USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 3
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There was no commerce. Rice and indigo, which made South Carolina rich, could not be cultivated without negro labor. There was no manufacturing of any kind. The few men of means, for none could be called wealthy, soon had stock ranches and depended on the wild grasses and nuts for food for their cows and ponies and hogs .. The poorer classes, many of whom were day-laborers and artisans or small farmers, were dependent largely on the company stores to keep them from want. The country on the coast was far from fertile, and life was very hard at best.
The main part of the poorer Englishmen were not farmers but came from the cities and were dependent upon handi- work for a living, and those who attempted to farm on their small tracts near Savannah made a poor out of it. Mr. Wesley,* who came in 1737, says "the land was of four sorts, pine-barren, oak, marshes and hummocks. The pine
* Wesley's Journal.
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. I.
land was cleared with difficulty, and produced the first year from two to four bushels of corn and from four to eight bushels of peas. The second year it produced half as much and the third year nothing. The oak lands were better, producing as much as ten bushels of corn per acre.
"The savannas and marshes furnished some pasturage. There were two kinds of grapes, the fox - grape and the cluster. The chinkapin and huckleberry and persimmon were wild fruits." As Mr. Wesley had never been twenty miles from the coast, his knowledge of the real value of the lands of the interior was exceedingly limited, but his account of the farming lands near Savannah and down the coast to Frederica is very correct, and these were the lands upon which the first comers were located. When one thinks of an Englishman who had been brought up in the fertile island going with his axe into a Georgia pine wood or a Georgia swamp to clear his field and make it ready for the. hoe, for he had neither team nor plow, and that in an almost torrid clime ; and when he adds to that the wide sweep of deadly malaria in the fall, he can well understand the supreme disgust with which the immigrants looked upon farm life in Georgia. The trustees had hoped to found in. Georgia a silk-raising colony ; the same scheme which had fascinated the Virginians over a hundred years before, and which had resulted in failure there, was to be found practi- cable in a softer clime.
So they had planted the mulberry and had brought over Mr. Camuse and his too bibulous wife and a supply of cocoons and began to raise silkworms and make silk, and when raw silk was made sufficient to weave a robe for the queen they were quite sure failure was impossible. Silk- raising was the "will-o'-the-wisp" to the Georgia colony for several disappointing years.
The raising of grapes from which to make wine began well and promised well, but it was soon found to be imprac --
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1732 .1754.]
ticable to make good wine in a climate so hot, and this enterprise was also given over.
The colonists were not prosperous and laid the blame of their straitened condition on Mr. Oglethorpe, who spent all his time at Frederica, and there was formed an anti- Oglethorpe party. The Oglethorpe party was under the control of the secretary of the colony, afterwards Governor William Stephens, who was the son of an English baronet, and had been a member of Parliament, and the anti-Ogle- thorpe party was led by his son, Thomas Stephens .* This last named gentleman was selected by sundry citizens to go to England and present their grievances to the trustees, which he did very vigorously, if not very skilfully. The result of it was that he was compelled to apologize for his reflections upon the good governor, and the friends of Mr. Oglethorpe published in 1740 a statement of the Province of Georgia, attested upon oath, which was designed to show how successfully all things had been managed. This. account stated that the ground produced corn, rice, peas, potatoes, pumpkins, melons, wheat, oats, barley, mulberry trees, vines and cotton. That hogs and cattle increased beyond imagination. That there was considerable trade in the river.
That there was a court- house, a gaol, a storehouse, a. wharf, a guard-house, and some other public buildings. A garden of ten acres in the city. Oranges had not yet been grown successfully, but would be. Silk was increasing. Vines grew luxuriantly, and some good white wine had. been made. The trustees had a number of cattle. There were villages at Abercorn, Highgate and Hampstead. The houses in Darien were mostly huts, but tight and warm, and there was a little fort there. Frederica was very pros- perous.+ The people sent on charity from England were:
* Mr. Stephens's Journal.
