Candler Hospital

At Candler Hospital, visitors and students have long reported cold spots, disembodied voices, and shadowy figures inside, particularly near the old morgue passage, and ghost-tour guides describe eerie orbs and apparitions along the tunnel where corpses once rested and apparitions hanging from the branches of the Candler Oak, known as the Hanging Tree; many say the spirits of Confederate and Union soldiers still linger in the tunnels and corridors. Chartered in 1804 as a seamen's hospital and moved to this Drayton Street site in 1819, Candler Hospital is among the oldest continuously founded hospitals in the country and endured a devastating 1876 yellow fever epidemic along with losses during the Civil War, with large numbers of patients dying inside its walls. The hospital later merged with St. Joseph's Hospital and relocated to a new midtown campus, leaving this historic building behind; it is now part of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and a morgue tunnel still runs beneath it.