History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 30

Author: R. Sutton & Co.
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 427

USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 30

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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 peti- tions 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 in- fluence 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, be- ing unable to give them the requisite personal attention. Gradually the number of Indians in these villages diminished by deaths, removals west- ward, 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 histo- rian, made an official visit to the Tuscarawas Mission, and held a confer- ence 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 born November 7, 1770, at Angermünde, 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 TUSCARAWAS 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, Penn- sylvania, August 8, 1761, and was educated in his native town.

Rev. John Joachim Hagen became one of the missionaries at Goshen in 1804.

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.

REV. DAVID ZEISBERGER-REV. JOHN HECKEWELDER.

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 forty- nine years ; and the former, Rev. David Zeisberger, first came in 1772, and died there in 1808, a period of thirty-six years, including some inter- vals 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 State.

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.

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HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO.

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 dis- tinguished 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. He was an apt scholar, " learning Latin with the facility that he afterwards displayed in acquiring a knowl- edge 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, resolu- tion, and self-abnegation that marked him as one adapted to the mis- sionary 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 Con- federacy 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, Penn- sylvania. In 1750 he made a voyage to Europe in the interest of Ame- rican 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 mis- sions 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 Tusca- rawas Valley, from which time the details of his career have already been given in this chapter. He visited Pennsylvania in 1781, and en- tered 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.

We have made mention of Rev. David Zeisberger as an author, and name the following as a partial list of his works :-

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 Phila- delphia, 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 1803. 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.

3. "Sermons to Children." This was a translation from the German into the Delaware, and was issued in Philadelphia in 1803.

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 trans- lation from the German of Rev. Samuel Lieberkühn into the Delaware Indian lan- guage, 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.

6. "A Collection of Delaware Conjugations," published at Leipsic in 1821.

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 pro- duction of seven or eight volumes. There is an abridgment of it, also in manu- script.

2. "A Complete Grammar of the Onondaga Language."

8. "A Grammar of the Language of the Lenni-Lenapi, or Delaware Indians."

The following is a list of his manuscripts deposited in the library of Harvard University :-

1. "A Dictionary in German and Delaware."

2. "Delaware Glossary."

3. " Delaware Vocabulary."

4. " Phrases and Vocabularies in Delaware."

5. "Delaware Grammar."

6. "Harmony of the Gospels in Delaware."

7. "Hymns for the Christian Indians in the Delaware Language."

8. "Litany and Liturgies in Delaware."

9. "Hymn-Book in the Delaware Language."

10. "Sermons in Delaware."

11. "Seventeen Sermons to Children."

13. "Church Litany in Delaware."

13. "Short Biblical Narratives in Delaware."

14. " Vocabulary in Maqua and Delaware."

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 repre- sentative as a missionary, or even as a Moravian Christian. Mrs. Zeis- berger 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.

A marble slab in the Goshen cemetery bears the following epitaph :-

DAVID ZEISBERGER,

Who was born 11 April, 1721, in Moravia, and departed this life 17 Nov. 1808, aged 87 years, 7 m. and 6 days.

This faithful servant of the Lord labored among the American Indians as a Missionary during the last sixty years of his life.

REV. JOHN HECKEWELDER.

The chapter of our annals which acquaints us with the incidents con- nected 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 inter- est, and possess all the fascination of romance. And they have intensi- fied charms for those whose Christian impulses lead them into hearty sympathy with the laborious, self-sacrificing, devoted men who had relig- iously 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

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HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO.

and fascinations of the story of the brave-hearted, noble-minded, and con- scientious Moravian missionaries of Ohio, when the details of their ardu- ous labors are presented for their contemplation. Theirs is a sacredly classic history, 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 mission- aries may not be altogether without interest, or unimportant and value- less 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 Buttermere 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 subordi- nate 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 pur- pose 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 im- bued 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 prog- ress in his studies, and then went to Christian Spring, a small Moravian settlement nine miles north of Bethlehem, where he was employed some- what at "field labor and other manual occupations." He, however, also, mean while 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 pos- sess 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 cedar- wood 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.

After his return to Bethlehem he assisted in establishing the new 13

mission of Friendenshutten, 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 mis- sion station on Beaver River, in western Pennsylvania (now in Lawrence County), called Friedensstadt, where he remained a year, and then ac- companied 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 Propagat- ing the Gospel among the Heathen," have been presented. Between those years he was almost constantly engaged in the performance of mission work at various points, and in rendering services as a civilian by hold- ing 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 be 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. Instruc- tions were issued to them on the twenty-second of May, 1792. By arrangement they met at Pittsburgh near the last of June, and reached Fort Washington on the second of July, 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. After a liberal distribution of presents the commissioners started, on the fifth of October, with six- teen 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 suc- cess, 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 pos- sible. 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, ex- tending 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 Gnaden- hütten, 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 Janu- ary 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

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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, Man- ners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsyl- vania 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 pub- lished 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."

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History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 30

Author: R. Sutton & Co. Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Number of Pages: 427

Author: R. Sutton & Co.
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 427