Clinton Township (part 8 of 18)

In the summer of 1758, Rev. Mr. Post was appointed by the Governor of the Colony of Pennsylvania, as bearer of a message to the Delawares, Shawanese, and Mingoes, of the upper Ohio Valley. The object of the Governor was to persuade them to withdraw from the French inteisest, which they were promoting, and induce them to return to their allegiance to the English. The results were so satisfactory as to secure Mr. Post's services for a second time, on a similar mission to other tribes of Indians in the upper Ohio Valle}', and on the tributaries of the Ohio River. He started on this second mission, October 25, 1758, and returned in January, 1759, having made a part at least of his homeward journey with the returning army of General Forbes, after the capture of Fort Duquesne. We have before us the journals, as written by himself, of these several visits made by Mr. Post, and they show that he possessed considerable knowledge of the Indian character, and displayed a fair degree of ability as a diplomatist; his "talks" to the Indians being given, and the answers they made. These journals are important and valuable also for the intelligence they furnish of the condition and feeling of the Indians as between the French and English, and, incidentally, their relations towards the Americans also; and for the amount of geographical informaion they give, as well as the facts they state, touching the location of the various tribes of Indians; the names given by them to the various Indian villages, also to the streams and points of historic interest in the country claimed by them around the " Forks of the Ohio," now Pittsburgh.

Our veteran missionary (Rev. Christian Frederick Post), after his failure on the Tuscarawas, in 1762, turned his attention to other fields, first visiting Central America, and establishing a mission among the savages of Nicaragua.

On the marital relations of the subject of this sketch we may be indulged in some remarks. He first intermarried with Rachel, a Moravian Christian woman of the Wampanoag tribe, who died in 1747. His second marriage, which occurred in 1749, was with Agnes, a Delaware, who was also a Moravian Christian. She died in 1751. His third wife was a white woman. It may be remarked that these matrimonial alliances with Indian women (although they were sincere Christians of their own faith) were rather distasteful to the ruling authorities of the Moravian Church, and rendered Mr. Post somewhat unpopular, so that, failing to have their full, hearty, and official co-operation, he became an independent missionary, but still a Moravian in creed, opinion, and practice. His death took place at Germantown (now incorporated in the city of Philadelphia), and which subsequently became conspicuous as the site of one of the battle-fields of the Revolution.

In the spring of 1771, Rev. David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, who had devoted many years of his life to the religious instruction of the Indians east of the Alleghenies, visited the chief Delaware town in the Tuscarawas Valley, and there, in the house of Netawatwas, the principal chief of the Delawares, delivered a sermon, at noon, on the 14th of March, 1771, which was probably the first Protestant sermon preached within the present limits of Ohio. The Indian capital, in which this sermon was preached, occupied the suburbs of the present village of Newcoraerstown, in Oxford Township, Tuscarawas County. The proposition to establish a mission among the Delawares in the Tuscarawas Valley met with such a degree of favor as to induce an effort, at an early day, by the zealous Zeisberger, who, after a stay of a few days devoted to missionary labors, returned to Friedensstadt (City of Peace), a Moravian town on the Beaver River (now in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania), where he had, during the previous year, established a mission.

In pursuance of the purpose formed in 1771, on his first visit to the valley of the Tuscarawas, Rev. David Zeisbergcr, in the early spring of 1772, again visited the capital town of the Delawares, to make arrangements with their principal chief, Netawatwas, for the organization of a Moravian church and mission station in said valley. His negotiations were eminently satisfactory, and the chief granted for the purposes of the mission, lands on the Tuscarawas River from the mouth of the Stillwater, extending northward for anumber of miles towards the Tuscarawa village, suggesting the Big Spring, two miles south of New Philadelphia, as the most eligible site for both the mission church and Moravian village. The veteran missionary then returned to Friedensstadt, and in three weeks - that is, on the 3d day of May - he, with twenty-eight Moravian Indians, arrived at the Big Spring, and at once began the work of clearing the land, erecting houses, and building a church. The mission-house, or church, was completed on the 9th of June (though not dedicated until the 19th of September), by which time a number of dwelling-houses had been built and occupied. On the 26th of August a bell was put on the church, and was doubtless the first one in Ohio.

The village was called Schonbrunn (Beautiful Spring), and was soon occupied by more than two hundred Moravian Indians, chiefly from Friedenshiitten (Tents of Peace), on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, exclusive of the five families that came from Friedensstadt. The accessions, during the summer, of Indians from the Susquehanna Valley, led by Rev. John Ettwein, secured from Netawatwas, the liberal chief, an additional grant of land extending a number of miles down the Tuscarawas from the mouth of Stillwater. Rev. John Ettwein returned to his field of labor, but Rev. John George Jungman remained at Schonbrunn and labored there as a missionary with Rev. David Zeisberger, as did also, sometimes, Rev. John Heckewelder and others. Schonbrunn, before the year closed, contained more than sixty houses built of "squared timber" - also a schoolhouse - besides huts and lodges. It was situated in the present township of Goshen, Tuscarawas County.

Joshua, a Christian Indian, brought a party of Mohicans, on the 18th of September, 1772, to the Tuscarawas Valley, and on the 24th laid out a town on the west side of the river, four miles above Schonbrunn, calling it the " Upper Town." This location, however, was not satisfactory to Netawatwas, who induced a change to a place about eight miles below Schonbrunn, on the east side of the Tuscarawas River, where, on the 9th of October, the town of Gnadenhiitten (Tents of Grace) was laid out by Joshua and his colony of Mohicans from Friedensstadt. It was within the present township of Clay, Tuscarawas County. The first sermon was preached there by Rev. David Zeisberger, October 17, 1772. In 1773 Friedensstadt, on the Beaver, was abandoned, the population being transferred to Schonbrunn and Gnadenhiitten, adding thereby considerably to their inhabitants. Rev. John Roth, the resident missionary at Friedensstadt, accompanied them, and remained at Gnadenhiitten from April 24, 1773, until about Hie middle of August, when he removed to Schonbrunn. John Lewis Roth, who is generally believed to have been the first white child born within the limits of Ohio, had his birth at Gnadenhiitten July 4, 1773, during the brief stay there of his parents, as above mentioned. During the latter part of this year, Rev. David Zeisberger, Rev. John Heckewelder, and Rev. John Roth were missionaries at Schonbrunn, and Rev. John George Jungman and Rev. John Jacob Schmick at Gnadenhiitten.

Rev. John Ettwein, who conducted the Indians from the Susquehanna to Schonbrunn, in the Tuscarawas Valley, in 1772, was born in the Schwartzwald, in Germany, in 1712. In 1754 he emigrated to America, and served the church both in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In 1764, he became a member of the Mission Board, and was consecrated a Bishop in 1784. He stood at the head of the church in Pennsylvania until his death, which occurred at Bethlehem, in said State, January 2,

1802. It does not appear that he ever visited the West, except in 1772. He was a zealous, faithful, good man, and eminently useful during his long and eventful life.

Rev. 4«hn Roth, who conducted an Indian colony from the Susquehanna Valley in 1772 to Friedensstadt, a Moravian village on the Beaver River, and who, the next year, went to the Tuscarawas Valley, was a native of Sarmund, a village in the Mark Brandenburg, Prussia, where he was born February 3, 1726. He settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in July, 1756, and three years thereafter (1759) he became a Moravian missionary. He entered into the married relation with Maria Agnes Pfingstag, at Bethlehem, on the 16th of August, 1770. As already stated, he, in June, 1772, accompanied some Christian Indians from the Susquehanna Valley to the west as far as Friedensstadt, where he remained until the next year, when he removed to Gnadenhiitten, reaching that village April 24, 1773. In August of this year he removed to Schonbrunn, and remained there until after the breaking out of the Dunmore war in 1774, when he returned to Bethlehem, and was never again identified with the Tuscarawas missions. Soon after his return to Pennsylvania he was called to serve the church at Mount Joy, and subsequently was Moravian minister at Emmaus, Hebron, and York, where he died July 22, 1791, and was buried at Bath, in said State. The son, John Lewis Roth, was educated at Nazareth Hall, being a member of the class of 1785, the first organized in that institution. He married, removed to Bath, where his father Was buried, and died there on the 25th of September, 1841. His mother died at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of February, 1805.

