History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 29

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton
Number of Pages: 878

USA > Ohio > Mercer County > History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 29
USA > Ohio > Van Wert County > History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 29

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Our veteran missionary (Rev. Christian Frederick Post), after his fail- ure 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 in- dulged in some remarks. He first intermarried with Rachel, a Moravian Christian woman of the Wampanoag tribe, who died in 1747. His sec- ond marriage, which occurred in 1749, was with Agues, 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 l'bil- adelphia), and which subsequently became conspicuous as the site of one of the battle-fields of the Revolution.

FIRST PROTESTANT SERMON IN OHIO-1711.

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 Tusearawas 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 limity of Ohio, The Indian capital, in which this sermon was preached, occupied the suburbs of the present village of Newcomerstown, 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,

HISTORY OF VAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

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.

SCHONBRUNN-1772.

In pursuance of the purpose formed in 1771, on his first visit to the valley of the Tuscarawas, Rev. David Zeisberger, in the early spring of 1772, again visited the capital town of the Delawares, to make arrange- ments 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 Still- water, extending northward for a number 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 vil- lage. 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 mis- sion-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 Angust 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 Friedenshutten (Tents of Peace), on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, exclusive of the five families that came from Friedensstadt. Ade acces- sions, 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 Tusca- rawas 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 tim- ber"-also a schoolhouse-besides huts and lodges. It was situated in the present township of Goshen, Tuscarawas County.

GNADENHUTTEN-1772.

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 abore 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 Schönbrunn, of the east side of the Tuscarawas River, where, on the 2th of October, the town of Gnadenhutten (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 Gnadenhutten, adding thereby consider- ably to their inhabitants. Rev. Jolin Roth, the resident missionary at Friedensstadt, accompanied them, and remained at Gnadenhütten from April 24, 1773, until about the middle of August, when he removed to Schönbrunn. John Lewis Roth, who is generally believed to have been the first white child born within the limits of Ohio, had his birth at Gnadenhutten 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 mission- aries at Schonbrunn, and Rev. John George Jungman and Rev. John Jacob Schmick at Gnadenhütten.

Rev. John Ettwein, who conducted the Indians from the Susquehanna to Schonbrunn, in the Tusearawas 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 1754. 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. Ile was a zealous, faithful, good man, and eminently useful during his long and eventful life.

Rev. John Roth, who conducted an Indian colony from the Susque- hanna 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 Plingstag, at Bethlehem, on the 16th of August, 1770. As already stated, he, in June, 1772, accompanied some Christian Indians from the Sus- quehanna Valley to the west as far as Friedensstadt, where he remained until the next year, when he removed to Gnadenhutten, reaching that village April 24, 1773. In August of this year he removed to Schon- brunn, and remained there until after the breaking out of the Dunmore war in 1774, when he returned to Bethlehem, and was never again iden- tified with the Tuscarawas missions. Soon after his return to Pennsyl- vania 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 Septem- ber, 1811. His mother died at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, ou the 25th of February, 1805.

LICHTENAU-NEW SCHONBRUNN -- SALEM.

Such was the degree of prosperity that had attended Schonbrunn and Gnadenhütten, that their joint population aggregated, at the close of the year 1775, upwards of five hundred. The establishment of a third mis- sion station in that valley was, therefore, taken into consideration early in the year 1776. Revs. David Zeisberger and John Heckewekler, 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 Lichtenau ( Pasture of Light), was situated in the present town- ship 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 pros- perous mission station was abandoned. High hopes of Lichtenau 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 deter mined upon, which was gradually accomplished. Rev. Wm. Edwards, one of the missionaries, in April, 1779, left Lichtenau and moved up the Tuscarawas River to Guadenhiitten. During the month of Decem- ber, 1779, Rev. David Zelsberger 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 Schon- brunn. 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 Heckewekler, with all the Chris- tian Indians that remained at Lichtenau, left it and started the town of Salem, on the west bank of the Tusearawas, about six miles below Gnadenhütten. Its site was in the present township of Salem, Tusea- rawas County, about sixteen miles below the county seat of said county. The chapel here was dedicated on the 22d of May, 1740, and in it Rev. John Heckewelder and Sarah Ohneberg, a mission teacher, were united in marriage July 4, 1750, and which was probably one of the first weddings of white people within the present limits of Ohio, Rev. Bernard Adam Grube, 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.

HISTORY OF VAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

Rev. Gottlob Senseman, a missionary from Pennsylvania, arrived dur- ing 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 Gnadenhutten, Rev. William Edwards being the principal. Rev. David Zeisberger way superintendent of all the Tuscarawas Valley stations, and itinerated constantly from church to church.

THE PERILS OF THE MORAVIANS.

Unavoidable complications growing out of the Revolutionary War, as well as out of the border warfare between the white settlers cast of the Ohio River and the Indian tribes west of it, and, incidentally. other canses, 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 illus- trates the mutability of human affairs! They were the victims of cir- cumstances untoward in their nature, and in a great measure uncontrol- lable, and before which these mission stations soon succumbed, for a time at least. Their location in the then warlike state of affairs was exceed- ingly unfavorable to them. They were situated, unhappily for them, between the British post at Detroit and the American or Colonial mili- tary 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 San- dusky 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 be- tween 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 suspi- cion of aiding one or the other of those contending factions. As friends of peace, the Moravians were disposed, not only from principles and in- clination, 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 favor- ing 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 trea- sonable correspondence with the Americans at Pittsburgh, and perhaps at some other points. Upon this charge the missionaries and all their Christian converts in the 'Fuscarawas 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 Gnadenhutten. 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 ton miles from Upper Sandusky. They at once proceeded to look up a loca- tion, and without delay built a village of small huts to protect themselves against the inelemoney of the weather. This village, which soon took the name of "Captive's Town," was situated on the bank of the San- dusky 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. Accord- ingly, 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, pronouncel 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 SCHEBOSH 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 bad 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, com- manded 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 Tusearawas 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 inglo- rious 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 sut- ferings 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 Sehebosh having failed) to procure some corn from the Tuscarawas Valley, 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 Tusearawas, to gather the corn 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 star- vation. 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 cap tives 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 cast of the Ohio and the hostile and vindictive savage enemies of the whites on

HISTORY OF VAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

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 be- stowed 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 kinhess 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 the 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 Wal- lace 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 occu- pants, 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 cornfiekls, from which they had been driven the preceding autumn, rendezvoused, early in March. 1782, at Mingo Bottom (three miles below the present eity 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 misereants, 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 couvert, and a man of con- sideration 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 Gnadenhütten, 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 In- dians, 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 Shroubrunn, 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 cap- ture.

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 ! 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, 1732, murdered in cold blood!" " With gun and spear, and tomahawk and scalping-knife, and bludgeon and mallet, the wholesale, brutal murder of these peace- able, innocent, defenceless people was accomplished !" "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 !" 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 deliver- ance 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 tes- timony, in after times, to the savage cruelty of the men of Col. William- son's command towards the Moravian Indians they so cruelly murdered.

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History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 29

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton Number of Pages: 878

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton
Number of Pages: 878