t. The governor's house
was situated where the Telfair Academy now is. He was placed under
parole, but nevertheless fled to Bonaventure, the Tabnall estate, not
far from the city, where he was protected by friends until he could
escape to the British fleet, which then lay off Tybee Island at the
mouth of the Savannah River, some eighteen miles below the city. This
same Joseph Habersham, it is said, led a party which went out in 1775
in skiffs--called _bateaux_ along this part of the coast--boarded the
British ship _Hinchenbroke_, lying at anchor in the river, and captured
her in a hand-to-hand conflict. Mr. Neyle Colquitt of Savannah, a
descendant of the Habershams, tells me that the powder taken from the
_Hinchenbroke_ was used at the Battle of Bunker Hill. After the war, in
which Joseph Habersham commanded a regiment of regulars, he was made
Postmaster General of the United States. The old house itself was built
by Archibald Bulloch, a progenitor of that Miss "Mittie" Bulloch who
later became Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., mother of the President. It
was designed by an English architect named Jay, who did a number of the
fine old houses of Savannah, which are almost without exception of the
Georgian period. Archibald Bulloch bought the lot on which he built the
house from Matthew McAllister, great-grandfather of Ward McAllister.
When sold by Bulloch it passed through several hands and finally came
into the possession of Robert Habersham, a son of Joseph.

The old house was spacious and its interiors had a fine formality about
them. The staircase, fireplace and chandeliers were handsome, and there
was at the rear a charming oval room, the heavy mahogany doors of which
were curved to conform to the shape of the walls. To tear down such a
house was sacrilege--also it was a sacrilege hard to commit, for some of
the basement walls were fifteen feet thick, and of solid brick straight
through.

Sherman's headquarters were on the Square, just south of the De Soto
Hotel, in the battlemented brick mansion which is the residence of
General Peter W. Meldrim, ex-president of the American Bar Association,
and former Mayor of Savannah.

Among other old houses characteristic of Savannah, are the Scarborough
house, the Mackay house, the Thomas house in Franklin Square (also known
as the Owens house), in which Lafayette was entertained, and the Telfair
house, now the Telfair Academy. The Telfair and Thomas houses were built
by the ar