THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN COLONIAL GEORGIA
By GEORGE F. JONES
For all practical purposes the history of the Germans in Georgia began
on March 12, 1734, with the arrival of the first Protestant refugees from
Salzburg.¹ It is conceivable that some German mercenary trooper had
taken part on De
Soto's ill-starred journey through Georgia, or even that
some German religious served in one of the sixteenth-century Spanish
missions there, but there is no evidence that this was the case. A German
Jewish couple, who had arrived eight months earlier, were in Savannah
to greet the Salzburgers when they arrived; and a German carpenter who
joined the party at Charleston left the ship when it reached the mouth of
the Savannah River and proceeded to the city ahead of them. But these
were individual cases that scarcely affected the main course of German
life in the colony.
By the time the Salzburgers reached Georgia, Germans had already
found their way to all of the older British colonies, sometimes in large
numbers; yet they had always come subsequent to, and incidentally to,
the founding of the colony. Only in the case of Georgia can they be said
to have been a factor in the original plan of colonization; for Georgia's
philanthropic founders, the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia,
expressly stated that they were establishing their colony not only as a
haven for impecunious Englishmen, but also as "a refuge for the distressed
Salzburgers and other Protestants." The Salzburgers landed one year and
six weeks after Oglethorpe first settled his Utopian colony.
Popular concern for persecuted Protestants was prompted by the suf-
fering of the exiles from Salzburg, who had been expelled from their home-
land the previous year. The Lutheran Reformation had made early inroads
into Salzburg, as into most areas of southern Germany, even though it was
a church state under the absolute rule of its Roman Catholic archbishop.
Notwithstanding nearly two centuries of persecution, some Salzburgers still
clung to their heresy and refused obeisance to the established church.
Exasperated by their obstinacy and believing the resistance limited to a
handful of fanatics, Archbishop Leopold Anton, Count of Firmian, finally
decreed in 1731 that all Protestants would have to recant their faith or else
leave their country at once. Great was his amazement when, instead of a
handful of fanatics, he saw some 25,000 people, nearly a fifth of the entire
population, voluntarily abandon their homes rather than desert their faith.
As the first major religious persecution in Europe since the Treaty of
Westphalia, this expulsion greatly incensed the Protestant states of northern
Germany and persuaded their rulers to aid the expulsees. Moved by piety
and policy, the Elector of Brandenburg accepted some 17,000 of the exiles
1
The two most important sources for the history of the Germans in colonial Georgia are the
Urlsperger Nachrichten (Ausfürliche Nachricht vm den Saltzburgischen Emigranten, die sich in
America niedergelassen haben, Halle, 1735 ff.) and The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, ed.
Allen D. Chandler, Atlanta, 1904 ff. Although over a century old and written from an ecclesiastical
bias, the best secondary source remains P. A. Strobel, The Salzburgers and their Descendants, Baltimore,
1865; reprint by U. of Ga. Press, Athens, 1953. Minor errors concerning the expulsion are corrected by
A. Prinzinger, Die Ansiedlung der Salzburger im Staate Georgien in Nordamerika," Mitteilungen der
Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde, XXII, Salzburg, 1882, pp. 1-36. Well written, but contributing
little beyond Strobel, is D. M. Gilbert, "The Early History of the Lutheran Church in Georgia," The
Quarterly Review of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, XXVII, Gettysburg, 1897, pp. 155-174.
[71]
into his sparsely populated lands in East Prussia, where they made a
valuable contribution to his country; and other North German states and
the Netherlands accepted smaller numbers of these displaced persons. The
plight of the Salzburgers was publicized in Protestant England, where the
king and his court were German Lutherans in private life. Being the Duke
of Hannover as well as the King of England, George II spoke German as a
mother tongue and retained a Lutheran chaplain at his court. Propaganda
about the Salzburg persecution helped justify the British policy of keeping
their colonies Protestant, a policy deemed especially important in Georgia,
which was exposed to the Catholic Spaniards in Florida.
