Early Settlers in Georgia
The Story of Georgia and The Georgia People 1736 - 1860
by George Gillman Smith, D.D.
Originally Published c. 1901

[These are excerpts from the book transcribed by K. Torp, ©2007]
[Added by transcriber: The following individuals (referred to as "malcontents" by the author)
signed a declaration c. 1740, complaining to the English government about the conditions in the colony:] pg. 17-18

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. Grechson, 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. Pendicke, J. Papot, J. Pemberton, J. Perkins, G. Phillip, S. Rienwell, 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. 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 knowledge of some of the first settlers.

Avocations of some of the first people:
Patrick Graham was apothecary to the trustees
J. Fitzwalter, gardener
J. Carwells, jailer
T. Upton, commands a garrison of five men
Giles Beca, a baker
Thomas Egerton, grandson of wheelright
A. Camuse, silk man
John Burton, town officer
James Pavey, in pay at August
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, boatman
Noble Jones, commands a garrison
Thomas Young, wheelright
Thomas Ellis, surveyor

The Scotch Settlement

pg. 21
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 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 asking. 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 Inverness 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 massacred 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 immigrants 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 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 immigrants 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 discharged 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 Witherspoon, 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 summer homes on the islands. Some of the descendants of these immigrants fixed their homes in Savannah and engaged in mercantile pursuits.....
.......
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

pg. 23-26
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 description 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 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, "between 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 Ebenezer, 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,
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 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 150 were multiplied tenfold in a little over a twelvemonth. This must, however, be a mistake, as it is not all probably 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 320 Germans who came....

Augusta

p. 28-29
Before Mr. Oglethorpe came to Georgia there was trading-post near what is now Hamburg, S.C., on the South Carolina side of the river called Fort Moore, and Mr. Oglethorpe dedicated to build a fort on the Georgia side and garrison it. This he did, and in honor of the Princess Augusta it was called by her name. In the pamphlet to which we have referred, by Wm. Stephens, there is the following list of Indian traders who had headquarters at Augusta. The names given are:

Wood, Brown, Clark, Knott, Spencer, Barnett, Ladson, Mackey, Elsey, Facy, McQueen, Wright, Gardner, Andrews, Duvall, Cammell Randel, Chauncey, Newberry.

There were beside these traders, living near the fort, Kennedy O'Brien, Frazer, Miller, Brown, a saddler, a tailor, William Clark, H. Overstreet, L. Bean, William Grey, William Calahan, McGilveray, Casson, Gilmore, Goodale, Ross, Galphin.

On the east side of the Savannah, in South Carolina, where negroes were allowed, there were numbers of plantations opened, and the corn consumed by the large number of horses needed in the trade with the Indians was produced there.

These indian traders sent out their men to the towns of the Chickasaws, Uchees, Creeks and Cherokees, and in the spring season great crowds of Indians came with their ponies loaded with peltry to trade at the post for powder and lead, and especially for rum. There was a mean rum known as tafia which was the main article of traffic. It was brought by Indian traders from the coast and traded for all kinds of products and for Indian slaves. These slaves, taken by their enemies in war, were brought to Augusta and sold and carried to Charleston and shipped to the West Indies. The traders were oftentimes wretchedly dissolute. They lived shameless lives with the squaws, and when they grew weary of them went from them with out hesitation....

1754-1775

pg. 44-45
In Plymouth, England, in the heat of the persecution of the Puritans by Archbishop Laud about 1630, a colony of Church of England people, weary of biships and of liturgies, resolved to emigrate to then just settled New England. This they did and fixed their home at Dorchester, Mass. They accepted the Congregational form of government they found there, and became a Congregational church, with a Calvinistic confession. Fifty years after this they found themselves cramped for land, and as South Carolina had been settled largely by those who sympathized with their religious and political views, they secured a large grant of of land on the Ashley river and planted a colony there, which they called Dorchester also. Here they planted rice and became large slaveholders.

They received an addition to their number from Virginia. The rice country about them was not sufficient for their needs, and as soon as Georgia allowed the planters to bring slaves into the colony they sent over some of their congregation to survey the land. There were some extensive swamps between Savannah and Darien, in what is now known as the swamp land of Liberty county. They were admirably adapted to the growth of rice, but, save to a rice planter accustomed to malarial swamps, certainly uninviting. The Dorchester people succeeded in getting grants from the colonial government which covered over thirty thousand acres of this fertile country. They did not at once remove, but, remaining a part of the year in South Carolina, they came to Georgia after their crop was made and opened land and built shelters until they were ready to change their habitations.

