Notes for the Year 1748 
JANUARY
1. This appears to have been Johann Adam Treutlen, the later governor of Georgia. See entries for 8 & 12 Dec.
2. Pica, or clay-eating, is caused by a dietary deficiency, perhaps of iron. Eighteenth-century doctors mistook the symptoms for the cause and put the blame on the victims’ gratifying his uncontrolable appetite for inedible substances. See entries for 7 & 11 Jan., 16 & 22 March, 10, 11, & 16 April and 16 July.
3. Matthias Zettler, of the 2nd Salzburger transport.
4. See note 2, above.
5. Johann Tobler of New Windsor in South Carolina, former governor of Appenzell.
6. Dr. Joachim Lange, Evangelische Lehre der allgemeinen Gnade.
7. Heinrich Schubart, Predigten über die Evangelien und Episteln.
8. See note 6, above. The reports from East India were published as Der Königlichen Dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandte Ausführliche Berichte, Halle 1735.
9. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, later the patriarch of the Pennsylvania Germans, had stopped off at Ebenezer in 1742 on his way from Halle to Philadelphia.
10. The evangelist George Whitefield had collected money for Ebenezer in Europe and the northern colonies.
11. The snow in the area drained by the Savannah River being negligible, the high water resulted from rainfall.
12. This was obviously Augsburg, see entry for 22 Jan.
13. These were for feeding silk worms. The Trustees wished to advance silk culture in Georgia to keep from sending good English money abroad.
14. From the Ogeechee to the Ebenezer mill would have been an arduous voyage of many days via the inland waterway.
15. The SPCK had given the Salzburgers a still for making peach brandy.
MARCH
1. It is to be noted that Urlsperger failed to publish the report for February, as he also did October and November.
2. Normally, the flood tide reached Purysburg just below Ebenezer; but unusually high river water would flow downstream despite the flood, thus making it difficult to row upstream. Some relief could be had by turning into Abercorn Creek, which was relatively sluggish even when the Savannah was high.
3. Zoar, one of the cities of refuge that were not destroyed.
4. The reader must remember that, although Luther led the Reformation, the word “Reformed” referred to the church of Calvin or to that of Zwingli.
5. The local magistracy in Georgia was the Council, consisting of a President and five Assistants.
6. In Pietistic parlance the word Anfechtung, usually meaning “temptation,” connoted “temptation to doubt that Christ, through His merits, can save even the worst sinner if he is truly penitent.” People who harbored such doubts were legalists, believing more in the law of the Old Testament than the grace of the New.
7. Senior Urlsperger. Samuel Urlsperger was the Senior of the Lutheran Ministry in Augsburg.
8. Positiv, a kind of an organ.
9. Allusion to a hymn. This is typical of Boltzius’ frequently expressed theodicy.
10. See Jan., note 2.
11. “The incidence and nature.”
12. Johann Junker, professor of medicine at Halle.
13. The word “Father,” when capitalized, refers to the three “Reverend Fathers” of the Georgia Salzburgers: Samuel Urlsperger, the Senior of the Lutheran ministry at Augsburg; August Hermann Francke, the professor at Halle; and Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen, the court chaplain in London.
14. See note 6, above.
15. “What is to be believed and that what is to be done.”
16. See Jan. note 2.
17. It is surprising that there were so many Negroes in view of the fact that slavery was still illegal.
18. This was the Carolina parrakeet, then numerous but now extinct.
APRIL
1. The Leinebacher children had come in 1746 on the Judith with a large party of Germans who had sailed for Pennsylvania but had been captured by Spanish corsairs and detained at Bilbao before being ransomed by the British.
2. Karl Heinrich Bogatzky, Güldenes Schatz-Kästlein der Kinder Gottes. Halle, many printings.
3. By “ignorant” (unwissend), Boltzius meant uninformed about Pietist dogma.
4. Although Salzburg was in the Holy Roman Empire, anyone leaving there was said to be going “into the Empire.” See entry for 7 April.
