As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, there will be plenty of talk about Irish ghosts. The Old Fort District where many Irish immigrants first lived in Savannah will be discussed on tours, as will the ghost of Alice Riley, the Irish indentured servant who is said to haunt Wright Square.
Somewhere there William Kehoe may be mentioned.
Columbia Square sees plenty of walking, hearse, and trolley tours every night that all talk about the childhood ghosts that haunt the Kehoe House Inn. Legend has it that during a game of hide and seek, the young Kehoe twins crawled down a chimney only to get trapped and die. Now you can hear their ghosts playing in the hallways at night.
The ghosts are given a backstory and much speculation, but William Kehoe, the man who built the house and lived there for many years, usually only gets a passing mention. That’s a shame, because he was a central figure in shaping Savannah.
Kehoe was born in Ireland in 1843 and moved to Savannah with his parents as a child. As a young man he started working for Savannah Machine and Boiler Works. He was able to work his way up to foreman at Phoenix Architectural Works. The owner named his wife, Ellen Monohan, and William Kehoe as the owners in his will in 1878. Shortly after, William was able to buy Ellen’s share of the company and renamed it Kehoe Iron Works.
More Boo Business:
As you can tell from the splendor and detail of what is now the Kehoe House Inn, the ironworks was successful. William used a lot of iron in the construction of his beautiful home on Columbia Square in the 1890s.
Had William quit the Kehoe Iron Works, he would still be considered an American success story, but he didn’t stop there. He was also a founder of Chatham Savings and Loan Company, a director of Savannah Electric and Power Company, an initiator of the Tybee Railroad, a Chatham County commissioner, and a member of Tybee Town Council.
A staunch Catholic, he also served on the board of St. Mary’s Female Orphanage Benevolent Society and served on the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society of St. John the Baptist’s Cathedral. When St. John’s Cathedral caught fire in 1989, he was even on the committee to rebuild it. He even donated ironwork.
It wasn’t all about William, though. He married a woman named Anne Flood in 1868. The two would have 10 children, but only nine survived childhood. From the stories I’ve found passed down to biographers of the Kehoe children, it sounds like they had a wonderful childhood with loving parents.
William sold the house after the death of his wife Anne in 1920 and moved to a house on East 36th Street, where he died of pneumonia in 1929 at the age of 87.
As for the ghosts that haunt the Kehoe House Inn, I’ve scoured the Kehoe Family’s birth, death, and census records. It doesn’t appear that William and Anne ever had twins. While William survived some of his children, one died as a baby and three others died as adults. No mention of chimneys in their death certificates.
That’s So Savannah:Which haunted house almost turned into a nightclub?
I’m not saying it isn’t haunted. Many people who have stayed and worked at the Kehoe House have told me about their encounters with the ghost children. I’m just saying the backstory isn’t right.
Perhaps Kehoe’s children had such fond memories of the house that they decided to return to the afterlife to play and mess with adults as they did as children. And maybe a ghostly William Kehoe is lurking to make sure no one ruins his beautiful ironwork.
Enocha Edenfield is no stranger to Savannah spirits. You can find more of her ghost explorations on YouTube and TikTok.