These immigrants fixed their homes on the edge of the swamps, building their humble cabins in the very center of the malarious district. The heavy timber was cleared away, the swamps were ditched and the dams made, and they moved their families and the cultivation of rice began. The only tool used in culture after the land was cleared, says Colonel Jones, was the hoe, and the rice was brought from the field on the head of the negroes and cleaned from the husks with pestle and mortar. Corn was ground in hand-mills. The market was Savannah, to which the rough rice was shipped by coasting schooners. The colony prospered and was soon quite populous. We give here a list of persons who received grants of five hundred acres:

John Davis, John Maxwell, James Maxwell, William Maxwell, John Stevens, Benjamin Baker, John Lupton, Rev. Mr. Osgood; Samuel Stephens, Sarah Norman, Daniel Slade, Edward Sumner, Andrew Way, Richard Spencer, William Brumley, Sarah Osgood, Rich Giraudeau, Joseph Bacon, Jonathan Bacon, John Norman, Sarah Mitchell, John Edwards, John Ellrod, John Way, William Graves, James Norman, John Stewart, Samuel James, Robert Glass, Robert Eccles, John Quarterman, David Ross, William Lupton, Richard Baker, John Stevens, Joseph Oswald, Jacob Weston, Joshua Clarke, A. Gleve, William Mackay, David Fox, Willoughby West, Palmer Gaulding, William Russell, Parmenus Way, Jacob Riden, Benjamin Andrew, and James Andrew.

It was decided by them to establish a market town nearer to the colony than Savannah, and in 1758 the town of Sunbury, on the western bank of Medway river, was laid out. Colonel Jones, who gives a history of the dead towns of Georgia, gives not only a plot of the young city but a list of the lot-holders, which is interesting as showing who resided in this county at that time. They were:

Mark Carr, Grey Elliott, Francis Arthur, William Graves, John Cubbege, James Maxwell, Mary Spivey, Samuel Bennerworth, Stephen Dickerson, James Fisher, Schmidt & Molich, Swin ton & Co., Darling & Munro, Thomas Peacock, A. Darling, Thomas Young, Roger Kelsal, John James, John Bacon, John Stewart, John Lupton, Dunbar, Young & Co., James Dunham, Lyman Hall, Samuel Miller, Kenneth Bailey, Samuel Benniworth, William Stevenson, Tabitha Bacon, John Winn, David Jerray, Francis Arthur, John Steward, John Lawson, Thomas Ralph, John Quarterman, Thomas Goldsmith, James Houston, Ivan Stevens, William Baker, Elijah Simmons, Robert Bolton, John Humphrey, Francis Guilland, Henry Saltus, Donald McKay, Stephen Dickenson, James Hurley, Francis Lee, John Quarterman, James Dowell, John Irvine, Jemima Irvine, Math Smallwood, William Peacock, John Osgood, Rebecca Way, Hugh Clark, Paris Way, Nath Yates, William Dunham, Charles West, Samuel West, Thomas Carter, Audley Maxwell, John Graves, John Baker, James Fisher, Jno. Elliot, Jno. Lyman, John Sutherland, Sam Jeanes, Joseph Tichenor, William Mullen, William Davis, James Sergeant, John Jones, Strong Ashmore, F. Arthur, George Morris, Joshua Snowden, James Andrew, Samuel Morcock, George Bodington, Mary Bateman, Patrick McKay, Benjamin Andrew, Marmaduke Gerry, John Winn, Richard Mills, James Hatcher, John Perkins, William Low, Barnard Romans, Ed Mahone, R. Spencer, John Mitchell, Morgan Tabb, Joseph Watcher, Jno. Gasper Stirkey, John Jones, Joseph Richardson, Robert Smallwood, John Futes, Arthur Carney, Isaac Linder, Fredcrick Holsendorf.

The first thing these good people did after fixing their homes was to build them a log church in the midst of their plantations. This church was succeeded by a better one, which was burned during the Revolution, and that by a still better one. For many years the Midway church with its chapels, first at Sunbury, then at Walthourville, commanded the best talent of the Presbyterian Church, and the congregation was large, wealthy, and intelligent, but after the last war reluctantly the church was given up by the whites and is now occupied by the negroes.

The Rev. Mr. Osgood, for whom Bishop James Osgood Andrew was named, was the pastor they brought with them from South Carolina. Like his parishioners, he was a planter and a man evidently of some estate. He was virtually a Presbyterian, and after Mr. McLeod, who only remained a little while in Georgia, was the first Presbyterian minister who had a charge in Georgia; for while Midway was a Congregational church during almost its entire history, the pastoral office was filled by Presbyterian ministers, with whom the Congregationalists of an early day in America were always in accord....

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