Such was the degree of prosperity that-had attended Schonbrunn and Gnadenhiitten, that their joint population aggregated, at the close of the year 1775, upwards of five hundred. The establishment of a third mission station in that valley was, therefore, taken into consideration early in the year 1776. Revs. David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder, with eight families, numbering thirty-five persons, with a view of building another Moravian town, encamped, on the 12th of April, 1776, on the site of the future village, two miles or more below the junction of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Rivers (now Coshocton), on the east bank of the Muskingum River. A mission-house was soon built, which, until the erection of a chapel, served as a place of worship. The new town, called Liclitenau (Pasture of Light), was situated in the present township of Tuscarawas, in Coshocton County. It had a rapid growth for several years, having had a considerable accession in April, 1777, from Schonbrunn, when, owing to a combination of causes, that hitherto prosperous mission station was abandoned. High hopes of Licbtenau were cherished until early in 1779, when some hostile Wyandot and Mingo warriors, having made it a rendezvous and the starting-point for a new war-path to the Ohio River ; and one or two of the surrounding tribes becoming more and more unfriendly, its abandonment was soon determined upon, which was gradually accomplished. Rev. Wm. Edwards, one of the missionaries, in April, 1779, left Lichtenau and moved up the Tuscarawas River to Gnadenhiitten. During the month of December, 1779, Rev. David Zeisberger left with another colony, and passed up the Tuscarawas to a point a short distance above Schonbrunn, and commenced building a town, to which was given the name of New Schonbrunn. It was situated a mile or more below the present town of New Philadelphia, in what is now Goshen Township, Tuscarawas County. And in the spring of 1780, Rev. John Heckewelder, with all the Christian Indians that remaiued at Lichtenau, left it and started the town of Salem, on the west bank of the Tuscarawas, about six miles below Gnadenhiitten. Its site was in the present township of Salem, Tuscarawas County, about sixteen miles below the county seat of said county. The chapel here was dedicated on the 22d of May, 1780, and in it Rev. John Heckewelder and Sarah Ohneberg, a mission teacher, were united in marriage July 4, 1780, and which was probably one of the first weddings of white people within the present limits of Ohio, Rev. Bernard Adam G rube, a veteran missionary, then temporarily in the West, being the officiating minister. He was born in 1715, near Erfurt, Germany, and died at Bethlehem in 1808, at the age of ninety-three years.

Rev. Gottlob Senseman, a missionary from Pennsylvania, arrived during the year 1780, and was assigned to duty at New Schonbrunn. And during the autumn of this year, Rev. Michael Jung arrived, and became the assistant missionary at Gnadenhiitten, Rev. William Edwards being the principal. Rev. David Zeisberger was superintendent of all the Tuscarawas Valley stations, and itinerated constantly from church to church.

The Perils Op The Moravians

Unavoidable complications growing out of the Revolutionary War, as well as out of the border warfare between the white settlers east of the Ohio River and the Indian tribes west of it, and, incidentally, other causes, soon produced a condition of things unfavorable to their growth and success, and tended to render the Moravian settlements in the Tuscarawas Valley of quite uncertain duration. Their annals show that they were thus far anything but permanent, and were equally transitory afterwards, as their subsequent history clearly shows. Certainly the history of the Moravian mission in the Tuscarawas Valley well illustrates the mutability of human affairs! They were the victims of circumstances untoward in their nature, and in a great measure uncontrollable, and before which these mission stations soon succumbed, for a time at least. Their location in the then warlike state of affairs was exceedingly unfavorable to them. They were situated, unhappily for them, between the British post at Detroit and the American or Colonial military post at the " Forks of the Ohio," now Pittsburgh ; and, on the other hand, these doomed villages were situated between the hostile Wyandots and other tribes on the Sandusky Plains, and in the valley of the Sandusky River, and the frontiersmen east of the Ohio River in Western Virginia and Pennsylvania. ' Between the British at Detroit and the Colonists at Pittsburgh a state of war existed, and had existed for years between the governments they respectively represented. So, also, there existed feelings of intense hostility between the savage Sandusky tribes and the white settlers east of the Ohio River. Being thus situated between four hostile parties, it will be seen at a glance how difficult it was for the missionaries and their converts to maintain a position of strict neutrality towards all these respective combatants, and avoid all suspicion of aiding one or the other of those contending factions. As friends of peace, the Moravians were disposed, not only from principles and inclination, but from motives of interest also, to maintain the position of neutrals between the aforesaid antagonistic parties ; but such was their unfortunate location, and such the unfriendly circumstances by which they were surrounded, that suspicions of treachery towards one party or the others, seemed almost unavoidable, however well they maintained their attitude of neutrality. The combination of circumstances was such as to bring censure upon them, now by the British emissaries for favoring the cause of the Colonist, and then by the Colonists for favoring British interests; and again by the frontier settlers for favoring the Sandusky savages, and then the latter would charge treachery upon them for giving "aid and comfort" to the frontiersmen! Thus the exceeding perilousness of the condition of Moravian interests in the Tuscarawas Valley can be readily seen. The crisis came in the autumn of 1781.

Their Capture And Removal To Sandusky

The missionaries were charged with being spies and having held treasonable correspondence with the Americans at Pittsburgh, and perhaps at some other points. Upon this charge the missionaries and all their Christian converts in the Tuscarawas Valley were arrested by Captain Matthew Elliott, a British emissary, who had under his command about three hundred hostile Indians. They, making no resistance, were made captives, September 11, 1781, and, by an overpowering force, compelled to leave their much loved homes, and take up the line of march for the Sandusky River, which they reached on the first day of October, after a journey of twenty days, of great privations and much suffering. The missionaries that were thus forcibly removed were Revs. Zeisberger, Senseman, and Jungman, of New Schonbrunn; Revs. Heckewelder and Jung, of Salem; and Rev. William Edwards, of Gnadenhiitten. The point at which they were left to take care of themselves, their wives and children, and Indian captives, was on the banks of the Sandusky River, not far from where the Broken Sword Creek empties into it, about ten miles from Upper Sandusky. They at once proceeded to look up a location, and without delay built a village of small huts to protect themselves against the inclemency of the weather. This village, which soon took the name of " Captive's Town," was situated on the bank of the Sandusky River, probably a mile above the mouth of the Broken Sword, in the present township of Antrim, Wyandot County.

Trial And Acquittal Of The Missionaries

On the 14th of October the missionaries were summoned by the British commandant at Detroit, to appear before him for trial. Accordingly, on the 25th of October, Revs. Zeisberger, Heckewelder, Senseman, and Edwards started for Detroit, to meet the charges against them. They travelled across the Black Swamp to the Maumee River, and from thence to Detroit, where they arrived after a weary journey of many days. Soon after their arrival they were ushered into the presence of Major De Peyster, the commandant, who at once entered into a colloquy with them touching the charges that had been lodged with him against them. They were treated well, and had a final hearing on the 9th of November, when they were discharged by the commandant, pronounced not guilty , and permitted to return to their families and friends on the Sandusky, whom they rejoined on the 22d of November.

Capture And Imprisonment Of Scheb08H And His Party

On the day the missionaries started for Detroit, Shebosh, a native assistant missionary, organized a force at "Captive's Town" of Moravian Indians, to go to the Tuscarawas towns, to gather some of the corn they had raised there during the preceding summer, with which they intended to return to Sandusky, and thus save their suffering friends there from perishing. They were captured, however, by a party of Americans, commanded by Col. David Williamson, and held as captives for a time at Pittsburgh, whither they were taken. The object of this expedition of Col. Williamson, in the autumn of 1781, was to remove all the Moravian Indians they could find on the Tuscarawas to Pittsburgh, under the belief that they had not kept faith with them as against the hostile Sandusky savages; but they found themselves anticipated in the inglorious achievement of breaking up the mission, that having already been accomplished by the British.

A small church edifice was erected for worship in " Captive's Town" before winter (which proved to be one of great severity) had fully set in. It was built of small logs, the spaces between them being filled with moss, and was completed December 8. Many privations and great sufferings were endured, especially by the women and children, because of the severity of the weather and scarcity of provisions. For the purpose of relieving the sufferings of these poor, starving Indians, it was decided to make one more effort (that of Schebosh having failed) to procure some corn from the Tuscarawas Yalley, thousands of bushels of which, of their own raising, still remaining on the stalks there, and from which, during the preceding autumn, they were forcibly driven by the British emissary, Elliott. In pursuance of this purpose, about one hundred and fifty of them, embracing men, women, and children, left " Captive's Town" late in February, to go to their cornfields on the Tuscarawas, to gather the com they had raised. On their arrival they divided their forces about equally between the three villages, and proceeded at once, with energy, to gather the corn, and make a speedy return to Sandusky with it for the relief of their captive friends there, who were threatened with starvation. But in this noble enterprise they were defeated, and sad, sad was the fate of about two-thirds of those who had volunteered in the good work of ministering to the imperilled and suffering Christian captives in the valley of the Sandusky.

The Capture And Massacre

Allusion has been made to the unfortunate location of the Moravian mission stations on the Tuscarawas - unfortunate in relation to the American military post at Pittsburgh and the English military post at Detroit - and equally unfortunate as between the frontier settlers east of the Ohio and the hostile and vindictive savage enemies of the whites on the Sandusky. The latter, in making their marauding and murderous incursions beyond the Ohio River, would frequently halt at the Moravian villages, and partake of their hospitalities ; and likewise on their return with their captives and property stolen from the white settlers, a similar halt was made, if they supposed that they were not closely pursued. It is quite probable some of this stolen property was left with the Christian Indians, either carelessly or in payment of supplies obtained from them. The hospitalities above mentioned were virtually enforced - were bestowed of necessity - in order to ward off the suspicion and hostility of # the savages. It was compulsory kindness bestowed, as is alleged, for self-protection, and was extended in equal measure, and under similar restraint, and for the same purpose, upon the whites as upon the Indians. The latter, failing to secure the co-operation of these Christian Indians in their war movements against the whites, charged them with being in sympathy with their enemies, the frontiersmen east of the Ohio River; and the latter were no less disposed to suspect them of treachery, because they would not make common cause with them against their enemies on the Sandusky. The aforesaid enforced acts of hospitality and kindness were alleged as proof of the correctness of their suspicions; and these suspicions were further strengthened by the fact that during a season of pleasant weather, early in February, some war parties, probably from the Sandusky regions, had made raids into the white settlements and committed various thefts and some murders - among the killed being tho family of William Wallace, consisting of his wife and five children ; and they also carried John Carpenter into captivity at the same time. The early period in the season when those Indian visitations were made and outrages committed, induced the belief that the murderers of the Wallace family and the captors of Carpenter were the Moravian Indians or others who had received "aid and comfort" from them while on their murderous raid. In either case, the frontiersmen determined to hold the Christian Indians of the Tuscarawas responsible for the atrocities perpetrated, and inflict chastisement upon them ; and for this purpose they proceeded to organize an adequate force of mounted men and move with all practical celerity to the Tuscarawas Indian villages, they having heard of the return there of a considerable number of their former occupants, for the avowed object of gathering corn.

