Some of the best sources about the people that settled in Saxe Gotha come not from the settlers themselves but those who mentioned them in letters and journals.

One such source comes from the Rev. Johann Boltzius, the leader of the Salzburger community of Ebenezer, GA, near Savannah from 1735 to 1765. Boltzius had a low opinion of the settlers in Saxe Gotha, writing that “I have no love for these people. Their stomach is their God.”

He wrote he had heard that the settlers treated the only ordained Saxe Gotha minister, Christian Theus “with less respect than the humblest member of the congregation.”

JR Fennell is Lexington County Museum director.