Introduction

This and the following four paragraphs are taken from the introduction to a previous volume of this series and therefore need not be read by those who have already read them or who are otherwise familiar with the history of the Georgia Salzburgers. For those who come new to the field, the following resume should suffice; those who wish more detail may consult the Salzburger Saga.¹ When the Lutherans were expelled from Salzburg in 1731, not all the exiles went to East Prussia and other Protestant lands in Europe: a small number, some two hundred, were taken to the colony of Georgia, then in its second year. Georgia, the last of Britain’s thirteen North American colonies, was founded according to the grandiose schemes of a group of benevolent gentlemen in London, called the Trustees, who wished to provide homes for impoverished Englishmen and persecuted foreign Protestants, to protect the more northerly colonies from the Spaniards in Florida, and to provide raw materials for English industry.

The first Salzburger transport, or traveling party, consisted of recent exiles who had been recruited in and around Augsburg, a Swabian city just north of Salzburg. This group arrived in Georgia in 1734 and settled some twenty-five miles northwest of Savannah, where they founded a settlement which they named Ebenezer. By the time the second transport arrived a year later, the land that had been chosen had proved infertile and the stream on which it was built, Ebenezer Creek, had proved unnavigable. When a third transport arrived in 1736, composed mostly of Upper Austrian exiles, the survivors at Ebenezer joined them on the Red Bluff on the Savannah River, bringing the name of the earlier settlement with them. The original site, which became the Trustees’ cowpen or cattle ranch, was henceforth called Old Ebenezer.

A fourth and last transport, consisting of Salzburger exiles who had been sojourning in Augsburg and other Swabian cities, arrived in 1741. The Salzburgers were joined by Swiss and Palatine settlers from Purysburg, a Swiss settlement a short way down the Savannah River on the Carolina side, and also by some Palatine servants donated by the Trustees. Finding insufficient fertile land on the Red Bluff, many Salzburgers moved their plantations to an area along Abercorn Creek where the lowland was flooded and enriched each winter by the Savannah River. This explains the terms “the town” and “the plantations.” After some gristmills and sawmills were built on Abercorn Creek, it was usually called the Mill River (Mühl-Fluss).

Despite appalling sickness and mortality and the hardships incident to settlement in a wilderness, the Salzburgers were the most successful community in Georgia. This relative success was largely due to the skill, devotion, and diligence of their spiritual leader, Johann Martin Boltzius, the author of most of these reports. This young divine had been trained at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and had taught in that city at the Francke Foundation, a charitable institution that was to have great influence on the development of Ebenezer. Although Boltzius was at heart a minister, his secular responsibilities in Georgia moulded him into a skillful administrator, economist, and diplomat. A few of the reports were written by Boltzius’ admiring younger colleague, Christian Israel Gronau, who officiated whenever Boltzius was away in Savannah or elsewhere until his untimely death in 1745.

Boltzius’ journals were edited contemporaneously by Samuel Urlsperger, the Senior of the Lutheran clergy in Augsburg. Comparison of the original manuscripts surviving in Halle with Urlsperger’s published edition shows that he took considerable liberty in deleting unpleasant reports and suppressing proper names, which he replaces with N. or N.N. So far as we know, the original documents for 1749 no longer exist, so there is no way to know how much Urlsperger changed or deleted; but there is reason to believe that Boltzius made an entry for every day, as he had been instructed to, and that Urlsperger made major deletions for both diplomatic and economic reasons. In some cases he simply consolidated the material for two or more days into one. Urlsperger’s deletions are very illogical: he often deletes a name in one passage even though it appears in another and can be easily recognized.

The present volume for the year 1749 shows the Salzburgers well established and busy consolidating their position. Their farms were steadily spreading southeastward, the entire “Mill District” had been occupied, and Boltzius was now negotiating for more land in the fertile area south of Abercorn. With the increased number of horses and plows, “European” crops like wheat, barley, rye, and oats were flourishing; and the Salzburgers were well able to feed themselves. Emphasis was now shifting from subsistence farming, which had been the Trustees’ first goal, to commercial enterprises such as silk culture and the timber trade, which would bring monetary returns. Consequently, Boltzius now reports more fully on silkworms, mulberry trees, and sawmills than on crops.