The force, consisting of about ninety men, that charged itself with the duty of capturing and punishing those Christian Indians, at work in their own cornfields, from which they had been driven the preceding autumn, rendezvoused, early in March, 1782, at Mingo Bottom (three miles below the present city of Steubenville), under the command of Col. David Williamson. Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, in his "Indian Wars," speaking of Col. Williamson's men, says that "they were not vagabonds or miscreants, but many of them were men of the first standing in the country." On the night of the 5th of March, " this corps of volunteer militia" arrived within a mile of Gnadenhutten, the middle one of the three Indian villages (New Schonbrunn being above it and Salem below), where they met Schebosh, a half-breed Indian convert, and a man of consideration among them, and deliberately, and in cold blood, killed him. And on reaching the village they murdered another man; also a woman. By treacherously promising protection, they disarmed the Indians at Gnadenhutten, and likewise those at Salem, whom they brought to the first named place. Col. Williamson and his militia having by falsehood and deceit obtained entire control of these now defenceless Christian Indians, they fettered them, and confined them in two well-guarded houses. Thus shamefully and treacherously were more than ninety Moravian Indians inveigled to their destruction, many of whom being helpless women and children. And the number would have been increased by about fifty, if the "militiamen" had succeeded in capturing those at New Shronbrunn, which they attempted, but in which they were happily foiled. Suspecting treachery and a murderous intent, those at the latter place, on hearing of the capture and imprisonment of their brethren at the two other villages, made their escape barely in time to avoid capture.

Colonel Williamson submitted the fate of his helpless and, as we think, innocent captives to his men for decision, the alternative being to take them as prisoners to Fort Pitt, or to butcher them 1 The latter method of disposing of them prevailed by a large majority, only eighteen men of the entire command favoring the proposition of dealing with them as prisoners! "And they were then and there , March 8, 1782, murdered in cold blood!" "With gun and spear, and tomahawk and scalping-knife, and bludgeon and mallet, the wholesale, brutal murder of these peaceable, innocent, defenceless people was accomplished 1" " The work of death progressed in these slaughter-houses," says Howe, " until not a sigh or moan was heard to proclaim the existence of human life within 1" The torch was then applied to those prison-houses of woe and death, and, with ninety-four murdered Indian bodies, consumed ! Two, and only two, of the whole number of captives, in some extraordinary, if not miraculous manner, escaped with their lives. The story of the deliverance of two Indian boys, notwithstanding one of them, named Thomas, was knocked down and scalped, has been often told, and need not be repeated here ; suffice it to say, that they lived many years, to bear testimony, in after times, to the savage cruelty of the men of Col. Williamson's command towards the Moravian Indians they so cruelly murdered.

The Moravian historian, Loskiel, details at length the story of this atrocious massacre, and characterizes it as " the most infamous act in the border wars of the west," and as " the most disgraceful event in the history of the country."

Rev. Dr. Doddridge, in his account of what he calls the " Moravian campaign," unhesitatingly pronounces this act of the " militia" as an "atrocious and unqualified murder." And it does indeed make for us the darkest, cruelest, bloodiest page in the history of the Northwest. "A terrible tragedy," another historian calls it. " O ver this horrid deed," says another, " humanity must shed tears of commiseration as long as the record of it shall remain."

The incidents of this butchery are so revolting, that we have purposely refrained from giving the details of the infamous outrage at any considerable length. Would that the chapter which relates the events of the expedition of Col. Williamson to the Indian towns in the Tuscarawas Valley could be torn from our country's history; but, to our great mortification, that cannot be done. The record of that murder is " a ghost that will not down at our bidding."

The historian of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania (Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge) was personally acquainted with Col. Williamson, and in his " Indian Wars" pronounces him to have been "a brave, humane man, and not cruel." He says, by way of mitigation, that as " Col. Williamson was only a militia officer, he was without power to prevent the murder of those Christian Indians, against the decision of so large a majority (about four to one) of self-willed, determined, vindictive men, who had recently been greatly exasperated by the horrible murder, by Indians, of the Wallace family." His strong desire was, says Doddridge, to treat the Indians as captives, and remove them as prisoners to Pittsburgh, but was unable to enforce his wishes, and that therefore " his memory rests under unmerited obloquy." Whether justly or unjustly, Col. Williamson has borne much of the responsibility of the massacre of the Moravian Indians of the Tuscarawas Valley. It will, however, be an act of justice to his memory to state that he did not lose standing with his countrymen on account of his connection with the expedition or command which committed these outrageous murders, as not long thereafter they gave him undoubted evidence of their continued confidence and regard by elections to positions of honor and responsibility, civil as well as military.

It is highly probable that a majority of Col. Williamson's militiamen did not set out on their expedition with the purpose of murdering the Moravian Indians, but simply to take them prisoners, although the killing of Schebosh before reaching Gnadenbiitten, and two others soon after entering the village, shows that some of them at least were bent on murder! Having, however, had their feelings greatly outraged by the then recent murder of the Wallace family, and dwelling on the outrage as the theme of their conversation on their march, they naturally became more and more sanguinary and vindictive in their temper as they progressed in their expedition. And it has been further proclaimed in mitigation of their brutality, if not in justification of it, that they found the dress of Mrs. Wallace, still bloody, at one of the mission towns, and thereupon rashly, illogically, insanely rushed to the conclusion that those with whom that dress was found were the murderers of the Wallace family, and that then, in the execution of the afterthought, they decided upon the commission of the brutal murder of innocent

But the charge of murder against the Moravian Indians was undoubtedly an act of great injustice to them. Their guilty participation, directly or indirectly, in the murder of any white persons has never been established. Rev. Dr. Doddridge says that the charge of complicity by the Moravians with the hostile Indians in the murder of the families of the western frontiersmen, and which served as a pretext for their destruction, " was utterly false." It has always been the judgment of the public that the seventy men; or thereabouts, of Colonel Williamson's command who voted in favor' of killing ninety-six Moravian Indians at Guadenhiitten, on the Tuscarawas River, March 8, 1782, were guilty of an atrocious murder. So say the general public, and so saith all reliable history !

Owing to the hostile feelings of the tribes in the Sandusky region towards the remnant of Moravian Indians at "Captive's Town," it was deemed necessary to abandon it and seek a location elsewhere. To return to the Tuscarawas Valley was not to be thought of, as Col. Williamson's men had burnt all their habitations in the villages before leaving them. And if that had not been done, the British commandant at Detroit would not have permitted it, first, for State reasons, and secondly, because it would have been construed to mean a defiant menace, and have inevitably led to their extermination. Said commandant (Major De Peyster) generously tendered them aid and encouragement, provided they would establish a mission station on Huron River (now called . Clinton). They, after due deliberation, accepted of his proposition, and commenced a settlement on said river, about thirty miles north of Detroit, July 21, 1782, calling the village New Gnadenhiitten. The missionaries and their families left Captive's Town in the spring, upon the invitation of Major De Peyster, and reached Detroit May 10, 1782, where they remained until their removal up the Huron or Clinton River, in July, as above stated. Many of the Indians at Captive's Town had found it necessary to disperse during the winter to procure food; others probably relapsed into heathenism under the pressure of surrounding circumstances ; still others probably were unwilling, for various reasons, to go with their brethren to the Huron River, so that the remnant of Christian Indians on the Sandusky, after the murder of ninety-four of them on the Tuscarawas, was comparatively small. The few that remained at Captive's Town after the departure of the missionaries and their families and converts for Detroit, about the last of April, were driven out and dispersed by order of Captain Pipe, a Delaware chief of the Wolf tribe, who was an unrelenting enemy to the Moravians. Henceforth for four years (from 1782 to 1786) no Moravian mission station existed within the present limits of Ohio.

1781, and who went to Detroit in May, 1782, Rev. John George Jungman was the only one who never afterwards identified himself with any missions among the Indians of Ohio. He was born April 19, 1720, at Hockenheim, in the Palatinate. In 1731, he emigrated to America, and settled near Oley, in Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with the Moravians and united with them. After his arrival at Detroit in May,

1782, he returned to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he died, after a long retirement from active service, July 17, 1808, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

Pilgerruh Mission, Founded In 1786

The Pilgerruh Mission, known also as " Pilgrim's Rest," was established in the summer of 1786, on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River, in what is now Independence township, Cuyahoga County, distant from the mouth of said river (now Cleveland) ten or twelve miles. The colony was led from the vicinity of Detroit by Revs. Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and Edwards, and was composed chiefly of those who were captured by Matthew Elliott, at the Tuscarawas villages, in 1781, and who had lived principally, since that time, at New Gnadenhiitten. Pilgrim's Rest was not intended to be a permanent mission, but only a stopping-place for a year or two, with the purpose of an early removal to their former localities in the Tuscarawas Yalley. Soon huts were built and corn was planted, the mission being located upon the site of an old abandoned village of the Ottawas, the land being therefore cleared, so that by the last of June they were in comfortable habitations. A chapel was also erected, and dedicated on the 10th of November.

