98 RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 



The Lutherans have within a few years been increasing 

 in Georgia. There are now nine Lutheran ministers in this 

 State, who are engaged in building up the interests of that 

 church. Besides the church in the city of Savannah, there 

 are three churches in Effingham county, two in Coweta, one 

 in Henry, one in Merriwether, two in Macon county, and a 

 missionary is now labouring in the city of Macon with some 

 prospects of success. There are also Lutheran settlements in 

 Randolph, Stewart, and several other counties in south- 

 western Georgia. The statistics of this church in Georgia 

 may be set down as follows : — Ministers nine, churches ten, 

 communicants six hundred, Lutheran population two thou- 

 sand. The congregation at Ebenezer has a fund of some 

 814,000, from the interest of which the expenses of the church 

 are paid, and provision made for the education of the children. 

 The cause of Missions, Temperance Societies, and all the other 

 benevolent enterprises of the day are liberally supported by 

 the ministers and their people. 



Baptists. — Members of this respectable denomination 

 were among the first colonists which came to Georgia. In 

 1757, Mr. Nicholas Bedgewood, who was connected with 

 •Whitefield's orphan-house near Savannah, went to Charleston, 

 and was baptized by the Rev. Mr. Hart. Having received 

 ordination he returned to Georgia, and in 1763, baptized and 

 administered the Lord's Supper to several persons in the vici- 

 nity of the orphan-house. About 1770, or 1771, the Rev. Mr. 

 Botsford, a very zealous Baptist minister, came to Georgia, and 

 established a church about twenty-five or thirty miles below 

 Augusta, now known as Botsford's old meeting-house. Not 

 long before the arrival of Mr. Botsford, the Rev. Daniel Mar- 

 shall with other Baptist emigrants settled on the Kiokee creek 

 in Columbia county, and in 1772 established the first regular 

 Baptist church in Georgia. The war with the Indians and the 

 Revolution interfered very much with the labours of the minis- 

 ters of this denomination ; but when peace again threw her 

 benignant smiles upon our country, they resumed their pious 

 efforts, and have continued from that period to the present 

 among the most self-denying and zealous Christians in our 

 State. It is believed that the Baptists now embrace a greater 



