Johnson Square

Johnson Square, the first of Savannah's squares, was laid out by Oglethorpe and Colonel William Bull in 1733 and was named for Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina, who befriended the colonists when Georgia was first settled. In the early colonial period, the public stores, the house for strangers, the church, and the public bake oven stood on the trust lots around it. Historic events there included a 1735 recitation by the head Chief of the Creek Nation of the origin myth of the Creeks; in 1737, the Rev. John Wesley, after futile efforts to bring to trail certain indictments against him growing out of his ministry at Savannah, posted public notice in the square that he intended to return to England; and the reading of the Declaration of Independence to an enthusiastic audience on August 10, 1776. In 1819, a ball for President James Monroe was given in a pavilion erected in the square. Speakers there included the Marquis de LaFayette in 1825, Henry Clay in 1847, and Daniel Webster in 1848. Beneath the Nathanael Greene monument rest the remains of the Revolutionary general and his son.

Savannah, Georgia · United States