A resolution was adopted by Congress, on the 24th of August, 1786, inviting the remnant of the expatriated or exiled Moravian Indians of the Tuscarawas to return to their former homes, guaranteeing them the protection of the government, and tendering to them, at the same time, a quantity of corn, as well as blankets, axes, and hoes, as a donation; but the opposition of certain Indian tribes to their return to their former village was so manifest, that they decided to seek another home, and not, for the present at least (notwithstanding the generous legislation of Congress in their behalf), attempt to return to the Tuscarawas Yalley. They stood firm in their decision to abandon " Pilgrim's Rest," however, and locate elsewhere. Accordingly on the 19th of April, 1787, the colony, under the leadership of Rev. Zeisberger, took up their line of march westward towards the Pettquotting, now called Huron River, which empties into Lake Erie at the town of Huron, in Erie County, though Black River was their destination at first, but, on arriving there, circumstances seemed not to favor it as a mission station.

New Salem, Founded In 1787

New Salem was established on the east bank of the Huron River, a few miles from its mouth, in the present township of Milan, in Erie County, in the spring of 1787, by the colony from " Pilgrim's Rest." There some old, but then unoccupied plantations, were found, and upon which they built "New Salem." The chapel was erected and occupied in June, and the village and mission soon enjoyed a good degree of prosperity. Revs. Zeisberger, Edwards, and Jung were the principal missionaries at this new station, at the beginning, but Rev. Gottlob Senseman joined it afterwards, in th6 year 1790. That was the year of its greatest prosperity, the congregation then numbering two hundred and twelve persons. But an impending Indian war rendered the condition of the mission precarious, a war which culminated, for this year at least, in the defeat of General Harmer, at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's (now Port Wayne), in October, 1790. The continued existence of Indian hostilities rendered it inexpedient to remain much longer at New Salem. It was, therefore, resolved to abandon it early in 1791, which was accordingly done in April of said year, the mission being removed to the Canada side of the Detroit River, and established, by invitation of their owners, on lands belonging to Elliott and McKee, both of whom had been their bitter enemies. They called this mission the Watch-Tower.

Rev. Gottlob Senseman, after the abandonment of New Salem, in 1791, was never afterwards connected with Moravian missions among the Ohio Indians. He was, however, identified with other missions, principally in Canada, the last of which was at Fairfield, situated on the right bank of the river Thames, in the present township of Oxford, Canada West, where he deceased January 4, 1800.

Rev. Michael Jung was a native of Engoldsheim, Province of Alsace, Germany, where he was bom January 5, 1743. He came to America in 1751, and settled at Broadbay, in Maine, where he joined the Moravians. He removed to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1767, where he qualified himself for the ministry, and commenced his missionary labors in 1780, in the Tuscarawas Yalley, and continued to exercise his ministerial functions at varions points for the period of thirty-three years. In 1813, he retired to Litiz,a Moravian town in Pennsylvania, where he died December 13, 1826, at the advanced-age of almost eighty-four years. New Salem was the last mission to which he was attached within the present limits of Ohio.

Re-Establishment Of Tuscarawas Missions

For various reasons there were no Moravian missions within the present limits of Ohio from the spring of 1791, when New Salem was abandoned, until the location and building of the village of Goshen and the rebuilding of Gnadenhiitten, both in the Tuscarawas Yalley, in the year

1198. The colony that entered upon this enterprise was under the direction of Revs. Zeisberger, Mortimer, Heckewelder, and Edwards, and was composed chiefly of Christian Indians from the Fairfield Mission, on the river Thames, in Canada. The two last named located themselves and a portion of the colony before midsummer upon the site of Gnadenhiitten, where Rev. John Ileckewelder had a house built, which was finished and occupied September 9, 1798. The two first named arrived in October, 1798, and built the village of Goshen upon the old Schonbrunn tract, on the west bank of the Tuscarawas River, seven miles above Gnadenhiitten, in the present township of Goshen, Tuscarawas County, about two miles below New Philadelphia.

Rev. John Heckewelder was no longer a missionary proper, but made Gnadenhiitten his headquarters as "Agent of the Society for Propagating the Gospel." This was a Moravian organization incorporated by "Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature," for the purpose implied in its title. Congress had invited the Moravians to re-establish their mission in the Tuscarawas Valley, and had donated to them twelve thousand acres of land to aid in the work of Indian civilization and evangelization. Four thousand acres were surveyed so as to include the old Schonbrunn village site, four thousand to include Gnadenhiitten, and the remaining four thousand to embrace Salem. These several tracts were conveyed to the aforesaid society, in trust, for the purpose of propagating the gospel among the heathen on the Tuscarawas, or rather, as the act of incorporation expresses it, "for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity among them." Said society, of which Bishop Ettwein was the president, appointed Rev. John Heckewelder its agent, in 1788, to execute the trust in accordance with the terms of the grant, which remained in a state of abeyance until 1798, when, for the performance of his duties as agent, he made his residence at Gnadenhiitten, as above stated. The foregoing tracts of land were surveyed, pursuant to an act of Congress bearing date June 1, 1796, although several "Acts of Congress" had been previously passed, pledging the government to grant donations of land to the Moravians in the Tuscarawas Valley. These several "Acts" bear date May 20, 1785 ; J uly 27, 1787; and September 3, 1788. These lands were under the superintendence of Rev. John Heckewelder, who, as agent, leased and managed them in the interest of the Tuscarawas Mission, embracing the two stations of Goshen and Gnadenhiitten, from 1798 until 1810.

These two Moravian villages met with various successes and reverses. Soon the whites settled around them; some as lessees upon their lands, whose influence generally was pernicious upon the weak, half-disciplined Moravian Indians. They introduced ardent spirits among them, although the Territorial Governor and Judges had passed a law, in answer to petitions from Revs. Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and Mortimer, granting them the power of prohibiting its sale and use. Other vicious habits of, the whites were gradually adopted, in spite of the efforts and restraining influence of the missionaries. Some of the converts, yielding to the malign influences to which they were subjected, fell into evil ways, and some even lapsed into heathenism, and became castaways. The missionaries grew old, and lost in a measure their influence with their proselytes, being unable to give them the requisite personal attention. Gradually the number of Indians in these villages diminished by deaths, removals westward, and by the encroachments and demoralizing influence of the white settlers. At length there were few or no Indians outside of these villages to proselyte, by reason of their removal westward. Meantime, the age, debility, and ultimately the death of the most influential and successful missionaries were felt as a serious calamity, and greatly retarded their prosperity. Thus matters gradually progressed from bad to worse, evidence of the decadence and ultimate extinction of these Moravian Christian Missions becoming more and more manifest every year, until the final removal from the valley, in 1824, of the Moravian Indians, the last little remnant of them then joining the Fairfield Mission in Canada.

Re-Establishment Of New Salem Mission In 1804

In the autumn of 1803 Bishop Loskiel, the eminent Moravian historian, made an official visit to the Tuscarawas Mission, and held a conference with the missionaries at Goshen, from October 10th to the 21st, at which it was decided to re-establish the New Salem Mission on the Huron River, which had been abandoned in 1791. In pursuance of this purpose, Rev. Mr. Oppelt and Rev. John Ben Haven removed a fragment of Christian Indians from Fairfield, in Canada, to the Hudson River, in the spring of 1804, and located them near or on the site of New Salem, within Milan township, Erie County. According to some authorities, Rev. Christian Frederick Dencke superintended this mission. But small success attended the enterprise, however, and it had a brief career, the little remnant of converts soon removing to some point on the Sandusky River, from which they not long after finally scattered.

Rev. George Henry Loskiel, author of a " History of the Missions of the Moravians among the American Indians," was liorn November 7, 1770, at Angermiinde, in Curland, and came to the United States in 1802, having been during that year consecrated a bishop. He became a Moravian in 1759, was appointed superintendent of the mission in Livonia in 1782, and occupied other positions of responsibility. His history of the Moravian missions in America was published in London in 1794. His death took place at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, February 23, 1814.

Other Tc8Carawa8 Missionaries

Rev. Benjamin Mortimer remained a missionary at the Tuscarawas Mission from 1798 until after the death of the venerable, patriarchal Zeisberger, in the year 1808, and subsequently became the pastor of a Moravian church in New York city, where he died November 10, 1834. He was a native of England, and was a minister of character and talents.

Rev. Lewis Huebner was a missionary on the Tuscarawas in the year 1800, and for a number of years thereafter, probably until 1805. He was a native American, born at Nazareth, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, August 8, 1761, and was educated in his native town.

And Rev. Abraham Luckenbach ministered to the Moravian Indians on the Tuscarawas until the final abandonment of the mission and the dispersion of the converts in 1824. He was born May 5, 1777, in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, and was educated at Nazareth, where he was a teacher in 1797. He became a missionary among the Indians in the year 1800, and served as such, at various missions, for forty-three years, when he retired to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he died, March 8, 1854, having attained to the age of almost seventy-seven years.

