Jade Gay
Senior Reporter
About 25 miles northwest of Savannah, Georgia resides a town called Ebenezer. Unlike the usual small town in Georgia, Ebenezer is a town that’s completely dedicated to one of the first religious settlements in Georgia.
The town is prehistorically set to look like it did nearly 300 hundred years ago. In the 1700s Ebenezer’s sole purpose was to be a salvation for individuals who wanted to be free of religious persecution. Today the town’s sole purpose is to show off its truly unique heritage.
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It is set to be an exact replica of the former town, Patsy Ziegler said. She also happens to be a direct descendant of some of the town’s first residents.
“Some of my descendant came over to this town back in the day. They are were part of the Shearouse family. That was my name until I got married and took my husband’s name which is now Ziegler” Ziegler said.
In the early 1700s, desperately fleeing from religious persecution, the Salzburgers decided to leave Austria in search of a better life. During this time the Salzburgers, who were mainly Protestant, chose to leave the country of Austria because they wanted to be free from religious persecution.
General James Oglethorpe offered the Salzburgers refuge in the new colony in present day Ebenezer, Ga. The Salzburgers and their leader, Pastor Johann Martin Boltzius, settled in Ebenezer in an attempt to build a religious utopia on the Georgia frontier.
“You see protestant is similar, yet a little different than Lutheran. They all are under the umbrella of Christianity but they practice different things” Ziegler said.
Though the two religions are similar, unlike Protestants, the Lutherans believe that God chooses you, instead of the person choosing God.
While a lot has changed in the past 300 hundred years, many things in this town remain the true to form. The same is true for the oldest Lutheran Church in Georgia. It is called The Jerusalem Church, and it is located in the heart of Ebenezer.
“We still have church every Sunday morning” said Ziegler, with a chuckle in her voice. The church was hand built by some of Ziegler’s descendants. “They used red Georgia clay to hand build the church” Ziegler said.
The church was completed in 1733, and some of the original panes of glass are still in the windows today. The town still has the bells that the Salzburgers brought over from Europe. They ring the bells every morning before church services.
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Ebenezer gets a lot of people during the summer who want to come and see this prehistoric town. To accommodate the influx of visitors, the town has a resort, which sits across the street from the church and the museum.
“The summer time are our busiest days, usually from May up until August we are usually packed,” said Carral Garland, a clerk at the resort.
Although the town gets a lot of visitors during the summer, Labor Day really brings the crowd to this small town.
“The Labor Day festival is the day were people usually dress up in clothing from the 1700’s,” Garland said.
The museum that sits across the street is also where people like to go understand the true history of the town. Walking into the museum instantly transports you back into the early 1700’s, from the historic artifacts to the human-like manikins.
There is a bible encased in glass. Its torn pages and ancient German dialect are written by Martin Luther himself. There are rich relic images engraved onto the stained brown pages.
Around the corner stood five musket rifle-like guns encased in glass. They were strategically placed side by side, signifying readiness for battle. There are photographs of the town’s first residents; the pictures were encased in glass out of preservation to always show who the originators were for generations to come.
Towards the end of the museum tour is a gift shop, which allows visitors to take home their own piece of history. The gifts range from information books to homemade plates.
When the summer time ends and the enormous crowds fades out, the town known as Ebenezer returns to its natural state.
It soon becomes a town that once inhabited only a few hundred people just like it did nearly 300 hundred years ago.
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