* Georgia Historical Collections, Vol. I.
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. I.
of the unfortunate. Some of them had thriven. Some were worthless and ran away to South Carolina to live by cunning. The servants picked up in London had proven worthless. The Germans had done well. This cheering report was signed by Patrick Graham, John Burton, Wil- liam Stephens, Joe Fitzwalter, Joe Pavey, Henry Parker, James Carswell, Robert Hanks, Thomas Jones, Thomas Upton, Samuel Mercer, John Milledge, Giles Bean, Thomas Bailey, Aaron Campbell, Thomas Egerton, George Johnson, John Rae, Thomas Cindlell, Samuel Parker, Noble Jones, Anthony Camuse, Thomas Palmer, Thomas Young, Thomas Ellis .*
The anti-Oglethorpe people were not to be suppressed, and so Mr. Thomas Stephens, still sore over his experience at court, and Sir Richard Everhard prepared a spicy rebut- tal, supported also by oaths. They said: "The agricul- tural condition was very bad. There was no magistrate in Darien or Ebenezer. The magistrates in Savannah and Frederica had so disregarded law as to be worse than none. The militia was untrained. The land was held on unsatis- factory tenures. Rum was not allowed and negroes were forbidden. Thomas Jones, the storekeeper, was a felon." These charges they tried to support by affidavits of the mal- contents from all parts of the colony. But the affidavits do not support any charges of a serious nature against Gen- eral Oglethorpe or his chief officers. They only show the great discontent of the colonists and the low state which the colony had reached. The fact was the poor people had many of them been grievously misled by the glowing pictures presented by the first visitors to the colony, and were not prepared to adjust themselves to the condition of things ; and it is evident that, while the trustees were per- fectly sincere and unselfish, they knew nothing of the real difficulties which were to be overcome.t
* Georgia Historical Collections, Vol. 2.
t Georgia Historical Collections, Vol. 2.
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1732-1754.]
The malcontents who signed the declaration were :
John Amory, Ben Adams, Thos. Andrews, Thos. Atwill, Thomas Antrobus, James Anderson, Hugh Anderson, John Brownfield, John Burton, Chas. Brittain, Jas. Burnside, F. Brooks, M. Bright, R. Bradley, M. Burkhalter, J. Blands, W. Barbo, P. Balliol, E. Bush, G. Bean, G. Bunch, P. Butler, T. Baillie, A. Bell, H. Buckley, L. Brown, W. Blecheman, A. Ban, T. Becher, W. Calvert, W. Carter, T. Cross, W. Cothred, J Clark, J. Cundale, Wm. Cooksey, Jno. Jacob Curl, A. Camuse, T. Clyatt, John Carneck, J. Cuthbert, J. Coln, John Clark, J. Dormer, J. Desborough, R. Davis, T. Delegal, Andrew Duchie, Thomas Dawson, J. Dodds, D. Douglas, J. Duddery, D. Douglas, S. Davidson, W. Davy, J. Dean, P. Delegal, E. Davidson, C. Dasher, W. Elbert, Thomas Edgerton, John Evans, W. Ewen, T. Ellis, P. Emery, W. Evans, H. Frazer, J. Fitzwalter, H. Fletcher, W. Francis, John Fallowfield, W. Fox, E. Foster, T. Frazer, J. Foulds, R. Gilbert, P. Gordon, Pat. Grahame, John Grahame, D. Grendee, W. Greenfield, C. Greenfield, W. Grech- son, J. Hetreman, Jas. Galloway, Jas. Gould, G. Herbougl, A. Glenn, Thos. Gaulet, Jas. Houston, M. German, Geo. Gorland, T. Hetherington, Jno. Gould, H. Green, J. Harboughs, C. Grunaldi, A. Grant, Jas. Jeansack, John Goldwire, R. Howes, Peter Jouberts, S. Holmes, J. Haselfoot, Ed. Jenkins, John Kelly, Wm. Kennedy, L. Lacy, R. Lobb, J. Cannon, P. Cantey, M. Lowley, H. Lloyd, L. Lyon, J. Loudry, Thomas Lee, S. Mercer, S. Marrauld, S. Montford, F. Mellichamp, J. McDonald, P. Mckay, B. McIntosh, J. McIntosh, B. Mckay, J. Muse, A. McBride, J. Miller, T. Neale, T. Ormston, C. Arlman, K. O. Brien, H. Parker, Wm. Parker, T. Morris, Sam'l Parker, J. Prestwood, Jno. Pye, R. Parker, J. Penrose, W. Pen- dicke, J .