Before giving the details of the final termination of the Moravian mission stations in the Tuscarawas Valley, we may be permitted to give more extended biographical or memorial sketches of two of the most distinguished of the missionaries (Revs. Zeisberger and Heckewelder) that were connected, with them. So long, so intimately, so conspicuously were they identified with them, that biographical sketches of them amount substantially to a history of those mission stations. " More abundant in labors" were they than all others; from the infancy of those missions until they reached the period of their decadence, were they with and of them ; and so zealous and faithful were they, so devoted to their high calling, as to be, preeminently, the missionaries to the Indians of the " Upper Ohio Valley." The last named, Rev. John Heckewelder, came to the Tuscarawas Valley in 1761, and did not finally leave it until 1810, covering a period, with some long intervals of absence, of fortynine years; and the former, Rev. David Zeisberger, first came in 1772, and died there in 1808, a period of thirty-six years, including some intervals of absence also. So eminent had they become, by reason of their early-time arrival and their long-continued services ; and such, indeed, was their intimate identification with our pioneer history, in fact were " parts and parcels of it," to a large extent, that, in the opinion of many, they share, by no means inconsiderably, with others in the honor of being the founders of our Slate.

They were both scholarly men, familiar with several of the modern languages, and spoke a variety of Indian dialects fluently, and were also voluminous writers. Their acknowledged ability and talents, and their undoubted and well-merited claims as " men of letters," gave them a place in the fore-front, and secured them more than an ordinary degree of influence, not only as missionaries, but also as authors and civilians.

4. " Something of Bodily Care for Children." This, also, is a translation from the German of Bishop Spangenberg into the Delaware, and has been bound into one volume with the " Sermons to Children the two making a book of 115 pages.

5. "The History of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." This is also a translation from the German of Rev. Samuel Lieberkiihn into the Delaware Indian language, and makes a volume of 222 pages. It was printed in New York in 1821. It is supplemented with an "Address of the late Rev. David Zeisberger to the Christian Indians," bearing date Goshen, May 23, 1806. ,

Of the writings of Rev. David Zeisberger many remain in manuscript. Of those deposited in the library of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, are the following : -

1. "Lexicon of the German and Onondaga Languages ;" a very extensive production of seven or eight volumes. There is an abridgment of it, also in manuscript.

Rev. David Zeisberger

Rev. David Zeisberger was born in a small village named Zauchtenthal, Moravia (now on the railroad from Cracow to Vienna), on Good Friday, April 11, 1721. His parents were believers in and followers of the distinguished Bohemian reformer, John Huss. They removed to Hernhut, the chief seat of the Moravians in Europe, in 1726, and came to America in 1736, and settled in Georgia. They, however, left their son David at Hernhut, to finish his education. Ho was an apt scholar, "learning Latin with the facility that he afterwards displayed in acquiring a knowledge of the Indian languages." Soon after he was fifteen years of age he was taken to Holland by Count Zinzendorf, where he soon learned the Dutch language, spoken by the Hollanders. When he was seventeen he embarked at London for the New World, and soon joined his parents.

David spent several years in Georgia and South Carolina, and in 1740 went to Pennsylvania. In 1741 the village of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was commenced, and he early identified himself with it, which soon became, and has ever since remained, " the chief seat of the Moravian Church in America." There his father died in 1744, and his mother in 1746.

David soon developed a character for courage, talents, energy, resolution, and self-abnegation that marked him as one adapted to the missionary service among the aborigines of this country. In 1744-45 he devoted himself to the study of the Indian languages, first at Bethlehem, then in the Mohawk Valley, where he perfected himself in the Mohawk tongue. Here he came under the suspicion of being a spy, and suffered imprisonment both in Albany and New York, but, being found innocent, was discharged. Not long afterwards he was selected as the associate of Bishop Spangenberg, to make negotiations with the Iroquois Confederacy in regard to the transfer of the Shekomeko Mission to the Wyoming. He impressed the Onondagas so favorably that they adopted him into the Turtle Tribe of that nation, and gave him an Indian name. He made extensive explorations of the Susquehanna and its branches, acting as an interpreter frequently, and serving as assistant missionary at Shamokin.

Rev. David Zeisberger was ordained to the ministry at Bethlehem, February 16, 1749, and at once proceeded to minister to the Shamokin Mission, which was situated near the present town of Sunbury, Pennsylvania. In 1750 he made a voyage to Europe in the interest of American missions, returning in the following June. He made frequent visits to the Onondagas, to Wyoming, to New York, to New England, and various other places, always to promote the welfare of existing missions or to establish new ones. He also attended the treaty held with the Indians at Philadelphia in 1756; at Easton, in July, 1757; and again in October, 1758. In 1759 he journeyed as far south as North Carolina, and in 1760 he was appointed superintendent of the Brethren's House at Litiz, where he remained more than a year.* In August, 1761, he was interpreter at another general congress held with the Indian tribes at Easton.

He thus continued to make himself useful in the various capacities of interpreter, missionary, treaty negotiator, instructor, and superintendent until 1772, when we find him established at Schonbrunn, in the Tuscarawas Valley, from which time the details of his career have already been given in this chapter. He visited Pennsylvania in 1781, and entered into the married relation with Susan Lecron, of Litiz, a Moravian village in Lancaster County, June 4, 1781, the venerable missionary, Rev. Bernard Adam Grube, performing the marriage ceremony, he who had rendered a similar service for Rev. John Heckewelder the previous year.

1. "Essay of a Delaware Indian and English Spelling Book, for the use of the Schools of the Christian Indians on the Muskingum River." Published in Philadelphia, 1776. A second edition appeared in 1806.

2. "A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Christian Indians of the Moravian Missions in North America." Published in Philadelphia in 1808. This was a volume of 358 pages. A second edition was issued, in an abridged form, in 1847, under the editorship of Rev. Abraham Luckenback, of Bethlehem, where the second edition was published.

Some of the foregoing are duplicates. The above manuscripts were handsomely bound after reaching the library of Harvard University, and occupy a conspicuous place there, and will be carefully preserved for posterity.

Rev. David Zeisberger died at Goshen, in the Tuscarawas Valley, November 17, 1808, having attained the ripe age of eighty-seven years and seven months. He left no issue, and the name has no living representative as a missionary, or even as a Moravian Christian. Mrs. Zeisberger remained at Goshen until August 11, 1809, when she removed to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she died September 11, 1824, aged eighty years, six months, and twenty-one days.

David Zeisberger Rev. John Heckewelder

The chapter of our annals which acquaints us with the incidents connected with the efforts of the Moravian missionaries to civilize and Christianize our Indians, has been read with pleasure by all those who are interested in the facts, events, and philosophy of our history. To many the narratives of those evangelizing labors are of surpassing interest, and possess all the fascination of romance. And they have intensified charms for those whose Christian impulses lead them into hearty sympathy with the laborious, self-sacrificing, devoted men who had religiously dedicated themselves to the toilsome and most unpromising task of lifting our untutored aboriginal inhabitants out of the degradation and savagery of their heathen state and comparatively hopeless condition, and by long-continued, faithful labors, raising them up and placing them upon the more elevated platform of civilization, and to the purer, higher, holier plane of Christianity. And, perchance, others may be brought to participate with those classes of readers, in the enjoyment of the charms and fascinations of the story of the brave-hearted, noble-minded, and conscientious Moravian missionaries of Ohio, when the details of their arduous labors are presented for their contemplation. Theirs is a sacredly classic histor}', abounding in most precious memories, and has always been, to many minds, redolent of ever-to-.be-cherished associations.

Lessons deducible from the life-story of those self-sacrificing missionaries may not be altogether without interest, or unimportant and valueless to the men of the present generation.

Rev. John Heckewelder (or, as it was originally written, John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder) was born at Bedford, in England, March 12, 1743, his father having fled thither from Moravia, a province of Austria, in order to avoid persecution, and where he might enjoy religious freedom. John was sent to the parochial or sectarian schools, first at Butterraere and afterwards at Fulneck, where the chief object was the inculcation of moral and religious principles and thorough indoctrination into the truths of Christianity as understood and taught by the Moravian church, which has in an eminent degree, always held secular learning subordinate to religious knowledge. With that denomination Bible teachings and the study of the sacred classics have, in a special sense, ever been esteemed of paramount importance. To create in the pupil's mind an overpowering interest in matters pertaining to the life to come was the all-in-all in the Moravian system of education, the chief object and purpose of Moravian schools. To make Christians (in the highest sense) of every student - to establish a thoroughly religious congregation in each one of their literary institutions - to infuse into each individual pupil the missionary spirit, and dedicate him to mission labors in heathen lands, was the beginning, the middle, and the end of their purpose - their main object - the principal aim at their seats of learning.

Such being the ideas always kept prominently before the pupils in Moravian educational institutions, it is not surprising that he who is the subject of this sketch should have become, in early life, deeply imbued with the genius of Christianity - that he should have entered into the spirit of Christ's gospel, and during his school years have yielded readily to those favorable influences and instructions - and entered enthusiastically, zealously, during his young manhood, into the mission field, and remained therein a faithful laborer for half a century, even to old age. And to the end of his life he cherished grateful recollections of the impressions made upon his mind, and of the religious instruction imparted to him while at these schools by his affectionate, devoted Christian teachers.