The leading English missionary movement at the time, the Society for
the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, collaborated wholeheartedly with
the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in arranging to recruit
and transport those Salzburgers who wished to emigrate to the new colony
and to maintain them there until they should be self-sustaining. Correspon-
dence was begun with various Protestant clergymen in Germany, especially
with Rev. Samuel Urlsperger, the Senior of St. Anne's Church in Augsburg,
who remained for many years the Georgia Salzburgers' chief benefactor on
the Continent. To him we owe the Urlsperger Nachrichten, a voluminous
series of pamphlets concerning the Georgia Salzburgers and their experi-
ences, which were published from time to time for the information of
German well-wishers.²
Word was soon spread that free passage to Georgia, fifty acres of land
in freehold, and a year's provisions were available to all worthy Salzburgers
who wished to emigrate. As soon as forty-two volunteers were assembled
at Augsburg, they set out on the long journey to Georgia under the leader-
ship of a young gentleman named Philipp Georg Friedrich von Reck.³
Passing through Rothenburg, the exiles proceeded to Markt Steft, where
they went aboard ship for the trip down the River Main and then down
the Rhine to Rotterdam. Parading through all the Protestant cities along
the way, they sang their exiles' song and presented an inspiring sight to
their co-religionists, who contributed generously to their cause. This pious
procession delighted the Protestant clergy, who could hold up the exiles'
faith as a shining example for their own complacent congregations. The
Salzburgers' arrival at a village near Frankfurt was later immortalized by
none other than Goethe himself, albeit in a somewhat disguised form; for
his idyllic epic, Hermann und Dorothea, was first suggested by an eye-
witness account of this reception given to the Salzburgers three quarters
of a century earlier. Goethe well succeeded in reproducing the solemnity
of the original account, even though he altered the facts and let his exiles
flee from French devastation in the Palatinate instead of from religious
intolerance in Salzburg. Goethe's poem in turn inspired Longfellow's treat-
ment of the Arcadian expulsion in his Evangeline.
In Rotterdam the Salzburgers were joined by two young pastors from
Halle, who were sent to care for their spiritual needs in the New World.
No better selection could have been made; for two more able, willing, and
selfless young men could not have been found. Johann Martin Bolzius,
4
until then superintendent of the Latin school at Halle, was assisted by Israel
Christian Gronau, formerly a tutor at that institution. On their way from
Halle to Rotterdam they were both ordained into the Lutheran ministry
at Wernigerode. This first contingent, or First Transport as it was called,
2
See note 1.
3
See von Reck's journal appended to this article.
4
Bolzius always used this Latinized form of his family name, which had originally been Boltze.
[72]
spent some weeks in England, where it was feted and held up as an illus-
tration of Christian faith and as evidence of Catholic perfidy. These public
showings not only excited public sympathy but also elicited immediate gifts
as well as future contributions from pious English circles. For example,
on Sept. 26, 1735, the Trustees received two hundred pounds, "the bene-
faction of a Gentlewoman who desires to be unknown ... to be applied
and distributed in sums of forty shillings to each family of the persecuted
German Protestants either gone or going to Georgia."
After a rough voyage of nearly three and a half months on the Purys-
burg, the emigrants landed at Charleston, S. C., where they found a small
number of Germans already settled. Nine days later they resumed their
journey and reached Savannah on March 12. There the exiles were housed
in tents, while Bolzius, Gronau, von Reck, and their doctor, Zwiffler, lodged
at the home of the absent English clergyman. Five days later the first baby
was born to the party, apparently the first German baby born in the colony
of Georgia.
Leaving the remainder of the company in Savannah, von Reck, Zwiffler,
and Gronau accompanied Oglethorpe and several South Carolinians and
Indians to reconnoiter a suitable site for the colony. About thirty miles
northwest of Savannah and immediately adjacent to the lands reserved for
the Utchee Indians they found an area which seemed to fit their needs.
Baron von Reck, to whom all firm land must have looked good after more
than a hundred days at sea, described the area as follows: "The lands
are enclosed between two rivers which fall into the Savannah. The town
is to be built near the larger, which is called Ebenezer, in remembrance
that God brought them hither. It is navigable, being twelve feet deep. A
little brook, whose water is as clear as crystal, glides by the town. Another
one runs through it, and both fall into the Ebenezer. The woods here are
not so thick as in other places. The sweet zephirs preserve a delicious
coolness, notwithstanding the scorching beams of the sun. There are very
fine meadows, in which a great quantity of hay might be made with very
little effort. The hillocks are also very suitable for vines. Cedar, walnut,
pine, cypress, and oak comprise the greatest part of the woods. There are
likewise a great quantity of myrtle-trees, out of which they extract, by
boiling the berries, a green wax very suitable for making candles. There
is much sassafrass and a great quantity of those plants of which indigo is
made, and an abundance of China root. The earth is so fertile that it will
produce anything that can be sown or planted in it, whether fruit, herbs,
or trees. There are wild vines running up to the tops of the tallest trees,
and the country is so good that you can ride twenty or thirty miles at a
full gallop. As to game, there are eagles, wild turkeys, roebucks, wild goats,
stags, wild cows, horses, hares, partridges, and buffaloes."
Unfortunately the young baron was a poor judge of real estate, for
most of his observations were erroneous. The stream was not twelve feet
deep, not even during freshets; and much of the year it was nearly dry.
