“Light of the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry.” 

 —Motto of The Savannah Morning News 

The Oliver Sturges House 

Built in 1813, the Oliver Sturges House was the home of a successful Savannahian merchant. The house occupies what was originally the parsonage site of John Wesley, later founder of Methodism, who was a minister of the Church of England at the time he resided in Savannah between 1736 and 1737. 

Benjamin Burroughs, a business partner to Mr. Sturges, owned an exact twin to this house that once occupied the adjacent lot, but which now is the location for the plush and classy Planters Inn. 

The Oliver Sturgis House is located on Reynolds Square, named for John Reynolds, the first Royal Governor of the Georgia Colony. It is a little surprising that a Square in Savannah was named after him. Reynolds was involved in several quarrels with many of Savannah’s most notable citizens, including James Habersham, Nobel Jones, and Jonathan Bryan. He was later forced to resign his post. 

Oliver Sturges is remembered as a two-fifths owner of the S.S. Savannah, one of the first American steamships ever built. It became the very first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. 

The SS Savannah was created as a sailing vessel. But the Savannah Steam Ship Company, partially owned by Sturges and Burroughs, together with William Scarbrough, purchased the ship before its completion and immediately converted it to an auxiliary steamship.  

The SS Savannah made its maiden voyage in 1818. It was soon after inspected by President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun while visiting Scarbrough’s fabulous home. Monroe and Calhoun were intent on improving American coastal defenses after the disaster of the War of 1812. 

A year later, the Panic of 1819 would end a massive speculative economic boom fueled by easy bank credit, leading to the first significant financial bust in the early history of the United States. The Bank of the United States, with a branch in Savannah, called in its loans, bringing ruin to many local businesses. 

A fabulous model of the SS Savannah can be inspected at the Ships of the Sea Museum (see PFS-49). 

 On May 24, 1818, the SS Savannah departed its Savannah home-port for Liverpool, England. It crossed the Atlantic in twenty-seven days, although much of that time under sail instead of steam power.  

The ship would next be bound for St. Petersburg, Russia, stopping along the way in the various ports of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, among others, to greet Ambassadors, Nobles, Lords, Kings, Queens, Princes, and Emperors. It became the first steamship to enter the Baltic Sea. 

While the long voyage brought it great notoriety, following the return of the Savannah, its engine was removed. Additional cargo space was required to make the vessel profitable for shipping. 

In November 1821, the Savannah was blown ashore along Long Island, New York, and destroyed. 

The Oliver Sturges House was later owned and occupied by the Morris Newspaper Corporation, the publisher of the Savannah Morning News. It was purchased from the Historic Savannah Foundation in 1971. By 1973, under the supervision of Charles H. Morris, the firm had carefully and beautifully restored the house. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.