Franklin Square

About This Square

This square was created in 1790 and named after Benjamin Franklin, who was one of Georgia’s agents in London from 1768 to 1775.

The city’s water tower stood here for a long time and so the more common name for this square was Water Tower or Reservoir or Water Tank square.

It was demolished in 1935 when they straightened and expanded Montgomery Street, an effort that also saw the destruction of Liberty and Elbert Squares which were located to the south of Franklin Square.  The city put the square back in for the 250th anniversary of Georgia and Savannah in 1983, making it one of only two of the four “lost squares” to have been rebuilt.

The monument at the center is to a group of Haitian soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War and features the likeness of 12-year-old Henri Christophe, who went on to become the commander of the Haitian Army and King of Haiti.

The building on the northwest corner of the square is the First African Baptist Church, built in 1859, which is home of the oldest black Christian congregation in the United States dating back to 1788. It was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad, working to get slaves to the free territories.

There is a historical marker on the northeast corner of the square devoted to Jonathan Bryan, a South Carolinian who accompained James Oglethorpe on his 1733 mission to establish the colony of Georgia in what would become Savannah.