It was never really navigable even when flooded, being obstructed with
cypress trees; and it meandered for twenty-five miles to reach the Savannah
River at a point four miles away. The crystal clear brook dried up early
in the summer, and all drinking water was impure. To be sure, the woods
were less thick than elsewhere, but only because the soil was too poor
to support trees. The meadows produced much broom sedge, but little
nourishing hay; and the soil was so sandy that it bore weeds rather than
crops. Von Reck made a mistake subsequently repeated by many optimistic
European settlers in tropical America and Africa, who have mistaken
[73]
luxuriance for fertility. Land that supports rank foliage may fail to produce
crops; and lands abounding in game may be unable to support cattle. This
initial choice of location was a most tragic blunder, for it made the Salz-
burgers waste two whole years in a costly but futile effort to develop a
sterile and inaccessible wasteland.
Their putative promised land having been chosen, Pastor Gronau led
a forward echelon up to the site, which they named Ebenezer, or "Stone
of Help," even though there were no stones in that sandy area. This
advanced party worked feverishly to erect huts for the remainder of the
group, while von Reck and some other members of the rear echelon tried
to locate the point at which Ebenezer Creek flowed into the Savannah.
Although aided by Monsieur Jonas, as they called the colony's surveyor,
Noble Jones, they were unable to blaze a channel through the overgrown
course of the creek. At last they resigned themselves to the fact that
supplies would have to be unloaded at Abercorn, a settlement some twenty
miles upstream from Savannah, and then transported overland to Ebenezer.
Because of this, a large part of the Salzburgers' time and energy during
the next year and a half was consumed in carrying supplies on their backs
or dragging them on sledges through boggy and overgrown swamps.
When the Second Transport of fifty-seven Salzburgers arrived nearly a
year later under the conduct of Commissary Johann Vat, they found little
accomplished. Besides that, all the earlier settlers had suffered severely
from fever, and more than ten per cent had succumbed to dysentery. Yet,
undaunted, the second group pitched right in; and construction was con-
siderably speeded by the skill of several carpenters among the new arrivals.
Despite their many handicaps and obstacles, the Salzburgers' progress
impressed the English settlers in Savannah favorably; and every com-
mentator extolled their diligence and endurance. Space would not allow
us to cite even a fraction of these eulogies, so suffice it to say that everyone
praised them and unanimously agreed that they were the most desirable
settlers in Georgia. As a result of these good reports, the Trustees deter-
mined to enlist more Salzburgers and invited a hundred more to come to
the colony at the Trustees' expense. In response to this invitation a Third
Transport was collected at Regensburg and dispatched via Rotterdam to
England under the guidance of Baron von Reck and a Capt. Hermsdorf.
In the same convoy with the Salzburgers was a group of twenty-seven
Moravians, of whom we shall speak later.
Before the Third Transport reached Georgia, the first two groups were
finally convinced that the land they had chosen would not support them.
Carolina planters passing through Ebenezer had insisted that the sandy
soil would not produce crops, and experience soon proved them right. For
example, sweet potatoes would send out magnificent vines but never develop
any tubers, and the corn produced large stalks but little or no ears. In
collecting acorns for their pigs along the bank of the Savannah River at
the mouth of Ebenezer Creek, the Salzburgers had found a wooded area,
called Red Bluff from the color of its soil, which was obviously more fertile
than that around Ebenezer. Bolzius, as absolute ruler of this little theo-
cracy, refused to let the Salzburgers move until Oglethorpe should return
and give permission, for he was a good enough Lutheran to accept secular
authority as the will of God. Oglethorpe was disappointed that the Salz-
burgers preferred to abandon their settlement at Ebenezer after having
sacrificed so much toil and so many lives in developing it. However, being
truly concerned for the welfare of his colonists, he gave his reluctant per-
mission for the removal. Still convinced that Ebenezer was the better
[74]
location, he generously compensated the Salzburgers for much of their
improvements on their old land, which was then taken over by the Trustees
as a cattle ranch. The displacement having been authorized, von Reck
brought the bulk of the Third Transport directly to the Red Bluff, where
they were gradually joined by the earlier settlers from Ebenezer.
Oglethorpe had hoped to deflect the Third Transport to Frederica, a
settlement he was building on St. Simons Island as an outpost against the
Spaniards in St. Augustine. In this he failed, since most of the Salzburgers
preferred to go on to Ebenezer as planned, both to avoid military service
and to be with their Lutheran clergymen. However, Capt. Hermsdorf and
a few volunteers accompanied Oglethorpe to Frederica and formed a small
German community, which prospered as long as the garrison remained
but disappeared soon after the British troops were withdrawn. The German
village did nourish long enough to persuade the Society for the Propagation
of Christian Knowledge to send them a Lutheran pastor for their congre-
gation of sixty-two, and Rev. Ulrich Dreisler was thereupon sent over.