5. Wenn ich in Nöthen beth und sing, so wird mein Herz recht guter Ding.
6. See note 1, above.
7. Because the arable land around Ebenezer was limited, most of the Salzburgers removed to plantations along Abercorn Creek, where the soil was enriched every winter when flooded by the Savannah. Since the plantations were too far away for the children to walk to town, they needed their own school and church.
8. See Jan., note 6.
9. Although he was Reformed, Tobler could not accept the decretum absolutum, or principle of predestination, preferring to think that any sinner can be saved by Christ’s merits if he truly believes.
10. See Jan., note 7.
11. Unfortunately, the son soon followed his father.
12. Because most pregnant women in Colonial Georgia had malarial fever, many children were brain damaged.
13. See Jan., note 2.
14. Pastor Albinus, a chaplain at the English Chapel, was gradually taking over Court Chaplain Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen’s heavy load.
15. Archpriest Schumann maintained communications between the Georgia Salzburgers and their kinsmen and co-religionists in East Prussia.
16. Whereas this was a folk belief, it is true that electric storms do fixate nitrogen and thus improve the soil.
17. Joseph Ottolenghe, the manager of the filature in Savannah, wished the Salzburgers to send all their cocoons to Savannah to be spun off. This meant that the major profit would be made there, not in Ebenezer.
18. Grains like wheat, rye, barley, and oats.
19. In other words, Ebenezer had both Jerusalem Church and Zion Church, while the people in Savannah had no church at all.
20. Boltzius was right. Through his Indian wife, Bosomworth did try to incite the Indians against the Trustees. His correspondence with the Trustees runs into hundreds of bitter pages.
21. His daughters were Apollonia and Maria.
22. See March, note 7.
23. The War of the Austrian Succession.
24. The physician Christian Ernst Thilo, who had no salary, was then giving Greek and Latin lessons to Boltzius’ two sons.
MAY
1. Tumblerinn. A member of a religious sect.
2. In the War of the Spanish Succession, England was fighting against France and Spain.
3. Pieta Clara, the widow of Paul Häfner and the mother of his six children, had married Adam Straube.
4. Ruprecht Zittrauer, a Salzburger from Gross-Orel, married Anna Leihoffer in 1736. She was probably the widow in question. Zittrauer was one of the few true Salzburgers to leave Ebenezer.
5. Dürrenberg (Tirnberg) was a principality adjacent to Salzburg, from which all Protestants were also expelled. Most of them, including the recently mentioned Kurtz family, went to Cadzand in Holland.
6. Boltzius is contrasting the legalism of the Old Testament with the grace of the New Testament. See the following note.
7. Boltzius is still contrasting the grace of Christ with the law of Moses. See the preceding note and April, note 9.
8. Josef Schaitberger was a Protestant from Salzburg who had been expelled before the great expulsion of 1731. He settled in Nuernberg as a wood carver and wrote tractates, such as the Sendschreiben, back to his co-religionists at home. He was also the author of the “Exiles’ Song” (Exulantenlied).
9. See April, note 18.
10. Boltzius called raccoons Wildkatzen.
11. A trading station in South Carolina not far from Augusta, not to be confused with the city of Savannah.
12. This was certainly true of William Norris and Thomas Bosomworth.
13. (Johann) Ulrich Driessler, a minister from Wurttemberg, was greatly esteemed during his short ministry at Frederica from 1743 to 1746.
JULY
1. The new woman in charge of the filature in Savannah followed the policy of her predecessor, Mary Camuse (Maria Camuso), in belittling the silk spun in Ebenezer so as to keep a monopoly of the more remunerative work of processing the cocoons.
2. While this diary has been lost, it probably included the same material as found in Boltzius’ extensive correspondence with the Trustees, which is found in the Colonial Office Papers of the Public Record Office, mostly from CO 5 634 to CO 5 665.