In 1754, when eleven .years of age, John Heckewelder, in company with his parents and about forty other Moravian colonists, sailed for America in the ship Irene, which arrived at the port of New York April 2d, when the immigrants disembarked and started for Bethlehem, the Moravian village on the Lehigh River, in Pennsylvania, all arriving there April 20, 1754. Just before the Irene sailed, Count Zinzendorf, the then head of the Moravian church, went on board and gave his parting blessing to those who had embarked for the new world. In a paternal manner he implored the young lad, John Heckewelder, to make it his principal aim to prepare himself for preaching the gospel among the heathen ; and then placing his hands upon his head, the pious and devout Christian count invoked a special blessing upon him.

John attended school at Bethlehem for two years, making good progress in his studies, and then went to Christian Spring, a small Moravian settlement nine miles north of Bethlehem, where he was employed somewhat at "field labor and other manual occupations." He, however, also, meanwhile enjoyed opportunities, which were not neglected, for improving himself during his leisure hours, having the benefit of the instruction of two Moravian teachers, Messrs. Zeigler and Fries, both reputed to possess good scholarship. His parents, while he was at this place, were called to serve a mission station on one of the Spanish West India Islands, where they soon died, and he, in 1758, returned to Bethlehem and engaged himself as an apprentice to learn the art of making cedarwood ware - to be a cooper, in short. Here four years more of his life were spent, learning a trade and pursuing his studies diligently', when he was chosen by the missionary, Charles Frederick Post, as an assistant in the mission work in the Tuscarawas Valley, in 1761, as has been already related.

mission of Friendenshiitten, and for nine years made himself extensively useful there and at other mission stations, and as an instructor in schools'. In the spring of 1771 he accompanied Rev. David Zeisberger to the mission station on Beaver River, in western Pennsylvania (now in Lawrence County), called Fricdensstadt, where ho remained a year, and then accompanied Zeisberger to the Tuscarawas Valley, as heretofore stated. The chief incidents of his career, so far as they were connected with our mission stations from 1772 to 1798, when he entered actively upon his duties as the "agent of the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen," have been presented. Between those years he was almost constantly engaged in tho performance of mission work at various points, and in rendering services as a civilian by holding councils, forming treaties, acting as an assistant ambassador, and sometimes as interpreter.

The expedition of General Harmer, in 1790, and that of General St. Clair in 1791, having failed to subjugate the unfriendly Indian tribes in the West, and the western settlements still being liable to attacks from marauding parties, it became a matter of the first importance with the federal government to secure peace by negotiation, if possible. With that object in view the Rev. John Heckewelder, who was thought to lie a discreet man, and enjoying a high degree of public confidence, was appointed by General Knox, then Secretary of War, as an associate ambassador with General Rufus Putnam, of Marietta, with authority to form treaties of peace with various Indian tribes in the West. Instructions were issued to them on the twenty-second of May, 1792. By arrangement they met at Pittsburgh near the last of Juue, and reached Fort Washington on the second of Julj', on their way to Post Vincennes, on the Wabash, where they arrived on the twelfth of September. Here, on the twenty-seventh of said month, a treaty of peace was concluded and signed by Putnam and Heckewelder, and by thirty-one chiefs of the tribes from the upper and lower Wabash, Eel River, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, St. Joseph's River, and from Lake Michigan. A fter a liberal distribution of presents the commissioners started, on the fifth of October, with sixteen chiefs for Philadelphia, where they arrived early in February, Heckewelder having been absent nearly nine months.

As the results of these labors seemed encouraging and promising success, a second embassy was resolved upon. The ambassadors chosen this time were General Benjamin Lincoln, Col. Timothy Pickering, and Governor Beverly Randolph. Mr. Heckewelder's acquaintance with the language and character of the Indians, and his high personal reputation among them, it was thought might be of essential service to the embassy in their negotiations with the Indians; he was therefore attached to it as an assistant ambassador. They left Philadelphia April 27, 1793, for the Miami of the Lakes (now Maumee), where they were to meet the Indian chiefs of the northwest in council, to agree upon terms of peace, if possible. To this end their fruitless labors were protracted until about the middle of August, when the ambassadors returned to Philadelphia, Mr. Heckewelder reaching his home at Bethlehem on the 25th of September, after an absence of five months.

In 1797 Mr. Heckewelder twice visited the Tuscarawas Valley, extending his journey to Marietta. In 1798 he travelled as far to the northwest as the river Thames, in " Upper Canada," in the interest of the Moravian mission station of Fairfield. About midsummer of this year we find him again in the "Tuscarawas Valley rebuilding Gnadeuhiitten, as already stated.

He was elected an Associate Judge of Tuscarawas County upon its organization in 1808, and served as such until 1810, when he resigned his position of " superintendent of the missions west of the Ohio River," and also the judgeship, and returned to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to close his days in quiet retirement, after having served the missionary cause with ability and fidelity for almost half a century.

He lived more than twelve years after his direct and active connection with western missions was dissolved, in 1810, his death occurring January 31, 1823, having attained the ripe age of almost eighty years. But those twelve years of comparative retirement, although they embraced the period of his old age and infirmities, were not by any means years of idleness and uselessness. His biographer, Rev. Edward Rondthaler, says that "he still continued to serve missions and the mission cause in an efficient way, by giving to the public needed information pertaining to them, and imparting much useful information relative to the language, manners, and customs of the Indians." He wrote extensively during his retirement, some of the productions of his pen being intended for the public generally. Among his published works are his " History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States," and his "Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohican Indians." The former of these works was written in 1819, at the repeated request of the President of the American Philosophical Society, and was published under the auspices of the historical and literary committee of said Society, a society of which he was an honored member. The last-named work was prepared by him in 1821, when he had reached the age of more than seventy-seven years. In this paper he expressed the opinion that the "Crawford expedition to the Sandusky, in 1782, was organized for the purpose of destroying the remnant of the Moravian Indians on said river." The author of "Crawford's Campaign against Sandusky" (C. W. Butterfield) clearly refutes that charge against Col. Crawford, by testimony that conclusively shows the object of the expedition to have been " the destruction of the Wyandot Indian town and settlement at Sandusky ."

The life of Rev. John Heckewelder was one of great activity, industry, and usefulness. It was a life of vicissitudes, of perils, and of wild, romantic adventure. How it abounded in hardships, privations, and self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of the barbarians of the western wilderness 1 How earnestly, persistently, faithfully, zealously, he labored to propagate that Gospel, which was the chief inspiration of the exalted heroism that characterized his eventful lifel Unselfishly he exposed himself to danger; disinterestedly he toiled to bring wild and barbarous tribes into the enjoyment of the blessings of civilization and of Christianity. It would indeed be difficult to over-estimate the importance or value of the labors of Rev. John Heckewelder in the various characters of philanthropist, philosopher, pioneer, teacher, ambassador, author, and Christian missionary.

Rev. John Heckewelder was a gentleman of courteous and easy manners, of frankness, affability, veracity ; without affectation or dissimulation; meek, cheerful, unassuming; humble, unpretending, unobtrusive; retiring, rather taciturn, albeit, when drawn out, communicative and a good conversationalist. He was in extensive correspondence with many "men of letters," by whom he was held in great esteem. Throughout his long life he was the red man's constant and faithful friend, having gone forth a pilgrim, while yet in his young manhood, in the spirit of enthusiastic heroism, unappalled by danger, unwearied by fatigue and privation, and undismayed by prospective toils and self-denials, to put forth his best efforts to ameliorate their condition and bring them under the benign influence of a noble, elevating, purifying, Christian civilization.

Retrocession Of The Moravian Land Grants

For reasons already stated, the retrocession of the three several tracts of Moravian lands in the Tuscarawas V alley, and the removal westward of the remnant of Moravian Indians who still occupied them, were decided upon in 1823. To consummate that purpose, General Lewis Cass, at that time Governor of Michigan Territory, was appointed Commissioner to represent the General Government, and Rev. Lewis David de Schweinitz was chosen to act as the commissioner on behalf of " The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen." They met at Gnadenhiitten, and there agreed upon the terms of retrocession, August 4, 1823, by which said society was divested of its trust of those lands, provided the Christian Indians assented thereto. That assent was obtained at a meeting held with Governor Cass, November 8, 1823. According to the terms of the treaty, twenty-four thousand acres of land (and a small annuity) were granted to the Indians, or for their benefit, situated in some one of the territories of the United States, in consideration of their relinquishment of their title to the foregoing tracts in the Tuscarawas Valley, which, as heretofore described, contained twelve thousand acres. The deed of retrocession was executed April 1, 1824, and that act brought to a close, finally , Moravian missions among the Indians in Ohio.

