Effingham
County, on Georgia's eastern border, is the fourth of the state's
eight original counties. The first inhabitants were Creek Indians
who lost their land when some of their leaders signed treaties
with the English in 1733, 1735, and 1736. During the colonial
period Georgia was divided into parishes, and in 1777 Effingham
County, with an area of 479 square miles, was created from the
parishes of St. Matthew and St. Philip. The county was named
for Thomas Howard, the third earl of Effingham, who championed
the cause of the colonies in the years leading to the American
Revolution (1775-83).
Springfield, Effingham's fourth county seat, was
founded in 1799 and incorporated in 1838. The current courthouse,
built in 1908, will be replaced
in 2006 by a new building in the Springfield Judicial Complex.
Previous county seats were Tuckasee King (1784-87), Elberton (1787-97),
and Ebenezer (1797-99). Tuckasee King was a river-landing community
in the town of Clyo, and Elberton and Ebenezer are no longer active
communities. Besides Springfield, other incorporated towns in the
county are Guyton and Rincon.
Religious Refuge
The first white settlers were Lutherans from Salzburg, Austria,
who had been exiled to Augsburg, Germany, at the beginning of
the eighteenth
century. Attracted by offers of land and start-up funding from
the Georgia Trustees, seventy-eight Salzburgers left Augsburg for
Georgia under the leadership of their pastors, Johann Martin Boltzius
and Israel Christian Gronau, as the "First Salzburger Transport." When
they arrived in 1734, General James Oglethorpe offered them a low-lying
area about twenty-five miles from Savannah, on the frontier of
English territory. Naming their new community Ebenezer, the Salzburgers
lived there in great hardship, struggling to grow crops and often
contracting disease in the swampy area. With Oglethorpe's permission,
the Salzburgers relocated two years later to a higher location
on a ridge overlooking the Savannah River. Officially the new town
retained the same name, but informally it became known as New Ebenezer.
Within
a few decades the Salzburgers occupied about twenty-five square
miles in the county, establishing farms, gristmills, lumber
mills, and a silk filature. In 1769 they built a red-brick church
known as the Old Salzburger Church, or Jerusalem Church. The
Salzburgers established the first Sunday school in Georgia in 1734
and the
first orphanage in 1737, and theirs is the oldest continuing
Lutheran congregation in America to worship in its original building.
Other
Salzburger settlements in Effingham County were Abercorn, Bethany,
and Goshen. (Although Salzburgers did not found Abercorn, they
began moving into the dying Scottish town in the 1740s.)
After
the death of Boltzius in 1765, however, the group began to lose
its cohesion, a process that was accelerated by the American
Revolution. During the war the British occupied Ebenezer, converted
Jerusalem
Church into a hospital, set up taverns, and quartered their
troops in Salzburger homes, making life for the settlers so unpleasant
that many of them fled to the countryside. When they returned
at the conclusion of the war, they found their homes and other
buildings
in ruins. Efforts to revive trade and industry were unsuccessful,
and Ebenezer, Abercorn, and Goshen became ghost towns. Many
descendants
of the Salzburgers still live in Effingham County, however,
and a number of them are active in the Georgia Salzburger Society,
founded in 1925.
Hardship and Prosperity
The Civil War (1861-65) brought hardship when Union general William
T. Sherman's troops came through the county on their march
to the sea in 1864. Some Union soldiers encamped on the Eden
Road
after
passing through Springfield. Others occupied Jerusalem Church,
using its picket fence and hymnals for fires and engaging
in skirmishes on the grounds.
The county received its first economic
boost in the late nineteenth century when railroads began laying
tracks there.
The city
of Rincon originated in 1891, when the South Bound Railroad
laid
tracks from
Savannah to Columbia, South Carolina, through the area. Residents
catered to the needs of railroad workers and began to prosper.
They built cotton gins, lumber mills, and turpentine stills.
Rincon grew enough to warrant incorporation in 1927. Another
boost came
in the 1980s with the arrival of large companies and factories,
contributing to a growth spurt that made Rincon the largest
of Effingham County's towns.
During the period of Rincon's
growth, Springfield experienced some hard times after the Civil
War. First, the city lost some
of its historic
buildings to several fires between the late 1800s and the
1960s, but it has since renovated and restored many of
those that
remain. Once situated along the main county thoroughfare
for automobile
traffic, Springfield was forced to reinvent itself when
the Highway 21 bypass was built in the late 1990s, thereby diverting
thousands
of cars from its business district. At the same time, several
important county offices were moved to Rincon, driving
many
Springfield businesses
to close. The town has taken measures to avert its demise
by focusing on its history and promoting tourism and quality
of
life. In 2000
these efforts were rewarded by its being named a Georgia "Better
Hometown."
People and Places
Notable residents of Effingham County include John Adam Treutlen,
Georgia's first elected governor; Georgia superior court
judge Richard
H. Clark, who helped write the Georgia Code in the 1860s;
and Herschel
V. Jenkins, owner and publisher of the Savannah Morning
News and Evening Press.
Among the places of interest are the Effingham Museum
in Springfield; Ebenezer Townsite and Jerusalem Evangelical
Lutheran Church;
Guyton Historic District; Mossy Oak Music Park in Guyton;
and Veterans
Park.
The largest employers include Akai Security, Effingham
Hospital, Fort James Corporation, International Paper
Company, and
Wal-Mart.
