Author: Randy 
Date: 2003-01-28
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Little Gracie WatsonThe year was 1883. Only eighteen years after the terrible conflict that would ravage a nation ended. The decade of the eighties found Savannah slowly but surely rebuilding herself. She had been much more fortunate than many other cities in Sherman's march through Georgia. Her charm had wooed the crusty general enough that he had kept the flames of destruction, so familiar in his wake, from touching her. Instead, William T. Sherman had 'given' Savannah to President Lincoln as a 'Christmas present'. This is undoubtedly one reason Savannah would begin to prosper so soon after the war.
Many new homes were being built, cotton was still being shipped out of the Savannah Port making it a busy city. Visitors and travelers were constantly stopping in Savannah for somewhat lengthy stays, whether on business, or other matters. One of the finest and most popular hotels in the city at the time was the famed Pulaski House.
W.J. Watson managed the hotel and lived here with his young wife, Frances. This year she would bear their first (and as far as we know, their only) child, a beautiful little girl whom they would name 'Gracie'.
Gracie would grow up in the Pulaski House, knowing no other home. She loved it here, she loved the guests as well as the employees and Gracie was well loved in return. There was hardly a guest (and certainly no returning guest) who did not know little Gracie Watson. She had many a favorite spot in the hotel and the surrounding area where she would play, often times by herself, many times with the guests, or with her mother. It has been said she loved the kitchen area most of all.
As Gracie grew, so did her beauty and charm, and she was known as the 'star' of Pulaski House. Being their only child, Gracie was naturally the star of her parent's world and the apple of her daddy's eye. They would both be devastated when she contracted pneumonia at the age of six and died two days past Easter in 1889.
W.J. Watson would sink into depression in the years after little Gracie's death. He would leave the Pulaski and take employment at the De Soto Hotel briefly, before taking Frances and leaving Savannah altogether. Some say that W.J. often saw Gracie, wandering through the hotel and in the park. Some say that W.J. would forever move from town to town, sinking deeper and deeper into depression.
Gracie was buried at the family plot in Bonaventue cemetery. Initially, her grave was marked by a conventional tombstone. However, before W.J. would leave Savannah forever, he would commission a sculpture from John Walz, an artist who had recently opened a studio on Bull Street. The story goes that Mr. Watson stopped by the studio, but was unable to speak, still enveloped in grief for his daughter. Walz would work from a photograph given him by Mr. Watson of his beloved Gracie. The result would be a life-size image of Gracie,
sculpted from Georgia marble, which still attracts and charms visitors to her gravesite over 100 years later.
http://www.macmurph.com/photodb/show_comment.php?album_id=281
It is said that often times, one can hear a child softly sobbing at the gravesite, calling for her lost parents. Some have said they have actually seen tears on the life-like image of Gracie.
The Pulaski House is now one of the female dorms at S.C.A.D.
(Savannah College of Art & Design). Students claim to have seen Gracie wandering the halls, playing quietly in some of the rooms, or running through the square just down the street from Pulaski House, stopping to smell the flowers.
It has also been said that Gracie will appear in some form or another in some of the pictures taken at her gravesite. I took many while there (see the album Gracie)
, but see no irregularities in any of them. Do you?
Be sure to stop and visit Gracie when you come to Savannah.
Bring a flower for her. Gracie loves flowers.
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