Historic Sites in Effingham County

The history of Effingham County

Effingham County is one of Georgia's original counties, created in 1777 from the colonial parishes of St. Matthew and St. Philip and named for Thomas Howard, third Earl of Effingham, a British nobleman who supported the American colonies. The county seat shifted several times before settling at Springfield in 1799. The area's early history centers on the Salzburgers, 78 Lutheran refugees who arrived in 1734 under pastors Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau. Their first site proved too swampy, and two years later they moved Ebenezer to a ridge above the Savannah River, where they built farms, mills, and a silk filature and opened an orphanage in 1737. Their red brick Jerusalem Church, completed in 1769, still stands. The Revolutionary War shattered the community: British forces occupied Ebenezer and turned the church into a hospital, and Ebenezer, Abercorn, and Goshen eventually became ghost towns. In 1864 Union troops on Sherman's march occupied the church again and burned its fences and hymnals for fuel. Railroads brought renewed growth late in the nineteenth century, including the founding of Rincon in 1891 along the South Bound Railroad. Among the county's notable residents were John Adam Treutlen, Georgia's first elected governor, and Richard H. Clark, a judge who helped compile the Georgia Code in the 1860s.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org