The Friends At Wapakoneta

About 1794 the Society of Friends became interested in the welfare of the Indians and frontiersmen of the Northwest Territory. A fresh war had broken out, drenching the frontier with blood, until deeply moved by this horror the "Yearly Meeting of Friends" appointed a large committee to use its influence against these desolating hostilities. This committee prepared and presented to Congress a memorial recommending the adoption of such just and pacific measures as appeared calculated to arrest further bloodshed, and establish a lasting peace. In 1795, Gen. Wayne held the Greenville Council, which was attended by the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Eel River, Weas, Kickapoos,and Kaskaskias. At the opening Gen. Wayne read the address of the " Friends Yearly Meeting" at Philadelphia, and delivered some presents, which had been sent to the Indians. He then spoke of this letter in very commendatory terms, and also of the great solicitude of the Quakers, touching the welfare of the Indians. For an indefinite period antecedent to the war of 1812 the Friends had labored with the Shawnees at Wapakoneta, but during that war the mission was suspended. Resuming then, they by the consent of the government, and at their own expenses, erected a grist- and saw-mill on the Auglaize, at Wapakoneta, and made various other improvements for the benefit of the Indians.

Among other things of this class they erected a residence for the superintendent and his family, Isaac Harvey, who were placed in charge of the mission, the object of which was to encourage the Indians in the improvement and cultivation of their lands and otherwise contribute to the amelioration of their condition. Under the instruction thus imparted the Indians soon acquired some proficiency in agriculture, the products being corn, beans, and pumpkins. The corn was ground at the mission mill free of toll, and the Indians were thus provided means superior to the old method of pounding the grain into hominy. The Society of Friends bore all the expense incident to the erection and maintenance of these mills. The expense, too, was enortpous for those days, as Wapakoneta was a remote point thirty miles from white settlements, from which supplies were to be obtained. This distance was rendered terrible by the unfavorable condition of the country for any transfer of goods, as the whole route was through a vast wilderness. The Shawnees were very ignorant about building, and so the Society furnished young men to assist them in the erection of cabins and fences. About this time the Society received a handsome present from a lady Friend in England, which was used in the purchase of farming utensils for the better encouragement of agricultural pursuits.

By this assistance they made rapid progress in civilization, and the acquisition of property. Domestic animals were now introduced to the great advantage and comfort of the Indians, as the horse came to relieve the women of the labor of plowing and carrying burdens. While the men thus learned to provide for their families, the women acquired a better knowledge of their proper sphere and duties until at length a kind-hearted but savage and abused people began to realize better days, and look forward with brighter and higher hope. They had by two treaties secured an annuity of $3000, to be paid forever at Wapakoneta, 0 hio, for the benefit of the whole tribe. This was promptly paid for a number of years, but at length it was neglected, and the Indians suffered. They had many obstacles to surmount, many doubts to undergo, and many difficulties to encounter in changing the character of their whole lives. It was a single-step transition from savage to civilized life, and this by a proud and independent race was as great a task of reconciliation as ever devolved upon a rude people. Their habits, manners, customs, and language ; their very life itself, with its wild unrest, eager pursuits, and burning desires, all to be cast aside like the child's discarded toy. They had from time immemorial been the undisputed lords of the forest, for a continent had been theirs for ages.

The unbounded forest was their home, and destiny had yielded it to them and theirs forever. They knew no superior but the Great Spirit, and they were that Spirit's special care. For them the forest produced its game ; the earth its fruit, and the waters their fishes. Their music wa3 the songs of their mother Nature from whom they sprang, by whom they subsisted, and to whose bosom they would return. For generations a world was theirs, and the beneficent Spirit would never disinherit his favorite children. Blind superstitious faith, there approaches jour world a pale-faced child of the Great Spirit who will teach you equity and rob you of your all ; who will teach you philanthropy and exterminate your race. He has now demanded that you change in all save color, and become like him of the pale face, trespassing feet, and grasping avaricious hands. With this status this brave and generous people, yielding to the inevitable, undertook to forget the past, embrace the present, and build a future on the views and manners of the whites. In 1810 they received a letter from their agent, John Johnston, on the subject of their improvement. He urged them earnestly to improve the opportunities offered, and embrace the course recommended by the Friends. This letter is still preserved by the Shawnees, and held in reverence on account of its author, who never deceived them in all his dealings. These Indians were acknowledged to be well acquainted with human nature, and in order to judge a man only asked to look him in the face, and their judgment was generally correct. It was not difficult to persuade them to engage in agricultural pursuits, but it required years to overcome their aversion to the education of their children by the whites. Finally they agreed to this, and the pupils evinced a susceptibility beyond all expectation. The schools were conducted on the manual labor system, and the friends of the Indians expressed great gratification in finding this restless people advancing so rapidly in those pursuits which promised to rescue them from their late deplorable condition. Thus they progressed until 1830, when it was intimated the government wished to purchase their lands. As this period marks a new era in their record by the introduction of a new superintendent, Henry Harvey, and the unsettled condition of affairs occasioned by the land negotiations, we pause a moment to consider their manners and mode of life prior to the improvements we have reviewed. They then occupied villages along the Auglaize River, where they remained during the summer cultivating their crops of corn and beans - the labor being performed by the women and children. The men would lounge about during the warm weather, as furs were not fit for market. If hunger drove them from the shade of repose, they only sought a shady stream and caught a few fish or plunged deeper into the forest and shot a deer. They never made any provision for the future, and so by winter their whole crop of corn would be exhausted. At this season they made preparation for the annual hunt. When leaving they took their families, ponies, and as much furniture as possible with them. This latter outfit consisted chiefly of brass kettles, wooden ladles, large bowls, some spoons, a tomahawk and butcher-knife. Even in cold weather might be seen the silver-haired grandmother, the care-worn mother, and the half-clothed children - even the infant carried in a blanket - on the march to the hunting grounds. Arrived at their destination, they erected a tent of sufficient size to accommodate a whole family. This lodge was made by placing in the ground poles lashed together at the top, and covered with skins of animals. These were so adjusted that the upper ones overlapped the lower, and rendered the lodge water- and snow-proof. The fire was built in the middle of this tent, and the smoke escaped at an opening at the top provided for the purpose. In the tent, skins were spread on which they reposed, while the blanket served for covering. These blankets were an indispensable article; if anything was to be carried it was enfolded in these; if not thus used it was worn upon the person until it became so inseparably associated with the Indian as to become almost a part of his person. If hunting, they are worn ; if sleeping, they are worn, and if attending a party, they are still worn. True, on the latter occasions, they were ornamented with beads and other triukets, but the ubiquitous blanket was still there. An Indian was poor, indeed, if he did not possess a pony, gun, tomahawk, dog, butcher-knife, and blanket. These were his outfit, and were well nigh indispensable. Settled upon the hunting grounds, the men went in search of game, and if any was killed it was suspended to a tree, beyond reach of wolves, wh ile the hunter pushed on sometimes for days before returning. On his return he carried back as much game as he could, and feasted at home one night in order to rest and refresh after the toil of the hunt. He then took his pony to gather the game he had already secured. Thus many might have game throughout the timber, and yet their honor never permitted one Indian to take from a tree the game of another.

the women and children, who took care of the furs, and sliced tho venison for drying purposes, except the hams, which were fire-dried for market. After a feast the hunters resumed the chase, and so continued until about the first of February, when the furs became worthless and the chase was abandoned. They then returned home, but, as the close of the deer season marked the opening of the trapping season, the Indian again soon took to the forest. Here again their honesty would not permit one to rob the traps of another, but, on the contrary, if one found an animal in the trap of another, he removed the game, suspended it near by, and reset the trap. Such were the habits of these people in their struggle to survive. Without homes worth the name, they were dependent upon the shelter and bounty of a watery or icy wilderness. Exposed to the rigors of the climate, they were ever in hearing of the howl of the wolf and the scream of the panther. In the midst of those incongruous surroundings and inhospitable elements, from the frozen earth, if the discord of clashing elements ceased for a moment, could be heard the weak and pitiful cry of the infant starving and freezing in its mother's arms, while the very elements and wild beasts, more in " pity than wrath," conspired to drown its saddening cry.

Such were the condition an$l habits of the Shawnees at the advent of the Friends. Let us look to the events of later years. Turn, then, to the year 1819, when a member of the Society of Friends, Isaao Harvey, removed, with part of his family, to superintend the mills erected for the benefit of the Shawnees.

These mills were located on the river just in the rear of the grocery store of H. W. Taeusch, where part of the building still remains. Mr. Harvey had visited the place on previous occasions, and so was acquainted with a number of the chiefs as well as with John Johnston, the Indian Agent of the Northwest.

Shortly afterward we get a glimpse of the Prophet, more fully treated elsewhere in this volume. One of the Indians became very much enfeebled, and the Friend visited him often, carrying him medicine and nourishment. On one of these visits he found the door fastened, but, after a time, it was opened, and he found the sick man lying upon his face, his back bare, and his whole body so lacerated that he was in a state of exhaustion from the loss of blood.

