Johnson Square State Historical Marker

Located on Johnson Square, Savannah, Ga.

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JOHNSON SQUARE

 

Johnson Square is named for Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina

who befriended the colonists when Georgia was first settled. It

was laid out by Oglethorpe and by Colonel William Bull in 1733, and was

the first of Savannah's squares. In early colonial days the public

stores, the house for strangers, the church, and the public bake

oven stood on the trust lots around it.

 

Events of historical interest are associated with Johnson Square.

Here in 1735, Chekilli, head Chief of the Creek Nation, recited

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 a public notice

in this Square that he intended to return to England. The Decla-

ration of Independence was read here to an enthusiastic audience,

August 10, 1776.

 

In 1819 a ball was given for President James Monroe in a pavillion

erected in the Square. Eminent men who have spoken here include

the Marquis de LaFayette, (1825); Henry Caly (1847), and Daniel

Webster (1848). Beneath the Nathanael Greene monument rest the

remains of the famous Revolutionary general and his son.

 

025-38A GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1955

Photo: Ed Jackson

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia

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