After serving two years, Dreisler died and was succeeded by Johann Joachim
Zubly of St. Gall in Switzerland, who remained only a short time before
moving to South Carolina. When Frederica was abandoned, most of the
German residents rejoined their fellows in and around Ebenezer.
Although the Savannah River offered a good route of access to New
Ebenezer, as the settlement on Red Bluff was first called, supplies were
slow in reaching the Third Transport, and much time was lost for lack of
tools. Also, as the summer heat increased, the tropical ailments reappeared,
and the new-comers began dying off as rapidly as their predecessors had
in their first year. By early autumn of 1736 everyone had completed the
move from Old Ebenezer to New Ebenezer, yet Bolzius was unable to find
four able-bodied men in the entire colony to take the heavy barge down to
Savannah for provisions. Tertiary fever was so widespread that few
settlers could work in their fields to plant their winter crops. Nevertheless,
by July 27, 1737, John Wesley wrote in his journal: "In the evening, we
came to New-Ebenezer, where the poor Salzburgers are settled. The
industry of this people is quite surprising. Their sixty huts are neatly and
regularly built, and all of the little spots of ground between them improved
to the best advantage. On one side of the town is a field of Indian corn;
on the other, are the plantations of several private persons; all which
together one would scarce think it possible for a handful of people to have
done in one year."
In view of so much sickness and death, it is amazing that none of the
Salzburgers deserted the colony, as so many of the English settlers were
doing. Zwiffler, the doctor who accompanied them, finally lost heart.
Although he had worked night and day bleeding his patients and con-
cocting dubious herbs to replace his exhausted medical supplies, he had
already lost forty patients, including his own wife; and now he despaired
and left the colony.
5
Two unmarried men considered trying their luck in
Pennsylvania, as so many indentured Germans in Savannah were doing;
but they seem to have been dissuaded by Bolzius' warnings of the spiritual
dangers incurred by seeking worldly goals. The losses from death were
partially offset by additions from South Carolina. A German glazier
named Rheinländer, who had met the Salzburgers in Charleston, resolved
to join them because he was finding it difficult to support his large family
there. This he did, even though his family burden had been lightened the
5
This was doubtlessly the Zwifler whom H. M. Muhlenberg found living in Philadelphia seven years
later (The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, trans. T. Tappert & J. Doberstein, Philadelphia,
1942, I, p. 65).
[75]
week before he left Charleston by the death of four of his children. Several
more Germans moved from Purysburg, a much advertised but unsuccessful
Swiss colony across the Savannah River and a few miles downstream from
Ebenezer; and others came from time to time for divine services.
In 1738 the mortality rate suddenly dropped in Ebenezer, and only one
adult died. Enough land was under cultivation, and there was actually a
small surplus of foodstuffs. Benjamin Martyn, the secretary of the Trustees,
wrote in 1739: "Fifteen miles from Purysburg on the Georgia side is
Ebenezer, where the Salzburgers are situated. Their houses are neat and
regularly set out in streets, and the whole economy of their town, under
the influence of their ministers, Mess. Bolzius and Gronau, is very exem-
plary. For the benefit of their milk cattle, a herdsman is appointed to
attend them in the woods all the day, and bring them home in the evening.
Their stock of out-lying cattle is also under the care of two other herdsmen,
who attend them in their feeding in the day, and drive them into cow-pens
at night. This secures the owners from any loss, and the herdsmen are
paid by a small contribution among the people. These are very industrious,
and subsist comfortably by their labor. Though there is no court of justice,
as they live in sobriety, they maintain great order and decency. In case
of any difference, the minister calls three or four of the most prudent elders
together, who in a summary way hear and determine as they think just,
and the parties always acquiesce with content in their judgement. They
are very regular in their public worship, which is on week-days in the
evening after their work; and in the forenoon and evenings on Sundays.
They have built a large and convenient house for the reception of orphans
and other poor children, who are maintained by benefactions among the
people, and are well taken care of and taught to work according as their
age and ability will permit. The number computed by Mr. Bolzius in June,
1738, whereof his congregation consisted, was one hundred and forty-six,
and some more have since been settled among them. They are all in general
so well pleased with their condition, that not one of their people has
abandoned the settlement."