In the house was tho Prophet, the brother of Tecumseh. He was asked the reason for this curious and brutal treatment of the patient, and answered that the sick man was bewitched, and these incisions were made j to enable him to extract the combustible matter the witch had deposited.

was awakened by some one at his door seeking admittance. He heard a woman's voice cr3'ing in broken English, " They kill-ee me I they kill-ee me!" It was an Indian woman with her little girl. Mr. Harvey took her to the house of Francis Duchouquet, the interpreter, where she explained that a little messenger had brought her word that the chiefs were in council, and that she had certainly been condemned to die on a charge of having bewitched the poor consumptive on whom the Prophet had operated with knives. She begged the " Qua-ke-lee" to protect her, and said that she would do all that he commanded. The shrewd Quaker, not relying on the friendliness of the interpreter, answered the woman coldly, but, having secured another interpreter in the person of Thomas Elliott, the blacksmith's son, he talked with her again, and finally hid her and her daughter between two beds on a bedstead in the upper room of bis house. He also killed with his own hands a small dog that had followed her. The life of Harvey's family depended, perhaps, quite as much as that of the Indian woman's, on the success of his keeping her hid. Every part of the Quaker's house was searched, even this upper room, where there stood nothing but an innocent-looking bed with all the covers spread. In the middle of that anxious day there came to the house of Isaac Harvey, his friend, the chief Weasecah, often called Captain Wolf. He told the superintendent what had happened among them, as though he did not at all suspect that his friend had taken any part in the matter. The Quaker earnestly remonstrated against the Indian belief in witches and witchcraft, and expostulated with him on the cruelty of putting people to death on an unproved charge of this kind. This disturbed the mind of Weasecah ; he was surprised to find that the Qua-kelee did not agree with him on so important a matter. He then departed, and, in about an hour afterwards, he returned and expressed his belief that Harvey knew more about the matter than he professed to know. As the Quaker tried to evade, Weasecah urged him to tell what he knew, promising that instead of betraying him, he would defend him to the utmost of his power. It was a desperate resort, but Harvey felt that the case was a desperate one. Without confessing all that he knew about the matter, he admitted that he believed the condemned woman to be out of reach of the Indians who were seeking her destruction, and that they would never see her face again unless they abandoned the idea of executing her. This was a shrewd way of putting the case, but the Quaker added, what startled the chief still more, that he had made up his mind to close up the mission and take his family and go home. Alter some thought, the chief proposed to Harvey that he should go with him direct to the council house, where the chiefs were then in session. He thought, if the " Qua-ke-lee" would promise the chiefs that he would be answerable to them for the condemned woman, that he could prevail on them to pardon her. Harvey resolved to go, though it was like going into a den of wild beasts, thus to brave the angry chiefs in council. He asked John Elliott the blacksmith, whose son had been his second interpreter the night before, and who had himself offered assistance, to let his boy go with him now. Elliott consented, and said he would also go. Accordingly these four entered into the council house. " Be still and hear," said Weasecah. He then told them of bis interview with his friend the Quaker, and of the occasion of their coming. The Indians, some of whom were painted and armed in a way that made them quite appalling to the Quaker, now moved around talking one to another. Isaac Harvey then addressed them by means of his interpreter, telling them, with great composure, that he had come with Weasecah and Simneta (the blacksmith) to intercede for the woman ; but seeing that they had resolved to follow their own course, he had prepared to offer himself in her stead ; that he had no weapons, and was at their mercy - they might do with him as they thought best. At this the noble chief Weasecah took hold of Harvey's arm and said, " Me Qua-ke-lee friend." He begged the chiefs not to suffer their friend the Quaker to be harmed, but they were still determined not to submit to the proposition; he offered his life instead of his friend's.

This heroic attitude of the Quaker, with the loyal and brave act of the noble chief, cheeked the tide of hostile feeling, and for a minute all were in suspense. Then chief after chief, to the number of six or eight, stepped up to Harvey, each offering his hand, and saying, "Me Qua-ke-lee friend." Weasecah then argued with them eloquently, and at last the whole council offered their hands in friendship, Tenskwatawa, the prophet, only excepted, who sullenly left the council house in defeat. It was hard for Harvey and Weasecah to prevail on the poor woman to leave her place of concealment. She remained in the Quaker's house for several days, and then returned to her people and lived in peace.

In 1825 Mr. Harvey removed to the Friends' school establishment, five miles south of Wapakoneta, on the present farm of A. Scott. This school had been suspended, because of the unsettled condition of the Indians, and was now to be resumed.' Shortly after the reopening of the school, the Indian agent visited his old friend, the Quaker, and spent the day in discussing tlie Indian situation and outlook. During the conversation, the Friend observed that he had found discontent and a desire to sell their lands among the Indians ; that it appeared almost impossible to accomplish anything, and should they remove to the west at that juncture, and come in contact with the wild savages of that region, he feared all the labor of the Friends would be lost. To this the exultant agent replied that, if the Friends had done nothing but save the life of Polly Butler, thej' had thereby broken tip the heathenish practice of putting people to death for witchcraft, which was a sufficient reward for all their labor and expense. As we have already related the case of Polly Butler, and alluded to the same - as viewed by the agent, Mr. Johnston - we deem a letter by the same agent, written years after the incidents occurred of which it speaks, of sufficient importance to justify its insertion in full. It serves at the same time to identify this unfortunate woman, and is as follows : -

" Polly Butler, charged with being a witch in the Shawnee nation, and who was saved from a violent death by the timely, firm, and persevering efforts of Isaac Harvey, who then had charge over the Friends' Shawnee Mission at Wapakoneta, Ohio, was the daughter of Gen. Richard Butler, by a Shawnee woman. A son, also, was an offspring of the same union, who became a distinguished chief in peace and war among the Shawnees, being in authority during the whole of my agency over this nation, a period of almost thirty years. Gen. Butler was an Indian trader before the Revolutionary war, and spoke the language of the natives, and as was customary with persons of those pursuits, he married an Indian woman. His son and daughter bear a striking resemblance to the Butler family, many of whom I knew in early life. The General was second in command in the army under St. Clair, and was killed on the 4th of Nov. 1791, in battle with the combined Indians of the northwest, on the ground on which Fort Recovery was afterward built, distant from Greenville fourteen miles. Witchcraft was universally believed in by all the Indian tribes, and the incident related of Polly Butler is substantially true."

To Mr. Harvey, then, we attribute the first successful effort to arrest the monstrous practice of destroying life on charges of witchcraft among these Indians.

Resuming, we find the Shawnees advancing in civilized pursuits, and educating their children at the Wapakoneta schools, until some miscreants persuaded the young men that, if the Quakers were permitted to improve their lands, the whites would finally seize them for their own use. When this suspicion became known to the Friends, they entered a large tract of land at the expense of the Society, erected buildings, cleared a farm, and established the school at the mission south of Wapakoneta, which was conducted until the removal of the Shawnees to the distant west. In 1830, the mission schools came under the charge of Henry Harvey, when he found the Indians of a pleasant and lively disposition. During his residence here, the aged chief Black Hoof died, the incidents of whose life and character are elsewhere noted in this volume.

In 1831 a message was received from the Indian agent, conveying the desire of the government to purchase the lands of the Shawnees. This was so unsuspected, that it produced great confusion. The chiefs at once visited the superintendent, to consult upon the subject. The Friend scarcely credited the report, and so told the chiefs, if they would refuse to sell, the government would abandon its desire.

They however pursued a different course, and forbade all approaches upon the subject, as no commissioners would be met. Shortly after this they encountered traders, who told them they wanted money, and must have it, and the lands must be sold that they could be paid, and then bribed certain chiefs to favor the sale. A few days later the commissioner notified the chiefs he would be at Wapakoneta on a certain day, and asked a meeting. Gardner came on the appointed day, and occupied the first t\yo days of the council in a speech of misrepresentations.

He was answered by Way weleapy, who informed him that he was little known, as he had only addressed them two days, and in that time had said many good, but more bad things ; had talked a great deal about the Great Spirit, without knowing anything about the Spirit, as his ideas were all wrong. He had claimed that the Spirit made three classes of men: the white man, with a white skin, and a great deal of sense ; the Indian, with a red skin, and a little less sense; and the black man, with a black skin, and very little sense. His own idea was different, as he believed all men were created alike, and any other conception was curious and false. In a day or two a treaty was closed, and it immediately became rumored that the Indians had been deceived and cheated. This alarmed the Indians, and John Perry visited the Friend, and when told they had been really robbed of their lands, he wept like a child, and exclaimed they were a ruined people, unless the Quakers would interpose in their behalf. The Friend assured him he had kept a record of the proceedings of the council, and would act as a witness for the Indians, and do everything in his power for them. Accordingly, he called the attention of the Richmond Yearly Meeting to the matter, and a committee was appointed to visit Wapakoneta and investigate the whole proceedings touching that treaty. This committee, on its arrival, called about twenty of the principal men of the nation, with competent inter- prefers, and took evidence daring three or four days at the mission buildings. At the opening of the council, this committee informed the Indians that, at their yearly meeting, they had learned with sorrow from Mr. Harvey that the Indians had been wronged, and assured them they would do all they could in their behalf. They then awaited a statement of the chief, setting forth their wrongs. The Indians thereupon held an all-night council, and early the next morning informed the visitors of their readiness to be heard. When the council had been seated a few moments, the chiefs rose, shook hands with each visitor, and resumed their scats, without saying a word.

The pipe was then passed, and each chief smoked. They now presented a very grave and dignified appearance, as they sat in silence, with eyes fixed upon Wayweleapy, the orator of the day. At length the speaker rose, with black, keen, but tearful eyes, looked about on each of his brethren, and then fixed his gaze upon the committee. He addressed the assembly, but paused to control his feeling. Again he proceeded, but in a moment faltered ; tears washed his cheek, emotion overcame him, and be sank to his seat. A struggle ensued with his feelings; be mastered his agitation, regained self-control, and, rising, delivered a pathetic statement of the perfidy of the negotiators, and appealed to the Quakers to befriend them now, when ruin stared them in the face.