This point sits at the Sorrel–Weed House, a historic house museum at West Harris Street in Savannah.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 1733–1994
The short answer
The Sorrel–Weed House at West Harris Street in Savannah is a Greek Revival and Regency mansion built between 1835 and 1840 by architect Charles B. Cluskey for shipping merchant Francis Sorrel. It is now a historic house museum offering daytime architecture tours and nightly ghost tours, and was designated a Georgia State Landmark in 1954.
1835 to 1840
Charles B. Cluskey builds a mansion for Francis Sorrel
The Sorrel–Weed House is a Greek Revival and Regency mansion on Madison Square, now run as a historic house museum with daily tours. It was built between 1835 and 1840 by the architect Charles B. Cluskey, who had moved to Savannah from New York and apprenticed under a well-known architecture firm there. He designed the house for Francis Sorrel, a wealthy shipping merchant who had been born in Haiti and brought to Savannah as a child. Sorrel built a fortune importing goods from the West Indies, working with a partner named Henry Douglass. Records also show he bought and sold enslaved people through his business.
Sorrel married twice. His first wife, Lucinda Moxley, died of yellow fever. He then married her sister, Matilda Moxley, who raised their children in this house. One of their sons, Gilbert Moxley Sorrel, was born here. Gilbert Moxley Sorrel worked as a bank clerk in Savannah before the Civil War, then served under General James Longstreet and was wounded three times. By 1864, at age 26, he became a brigadier general, one of the youngest in the Confederate army. He later wrote a memoir of his wartime service, still regarded as one of the better firsthand accounts from either side.
General Robert E. Lee was a longtime friend of Francis Sorrel and stayed in the house in late 1861 and early 1862. Lee returned once more in the 1870s, not long before his own death.
By 1859, Francis Sorrel had sold the house to a Connecticut businessman named Henry Davis Weed, and the family moved next door. Matilda Sorrel died there in March 1860, falling from an upper-story window. A letter written the same day called it a moment of madness. The Weed family kept ownership of the original house until 1914.
1860 to 1941
A ghost-tour legend contradicts the historical record
The ghost story told on tours today claims Matilda caught Francis in an affair with an enslaved woman named Molly, in the carriage house, and jumped from the balcony in despair. Molly, the story goes, was later found dead. Tour guides still tell it every evening.
The record does not support it. The historian James Caskey has also pointed out that Matilda died at West Harris Street, next door, where the family had already moved. James Caskey calls the version told on ghost tours "completely meaningless" as history.
In 1941, Savannah retailer A. J. Cohen Sr. Bought it, and his family kept it for the next fifty years.
1954 to 2005
The house becomes a landmark, then a museum
Georgia named the house a State Landmark in 1954, one of the first two buildings in the state to get that designation. The Cohen family sold it in the early 1990s. By 2005, it had reopened as a museum, running daytime architecture tours and nightly ghost tours.
The ghost tours lean hard on the Molly legend. Some claim Molly's presence lingers in the carriage house, with cold spots and footsteps on bare floor. A handprint on a basement door is said to belong to an enslaved person mistreated in the house, and some visitors say they struggle to breathe in certain rooms.
1994 to now
A feather drifts across the square in Forrest Gump
The house found a different kind of fame in 1994, when the opening shot of Forrest Gump was filmed from its rooftop, the camera panning across Madison Square as a feather drifts through the sky. Paranormal investigation shows have returned again and again: Ghost Hunters in 2005, HGTV's If Walls Could Talk in 2006, Ghost Adventures in 2014. The crew of Ghost Adventures called it one of the most unsettling houses they had investigated anywhere.
The Sorrel–Weed House still stands on Madison Square today, its Greek Revival columns facing the square where General William Jasper fell during the Siege of Savannah in 1779, more than fifty years before the house was built. The square itself did not exist yet when Jasper died on that ground. A bronze monument to him, raised in 1888, now stands at its center.
The Sorrel–Weed House still gives tours by day and ghost tours by night, on the square where Jasper fell.
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Early modern
This National Historic Landmark house, a short walk from the square, served as Union General William T. Sherman's headquarters when he occupied Savannah in 1864.
Colonial Park Cemetery, laid out in 1750, holds Button Gwinnett and Archibald Bulloch, both signers or early leaders of Revolutionary Georgia, along with Nathanael Greene-era generals and merchants.
On October 9, 1779, French and American troops under Count d'Estaing and Casimir Pulaski attacked the British defensive line running through what is now Madison Square, open ground at the time.
Guides tell of an enslaved woman named Molly murdered in the carriage house, but no historical record of her in the Sorrel household exists, and Wikipedia and historian James Caskey call the story likely fictional.
Gilbert Moxley Sorrel, born here in 1838, became one of the youngest generals in the Confederate Army after serving under James Longstreet and wrote a memoir considered one of the best postwar Confederate accounts.
On March 27, 1860, Matilda Sorrel died after falling from an upper-story window at West Harris Street, next door to the family mansion, according to a letter written that same day by Charles C. Jones Jr.
General Robert E. Lee, a friend of Francis Sorrel since the 1830s, visited the house in late 1861 and early 1862, and again in the 1870s shortly before his death.
In 1888 Alexander Doyle's bronze monument went up at the center of Madison Square to honor Sergeant William Jasper, mortally wounded here while recovering his company's banner during the siege.
After A. J. Cohen Sr. bought the house in 1941, his family added a brick addition and ran the upscale Lady Jane clothing store there for decades until it closed in 1991.
Built between 1835 and 1840 by architect Charles B. Cluskey for shipping merchant Francis Sorrel, the house later saw Francis Sorrel's wife Matilda die from a fall from an upper-story window in March 1860, though records show this happened at West Harris Street next door, where the family had already moved.
Who built the Sorrel-Weed House?
Charles B. Cluskey, an architect who had moved to Savannah from New York, designed and built the house for shipping merchant Francis Sorrel between 1835 and 1840.
What movie was filmed at the Sorrel-Weed House?
The opening shot of Forrest Gump in 1994 was filmed from the rooftop of the Sorrel-Weed House, with the camera panning across Madison Square as a feather drifts through the sky.
Who was born at the Sorrel-Weed House?
Confederate general Gilbert Moxley Sorrel was born in the house in 1838. He served under General James Longstreet, was wounded three times, and became one of the youngest generals in the Confederate army by age 26.
What was here before the Sorrel-Weed House was built?
The ground on Madison Square was open land in 1779 when French and American troops attacked the British defensive line running through it during the Siege of Savannah, decades before the house was constructed between 1835 and 1840.