This description is naturally a bit too rosy, since Mr. Martyn wished to
prove the wisdom of the Trustees' policy, and Ebenezer was almost the
only evidence he could muster to prove his point. Nevertheless, it appears
that the Salzburgers themselves were content, for nearly all of them signed
their names to a letter addressed the following year to their former Salz-
burger acquaintances still lingering in South German cities, whom they
urged to come and join them. As a result of this letter, a fourth and final
transport was organized, which reached Georgia in 1741. By that time
Martyn reported to the Trustees that no less than 1200 German Protestants
had come to Georgia, but of course he did not report how many of that
number had died of fever or had left the colony for Pennsylvania. How
large the German element had grown by 1751 is indicated by how little
notice was made when John Gerar William DeBrahm settled 160 Germans
at Bethany, near Ebenezer, in that year; for this group was as large as
the original Ebenezer colony and was soon joined by that many again.
It is to be noted that henceforth all Georgia Germans, no matter what
their origins, were included in the term "Salzburger," just as most Penn-
sylvania Germans were called "Palatines," even if they came from Hessia
or Württemburg. On April 11, 1755, the entire white population of Georgia
was estimated at only 2,381, of which a good percentage must have been
German. If we can trust the figures given by Martyn and DeBrahm, it
would seem that more than half the white population was German.
[76]
Because of the general lack of prosperity in Georgia, many British
colonists, particular a small group of Scottish gentlemen, agitated to have
the Trustees withdraw their ban against the introduction of Negro slavery.
For this purpose they collected the signatures of most of the freeholders
of the colony, but the Salzburgers refused to side with the so-called "Mal-
contents" in this matter. When the Malcontents complained that Bolzius
had been deceitful in refusing to sign their petition, the Earl of Egmont
replied indignantly: "It is an outrage scarce to be paraleled thus to defame
the character of Mr. Bolzius. There is not a person in the Colony more
eminent and more esteemed for piety, integrity and prudence than this
clergyman: his letters and journals wrote in the German language for the
use of his Countrymen, and his letters to his friends in England are con-
stantly full of praises to God and thanks to the Trustees for the happy
condition the Saltsburghers are in, and all who come from the Province
and have seen them, declare the same. On the 18 Sept. 1740 Mr. Jones
gave an account of these people in a private letter to Mr. Ja. Lyde of
London as follows: 'I know of no other settlement in this Colony more
desirable, except Ebenezer, a town on the river Savannah at 35 miles dis-
tance from hence, inhabited by Saltsburghers and other Germans, under
the Pastoral care of Mr. Bolzius and Mr. Gronau, who are discreet worthy
men. The town is neatly built, the situation exceeding pleasant; they consist
of sixty families or upwards. They live in the greatest harmony with their
Ministers, and with one another as one family. They have no idle, drunken,
or profligate people among them, but are industrious, many grown wealthy,
and their industry has been blessed with remarkable and uncommon success,
to the envy of their Carolina neighbours, having great plenty of all the
necessary conveniences of life (except clothing) within themselves, and
supply this town and other neighbouring places, with bread kind, as also
beef, pork, veal, poultry etc.'"
As a result of steady accretion from Europe, as well as of a birth rate
that finally surpassed the death rate, Ebenezer continued to grow until
the Revolution; and, far more important, most of the surrounding areas were
gradually populated and cultivated by Germans. In addition to his arduous
chores of ruling and regulating his congregation, Pastor Bolzius also
preached in the churches of Goshen and Zion, two outlying German areas,
as well as in Savannah, where there was a small but active Lutheran con-
gregation. As well as performing his spiritual duties, Bolzius also served
as correspondent and intermediary between his flock and the Trustees, the
Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and the Lutheran
authorities back in Germany. His carefully kept journal and his voluminous
correspondence were faithfully edited and periodically published by Rev.
Urlsperger, and the resulting Urlsperger Nachrichten still furnish perhaps
the richest single source of Georgia colonial history, a source still scarcely
tapped and largely ignored by most Georgia historians.
Bolzius was ably assisted in his many labors by Pastor Gronau, who
was often compelled to take over all ecclesiastical and administrative duties
when his colleague was away or was down with fever. These two worthy
men strengthened their tie of friendship even more by marrying two sisters
from their Salzburg congregation and thus becoming brothers-in-law. When
Gronau died after twelve years of dedicated service, he was replaced by
Rev. Hermann H. Lembke, who also came from Halle and lived to serve
for nearly thirty years. Lembke married Gronau's widow and thus became
Bolzius' brother-in-law too, and these two colleagues collaborated affec-
tionately and effectively for many years. After some time, when his health
[77]
had begun to fail, Bolzius turned over the responsibility for the saw-mill,
grist-mill, and other glebe property to his colleague Lembke.
