This hallway, which was originally three small rooms, was part of the original plumbing system. The area in the center with the lowered ceiling held a flush water closet with a cistern above in the attic. Further down, marks on the wall indicate where a sink was once mounted. At the end of the hall, we have replaced several boards with glass. The glass is safe to walk on. Through the glass, you can see the cistern that is located between the first and second floors. This cistern fed water to the master bathroom below. Toward the end of the glass, you can see the flushing mechanism for the facilities below. Although it’s larger and made of heavier materials, it has essentially the same design as the components in the back of modern toilets.

The walls were removed to create a hallway after modern plumbing was installed in the 20th century.

This hallway, which was originally three small rooms, was part of the original plumbing system, a luxurious innovation for a home in the United States during this period. Cisterns in the attic, between the floors, and in the basement supplied running water from rainwater captured on the roof to all levels of the home. The area in the center of this hallway with the lowered ceiling held a flush water closet with a cistern above in the attic. Further down, marks on the wall indicate where a sink was once mounted. At the end of the hall, we have replaced several boards with glass. The glass is safe to walk on. Through the glass, you can see the cistern that is located between the first and second floors. This cistern fed water to the primary bed chamber below, which had a tub and flush water closet. Toward the end of the glass, you can see the flushing mechanism for the facilities. Although it is larger and made of heavier materials, it essentially has the same design as the components in the back of modern toilets.

Enslaved laborers likely would not have been allowed to use this system. They used the privy, or outhouse, that was in the corner of the rear yard.

The tour continues in the library directly across the hall.

George Owens met with friends and colleagues for business and social visits in this library. Owens was politically active locally and nationally, serving as alderman in Savannah for 11 years, and as mayor in 1832. He also served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1835 to 1839.

Bound copies of debate records during Owens’ years in Congress are in the bookcase over the desk in this room. He participated in numerous legislative actions. In 1836, Owens and his southern peers succeeded in passing the first gag rule, which tabled any discussion of the abolition of slavery in the House of Representatives. Southern lawmakers, who relied on enslaving people to maintain economic and political dominance, strongly opposed abolition and fought vigorously to keep any debate about it out of the halls of Congress. Owens likewise supported other measures, such as the forced removal of Cherokee peoples from the South, that helped wealthy white enslavers like himself to expand their land holdings and solidify their economic and political power.

Unlike their sisters, the Owens sons’ education continued beyond local academies to prepare them to follow in their father’s footsteps and conduct business in the world. After their early education, they attended universities. The oldest son, Richard, went to the University of Pennsylvania, while his younger brothers John and George studied at the newly opened Oglethorpe College in Milledgeville, then the capital of Georgia.

Like most children from wealthy southern families, enslaved women likely cared for the Owens children for most of their lives. Many white wealthy families enslaved young women as wet nurses for their children. Yet, as adults, John and George Owens wrote about disciplining enslaved servants in letters to family members. They also placed enslaved servants in the local jail for punishments on several occasions, including a woman named Emma. In John’s will, he left $100 to his “faithful nurse, Emma,” but in this same document he also detailed continued ownership of Emma’s daughter, Harriet, and her children within the Owens family. He probably viewed this as generous, because he had been taught by his parents and society to treat enslaved people as property.

Please descend the stairs immediately to your left. At the bottom of the stairway, turn right to return to the rear hall and proceed to the next listening station in the first-floor bedchamber.

This room was the primary bed chamber for the home, a private space for Richard and Frances Richardson and George and Sarah Owens. The bust of the Marquis de Lafayette in this room honors his stay in this house while visiting Savannah during his tour of the United States celebrating the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution. The French general provided help to the colonists during the war, including successfully lobbying for aid from France and leading forces in critical battles. When Lafayette visited Savannah in 1825, he was the last surviving major general of the Revolution and somewhat of a celebrity in the United States. Lafayette was also an ardent abolitionist and was greatly disappointed that the US chose to continue the system of slavery after gaining independence from Britain. Lafayette is said to have told a friend, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery!” Savannahians were nervous about one of the world’s most famous abolitionists visiting a city filled with enslaved people. The mayor even published a notice in local newspapers beforehand to remind enslavers to keep their enslaved laborers out of sight and warning free people of color to stay away from the parades and other events celebrating Lafayette.