While the Salzburgers had sufficient land, and nearly enough horses, they lacked hired hands, who were greatly needed because the early settlers had lost most of their children to disease and had no staff for their old age. Boltzius was not yet persuaded that Negro slavery was the answer to this need, and he was still pleading for the Trustees to bring indentured servants from Germany. This request was finally honored in the early autumn of 1749, when Peter Bogg, the master of the Charles Town Galley, brought a shipload of “Palatines,” many of them from Wurttemberg. Unfortunately for Ebenezer, these were not really indentured servants. A number were free men, who had paid for their passage; and of these all but one family preferred to move on to South Carolina, where they had been promised provisions for their first year. The remainder were redemptioners, who, unlike indentured servants, were free to redeem themselves by finding an employer who would advance them 6 L for their passage. This the wealthy in Savannah did, with the result that Boltzius did not always get the cream of the crop or had to take the large families, who would be expensive to support until the children came of working age. He did, however, wrest the Schubdrein brothers from the Anglican minister Bartholomaus Zouberbuhler, who had crossed on the Charles Town Galley with them and had seen their worth. Despite Boltzius’ initial disappointment with many of the young servants, who were mostly tradesman apprentices and wished to practice their professions rather than work as field hands, and who liked the innocent pleasures of this world, most of these servants served their masters well and eventually became respected members of the congregation and the forebears of many Georgia families. Several, however, absconded and moved to Congrees in South Carolina without serving out their time.

This volume follows in the same format as its predecessors, except that, at the suggestion of two reviewers of a previous volume, Biblical verses are identified, when recognized, for the benefit of our un-Biblical younger generation. At this time I wish to thank Pastor Helmut Beck, the Moravian minister at Hamburg, for his help in various matters, such as identifying hymns and hymn-verses.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume of the Detailed Reports is cordially dedicated to “Miss Amy” Lebey and her family for reasons poignantly expressed as follows by the board of the Ebenezer Trustees:

“At the March 12, 1928, gathering of the Salzburger Society, Mrs. William George Gnann (nee Pearl Havilla Rahn, 18811973) accepted the new office of genealogist, “to which she will devote her whole time.” The monumental result of that effort is the Georgia Salzburgers and Allied Families, compiled, edited, and published by Pearl Rahn Gnann, copyright 1956.

“Miss Pearl’s mantle was taken up by her daughter, Naomi Amanda Gnann (Mrs. Charles LeBey), now known to many as “Miss Amy.” Amy Lebey’s corrections and new materials were published in March 1970 and again in 1976, in her first and second revisions of her mother’s book. A third revised printing was made in 1984. Although she worked in The Best Laundry and reared two daughters, her research and publishing did not keep her from serving as the Society’s genealogist and as Curator of the Museum.

“While gathering the supplementary material, “Miss Amy” has always enjoyed the energizing efforts of her husband, “Mr. Charlie.” Although Charles had prepared for a career in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, after marrying Miss Amy he became the manager and then the owner of her family’s The Best Laundry; but in essence he had married Miss Amy’s work with the Salzburgers. In addition to always assisting Amy, he served as president of the Salzburger Society, and for fifteen years he was the treasurer.

“His brother, John Courtney LeBey, who married Amy’s sister, Louise, is an architect of some note. His career has earned him a Governor’s Fine Arts Award for his contributions to architectural restoration in Georgia. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and is on the National Board of Restoration; and many church buildings across Georgia and South Carolina reveal his skill. To the Georgia Salzburger Society he has given endless hours of architectural guidance on the Fail House, and for Richard Kessler he has designed the cemetery gate and fence as well as the cottages on the New Ebenezer Family Life Center. In September 1971 he designed and donated the museum building, patterned after the eighteenth-century Orphanage at Ebenezer, as a memorial to his wife, Louise, who had died in January 1969.

