The act of February 26th, 1784,[35] provided for the erection of the “Court House and Gaol” and for holding public elections in Effingham County at Tuckasee-King, near the present line of Scriven County. The situation proving inconvenient, three years afterwards the county-seat was removed to Elberton, near Indian Bluff, on the north side of the Great Ogeechee river. On the 18th of February, 1796, the Legislature of Georgia[36] appointed Jeremiah Cuyler, John G. Neidlinger, Jonathan Rawhn, Elias Hodges, and John Martin Dasher “commissioners for the town and common of Ebenezer,” with instructions to have the town “surveyed and laid out as nearly as possible in conformity to the original plan thereof, to sell all vacant lots, and such as had become vested in the State, [reserving such only as were necessary for public uses,] and appropriate the proceeds to the erection of a County Court House and Jail.” Any over-plus was to be applied to building a public Academy. For three years only did Ebenezer remain the County Town of Effingham County. In 1799, its public buildings were sold, and the village of Springfield was designated by the Legislature as “the permanent seat for the public buildings of the County of Effingham.”[37] David Hall, Joshua Loper, Samuel Ryals, Godhelf Smith, and Drurias Garrison were appointed commissioners to carry this change into effect. In 1808 the Ebenezer Congregation received legislative permission to sell the glebe lands which it owned. By degrees all the real estate held by the society was disposed of. The proceeds arising from these sales were invested in lands, mortgages, and securities;—the interest accruing being applied to the payment of the pastor’s salary and the current expenses of the church.[38] Until about the year 1803 all the religious services observed by the Saltzburgers were conducted in the German language; and, in the church at Ebenezer, for a long time subsequent to that date, the religious exercises continued in that tongue. Methodist and Baptist Churches springing up in the neighborhood drew away many of the younger members of the congregation. The introduction of the English language into all the Saltzburger Churches was effected in 1824 through the instrumentality of the Reverend Christopher F. Bergman. Year by year Ebenezer became more sparsely populated. Many of its citizens removed into the interior and upper parts of the county. Quite a number formed settlements in Scriven County, while others went to Savannah, and to Lowndes, Liberty, and Thomas counties. Others still,—more enterprizing than their fellows,—sought new homes in South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. We close this sketch with a picture of Ebenezer painted by one of the late Pastors[39] of Jerusalem Church,—a gentleman of cultivation and of piety, who saw the last waves of oblivion as they closed over the town and obliterated its decayed traces from the grass covered bluff of the Savannah.