Please return to the back porch and use the right-side staircase to reach the stairs to the basement, where the tour continues in the first room on the right.

This is the original kitchen for the property. The Owenses’ enslaved cook, who may have been named Diana, spent most of her time in this space. She would have awoken before sunrise to start the fires for the cast iron range and in the inset bake oven in the wall. These fires likely blazed all day, causing a huge amount of heat to be generated in this small and cramped workspace. In addition to preparing daily meals for the Owens family and enslaved household, the cook probably was responsible for purchasing foodstuffs from markets, as well as collecting any materials from the work yard, such as herbs from the kitchen garden or eggs from chickens. Other enslaved servants, including children, likely helped the cook with these tasks, but under her supervision and instruction. Additionally, because Sarah Owens would have determined the menus, the cook would have created dishes according to Sarah’s wishes.

Because of the Owenses’ social standing and Savannahians’ dining habits, Diana and other enslaved servants likely prepared very complicated, time-consuming, and challenging dishes for the elaborate dinners that took place when the family was entertaining guests. They used heavy cast iron kettles and pans and large earthenware bowls, and they would not have slept until after they cleaned and stored everything that they used in these processes.

The scullery typically was dedicated to tasks involving water. Enslaved women washed pots and pans, prepared vegetables, and may have cleaned laundry in this room. Laundry was a hazardous task before modern technology. Boiling water and lye, a caustic ingredient in soap making that often irritates or damages skin, made it both exhausting and dangerous.

Enslaved servants likely washed their clothes separately from the Owenses’ in the yard outside the slave quarters when other tasks were complete.

Beyond this room is the cellar, which housed many valuable commodities and remained under lock and key. It is difficult to determine who had access to the goods stored here and how much discretion they had over their use. The cook certainly needed access to sugar, spices, and other valuable ingredients, and the butler also needed to obtain the wine he served upstairs, but Sarah Owens likely kept these keys.

The sophisticated innovation of an indoor plumbing system changed the daily lives of the house’s inhabitants in profound ways. For the Richardsons and Owenses, the system was a mark of elite social status, not to mention a convenience. For the enslaved people in the house, the system meant less water to haul from the well and fewer chamber pots to empty. It also meant maintaining, cleaning, and repairing a one-of-a-kind plumbing system in a city without trained plumbers.

Pass through the cistern on the glass floor and walk up the steps to see inside the ice chamber. Fortunately for Richard Richardson and others of his economic class, the ice trade was beginning to flourish at the time this house was constructed, allowing for refrigeration and food preservation. Workers in the Northeast cut 50-pound blocks of ice from lakes, packed them in straw and sawdust to slow melting, and shipped them down the coast. Enslaved delivery men brought blocks of ice to the house where the butler oversaw their movement through the trap door and into the ice chamber.

Because plank walls originally divided this space into four separate chambers, it is believed to have been a bathing room. Large tubs would have rested on the slabs that you see today. The small holes lead to brick-lined drains that run under your feet and would have connected to additional drains in the center of the cellar. The rectangular, walled basin in the corner may have been a shower. Such a space would have been an immense luxury in the United States, let alone Savannah. Since the first-floor chamber had its own tub, guests and children were more likely to have used this room. Enslaved people bathed used a wash tub in front of the fireplace in their sleeping quarters, the same method used by other people of lower economic status regardless of race.

At Telfair Museums, our research into the lives of the people who have lived and worked at our historic sites continues. Although we have personal letters, legal documents, and other primary resources to tell us about the lives and opinions of the white families who occupied these spaces, there remains much to learn about the enslaved people and others whose voices have not been allowed to be heard.

Despite slavery legally ending in the United States in 1865, its legacy remains. Many people in our society are still denied access to healthcare, nutritious food, clean water, quality education, and equal treatment before the law. Addressing these inequalities involves difficult conversations and risks but is necessary for disrupting the cycles of systemic oppression that haunt our society to this day.