​Savannah is known for its writers. We have two Pulitzer Prize winners Conrad Aiken for poetry and James Alan Macpherson for short stories. We also have the Queen of Southern writers Flannery O’Connor and the founder of the writing clubs Zona Rosa also known as acclaimed writer Rosemary Daniell. We have New York Times religious bestseller writer Bruce Feiler and of course Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil written by John Berendt. Then there was Chris Fuhrman born in Savannah New Year’s Day in 1960. Chris Fuhrman graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and earned his master's degree from Columbia University. His one book The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys was his debut and only novel. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys was published posthumously in 1994. It opened to great praise and would be made into a movie by Jodie Foster. He was thirty when he wrote the novel and that was the year he died of cancer.

The story is a coming of age story of three boys who attended Catholic School here in Savannah in the early 1970s. Francis Doyle, Tim Sullivan, and their three closest friends are altar boys at Blessed Heart Catholic Church and eighth-grade classmates at the parish school. They are creative students who love a good prank and find adults a bit humorous. They write a comic book called Sodom vs. Gomorrah '74. The comic book depicts Blessed Heart's nuns and priests breaking the Seventh Commandment. But much to their dismay the comic falls into the hands of the principal. The gang conspire to create a diversion grand enough to make everyone forget their comic and thus avoid the parents’ and principal’s wrath. And from there the story takes all sorts of hilarious twist and turns while they continue their school day routine and the initiatory rites of male adolescence.

The cover of the book looks like a comic book a lifelong passion of Fuhrman. But the content inside is poignant prose. It was made into a movie with Jodie Foster and Emile Hirsch as stars. The characters’ thoughts are sometimes portrayed by animation by noted animator Todd Macfarlane to emphasize the juvenile and creative thinking of the characters. It was an independent movie that Rotten Tomatoes critics rated at 77%. The New York Times called it a "bracingly truthful" coming-of-age film from the directorial debut of Peter Care. In 2002, the film and director Care won the award for Best New Filmmaker from the Boston Society of Film Critics. In 2003, the film won for Best First Feature. The film was not able to be made in Savannah at the Catholic locales because of its controversial nature. It would also not premiere in Savannah for what one presumes were similar reasons.
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The book is still in print over twenty years after its first printing. It is considered by many as a coming of age cult classic. It is a good read and leaves you wondering what other stories lay within such a fertile mind. Fuhrman died On May 01, 1991. His funeral service was held at the Oatland Island Education Center. He stands today as one of Savannah’s lesser literary lights.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​William Bull (1683 – March 21, 1755) was more or less a visitor to our fair city. He stayed here less than two years but made remarkable contributions to our fair city. Some people believe that Oglethorpe and the good ship Anne came from England straight to Savannah. But Oglethorpe and the early settlers had never been to America and had yet to know of the land we now call Savannah. They stopped at the already settled city of Charleston to resupply and garner advice for where they should settle in what would be called Georgia.

Governor Johnson of South Carolina suggested a place south of Savannah but Oglethorpe would decide that it was too close to the Spanish in Florida. So he took some of the more prominent settlers and at the time a man called Col. William Bull of Charleston with him. William’s father Samuel had been an original settler of the Carolinas and had established the Ashley Hall Plantation. William was really of old Charleston blood. He was an up and comer in the life of South Carolina.

William Bull knew the coast of Georgia well from trading with the Native Americans there. So he took Oglethorpe and his settlers to different locations on the coast to see if any suited Oglethorpe. When Oglethorpe saw the bluff and natural harbor at what we now call Savannah he knew he had found a home for his settlers. The Savannah location offered a bluff for protection against incursions from the Spanish and a harbor for welcoming new settlers and supply ships.

Col. Bull because of his skills in architecture and the different materials to build with directed the building of the early structures and residents of Savannah. But it was his engineering skills that have literally left his mark on Savannah. Bull offered his counsel and the actual laying out of the city plan that Oglethorpe envisioned. This urban layout is internationally known as the Oglethorpe Plan. For these contributions probably Savannah’s most prominent street is named after him: Bull Street.