Finding the spiritual and secular needs of the Ebenezer community too
great for only two clergymen, the Reverend Fathers in Germany sent a
third pastor named Christian Rabenhorst, who in turn took charge of the
saw-mill, grist-mill, and other church property and served for twenty-five
years. The success of Ebenezer can be largely attributed to the devotion,
ability, and longevity of these first four pastors, who held their congregation
together with tact and firmness for its first half century. In view of the
unhealthy situation, it is a remarkable fact that these first four pastors
served effectively for a total of about a hundred years! While Ebenezer
never lacked spiritual guidance, the Anglican Church in Savannah had a
long series of ministers, most of them unsuccessful, and long periods with
no encumbent at all. It is perhaps significant that Ebenezer had three
pastors and no tavernkeeper, while Savannah had three tavernkeepers and
no pastor. It is sad that Bolzius died just before the building of Jerusalem
Church, the handsome brick building which still stands today.
Much of the labor in Savannah was supplied by indentured Germans,
mostly from the Palatinate. To pay off their passage, these servants worked
for five years for the Trustees or for the earlier settlers, at the end of which
time they received fifty acres of land and all the rights of English subjects.
However, seeing the unhealthy conditions and the general lack of pros-
perity in Georgia, many of these servants refused to settle there at the
expiration of their indenture but preferred to migrate to Pennsylvania.
To stop this loss of manpower, the Trustees had to resort to providing tools,
cattle, and provisions in order to persuade the discontented redemptioners
to settle. The Trustees had stationed a number of Germans just south of
Savannah as gardeners to supply the city with fresh produce. Although
this settlement, which was called Hampstead, was soon abandoned, enough
of the Germans remained in the area or moved southward to give the name
"Dutchtown Road" to one of the main thoroughfares.
Whereas all four transports of Salzburgers had crossed the ocean with
no deaths and little sickness, one shipload of 170 German and Swiss redemp-
tioners lost forty en route to Georgia and forty more soon after landing
there; and this shows that, in matters of health, the Salzburgers fared better
than some. One group of redeemed Swiss and Palatines chose to settle on
the Vernon River about ten miles south of Savannah, where they named
their community Vernonburg. Being of the Reformed faith, they petitioned
the Trustees to supply them a Reformed minister, if possible Pastor Zubly,
who resided in South Carolina since leaving Frederica. This request was
granted, and Zubly moved to Vernonburg, where he was assisted by the
Salzburg schoolmaster Ortmann, who had recently lost favor in Ebenezer
because of the worldly behavior of his wife.
Zubly later took orders in the Presbyterian ministry and became spokes-
man for all dissident groups in their struggle against the encroachments of
the Anglican Church, which became the Established Church in Georgia
when the Trustees surrendered the colony to the Crown in 1752. Zubly
represented Georgia in the Constitutional Convention of 1775 in Phila-
delphia, where he spoke valiantly against royal injustices and won the
esteem of John Adams and other founding fathers. Later he opposed the
actual break with England and died dispossessed and disgraced shortly
before the end of hostilities.
Another German Swiss clergyman who reached prominence in Georgia
was Bartholomäus Zauberbühler, or Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, as he later
[78]
called himself. Having taken orders in the Anglican Church in Charleston,
Zauberbühler tried to arrogate the Lutheran church in Orangeburg County,
where he was defeated by the incumbent, Johann Giessendanner, and his
loyal German congregation. Thereupon Zauberbühler returned to Europe
to recruit new colonists, and in this he seems to have been successful. In
any case, in 1758 he was appointed rector of Christ Church in Savannah,
which had become the most influential church in the colony after the
establishment of the Anglican Church in 1752. Thus it would seem that,
regardless of denomination, all the important theologians then in Georgia
spoke German as their mother tongue.
Of the various religious groups in Georgia, perhaps the most unusual
were the Moravians or Herrnhuter, whom Count Zinzendorf sent to Georgia
in 1735.
6
This party, totalling forty-seven members, included many artisans
and was therefore of great value to the colony. Being content with little
and wishing only to serve mankind, they spent most of their energy in the
service of other people, not only in building them houses but also in nursing
them back to health. Unfortunately they arrived just as the colony was
preparing for war against Spanish Florida, and the other inhabitants
resented the exemption from military service promised them by Oglethorpe.
Rather than go against their convictions, the surviving members of the
group transferred to Pennsylvania, where they played a role in the cultural
development of that state. Some of them later moved down to North
Carolina, where their influence is still felt in the region of Winston-Salem.
Perhaps the most lasting influence of this sect was the impression it made
on John Wesley when he sailed with a contingent of them, and with the
Third Transport of Salzburgers, on his way to Savannah. As he relates in
his journal, their piety and fortitude in the face of death first opened his
eyes to the true meaning of faith. Later he visited Herrnhut to learn more
about their movement, and he was ever after aware of his debt to them.
