Eagle Legends and Lore

Two Whales of a Tale

One of the stranger stories making its way into Georgia Southern lore is the story of a whale supposedly buried in Sweetheart Circle. Through the years, various alumni have spoken about the buried whale, some even getting engaged “on top of the whale.”

Georgia Southern Magazine dived a bit deeper and discovered the legend is a mix-up of two different whales. This is the real story as recounted by three people in the know.

The story of whale number one comes from alumni Frank and Victoria Logue. In the winter of 1983, a beached whale – a Bryde’s whale lovingly known as “Smelly Dave” – was found dead on Georgia’s Blackbeard Island. Some members of the geology department heard about it, went to the island and removed most of the whale’s flesh until mostly bone remained. The remains were buried in a sandy grave on the island, but much later a smaller group went back and exhumed the skeleton. They brought it back for the Georgia Southern University Museum where it remains as part of the Museum’s permanent collection.

In the photo Professor Richard Petkewich, a paleontologist, has his arm around the photographer, who used a tripod and timer to take the photo. The photographer’s wife, Victoria, is in the bottom row of the photo in the center. The photographer is 1984 graduate Frank Logue, now the esteemed 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

And here is the story of the second whale as told by Professor Brent Tharp, Ph.D., director of the Georgia Southern University Museum.

“It always delights me that the legend of the Sweetheart Circle whale is kept alive not by the Museum or the Department of Geology and Geography, but by generations of Georgia Southern University students who pass down the story from one class to another as their shared history of their time on campus. However, like any good legend it has some core truths and over time some added exaggerations or confusions. Ultimately, it all leads back to the extraordinary professor Dr. Richard Petkewich.

“Petkewich was licensed to collect marine mammal specimens that died on the beaches of Georgia’s sea islands to use as comparative collections with the museum’s fossil collections. Among those specimens was the Bryde’s whale that Frank and Victoria Logue helped secure. ‘Smelly Dave’ as they called him, is fortunately no longer smelly and, in fact, is currently on loan, mounted and on exhibit at the Telfair Museum in Savannah. He will return to the Georgia Southern Museum later this year. Dave, however, is not the Sweetheart Circle whale.

“Dr. Petkewich also secured a Pygmy Sperm whale, and this specimen was brought back to Georgia Southern and was buried in the sandhill near Sweetheart Circle. The goal was to later exhume the mostly defleshed whale and secure the skeleton for the museum collection. Unfortunately, Dr. Petkewich became ill and passed away before he retrieved the skeleton and so it remains buried on campus. This is the ‘Sweetheart Circle Whale’ that students keep alive in the ‘legends’ passed along and that the Museum occasionally corrects.”

Beautiful Beginnings

Photos by Thomas Loof

As Savannah Mayor Thomas Gamble made his final push to establish a junior college in the city in 1935, he was also tasked with finding a location for it.

Before securing the beautiful Armstrong House on Bull Street, however, Gamble and the junior college committee were seriously considering sharing the Savannah High School facilities. The college would occupy the spaces after the high school teachers and students had gone home for the day.

Luckily, however, Gamble convinced the family of the late George Ferguson Armstrong, a local shipping magnate, to give their home to the city as the site for the school. Armstrong Memorial Junior College would remain in the building until 1966, when they moved to the “backwoods” of Savannah’s southside, where Abercorn Street ended at the college entrance.

The mansion was built between 1917 and 1919 and is illustrative of the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style. It was designed by the architect Henrik Wallin as a 10-bedroom home of nearly 26,000 square feet that included an orangery (an early term for a large greenhouse or conservatory), large gallery and sunporch. The front and rear grounds were enclosed by 200 feet of ornate iron fencing designed after those surrounding Buckingham Palace.

The mansion has been used in movies such as “Cape Fear,” the 1962 thriller starring Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, and 1997’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” directed by Clint Eastwood.

The preservationist and hotelier Richard C. Kessler acquired the mansion in 2017. He commissioned a complete restoration of the property including the original carriage house which had been demolished to make room for additional Armstrong Junior College buildings. The mansion and landscaping were restored as closely as possible to the original design using original materials.