Ebenezer; And A Genealogical Surprise

The Scheraus family, Johann and Maria Helene, arrived in Savannah in October of 1741, aboard the vessel London Merchant. They had embarked from Rotterdam, after stays in Augsburg and possibly elsewhere. According to lore, they had been among the Salzburgers, some scores of Protestants exiled from Salzburg, Austria, along with the Jews, Gypsies, and other other undesirables, beginning in the 1730s by the then-Archbishop. James Oglethorpe, the English founder and governor of the colony of Georgia, welcomed the Salzburgers and allowed them a plot of land, first Ebenezer, which they found untenable, and then New Ebenezer, about 30 miles up the river from Savannah. (Oglethorpe was a bit of a social scientist and do-gooder, I surmise, but that's a different story). The Salzburgers of Ebenezer were on the American side in the Revolutionary war, the town was occupied by the Brits, who subsequently razed it on their departure, all but the church. New Ebenezer is among Georgia's dozen or so ghost towns (although there is a large private conference center there now and a scattering of contemporary residences). There's a fine article on the Georgia Salzburgers in the New Georgia Encyclopedia, founded by my old friend, Jamil Zainaldin, then president of the Georgia Humanities Council.

My parents visited the place and its Salzburger Society museum in the 1970s and bought me a copy of the genealogy book that includes the Sherouses: I am a 10th-generation American. I had visited Ebenezer, too, in about 2006, during a memorable Federation of State Humanities Councils conference that occurred in Savannah. In any case, Vicki and I thought we'd drive through Ebenezer, since it was not much out of the way going to our next major destination, Charleston. The Salzburger Society museum is open, these days, only on Saturday afternoons, so, passing through on Friday, we thought we'd just stop, walk around, snap a few pix of the church and historical signage, and move on. As we were walking around, however, a car pulled up and a young woman introduced herself as chair of the Society's research committee, said she had some business in the museum, and asked if we'd like to look around: the kind of good fortune one dreams of. So of course we spent the next hour or so there, taking scores of pix, talking about the Salzburgers and the Scherauses, and stimulating the local economy via the museum's gift shop.

There's a surprising and interesting postscript to all this, however. According to our hostess, who ought to know, the Scherauses were not Salzburgers. They somehow joined up with the Salzburgers after having been expelled from Ulm, although they were from a nearby village, Merklingen, I think she said. I looked up Merklingen, and, sure enough, there are quite a few Scherrauses still there. She said there was ample documentation about the couple from the 18th century Ulm law courts. When I asked why the couple had been expelled, she paused, embarrassed, and then said: "um, fornication." I stifled a laugh as well as the observation that there might be less genealogy without a little fornication. Thus enlightened--the surname is actually of German, not Austrian descent, although some Austrian blood must have gotten into the line at Ebenezer--we continued our tour of the museum, snapping ever more pix, especially of the Scheraus things, and vowing to look further into the matter at a later date.

A little background

The church

Fingerprints in the hand-made bricks

Johann Martin Boltzius, spiritual and other leader
of the original band, from Augsburg to Ebenezer;
bit of a Utopian, as I understand it

Replica of Georgia's original orphanage; now houses the Georgia
Salzburger Society museum

Azaleas going strong here too

Tile on a memorial walkway

Now in the museum, a wall explaining who the Salzburgers were,
where they came from, why...

1730s Lutheran Bible, translation by Dr. Martin Luther

Among the earlier books

Mementos of every sort

Original town plan

Not until 1824...

The four-volume genealogy...I have volume IV, S-Z

Other genealogical works in the gift shop

Shearouse shotgun

Thus

Now in one of the large upstairs rooms

Ebenezer was an early textile center; silk, not quilts

Still, the quilts were striking

Emigration, the fortress of Salzburg clearly in the background;
alas, I did not get the name of this work

Two-pedal sewing machine

Shearouse tureen

Shearouse guns and knives...guy stuff

James Jonathan Shearouse, 5th generation

Out on the cemetery...the oldest part, where my relations might
have been, has been lost

Lunch on the cemetery grounds...very peaceful