- Papot, J. Pemberton, J. Perkins, G. Phillip, S. Rien- well, R. Rogers, Jno. Robe, Geo. Rush, J. Rae, A. Rose, J. Roberson, A. Rantowle, J. Watson, W. Rigdon, Hugh Ross, A. Reynolds, J. M. Rizer, L. Stamon, W. Starflichts, J. Stanley, D. Stewart, J. Smith, A. Simes, L. Sumners, J. Smith, J. Sellie, L. Salter, J. Scott, J. Smalley, D. Snook, G. Stephens, D. Snook, J. Spielberger, Jno. Spencer, G. Stephens, J. Smithers, John Scott, Jas. Springer, W. Stenhouse, J. Smalley, Jno. Scott, J. 2
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. I.
Mackfield, L. Sparnell, W. Speeling, R. Williams, Peter Ector, E. Townsend, Geo. Tyrrell, S. Tarrian, J. Truan, T. Tripp, T. Tibbetts, P. Tailfer, A. Taylor, T. Upton, J. Williams, J. Watts, S. Ward, Geo. Waterman, J. Wilson, W. Williamson, W. Wood, J. White, T. Wattle, A. Walker, W. Woodruff, T. Webb, W. Wardrop, J. Warwick, Isaac Young, John Young, Thos. Young.
These composed a very large part of the freeholders of the colony and were from all the settled parts of it. This list of names is specially valuable, as it gives us a knowl_ edge of some of the first settlers. In the declaration there is also information as to the avocations of those who signed the other paper. It will be seen that there are a number of names found on both papers. The malcontents endeavored to show that those who did not sign their paper were interested in some way with the Government. It gives the avocations of some of the first people.
Patrick Graham was apothecary to the trustees; J. Fitz- walter, gardener; J. Carwells, jailer; T. Upton, commands a garrison of five men; Giles Beca, a baker; Thomas Eger- ton, grandson of wheelright; A. Camuse, silk man; John Burton, town officer; James Pavey, in pay at Augusta; R. Hankes, town officer ; Thomas Bayley, smith; George Johnson, sawyer; S. Parker, son-in-law of Mercer; William Stephens, secretary of colony; H. Parker, magistrate ; T. Jones, magistrate, overseer, storekeeper; Samuel Mercer, constable; James Campbell, jailer; James Rae, scout, boat- man; Noble Jones, commands a garrison; Thomas Young, wheelright; Thomas Ellis, surveyor. The storekeeper of the trustees had been Thomas Causton. He was the pros- ecutor of John Wesley. He became involved in his ac- counts with the trustees and was called home to England to settle them and died on his returning voyage.
The silk industry had failed. The people were not pros- pering, and when Mr. Oglethorpe returned to England he gave up his place and never came back to Georgia .. He
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1732-1754.]
lived long and honorably after his return to England, and his honest intentions to do good have never been ques- tioned. Few men were less capacitated to do the work he had in hand than he was, but no man ever tried more earnestly to do what duty demanded.
While Mr. Oglethorpe was here he made a treaty with the Creeks, going to the nation to do so, which was of great value to the colony. He was evidently more anxious to build up Frederica than Savannah, and was by no means popular with the colonists who had located themselves near the city which had been the first founded by him in Georgia.
BETHESDA.