3. See Jan., note 2.
4. The chapter number is illegible in my photographic copy.
5. Karl Heinrich Bogatzky, Armenbüchlein.
6. See March, note 6.
7. The Calvinistic dogma of predestination. See April, note 9.
8. Johann Arndt’s True Christianity (Vier Bücher vom wahrem Christenthum) was the favorite reading of most German families in America, being reprinted in Philadelphia. The English translations were also popular. Arndt’s Paradies-Gärtlein was also very popular.
9. Knowing nothing of germs and viruses, eighteenth-century people, including the best doctors, attributed most fevers to changes in the weather.
10. Lady W. in Stuttgart, who was the wife of an Imperial Knight (Reichsritter). See next note.
11. He was an Imperial Knight (Reichsritter) and therefore had no territorial lord between himself and the emperor.
12. He was from Purysburg. See entries for 23 June, 10 Sept., and 5 Dec.
13. Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, Geistreiches Gesang-Buch. Halle 1704 ff.
14. “He who is absent may do without.”
15. A town in eastern Germany where Boltzius and Gronau were ordained on their way from Halle to Georgia.
16. Die Lehre von der Busse und Vergebung der Sünden, in kurze Sätze gefasst.
17. Col. Heron’s memory may go back to some fine linen sent, quite unsolicited, by a merchant of St. Gall named Schlatter. Since it was too fine for the Salzburgers, the storekeeper Causton sold it; but he failed to pay for it and Boltzius had to write numerous letters before the Trustees did so.
18. “with deliberation.”
19. Locally, these gourds are called calabash.
20. For some reason this seems to be Boltzius’ first mention of ducks and geese, birds dear to European peasants. Perhaps they were taken for granted in the word “poultry” (Federvieh). Although all hawks in Georgia are called “chicken hawks,” most of them, particularly soaring hawks like redtailed, red-shouldered, and marsh hawks, are beneficial to the farmers, since they eat far more rats and mice than they do chickens.
21. Boltzius may be distinguishing between the large fox squirrels of the pine groves and the small grey cat squirrels of the oak groves.
22. Although Boltzius seldom complained of the royal government, he was well aware how much Georgia’s progress was harmed by Britain’s mercantilistic policies.
23. Here Boltzius is expressing Oglethorpe’s views more than his own.
AUGUST
1. Jesum liebe, und allein, sonst kannst du nicht selig sein. Apparently from a hymn.
2. Johann August Urlsperger.
3. For the Pietists, a good Christian should be simple (einfältig) and trusting.
4. Along the Savannah River the word “Frenchman” usually designated the French Swiss of Purysburg, language being more important than nationality. Neuchatel, from whence they had come, was the private property of the King of Prussia.
5. “To punishment by slow steps.” The quotation from Jeremiah refers to God’s warning, not to the slow steps.
6. “By word and deed.”
7. Finding no living for a Reformed minister in Georgia or South Carolina, Zouberbuhler tried to get a military commission. Failing in that, he had himself ordained in London in the Anglican Church. When he returned to Georgia, the Reformed avoided him even though he spoke their language.
8. It is not clear why Boltzius calls Heron Herr Oberste und Capitain.
9. Boltzius means that, when the alliance between the Creeks and the Cherokees broke down and they fought each other, the English enjoyed peace.
10. Philip Gebhart and his family had come to Georgia with Capt. William Thomson in 1738. Boltzius arranged for the three girls, Elisabetha, Eva, and Magdalena, to come to Ebenezer, where they all married. Magdalena married Simon Reiter. There were two sons when the family arrived, Hans Georg and Philip. A third must have been born if the oldest died in Purysburg and the youngest died in Ebenezer, leaving Hans Georg to receive a grant in 1752.
11. See Jan., note 2.
12. See July, note 8.
13. See May, note 8.
14. The word Potatoes always designated sweet potatoes or yams. Irish potatoes, which were not grown at Ebenezer, would have been Erd-Aepfel, from French pommes de terre.