Whereas most early Germans in Georgia were noted for their piety and
docility toward the church, there was one striking exception. This was
Christian Priber (or Pryber), a political idealist from Saxony, who under-
took to protect the Noble Savage from exploitation and corruption by the
White Man.
7
Arriving in Charleston in 1734, Priber sold his clothes, wigs,
and other trappings of civilization and disappeared into the backcountry
dressed as a savage. Being well versed in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German,
French, and English, he quickly mastered as many Indian languages as
necessary for his purpose, which was to found an ideal commonwealth based
on social and economic equality and community of property and wives.
When the governor of South Carolina tried to extradite Priber, his Indian
friends defended him. Later, however, he was captured by some other
Indians and sold to the British, who imprisoned him at Frederica. There
he was held under suspicion of being a French agent and a Jesuit.
8
Ogle-
thorpe claimed that he had confessed to being a Jesuit, but this has
subsequently been disproved.
9
The Jesuits would hardly have favored his
anti-clerical attitudes, or even his doctrine of plurality of wives. While in
prison Priber impressed his captors with his vast erudition, which seemed
incongruous in a half naked man dressed and shorn like an Indian. On the
occasion an arsenal next to his cell exploded with eight thousand bombs,
6
The Moravians' sojourn in Georgia has been excellently told by Adelaide L. Fries in The Moravians
in Georgia, Winston-Salem, N. C., 1905.
7
This usually neglected man is well treated by Vernon W. Crane in "A Lost Utopia of the First
American Frontier," Sewanee Review, 27, 1919, pp. 48-61.
8
See Katherine de Baillou, " Oglethorpe's Statement on Christian Pryber" in The Georgia Historical
Quarterly, 44, 1960, pp. 100-101.
9
By Clemens de Baillou. See his "A Note on Christian Priber " in The Georgia Historical Quar-
terly, 42, 1958, p. 112.
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yet he survived the explosion and did not even try to utilize the chance
to escape. A short time later he died of fever, and thus ended his grandiose
scheme for reforming society.
In view of the unparalleled generosity of the Trustees and of the British
Crown to the Salzburgers, it is hardly to their children's credit that most
of them joined their English-speaking neighbors in demanding independence
from England. Unlike the New England patriots, most of whom had lived
for generations in America and had lost all ties with the mother country,
most inhabitants of Georgia were European born or first generation Ameri-
cans and were therefore obligated to the King for many favors. As a result
the population, and even individual families, were sadly divided into Whigs
and Tories. This division also rent the congregation at Ebenezer and spoiled
its erstwhile harmony. Thus in Ebenezer, as in the rest of Georgia, the
Revolution was really a civil war. When the British forces retook Savannah
in 1779, the new and controversial young pastor, Christian Triebner,
reported to Savannah to take an oath of loyalty to the King and to
persuade the British commandant to occupy Ebenezer. This the British
did, with the result that many of the inhabitants fled and remained absent
during the succeeding two years of internecine strife.
That the majority of the Salzburgers favored the patriot cause is shown
by the role played by many of its leading men on the revolutionary side.
It is of note that the first governor of the revolutionary government was
Johann Adam Treutlen, a deacon of Jerusalem Church. Little is known
about Treutlen's origins or his end. Tradition says that he came with his
widowed mother from Berchtesgaden; so, if this is true, they must have
been Salzburgers even if their name does not appear on any of the transport
lists. Although he was a regular communicant of Jerusalem Church, he does
not seem to have resided at Ebenezer proper but at Dutchtown or Vernon-
burg or some other out-lying area, and this would perhaps explain his
complete mastery of English and his insistence that the Salzburgers become
rapidly anglicized. Treulen was not only a deacon of his church, but also
a successful planter who had amassed considerable wealth in land and
slaves. Unfortunately he disappeared from history as quickly as he entered
it. When the British occupied Savannah in 1779, he withdrew to the back-
country with the ousted government and soon vanished from view. Rumor
says that he was murdered by Tories while recruiting in Orangeburg
County, S. C., and that his corpse was thrown on a manure pile. In any case
his burial place is unknown, and he is remembered today only by a Georgia
county named after him and by a bust in the State Capitol.
The town of Ebenezer never again reached the prosperity it had enjoyed
just before the Revolution. Although most of the inhabitants returned and
repaired their houses, few new buildings were added; and many of those
still standing were gradually abandoned and allowed to decay. By the
middle of the next century only one house was still occupied, and it too was
soon deserted and allowed to collapse. For the benefit of their pastor, the
congregation of Jerusalem Church built a parsonage in the more salubrious
pine barrens some three miles away. The anopheles mosquito had finally
won the long-drawn-out battle, and the Red Bluff was again uninhabited
as it had been before Bolzius and his exiles first felled its great live oaks.