“Beyond the books and the buildings, the Lebeys serve year after year in a variety of ways. Miss Amy and Mr. Charlie are constantly donning Salzburger costumes and meeting individuals and groups at the church and the museum to share their knowledge, dedication, and enthusiasm.

“Amy LeBey’s life parallels that of the Georgia Salzburger Society. For all that she has accomplished, alone or with the help of Charles and John, and for all her known and anonymous deeds, the Salzburger Society dedicates this volume.”

This volume was funded by contributions from many members of The Georgia Salzburger Society:

MRS. RAY B. ANSLEY

R. L. ARMSTRONG, JR.

MRS. HELOISE ARNSDORFF

RUSSELL E. BAINBRIDGE

GERTRUDE T. BEASLEY

MRS. LEO G. BECKMANN

MICHAEL AND CINDY R. BIGNAULT

CLAIRE Z. BILLINGS

CAROL C. BLAND

ERMA L. BOURNE

MR. AND MRS. MARVIN BROWN

ETHEL RAHN BRUNSON

REBECCA BURGSTINER

JEAN BURKHALTER

FARRIS CADLE

GAIL, BLANEY & CALLIE CARTER (IN MEMORY OF MRS. RENA FALLIGANT TRAVIS)

MRS. MIRIAM H. CONANT

WILLIAM H. CONE

JAMES COREY

MARION A. CRAWFORD

MARTHA ALICE CROOKSHANK

REV. AND MRS. RAYMOND E. DAVIS, JR.

DR. HEINZ J. DIELMANN AND DR. FRANCES B. DIELMANN

MRS. HILDA RUTH MORGAN DUGGER AND MR. AND MRS. J. H. DUGGER

MR. AND MRS. IRBY S. EXLEY (THE EDWARD WILKES EXLEY FOUNDATION, INC.)

HILDE SHUPTRINE FARLEY

FRANCES S. FRYE

MR. AND MRS. J. W. GARLAND

LAWTON D. GEIGER

MISS ESSIE GNANN

H. C. GOLDWIRE

FRED E. GROOVER

W. CLIFFORD GROOVER

MRS. CATHERINE S. HARDMAN

CLARENCE E. HESTER

MR. AND MRS. MARION C. JAUDON

F. D. JOHNSON

RICHARD C. KESSLER

BARBARA KLINGELSMITH-GEISERT

DR. AND MRS. F. LESLIE LONG

RUTH EXLEY MCCORMICK

JAMES E. MARTIN

LENA AND ALVAH D. MIKELL

MRS. G. PHILIP MORGAN, SR.

MR. AND MRS. HOLLIS MORGAN

HELENE E. OTT

MRS. DIANNE GNANN PERRY

HOLMES C. AND ISABEL POSSER

MR. AND MRS. MILTON H. RAHN

EVELINE FOUNTAIN REISER

JOHN C. RENTZ

MR. AND MRS. STANLEY RICH

HAROLD C. SCHWANEBECK

W. L. SCHWANEBECK

DR. H. S. SHEAROUSE

MRS. PAUL SHEAROUSE

MRS. FRANCES SHROPSHIRE (IN MEMORY OF GREAT-GRANDFATHER, WILLIAM REMSHART)

MR. AND MRS. HUBERT O. SHUPTRINE

WILLIAM T. SMITH, JR.

ISABELL ARNSDORFF SOWELL

THOMAS E. STONECYPHER

VIRGINIA B. STRICKLAND

CHARLTON W. TEBEAU

COL. WILLIAM L. TRAVIS

MR. AND MRS. JEFFREY TUCKER

GEORGE ZEIGLER

EVELYN ZITTRAUER

A. L. ZITTROUER

¹George F. Jones, Salzburger Saga. Athens, Ga.: U. of Ga. Press, 1983.