The dead towns of Georgia

by Jr. Charles C. Jones

The arrival of the Reverend John Ernest Bergman,—a clergyman of decided talents and of considerable literary attainments,—and the revival of the parochial school greatly encouraged the depressed inhabitants and promoted the general improvement of the place. The population began to increase. It assumed an apparently permanent character, and countenanced the hope that the ante-bellum quiet, good order, thrift, and prosperity would be regained. This expectation, however, was not fully realized. The former trade never revived. The mills were never again put in motion. Silk-culture was renewed only to a limited degree. Having for twenty-five years more remained about stationary, New Ebenezer commenced visibly to decline; and, when scarcely more than a century old, took its place, in silence and nothingness, among the dead towns of Georgia.[34]

The act of February 26th, 1784,[35] provided for the erection of the “Court House and Gaol” and for holding public elections in Effingham County at Tuckasee-King, near the present line of Scriven County. The situation proving inconvenient, three years afterwards the county-seat was removed to Elberton, near Indian Bluff, on the north side of the Great Ogeechee river.

On the 18th of February, 1796, the Legislature of Georgia[36] appointed Jeremiah Cuyler, John G. Neidlinger, Jonathan Rawhn, Elias Hodges, and John Martin Dasher “commissioners for the town and common of Ebenezer,” with instructions to have the town “surveyed and laid out as nearly as possible in conformity to the original plan thereof, to sell all vacant lots, and such as had become vested in the State, [reserving such only as were necessary for public uses,] and appropriate the proceeds to the erection of a County Court House and Jail.” Any over-plus was to be applied to building a public Academy. For three years only did Ebenezer remain the County Town of Effingham County. In 1799, its public buildings were sold, and the village of Springfield was designated by the Legislature as “the permanent seat for the public buildings of the County of Effingham.”[37] David Hall, Joshua Loper, Samuel Ryals, Godhelf Smith, and Drurias Garrison were appointed commissioners to carry this change into effect.

In 1808 the Ebenezer Congregation received legislative permission to sell the glebe lands which it owned. By degrees all the real estate held by the society was disposed of. The proceeds arising from these sales were invested in lands, mortgages, and securities;—the interest accruing being applied to the payment of the pastor’s salary and the current expenses of the church.[38]

Until about the year 1803 all the religious services observed by the Saltzburgers were conducted in the German language; and, in the church at Ebenezer, for a long time subsequent to that date, the religious exercises continued in that tongue. Methodist and Baptist Churches springing up in the neighborhood drew away many of the younger members of the congregation. The introduction of the English language into all the Saltzburger Churches was effected in 1824 through the instrumentality of the Reverend Christopher F. Bergman.

Year by year Ebenezer became more sparsely populated. Many of its citizens removed into the interior and upper parts of the county. Quite a number formed settlements in Scriven County, while others went to Savannah, and to Lowndes, Liberty, and Thomas counties. Others still,—more enterprizing than their fellows,—sought new homes in South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

We close this sketch with a picture of Ebenezer painted by one of the late Pastors[39] of Jerusalem Church,—a gentleman of cultivation and of piety, who saw the last waves of oblivion as they closed over the town and obliterated its decayed traces from the grass covered bluff of the Savannah.

“To one visiting the ancient town of Ebenezer, in the present day [1855] the prospect which presents itself is anything but attractive; and the stranger who is unacquainted with its history would perhaps discover very little to excite his curiosity or awaken his sympathies. The town has gone almost entirely to ruins. Only two residences are now remaining, and one of these is untenanted. The old church, however, stands in bold relief upon an open lawn, and by its somewhat antique appearance seems silently, yet forcibly, to call up the reminiscences of former years. Not far distant from the church is the cemetery, in which are sleeping the remains of the venerable men who founded the colony and the church, and many of their descendants who, one by one, have gone down to the grave to mingle their ashes with those of their illustrious ancestors.

“Except upon the Sabbath, when the descendants of the Saltzburgers go up to their temple to worship the God of their fathers, the stillness which reigns around Ebenezer is seldom broken, save by the warbling of birds, the occasional transit of a steamer, or the murmurs of the Savannah as it flows on to lose itself in the ocean. The sighing winds chant melancholy dirges as they sweep through the lofty pines and cedars which cast their sombre shades over this ‘deserted village.’ Desolation seems to have spread over this once-favored spot its withering wing, and here, where generation after generation grew up and flourished, where the persecuted and exiled Saltzburgers reared their offspring in the hope that they would leave a numerous progeny of pious, useful, and prosperous citizens, and where everything seemed to betoken the establishment of a thrifty and permanent colony, scarcely anything is to be seen, except the sad evidences of decay and death.”