the latter being live oaks, most magnificent specimens of which are found in the city. Orange trees also abound, with their fragrant blossoms and golden fruit, stately palmettoes, magnolias and oleander, rich in bloom, bays and cape myrtles.

The streets running north and south are of very nearly uniform width, every alternate street passing on either side of a public square, which is bounded on the north and south by narrow streets running east and west, and intersected in the centre by a wide street taking the same direction. These public squares, twenty-four in number, and containing from one and a half to three acres, are a marked feature of the city. They are placed at regular intervals, as already described, are handsomely inclosed, laid out with walks, shaded with evergreen and ornamental trees, and in the spring and summer months are green with grass. In a number of these are monuments, while others contain fountains or statuary. These squares or plazas are surrounded with fine residences, each having its own little yard, beautiful with flowers, vines, shrubbery and trees. In these premises roses thrive and bloom with a luxuriance unknown in the North, and the stately Camelia Japonica, the empress among flowers, grows here to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and blossoms in midwinter. Savannah, the most beautiful city of the South, if not in the United States, is more like the wealthy suburb of some large city, than like a city itself. It is embowered in trees, which are green the whole year around; and shares with Cleveland, its northern rival in beauty, the soubriquet of the "Forest City."

Forsyth Park, originally laid out in the southern suburb of the city, is now the centre of a populous quarter, abounding in handsome edifices. Many of the original trees, the beautiful southern pines, are left standing in this park, and other trees and shrubbery added. Sphynxes guard the Bull street entrance, and in the centre of the old park, which was ten acres in extent, is a handsome fountain, modeled after that in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. This fountain is surrounded by a profusion of flowers, while shelled walks furnish pathways through the park. It has recently been increased in dimensions to thirty acres; in the centre of the new or western portion stands a stately monument in honor of the Confederate dead.

Pulaski Monument stands in Monterey Square, the first plaza to the northward of Forsyth Park. The steps of the monument are of granite, and the shaft of fine white marble, fifty-five feet high, surmounted by a statue of Liberty holding the national banner. This monument covers the spot where, in 1779, Count Pulaski fell, during an attack upon the city, while it was occupied by the British. In Johnson Square, the first square south of the river intersected by Bull street, is a fine Druidical pile, erected to the memory of General Greene and Count Pulaski. The corner-stone of this obelisk was laid in 1825, by Lafayette, during his visit to America.

Savannah was founded in 1733, by General James Oglethorpe, whose plan has been followed in its subsequent erection. Upon each of the twenty-four squares were originally left four large lots, known as "trust lots," two on the east and two on the west. We are told by Mr. Francis Moore, who wrote in 1736, that "the use of this is, in case a war should happen, the villages without may have places in town to bring their cattle and families into for refuge; and for that purpose there is a square left in every ward, big enough for the outwards to encamp in." These lots are now occupied by handsome churches, conspicuous public buildings, and palatial private residences, thus securing to all the squares a uniform elegance which they might otherwise have lacked.

Bay street is the great commercial street of the city. It is an esplanade, two hundred feet wide, upon the brow of the cliff overlooking the river. Its southern side is lined with handsome stores and offices. At the corner of Bay and Bull streets is the Custom House, with the Post Office in the basement. Its northern side is occupied by the upper stories of warehouses, which are built at the foot of the steep cliff fronting the river. These upper stories are connected with the bluff by means of wooden platforms, which form a sort of sidewalk, spanning a narrow and steep roadway, which leads at intervals, by a series of turns, down to the wharves below. Long flights of steps accommodate pedestrians in the same descent. The warehouses just spoken of are four or five stories high on their river fronts, and but one or two on the Bay.

One should walk along the quay below the city to gain a true idea of the extent of its commerce. Here, in close proximity to the wharves, are located the cotton presses and rice mills. Here everything is dirty and dismal, evidently speaking of better days. The beauty of the city is all above. The buildings are some of them substantially built of brick, but begin to show the ravages of time. There is an old archway, which once had pretensions of its own, but the wall has fallen away, and it is now an entrance to nowhere. Yet in spite of this general dilapidation, there is all the bustle and activity of a full commercial life. The wharves are piled with cotton bales, which have found a temporary landing here, awaiting shipment to the North, or perhaps across the sea. For Savannah is the second cotton port in the United States. But cotton is not its only export. It is the great shipping depot for Southern produce bound for Northern markets. Some sheds are filled with barrels of rosin, while great quantities of rosin litter the ground. From others turpentine in great quantities is shipped to various ports. The lumber trade of the city is immense, the pine forests of Georgia furnishing an apparently inexhaustible supply. The city is also in the centre of the rice-growing region, and sends its rice to feed the North. Steamships from all the Atlantic ports lie along its wharves, while those of foreign nations are by no means scarce. Vessels of too large a draft to lie alongside the wharves discharge and load their freight three miles below the city.

The view from the river front is over the river itself, filled with craft of all sorts, from the tiny ferry boat up to the immense ocean steamer, across to Hutchinson's Island and the Carolina shore. The island, which is two miles long by one wide, has upon it numerous lumber yards and a large dry dock. Rice was formerly cultivated upon it, but is now forbidden by law, because of its unhealthfulness. The river is about seven hundred and twenty feet wide in front of the city, with a depth of water at the wharves varying from thirteen to twenty-one feet. The portion of South Carolina visible is low and flat, dotted here and there with palmetto trees. There is little of the picturesque about this river view except the busy life, which keeps in constant motion.

Savannah has extensive railroad connection with all parts of the United States. She has direct communication by rail with Vicksburg on the Mississippi. She also offers an outlet, by means of railroads, for the products of Georgia, Florida, and portions of Alabama and Tennessee. She has unbroken railroad connection with Memphis, Mobile, Cincinnati, Louisville, and the principal commercial cities of the West and North. Her water communication is established with all the great Northern and Southern seaboard cities. Her harbor is one of the best and safest on the South Atlantic coast, and she is the natural eastern terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad, being almost on the same parallel of latitude with San Diego, its western terminus.