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Survey of
Historic Sites and Buildings

	FORT KING GEORGE AND FORT DARIEN Georgia
Location: On the Altamaha River 1 mile east of Darien, McIntosh County. Travel Itinerary Fort King George State Park Fort Darien Historical Marker

Fort King George was established in 1721 as one of a chain of frontier forts intended to block the eastward expansion of France and Spain in North America. It consisted of a rude wooden stockade on a low bluff overlooking the Altamaha River. It was burned in 1725, rebuilt in 1726, and abandoned in 1727. Nine years later, however, a colony of Scottish Highlanders built a stockade nearby, called Fort Darien, which was an important defensive bastion in the early years of Georgia. A contingent from Darien was present in 1742 at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, which turned back the last full-scale Spanish attempt to destroy the colony.

Fort King George State Park (12-1/2 acres), administered by the Georgia Historical Commission, includes the sites of both forts. No trace of Fort Darien remains above ground, but the site of Fort King George is marked by the remains of a moat and an earthwork embankment, possibly altered somewhat by 19th-century lumbering operations on the bluff. Archeological excavations have disclosed a military cemetery with about 100 burials, and the site of an earlier Spanish occupation.

	KETTLE CREEK BATTLEFIELD Georgia
Location: 8 miles southwest of Washington, north of Ga. 44, Wilkes County. Washington Georgia

Georgia and South Carolina militia under Elijah Clarke, John Dooly, and Andrew Pickens fell upon a Tory force under Col. John Boyd, en route to Augusta. Pickens, the senior officer, concentrated his troops and attacked at breakfast time on February 14, 1779. The surprised Tories recovered and made a momentary advance, but were then driven across Kettle Creek and dispersed after Boyd fell with a mortal wound.

Augusta, just occupied by the British, was evacuated by them a few days after Kettle Creek, but other British forces shortly won a new victory that led to the reoccupation of Augusta. Kettle Creek thus had no decisive effect on the course of the war, but it boosted patriot moral and checked sharply the cause of loyalism in Georgia and South Carolina. The Daughters of the American Revolution own 12 acres of the battlefield. A memorial shaft erected by the Federal Government in 1930 is located on the plot, which otherwise appears much as it did at the time of the battle.

	NEW EBENEZER Georgia
Location: 13 miles north of Rincon, Effingham County, on the Savannah River near Ga. 275. New Ebenezer State Historical Marker

Two hundred Salzburg Lutherans, who came to America to escape religious persecution, settled in 1736 at New Ebenezer after spending 2 years in a temporary colony 6 miles to the west. They built the first church in Georgia, in 1741—replaced in 1769 by the present brick structure. Their gristmill and sawmill were the first in Georgia; their ricemill probably the first in the present United States. Silk culture was their most successful industry, however, and was practiced here long after it was abandoned elsewhere in Georgia. The town was depopulated in 1779 when British troops occupied the area, terrorizing the inhabitants and using the church for a hospital and stable. New Ebenezer never regained its prominence and within half a century had become almost a ghost town.

The site of New Ebenezer today is largely second-growth pine and other small timber, with a few open patches. The only original building still standing is Jerusalem Church (1769), recently renovated. Nearby is a burial ground dating from the late 18th century. Connected to the church by a breezeway is a modern Salzburger Memorial Parish House, built in 1957-58 to house a small museum dealing with the history of the Salzburgers in America.