CHAPTER XXI.

THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS ON THE MUSKINGUM, FROM 1772 TO 1782.

IT is with a decided sensation of relief that we turn from the repulsive reiteration of Indian massacre, and its swift retaliation, which constitutes so marked a feature of American border history, to the narrative of the Moravian Mission. While elsewhere on the Ohio and its tributaries, war assumed its most hideous and demoniac form, the Muskingum yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Shoenbrun, the Beautiful Spring, and Gnadenhutten, the Tents of Grace, were the abodes of a Christian community, where the regeneration of the gospel was abundantly and admirably illustrated. The annals of this colony of Indian converts have been faithfully reported by the missionaries, Heckewelder and Zeisberger, and also by George Henry Loskiel, historian of the Mission of the United Brethren of North America. Our purpose is only to preserve a transcript of these memorials.

Hitherto, a description of the temporary residence of Post and Heckewelder at Tuscaroras, during the summer of 1762, and the subsequent emigration from the Susquehanna and Beaver Rivers of Pennsylvania, in 1772 and 1773, have constituted our only direct reference to the devoted Germans and their aboriginal congregation. Although Post's pioneer mission was rudely interrupted by the general border war of 1763, familiarly known as the conspiracy of Pontiac, yet the attempt was not entirely fruitless. The Indians

appreciated its self-devotion, and when the Delaware Council at Gekelemukpechink forwarded their invitation to Zeisberger to occupy the Muskingum, it was unquestionably prompted by the favorable impressions which had been communicated ten years previously.

The village of Shoenbrun, principally occupied by converted Delawares, was situated at the first settlement, on the east bank of the Muskingum,1 about two miles below New Philadelphia in Tuscarawas county; while the Mohican village of Gnadenhutten was seven miles south of Shoenbrun on the same side of the river. At each place, a chapel was built that at Shoenbrun forty feet by thirty-six-of squared timber, roofed with shingles, and surmounted by a cupola and bell. Heckewelder describes the towns as regularly laid out, with wide and clean streets, and fenced to exclude cattle; presenting a neat and orderly appearance, which excited the astonishment of their savage visitors. Besides the missionaries already named, John Jacob Schmick arrived in August, 1777, and was installed over the congregation at Gnadenhutten.

The indefatigable Zeisberger, before the close of 1773, had twice visited the Shawanese villages. He was accompanied by the converted Delaware chief, Glikhikan, or Isaac by baptism, and another native missionary or national assistant. Their first destination was Wakatameki, (probably at the mouth of the creek still so called, near Dresden, in Muskingum county,) where they were hospitably received by a Shawanese Indian, whose father had been an acquaintance of Zeisberger in 1755, in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania. The son of Paxnous, their present host, spoke the Del

1) In 1779, Schoenbrun, after a temporary desertion, was rebuilt on the opposite or west side of the Muskingum.

aware language fluently, and accompanied the missionaries on their farther journey, which extended to the "chief town of the Shawanese." Here the party were entertained with civility by a heathen teacher of great influence, who assembled the Indians, and gave Zeisberger an opportunity to address them in Delaware, a language generally understood by those present. The exhortation made a profound impression, and before his departure, the missionary received a message from the chief and council of the town, avowing a determination to receive the word of God, and live in conformity with it," concluding with a request that the believing Indians and their teachers would come and live with them. Zeisberger promised to communicate their message to his brethren at Bethlehem, but the outbreak of Dunmore's war in the following year, prevented the establishment of a mission. On his second visit to the Shawanese country, in September, 1773, Zeisberger found the head-chief of the tribe very much exasperated against the whites, although his reception of the missionary was kind. On meeting the latter and his companions, he gave them his hand, adding in a loud tone, "This day, God has so ordered, that we should see and speak to each other face to face."

Our impression that this chief was the noted Cornstalk, and that the "chief town" which the missionaries visited, was the "Old Chillicothe" of the Scioto plains, is strengthened by the circumstance mentioned in Loskiel, that "in May, 1775, the chief of a large Shawanese town spent six days agreeably at Gnadenhutten, accompanied by his wife, a captain, several councillors, in all, above thirty persons. Again, in Loskiel's narrative of 1776, we find the following paragraph: "In Gnadenhutten, arrived about this time, a chief of the Shawanese, commonly called Cornstalk, with a

retinue of upwards of an hundred persons, men, women, and children. His behavior was courteous, and he showed a particular friendship for the missionary Jacob Schmick, to whom he addressed the following speech through his interpreter, an old mulatto, who had lived twenty years among the Shawanese: "I greatly rejoice to see you and your wife. I shall never forget the kindness you have shown me during my last visit. Therefore, I consider you and your wife as my parents and declare and own you anew as such." Brother Schmick answered: "This is doing us too much honor. We shall be satisfied if you will consider me as your brother, and my wife as your sister." He seemed pleased, and taking the missionary by the hand, thanked them, and said: "I will acquaint all my friends that we have established this bond of friendship." The next spring, the magnanimous chief was murdered: but the foregoing circumstances are sufficient to indicate that his well known inclination to preserve the neutrality of his tribe during the revolutionary war, was, in a great degree, attributable to Moravian influence.

Very soon, indeed, after the erection of this chapel in the wilderness, the happy effects of the Muskingum mission were apparent among the Ohio Delawares. A chief called Echpalawehund, having announced his resolution to renounce heathenism and live with the brethren, much confusion prevailed at Gekelemukpechink. He was prominent and influential, and a party arose among the Indians demanding that the missionaries should be banished from the country, as disturbers of the peace and hostile to their customs and sacrifices. Another party held a council of three days and resolved that they would change their manner of living; prohibit drunkenness; exclude rum traders; appoint six men

to preserve good order; and thus give no one a pretext for leaving the town. A year afterward, however, these good resolutions were so completely forgotten that Echpalawehund abandoned the tribe for the communion of Gnadenhutten.

Another prominent Delaware chief, known to the whites as Captain John-the same detained by Col. Bouquet at Fort Pitt, in 1764-joined the brethren in 1776. He was from Achsinink, or Assiningk, (“solid rock,") on the Hockhocking River, and his wife was a white woman, born in Virginia, but from childhood a captive among the Indians. He resigned his station as chief and became a zealous Christian. Among the converts were also a son and nephew of the old and venerable chief, Netawatwes.

Netawatwes, or Nettowhatways, was the chief of the Turtle Tribe of Delawares, who absented himself at the general submission of the Delawares and Shawanese, in 1764, and whose recusancy Col. Bouquet sought to punish by deposing him from his chieftainship. Although the Indians seemed to acquiesce in this deposition, and even proceeded to appoint a successor, yet Netawatwes regained his former position and influence immediately on the retirement of the invaders, and in 1772 and afterwards resided at Gekelemukpechink.3 He had warmly concurred in the original invitation to Zeisberger, and welcomed the subsequent emigration under Heckewelder and Rothe, but when it was proposed that the missionary, Schmick, should take charge of the settlement at Gnaden

2) Doubtless the well known "standing stone," now called Mt. Pleasant, near Lancaster, Fairfield county. It is a sandstone formation. The base is a mile and a half in circumference; the apex about thirty by one hundred yards, resembling, at a distance, a huge pyramid.

3) He was called King Newcomer by the whites; and the village of his residence was probably on the site of Newcomers Town, in Tuscarawas county. For further particulars of this chief, and other prominent Delawares, see Appendix No. VIII.