The people who came to the colony were in the main Church of England people and brought with them a pastor from England, Dr. Henry Herbert. His health failed and he returned to England and Mr. Josiah Quincy was his successor, and after he left the colony Mr. John Wesley was the rector of the church, and after two years Mr. Whitfield came out. Of these we have given a full account in the last chapter of this book, in which the history of the early days of the church in Savannah is given at length. This is, however, the proper place to recognize the fact of Mr. Whitfield's establishment of the Bethesda Home for orphans, of which a full account will be found in the chapter on the Story of the Cities (chapter 14).
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[CHAP. I ..
This English settlement, as I designate the one near Savannah, was by no means purely English. Some of the leading settlers in it were Scotchmen, and as we have seen elsewhere, some of them were Jews and Italians. The planters, at the time that Oglethorpe left the colony, were few and perhaps none of them in easy circumstances, and the larger part of the people were poor and disheartened. Secretary Stephens has left a copious journal, beginning with 1737 and going to 1742, and from it we gather that Patrick Houston, afterward Sir Patrick, Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Noble Jones, Mr. Fallowfield, Mr. DeLacy, Mr. Thomas Jones, Mr. Mathews (who married Mary, the Creek princess), Dr. Patrick Grahame and a few others were the only people near Savannah who had any considerable quantity of land. Savannah was a straggling village of small log huts or houses built of sheathing plank. In the account of the cities the reader will find a more satisfactory statement of the first years of this principal village of the colony. The larger part of the inhabitants of the English colony lived near the village of Savannah and made a scanty livelihood by cultivating the land contiguous to it, and by doing such work as was to be found to do in so small a hamlet. When Mr. Whitfield began to build his orphans' home at Bethesda he gave employment to many of the people, much to their relief. They had their forty-acre fields on the outskirts and their little houses in the village, and soon gathered about them some cattle and hogs, and managed with their fishing- nets and fowling-pieces and the produce of their herds and fields to live in a plain and simple way. There were very few of them who were prosperous. There was some small trade, and, as we see from the account of the city, there was some gaiety to be found in the city even thon. There was, however, for the first twenty years in this English settle -- ment nothing like prosperity.
-
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THE SCOTCH SETTLEMENT.
The sturdy Scotch Highlanders had little sympathy with the House of Hanover, and finding life hard among the wild hills of their native land were easily persuaded by Captain - MA Mackay to come to the new colony of Georgia, which was pictured to them in the glowing language of the times as a land where all that man wanted could be had for the ask- ing. Mr. John More McIntosh, a Scotch laird, the head of his clan, consented to lead the colony, and one hundred and thirty of them, with fifty women, took shipping from Inver- ness for Georgia. They reached Savannah in due time and then went in flat-bottomed boats to find their new home sixteen miles from Frederica, on the Altamaha.
Calling their town New Inverness, they established their settlement, built their huts and were just getting settled when the war with Spain began.
Mr. McLeod was their minister, and he had established the first Presbyterian kirk in Georgia, and he tells of how the sad failure of their hopes led the poorer Highlanders all to enlist in General Oglethorpe's army. By a night attack at St. Augustine over half of these brave Scotchmen were mas- sacred by the Spaniards. They had not had an easy life in the Highlands, but their life in Georgia had been far harder, and so after this massacre many of the poorer members of the colony went elsewhere. Mr. John More McIntosh and his immediate family remained, and as he was a man of substance and kept the storehouse of the colony and traded with the Indians, he was well-to-do.
The settlers were in the main very poor peasants, only seventeen, according to General Oglethorpe's Letters, being able to pay their way across the sea. Some of the immi- grants were, however, men of property and lairds of the clans from which most of the immigrants were recruited by Captain Mackay, and while many of the poorer members of
.
