The Most Visited Grave
in Savannah.
Nobody Knows Where She Lived.

She was six years old when she died. Two days before Easter. 1889. Her name was Gracie Perry Watson and she grew up inside the Pulaski House Hotel on Johnson Square — at the corner of Bull and Bryan Streets. Her father W.J. Watson managed the hotel. It was her home. She charmed the guests. She danced for them. Then she got pneumonia.

Her father commissioned a sculptor named John Walz to create a life-sized marble statue from a single photograph. The statue was placed at her grave at Bonaventure Cemetery. People have been visiting ever since.

Gracie Watson is one of the most visited graves in Savannah. Ghost tours stop there every night. Tourists make the trip specifically to see her. They leave toys at her feet.

The Pulaski House Hotel — where Gracie grew up, where she danced for guests, where she got sick, where she died — was demolished in 1956. A Regions Bank branch was built in its place on Johnson Square — the oldest square in Savannah, designed by Oglethorpe in 1733. The home of the most beloved child in Savannah tourism history was torn down for a bank. Nobody marks where she lived.