Descendants of the Salzburger settlers are planning to re-dedicate a cemetery that includes many of their forebearers and potentially many more unknown graves.
Noble Boykin, the outgoing president of the Georgia Salzburger Society, said the LAMAR Institute’s archaelogical survey found many unmarked graves just beyond the fence of the existing cemetery at Ebenezer. Granite markers are being used to delineate the outer boundaries of the cemetery, and the African-American cemetery at Ebenezer also will be marked.
"Pastor (John) Barichivich and the congregation felt it was important that part of the cemetery should be re-consecrated," Boykin said at the Salzburgers’ annual Landing Day ceremony.
Landing Day marks the arrival of the first Salzburgers to Georgia in 1734.
Many of the headstones from Delete - Merge Upback then were wooden, Boykin noted, and they either rotted or were lost, and some were used as firewood by troops who camped at Ebenezer. Ebenezer changed hands many times between Colonial and British troops during the Revolutionary War and also was home to Union troops advancing on Savannah in Gen. William Sherman’s "March to the Sea."
Boykin said there was a British field hospital at Ebenezer during the Revolutionary War.
"We know a lot of British soldiers and the Hessian soldiers fell ill," he said. "The climate didn’t agree with them."
As many as 700 soldiers perished at Ebenezer but their final resting places are unknown.
"Where are they buried?" Boykin said. "The graves beyond the fence may be those of soldiers. This will be one of the mysteries of Ebenezer."
The tentative date for the cemetery’s re-consecration is May 26.
Boykin also pointed out other accomplishments from the Georgia Salzburger Society.
"We’ve had a busy year in the Society," he said.
The German Salzburger Society celebrated its 100th anniversary in September, and Savannah entered into a sister city arrangement with Halle, Germany, last fall. Halle is home to the Francke Foundation, which sent pastors Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau with the original settlers to Georgia.
"They noted how their connection to Savannah was through the Salzburgers," Boykin said of the Halle delegation that visited the Coastal Empire last year.