Ebenezer's disappearance does not mean that the Salzburgers failed as
colonists. It only means that, in spreading out into the surrounding
countryside, their descendants found other areas less subject to "miasmic
vapors," as doctors then tried to explain the cause of malaria. Besides that,
once the road to Savannah had been improved, the town of Ebenezer was
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no longer necessary, since the Salzburger farmers could cart their produce
directly to the city market and thus save the expense of a middle-man.
Even the artisans found it more profitable to move to the city, where a
larger clientele bid for their wares. By leaving the town to live directly
on their holdings, the Salzburgers were merely conforming to the pattern
followed by American farmers as opposed to those of Europe. The sur-
prising thing is not that Ebenezer failed, but rather that it lasted as long
as it did, for it outlasted Purysburg, the older colony across the river, and
also Abercorn, Frederica, Goshen, Hampstead, Highgate, Hardwick, Joseph's
Town, Sunbury, and numerous other Georgia towns that had once given
much promise and then quietly faded from the map!
The congregation of Jerusalem Church diminished not only because its
members changed their residence, but also because they changed their
language. As we have mentioned, all five pre-revolutionary pastors at
Ebenezer had been provided by the Lutheran Church in Germany. These
ministers naturally preferred to preach in their native tongue, which was
also that of Luther. For the first half century this policy was certainly
advantageous for Jerusalem Church, since a common tongue was the
strongest bond uniting the German settlers. Newcomers, even those of the
Reformed Church, seem to have preferred to hear Luther's theology
preached in their native tongue than to hear Calvin's theology preached
in English or in French.
However, while it had been an advantage in the early years of the
colony, the use of the German language naturally became disadvantageous
as the communicants became anglicized, a process that was completed in
less than a century. When the Salzburgers first reached Georgia, the only
people with whom they could converse with ease were the two German
Jews, who had arrived some eight months earlier. In England Bolzius and
Gronau had communicated in Latin, but that was futile in Georgia; and
von Reck could converse in French only with the French settlers and with
those few Englishmen who knew that language. Consequently they all set
out with a will to learn English, and all seem to have succeeded quickly.
Rather than to keep his flock linguistically isolated, as so many foreign-born
clergymen have tried to do, Bolzius made every effort to have them learn
English as rapidly as possible, and he even had an English lad named John
Robinson assigned to his orphan home to help the children learn English.
When schoolmaster Ortman was dismissed so ignominously, the excuse
given was that he was unable to pronounce English well enough to teach it.
Sitting astride the King's highway as it did, Ebenezer was visited by many
travelers, and thus the inhabitants could practice their English whenever
they wished.
Therefore it is not surprising that the third and fourth generation
children preferred to speak English and even had difficulty understanding
the language of their ancestors. The use of English was naturally speeded
up by the Revolution, when English troops were quartered in Ebenezer
and many inhabitants were serving with the American forces or were hiding
upcountry in English-speaking districts. Nevertheless, when peace returned
and a new pastor was needed to replace Triebner, who had fled with the
British, the Reverend Fathers in Germany sent Johann Ernst Bergmann,
a fine young scholar who knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but no English.
Unwilling to speak of Word of God in broken English, Pastor Bergmann
persisted in the use of German even after most of his young parishioners
began dropping by the wayside and joining other churches, particularly the
new Methodist and Baptist churches that offered a more emotional brand
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of religion than he could offer. By the time Bergmann's son and successor
finally introduced the use of English in the second quarter of the nineteenth
century, most of the Salzburgers' descendants were firmly entrenched in
the Methodist and other churches.
Still handsome in appearance, but standing alone in a deserted and
scarcely accessible wasteland, Jerusalem Church was long used only on
special occasions, when the Lutheran congregations from the surrounding
areas would assemble to worship. Now, however, the trend has been
reversed; and services are held every Sunday. A fine new Sunday School
building, containing a museum, has just been added in the style of the
original edifice. Paved roads now make the church more accessible, and,
far more important, the descendants are developing greater pride and
interest in their Salzburg heritage. The annual gathering at Jerusalem
Church brings a growing multitude of Descendants, many from distant
states. A century ago most people of Effingham County still had Salzburger
names. Since then some of these names have been anglicized, and many
outlanders have moved into the area. Nevertheless, nearly all inhabitants
are descended on one or more sides from the German settlers, and most of
them are descended from at least one of the original Salzburg exiles. For
the first century and a half of their stay in Georgia, the Salzburgers and
their descendants were almost exclusively agrarian and remained close
to the soil, but recently many of those who have moved to Savannah have
entered the professions and reached positions of wealth and prominence.
The chief contribution of the Salzburgers, the one most prized by the
Trustees themselves, has been their pious, industrious, and orderly way
of life.
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