Foreword

THE Wormsloe Foundation is a non-profit organization chartered on December 18, 1951, by the Superior Court of Chatham County, Georgia. In the words of its charter, “The objects and purposes of this Foundation are the promotion of historical research and the publication of the results thereof; the restoration, preservation, and maintenance of historical sites and documents and the conduct of an educational program in the study of history in the State of Georgia, and in states adjoining thereto.”

As its first important activity, the Foundation has begun the publication of a series of historical works and documents under the title of “Wormsloe Foundation Publications.” They will consist of important manuscripts, reprints of rare publications, and historical narrative relative to Georgia and the South. The first volume appeared in 1955, written by E. Merton Coulter, the General Editor of the series, and entitled Wormsloe: Two Centuries of a Georgia Family. This volume gives the historical background of the Wormsloe Estate and a history of the family which has owned it for more than two and a quarter centuries. It is now out of print.

The second publication of the Foundation was The Journal of William Stephens, 1741-1743, and the third volume was The Journal of William Stephens, 1743-1745, which is a continuation of the journal as far as any known copy is extant. However, there is evidence that Stephens kept his journal for some years after 1745. These volumes were edited by the General Editor of the Wormsloe Foundation series and were published in 1958 and 1959, respectively. Both are now out of print.

The fourth volume of the series was the re-publication of the unique copy of Pat. Tailfer et al., A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia … With Comments by the Earl of Egmont. This volume is in the John Carter Brown Library of Brown University. In this present publication there appears for the first time in print the comments of Egmont. With the permission of Brown University, this volume was edited by Clarence L. Ver Steeg of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. The volume is now out of print.

The fifth volume in the series of Wormsloe Foundation Publications was the long-missing first part of Egmont’s three manuscript volumes of his journal. It was edited by Robert G. McPherson of the University of Georgia. This volume contains the journal from 1732 to 1738, inclusive, and is owned by the Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, which gave permission for its publication.

In 1963 the Foundation published its sixth volume, The Journal of Peter Gordon, 1732-1735, which was edited by the General Editor of the Wormsloe Foundation Publication series. Gordon came to Georgia with Oglethorpe on the first voyage; he began his journal on leaving England. The original manuscript was acquired by the Wormsloe Foundation in 1957, which presented it to the General Library of the University of Georgia.

The seventh volume in the series is Joseph Vallence Bevan, Georgia’s First Official Historian. It is a departure from the nature of the five volumes directly preceding, which are documentary. It was written by the General Editor, who brings to light a historiographer who was appointed Georgia’s first official historian by the state legislature.

The eighth volume, Henry Newman Salzburger Letterbooks, begins a series within the general series, for it is to be followed by several volumes of translations of the Urlsperger Reports (Ausführliche Nachrichten …, edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Halle, 1735££, and dealing with the Georgia Salzburgers). This volume was transcribed and edited by George Fenwick Jones of the University of Maryland, who, also, will edit future volumes of the Salzburger translations.

The ninth volume, the first of the Urlsperger Reports, is the present and latest of the Wormsloe Foundation Publications. Edited by George Fenwick Jones, its title is Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America …

E. MERTON COULTER
General Editor