No Bull I Helped Build Savannah

The Bull Monument

​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.

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Map Mosaic of Savannah at base of Bull Monument