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[CHAP. I.
the colony became dissatisfied with New Inverness and joined the malcontents, these leading families sided with Mr. Oglethorpe's adherents and signed a document in which they indorsed him and his measures. This list is the only one of these first settlers I have been able to secure. These were John Mackintosh Moore, John Mackintosh, Roland McDonald, John McDonald, John MacLean, John McIntosh, John McIntosh Bain, James Mackay, Daniel Clark, Alex Clark, I. Burgess, D. Clark, Jr., A. McBain, Wm. Munroe, John Cuthbert. These are all the names of the first immi- grants I have been able to recover. These were Scotch without an admixture and most of them traders. At a later period there are found some English names among them.
The remnant of the Highland company, who were dis- charged after the Spanish war ended, did not return to Darien but distributed themselves over the lower part of the colony. Some of them settled in St. John's parish and some of them in what are now Camden, Glynn and McIntosh counties.
The removal of the restriction to the use of negroes led to the opening by the wealthier part of the settlers of rice plantations, and when the first assembly was called in 1750 John More McIntosh was a member from this section. In 1775 among those who sympathized with the revolutionists there were Lachlan McIntosh, Richard Cooper, George Threadcraft, Seth Mccullough, Charles McDonald, Isaac Hall, John McIntosh, Thos. King, Raymond Demere, John Roland, Giles More, P. Shuttleworth, Joseph Slade, Samuel McClellan, Isaac Newsome, A. D. Cuthbert, John Wither- spoon, John Hall, John Fulton, John McCullough, Samuel Fulton, Peter Sallen, Isaac Cuthbert, James Clark, M. Mccullough, Wm. Mccullough, B. Shuttleworth, John McClelland.
Some of these first comers engaged in Indian trade and had their warehouses and trading-post in Florida, and their
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1732-1754.]
rice plantations on the river and their summer homes on the islands. Some of the descendants of these immigrants fixed their homes in Savannah and engaged in mercantile pursuits.
After the breaking up of the kirk in Darien and the de- parture of their minister, there does not seem for some years to have been any religious teacher among those who remained, but after the Church of England was established under Governor Ellis, there was likely occasional service held by an Episcopal missionary. The wealthy planters sent their children to Savannah and Charleston and Sunbury for education, and the poor grew up in ignorance.
As we shall see in a future chapter, there was another body of Scotch Highlanders who came to Georgia at a later time, who came through North Carolina.
THE GERMAN SETTLEMENT.
The Germans who came with Mr. Oglethorpe on his first coming to the colony chose in their location a section of land in what is now Effingham county, and established a village which was called Ebenezer. The glowing descrip- tion of Mr. Van Reck, who was deputed to select the spot for their home, is so extravagant that one acquainted with the country finds it hard to understand how the good man could have seen so much and have been so deluded, and it was as disappointing to the honest Germans who settled it as it has been to the modern observer.
The Salzburghers were a body of Austrian Protestants who had been exiled from the native hills and found a temporary refuge in Germany, and from thence a body of seventy-eight came to Dover, in England, from which place, at the expense of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, they were transported free of charge to Georgia. They had with them their two pastors, Bolzius and Gronau. Their commissary, Van Reck, went with
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. I.
Oglethorpe into the wilderness to find a home for them. It was in early March when the pine woods were in their fairest garb.
Finding a spot in the wilderness of what he thought was matchless loveliness, he decided that was the place in which the weary exiles could find rest. " It was," he said, "be- tween two rivers which fell into the Savannah, a little rivulet with crystal water glided by the town, the woods are open, the air balmy, there are wide meadows, there is the cedar, the walnut, the pine, the cypress, the oak, the myrtle and the sassafras, the ground is fertile, and the woods full of game." This was the land the German dreamer found, but when the settlement was made it was found to be a barren waste, and after two years of effort to make it productive they found it would be necessary to remove to another spot. They found that nearer the river and settled the New Ebenezer. They were a very thrifty people and secured help not only from the trustees, but from their kinspeople and sympathizers across the seas, and in a few years they were in very comfortable circumstances. Their history was written some years ago by Mr. Strobel, the pastor of Eb- enezer, and is a very full and satisfactory account of them. These German immigrants were connected with the great Lutheran body, and they brought into Georgia and planted in its forests a German village.