In Savannah’s first square, Johnson Square, is found a sundial in his honor. There is a mosaic of Peter Gordon’s map of Savannah in 1734.Gordon had traveled with Oglethorpe and Bull on the first expeditionary trip establishing Savannah on Yamacraw Bluff.

Col William Bull would later serve as governor of South Carolina from 1738-44. Bull served as a militia officer in the Tuscarora and Yamassee Indian Wars. As governor his most notable act was his brisk suppression of the Stono River Slave Rebellion (September 1739), and the resulting legislation that restricted the activities of free blacks as well as slaves. His son William Bull Jr. would also serve South Carolina as governor.

An anecdote of Governor Bull was while walking one day before his residence and the State House, he was met by a plain, uneducated back-country man, who stopped and stared at him with open mouth. The governor also stopped and civilly asked the country man, "what is the matter, friend?" The fellow replied, "Really, Mister, you are the ugliest man that I ever saw in my life." The governor smiled as if neither surprised nor displeased, and with much good humor said, "But you would not say so if you had seen my brother.’

I do not know about his looks or his attitudes about slavery but I do know in the settling of Savannah he shares a place of honor.

​Savannah has had some very generous philanthropists but Percival Randolph Cohen is one of the least recognized but more generous. He was the CEO of the Savannah Compress Company. His philantrophy would be wide and deep. At his death he sealed his prominence as one of Savannah’s great men.
 
He left $50,000 in his will to build Cohen’s Old Man’s Retreat to house thirty-one retired railroad workers or men in need of a home to stay after they could no longer work. He wanted to build a facility 'where men would not die old and lonely". The building was big and beautiful. Today the building is home to Cohen’s Retreat Restaurant and other shops on Skidaway Island Road. He also left $63,000 to the Bethesda Home for Boys, to build one of their residential homes. It is named Cohen Cottage and still stands today.
 
Cohen also left a gift of $40,000 to the Froebel Circle, named after the founder of the kindergarten movement, German Frederick Froebel. The group was founded by local innovative educator and activist Nina Pape. The work of the Circle was to be directed toward increasing the health and happiness of underprivileged children. This gift made it possible for the Circle to erect a building known as the Cohen Shelter for Little Ones on Tybee Island. The largest building on their campus.  On April 15, 1929, the cornerstone, that included a box containing corn, wine, and oil, emblematic of plenty, the spirit of joy, and the spirit of peace, was laid. The box also contained a copy of the Savannah Morning News, a copy of Mr. Cohen’s will, a history of the Froebel Circle, a coin of the year 1898, and a coin of the year 1928.127 The summer camp for needy children is still active today.
 
Cohen also left $1,500 in his will to the city of Savannah for a drinking fountain for horses and mules that were the workhorses for transporting cotton to and fro on Factor’s Walk. One can imagine he often watched the horses on hot days trudging along and felt compassion for them. The only problem was that when he included the fountain in his will and, by the time he died, things had changed. We were quickly moving into an automobile culture and horses and mules were to be found on farms, but not urban areas. The city hired one of its best architects, Henrik Wallin, to design the fountain. He’d designed various buildings around town including the Armstrong House (which would become the birthplace of Armstrong Atlantic State University), the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Wallin Hall, and the major renovation and redesign of First Baptist Church to name three. To solve the problem of the fountain for animals that were no longer seen on the streets of Savannah, he designed it with a birdbath on top and water for dogs underneath. Initially, the Fountain stood in the middle of the wide, brick-paved intersection of Bay and Whitaker Streets. But in 1945, as automobile traffic increased, the city moved the Fountain to Victory Drive and Bull Street.
 
Through his will, Cohen cared for the less fortunate. His will offered respite for the old, the orphaned, and impoverished children. The concept of taking under-privileged children to the beach for two weeks to experience the benefits of fresh air, exercise, and the beauty of nature was innovative for that time. Remarkably, Cohen’s mandate also included a gift to the animals. And one could infer from its title Cohen Humane Fountain. He was a member of the local chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He thought it humane to include the animals in our concerns and care. Today, many thousands pass this gift for work-animals everyday, but few will know the heart of the man who gave it to Savannah.

​Percival Randolph Cohen was laid to rest in Laurel Grove Cemetery on April 21, 1927 at the family site. Cohen's grave reads, "The memory of the just is blessed".