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98 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
reported that for the year preceding 341 persons had been transported by
the corporation, of whom 237 were Britons and 104 foreign Protestants.
To parties coming at their own expense, 5,725 .acres had been deeded, in
addition to 8,100 acres conveyed to indigent colonists. Out of £11,500
sterling received in contributions, £6,863 had been disbursed. To quote „
Colonel Jones:*1 "With the progress of colonization the Trustees cer
tainly had good cause to be pleased. Never was a trust more honestly
administered. Among all the English plantations we search in vain, for a
colony the scheme of whose settlement was conceived and executed upon
like principles, whose colonists were selected with like care, whose affairs
were conducted with equal regularity, and whose supervisors and agents
could be matched in respectability, culture and benevolence. 'By judi
cious treatment the red men had been won over to peace and amity. By
treaty stipulations these sons of the forest had surrendered to the Euro
peans their titles to wide domains. The pine-covered bluff at Yamacraw
was transmuted into a town, well-ordered, regularly laid out, .and pos
sessing forty completed houses and many others in process of construc
tion. A battery of cannon and a palisade proclaimed its power for
protection. An organized town court was opened for the enforcement
of rights and the redress of wrongs. From a tall flagstaff floated the
royal colors, and a substantial crane on the bluff facilitated the un-
burthening of vessels in the river below. A public garden and private
farms evidenced the thrift of the community, and gave promise of a
liberal harvest. An ample storehouse sheltered supplies against a sea
son of want. This little mother town—miniature metropolis of the
province—had already sent out her sons; some of them to dwell along
the line of the Savannah, others to watch by the Ogeechee, others to
build homes upon the islands and guard the approaches from the sea,
others to warn the mariner as he entered the mouth of the Savannah,
and others still to convert the neighboring forests into pleasant fields.
Planters, too, at their own charge, bringing articled servants with them,
were already seeking out and subduing fertile tracts. Thus the colony
enlarged its domains and multiplied its settlements."
*"History of Georgia," Vol. I, pp. 172-173.
EBENEZER, THE SALZBUROER SETTLEMENT.—Twenty-five miles above Savannah,
on an eminence which at this point overlooks the historic stream, there is still to
be seen a quaint little house of worship, from the belfry of which glistens a swan,
copied from the coat-of-arms of Martin Luther. It stands alone in the midst of a
silent waste; for the sturdy Germans who once peopled the surrounding area have
long since disappeared from the region. Near the church is the ancient burial ground.
The inscriptions upon the yellow tombstones can hardly be deciphered, so busily
have the destructive forces of time been here at work. But some of the graves are
almost, if not quite, as old as the Colony of Georgia; and, with naught to disturb
them in this quiet spot, save the pitiless elements, most of the inmates have here
slept for the better part of two centuries. It is the old deserted settlement of
the pious Salzburgers: Ebenezer.
To the outside world there were various names by which the little church was
known. It was sometimes called the Lutheran Meeting House, Occasionally it
was called the Salzburger Church, or the German Church, but in the official records
of the parish it was always Jerusalem Church, so named for the old original church
of the apostles at Jerusalem. It was indeed the center of a little German Palestine,
here planted among the lowlands of Georgia, a religious capital where the divine
law was promulgated. The present unpretentious but substantial edifice of brick was