They soon had a school and a home for widows or orphans, and away from the temptations of city life they developed a model community. Mr. Strobel has given the following list of persons who belonged to the community in 1741:
Messrs. Bolzius, Gronau, Rieser, Laub, Grewandel, Mamer, Kaigler, Zittreur, Runter, Rottenberger, Zubli, Ortman, Kulcher, Ramer, Reidelsparger, Moller, Hertzog, Hessler, Pletter, Sigismund, Hernberger, Bruckner, Ott, Zettler, Tribner, Eischberger, Arnsdorf, Ruter, Brandner, Lumber- ger, Lackner, Steiner, Schwarzer, Schmidt, Crause, Gruber,
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1732-1754.]
Schutner, Lietner, Corberger, Grimmuger, Bergshammer, Landseller, Ernst (Ernest), Rieser, Pickler, Spurlbergen, Niedlinger, Helfenstein, Rabenhorst, Lembke, Muhlenberg, Wertch, Muller, Treutlen, Floerl, Wiesenbaker, Schubtrien, Kramer, Goldwire, Kraus, Beddenbach, Waldhauer, Pauler, Rahn, Helme, Remshart, Grau, Heil, Buchler, Hanleiter, Bollinger, McCay, Zimmerbuer, Oechele (Exley), Kimberger, Winkler, Witman, Dasher, Schrampa, Schwenger, Mohr, Liemberger, Buntz, Micheal, Beckley, Hausler, Gugel, Schremph, De Rosche, Moeler, Deppe, Metzger, Seckinger, Mack, Schneider, Schuele, Helfenstein, Freyermouth, Keifer, Tarringer, Pfluger, Meyer, Ditters, Rentz, Bergman.
Those who examine this list will find names which have since been Anglicized and slightly changed, but they will find many unchanged which are still borne by Georgians. No people have been more noted for industry, probity and intelligence. The little hamlet they founded, and which for so many years was the center of so much of interest to the Salzburghers, has long since ceased to be anything like even a village, but the church still stands and many of the descendants of these German refugees are still living. While the Pilgrim Fathers, who were a smaller number than these Salzburghers, have a high place in American history, this noble band of Austrian refugees has been almost lost to sight by the historian. They came to Georgia from their native Tyrol because of their devotion to Christian principle, and wherever their descendants are found the spirit which belonged to their fathers is manifested in them.
This people resided in what was afterward the upper part of St. Matthew's parish. They had been accustomed to farmers' work in their native land and to live in a simple, frugal way, and receiving help both from the trustees and from their German coreligionists across the seas, they had prospered from the first, and in 1754 their part of the colony received an accession by the coming of a body of German
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[CHAP. I.
Lutherans, not Salzburghers, who were brought into the colony by Captain De Brahm and settled at a place five miles north of Ebenezer. This colony increased very rapidly, and, according to Jones, the one hundred and fifty were multiplied tenfold in a little over a twelvemonth. This must, how- ever, be a mistake, as it is not all probable that fifteen hundred Germans came at that time. They settled a village called Bethany in what is now Screven county, and De Brahm says there were three hundred and twenty Germans who came .*
There were, before the negroes were allowed, a small number of Germans who were brought over by the trustees, indentured for five years as servants, and in 1739 General Oglethorpe, in one of his letters to the trustees, mentions the coming of sixty-nine, who were distributed among the planters; but there was so little demand for them that there were several for whom homes could not be secured. There were in the number twelve marriageable females, who were taken by Mr. Bolzius to Ebenezer to furnish wives for the unmarried men.+ Mr. Stephens mentions some German laborers who came with Captain Hewitt. It was a regular thing for the shipmasters coming to the American colonies to bring over a ship-load of young laborers, who were sold to the planters, and Virginia is not the only colony in which the wives of some of the planters were procured by paying the passage money across the seas. These last coming Germans evidently were absorbed by the already considerable bodies of their countrymen who were in the colony.
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