The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This sketch of the early Ebenezer settlement was drawn in 1736 by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck. That same year the Salzburger settlement moved to a location closer to the Savannah River, where conditions were better for farming.
Print from Von Reck Archive, Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen
Ebenezer Creek in Effingham County was the site of Ebenezer, one of Georgia's first settlements. Founded by religious refugees from Salzburg during the 1730s, Ebenezer became a haven for other persecuted religious groups, including the Moravians.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Lutheran minister Johann Martin Boltzius, along with religious refugees from Salzburger, founded the settlement of Ebenezer near Savannah in the early 1730s as a religious utopia. Boltzius hoped to create a successful economic system that was not dependent upon slavery.
Jerusalem Church was established by the Salzburgers in Ebenezer during the 1730s. Ebenezer, left in ruins after the Revolutionary War, had disappeared by 1855, but Jerusalem Church, now known as Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church, still stands. It is one of the few buildings in Georgia left intact after the Revolutionary War.
Photograph by Bruce Tuten
South front of the Wormsloe House, 1899. Victorian-style improvements were made to the family house by Wymberly Jones De Renne in the 1890s. The Victorian additions and ornamentation were removed by his daugher nearly forty-five years later.
A narrow road adorned with live oak trees along either side makes for a dramatic entrance to the Wormsloe historic site.
Photograph by Jeff Gunn
The Wormsloe site, on the Isle of Hope peninsula, was an important part of the defense of the Georgia colony against the Spanish. A guard post and a marine garrison were located at Wormsloe during the colonial era.
Photograph by Katherine Bowman
Noble Jones used tabby, a mixture of limestone, sand, and shells, to build fortifications at Wormsloe in 1740 for the defense of Savannah. In 1793 he began construction on a new tabby home, the ruins of which are still standing.
Image from G. Dawson
Historical works made up the majority of the books privately printed by George Wymberley Jones De Renne. He called four of his publications the "Wormsloe Quartos" in honor of his family's ancestral estate.
Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling
Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne worked off and on most of his life to complete the library his father had begun. The Catalogue of the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library became the basis of the sale of the De Renne Georgia Library in 1938 to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, for placement in the University of Georgia Libraries.
Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling
In 1927 the Wormsloe estate was opened to the public as Wormsloe Gardens. The site became a popular tourist attraction. A tourist map from 1930 shows the layout of the property at the time.
In 1953 Barrow incorporated the Wormsloe Foundation, one of whose activities was the publication of historical works. Barrow is pictured here in a portrait by Edward August Bell (ca. 1905).
Courtesy of Elfrida Barrow Moore
Little remains of the Quaker settlement of Wrightsborough, located in present-day McDuffie County.
Courtesy of Forrest Shropshire
Peruvian bark (Cinchona calisaya), also known as quinine, was grown during the mid-eighteenth century in the Trustee Garden at Savannah. Cultivated by the Georgia colonists as a medical botanical for the lowering of fevers, quinine was later used in the nineteenth century to treat malaria.
From Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, by F. E. Kohler
Even before the Savannah settlement was a reality, artist John Pine produced this imaginary depiction of clearing the land. The central clearing in the background of his 1732 engraving may reflect the early planners' vision of a public garden as an integral part of the new colony.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
The white mulberry tree (Morus alba) was introduced to Georgia in 1734, when James Oglethorpe established the Trustee Garden in Savannah. Mulberry leaves are used to feed silkworms, which the colonists raised to make silk for shipment to England.
Photograph by Wikimedia
Sumac (Rhus glabra), a native North American plant with medicinal properties, was cultivated in the Trustee Garden by early settlers to the Georgia colony and sent to London, England. The garden was established in 1734 as an agricultural experiment station modeled after the physick and botanical gardens at Oxford and Chelsea in England.
Image from formulanone
Among the archaeological ruins remaining at Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island are the soldiers' barracks (pictured), along with the king's magazine and the house foundations and walls. The structures are made of tabby, a limey mortar.
Courtesy of Ed Mathews, Amelia Island Images
The restored magazine building was constructed from tabby and brick ca. 1740. Powder and ammunition were stored in the existing rooms, while the missing north section was used for soldiers' quarters and offices.
Image from HAL333
In the 1742 Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island, General Oglethorpe's soldiers defeated Spanish forces in what was the only Spanish invasion of Georgia during the War of Jenkins' Ear. The battle earned its name from its location rather than from the number of casualties, which were minimal.
Photograph by Forrest Shropshire
Designed to defend the southern frontier from the continued presence of Spanish colonials in the American Southeast, Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island served as the British military headquarters in colonial America.
The British regiment at Frederica disbanded in May 1749. In April 1758, a great fire swept Frederica, reducing much of it to ashes. Today the ruins form the Fort Frederica National Monument.