15. “A serpent lieth in the grass.”
16. “A candidate for eternity.”
17. Boltzius was right in thinking that malaria, although not a killer itself, weakened people for more fatal diseases.
18. im dritten Theile seiner theologischen Bedenken. Jacob Spener is often considered the father of German Pietism.
19. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
SEPTEMBER
1. Georg Kogler and Stephan Rottenberger. See entry for 8 September.
2. Graf Erdmann Heinrich Henckel von Donnersmart, Die letzten Stunden einiger der evangelischen Lehre zugethanen, selig in dem Herrn entschlafenen Personen, etc., etc. Halle 1720-1733.
3. The Salzburgers received servants just a year later, but not all were loyal.
4. Georgia had the open range, or fencing-out, policy common on our western frontier.
5. Boltzius is arguing that they should be indentured servants with a fixed contract, rather than redemptioners free to redeem themselves or seek out the most liberal bidder.
6. Jacob Mohr, the stranger from Purysburg. See entries for 2 Jan., 23 June, and 10 Dec.
7. See Jan., note 2.
8. Boltzius must mean the iron stored at Old Ebenezer, the scene of the destroyed sawmill.
9. This girl is never identified.
10. The wrong date was probably the error of the typesetters in Halle, mostly children from the Orphanage.
11. Gertraut Schoppacher married first Simon Steiner, then Peter Reiter, and then Balthasar Bacher.
12. There is no explanation of why Boltzius called these two Englishmen “Monsieur” instead of “Mr.”
13. Justice of the peace.
DECEMBER
1. Note that Urlsperger has deleted both October and November.
2. Boltzius’ skepticism was later justified by the plight of the “po’ whites” in both the Antebellum and Postbellum South.
3. This was surely Chretien von Münch, a banker in Augsburg and a benefactor of the Georgia Salzburgers.
4. See Jan., note 8.
5. Surely Hungary (Ungarn).
6. Jacob Mohr again. See entries for 23 June and 10 Dec.
7. On the Day of Judgment.
8. Johann Adam Treutlen. See Jan., note 1. The records do not show whom his widowed mother, Maria Clara Treutlen, married; and therefore she disappears from view.
9. See Jan, note 8.
10. “Theology students.”
11. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg had stopped at Ebenezer in 1742 on his way from Halle to Philadelphia. Boltzius’ current colleague was Hermann Heinrich Lemke.
12. Johann Adam Treutlen again, see Jan., note 1.
13. An herb garden.
14. See July, note 8.
15. Again, Chretien von Münch. See note 3, above.
16. Boltzius reiterates that justification must come from faith alone, not from good works. See May, notes 6 & 7.
17. Anna and her husband Matthias were the last Salzburgers to arrive in Ebenezer, having come with Muhlenberg in 1742. Anna lost her husband in 1743 and a daughter in 1747 and left two daughters, Eleanora and Gertraut.
18. Like other Dürrenberger exiles, the Kurtz family had been at Cadzand in Holland before going to England.
19. See note 15, above.
20. This is an exceedingly early case of reforestration, since most Americans exploited the forest with no thought of its future. Credit for introducing reforestration in America is usually given to nineteenth-century Germans such as Carl Schurz and the Weyerhausers.
21. Henry Bishop, son of a green-grocer in London, was sent to Georgia to be Boltzius’ servant and totally assimilated with the Salzburgers, learning German and marrying a German girl, Friedrica Unselt.
22. Treutlen. See Jan., note 1.
23. Gnade und Wahrheit, oder eine kurze erzählung der Führungen Gottes mit David Aboab.
24. Boltzius’ prediction soon became reality in coastal Georgia.
25. Lieder auf die grossen Feste, und andere Gelegenheiten.
26. By Parodien machen Boltzius means to make contrafacts. He wished to discourage his parishioners from singing secular songs.