USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 40
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
The Governor, of course, had to promise this. To the aged father of the wounded man he said "we have employed the most skillful doctor that is amongst us to take care of him, and we pray that the Almighty would bless the medicines that are administered for his cure." No wonder that Dr. Otto asked the people of Bethlehem to support his efforts with their prayers. The Council proceeded under the special tension which this caused, while five hundred troops were stationed within easy reach to quell any outbreak of vio- lence precipitated by either Indians or white men, it being equally likely to proceed from either side. The Council and the last inter- views came to a close on Sunday, August 7, the treaty of peace bind- ing all parties had been sealed and young Tatemy yet lived, when all dispersed. Then the attention and skill that had held his life to that point served no longer against the inevitable and, on August 9, he died. At the earnest desire of his old father, his remains were interred, on the 10th, with the rites of the Church, in the little ceme- tery on the south side of the river at Bethlehem by the Moravian clergy.
The results of that Council brought, of course, a feeling of great relief to Bethlehem, as well as to many another place. On August 3, Anthony Benezet brought word from Easton that the deputies of ten Indian nations had joined in taking hold of the peace-belt and that reservations of land had been pledged them in Wyoming, at Shamokin and beyond the Alleghenies. On Sunday, August 7, the Governor came to Bethlehem and put up at the Crown for the night. Bishop Boehler went over to pay his respects and invite him to accept official hospitality in the town, but this time he preferred to remain at the inn. Bishop Spangenberg came down from Nazareth and early the next morning went across the river, before the Gover- nor started for Philadelphia, to request official directions in reference to the "strange Indians" who persisted in loitering about Bethle- hem, as well as to those who came at intervals to purchase eatables and other articles, and occasioned much annoyance. He received the promise that the matter should be laid before the Commissioners and the Assembly, and then the Governor left. That very afternoon more than a hundred Indians, on their way from Easton, halted about the tavern on the south side, and it was deemed prudent to double the guard in Bethlehem that night. Two days later, Teedy- uscung made his appearance with Paxnous, Abraham and others of prominence. Great relief was felt when finally, on August 12, all
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1756-1762.
but a few of them took their departure. A striking instance of the disagreeable circumstances attending the traveling through of such squads of savages, apart from the matter of danger, occurred the last week in August. A band of Nanticokes who had been in Beth- lehem, the end of July, 1757, appeared again, returning to their country from Lancaster. They were friendly Indians and had brought a message of condolence on the Mahoning massacre and assurance that they had no part in nor sympathy with such outrages. Three of them were chiefs. During the interval between the two calls at Bethlehem these chiefs had died of small-pox. The rest of the band were bearing their skeletons with them for interment in their own country. The flesh of the small-pox victims had been scraped from the bones and these were carried along wrapped in blankets. This had to be endured by the people with whom they came into contact at Bethlehem.
The outcome of the treaty at Easton by no means relieved Beth- lehem of undesirable Indian guests. Teedyuscung, in the conviction that he would be more comfortable, could maintain his apparent prestige better and conduct the negotiations between the Govern- ment and the Indian embassies from the near and remote tribes more advantageously by remaining in the vicinity, secured the con- currence of the Government to his establishing headquarters in the Forks of the Delaware. Then he sought and obtained the assent of the Bethlehem authorities to his plan of settling down for the winter at Bethlehem, on the south side of the river, where a cabin was built for him by the Brethren. Undesirable as this was, in view of his well-known sentiments about the dwelling of the "Moravian Indians" at Nain, and the dangerous influence he might exercise by living near, it was nevertheless concluded by the Moravian officials that, all things considered, he would be more easily held to the promises he had made at the treaty and be less likely to do serious harm here than in the Indian country.
Thus, by understanding between Bethlehem and the Government, the "Delaware King" planted himself, for the winter, right at the place where his presence had been most dreaded. He was on his good behavior now, so far as his relations and influence in the fur- ther complications with yet dissatisfied Indians were concerned, and it was to his personal interest to do his utmost in these matters towards the establishment of peace. His personal vanity was also gratified, for now nearly every Indian deputation to the Government
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passed Bethlehem and took counsel with Teedyuscung. His lodge thus became an objective point of pilgrimages from various tribes, even from those far off "on the Ohio." The other Indians who remained at and about the Crown Inn were, for the most part, a drunken, brawling and thieving lot, and sorely tried the good Breth- ren who were in charge of the inn and the other property on the south side. The final deliverance did not come until well on in the spring of 1758. May 7 of that year, Teedyuscung returned from one of his numerous journeys to Philadelphia with William Edmonds and brought the word that now, by arrangement with the Govern- ment, all the Indians yet tarrying at the place would remove to Wyoming, where a town would be built for them. But he had to admit the failure of his final effort to accomplish his pertinacious scheme to secure the removal with them of the remaining Gnaden- huetten Indians through Government orders. On May 15, two Commissioners with about fifty troops arrived from Philadelphia, as an escort, and the next day the whole camp, with Teedyuscung, finally set out for Wyoming. Only three baptized Indians remained behind, with their families. By special permission of the Govern- ment and agreement with the Brethren, Nicodemus, mentioned before this, was permitted to settle near Nazareth, and Nathanael near Gnadenthal, while another, Jonathan, was allowed to build a hut near Friedensthal.
As the figure of Teedyuscung recedes from view, with the departure of this caravan, he may be dismissed from these pages. A strange blending of qualities is presented in the character of that extraordinary Indian whose spirit no force or artifice of white men could subdue, and who, at last, was conquered only by the power of the baneful "fire water" which he loved too well, assisted, perhaps, by the fire-brand of the treacherous assassin applied to his cabin when he was lying prone under the clutch of the alcoholic demon.6
None of the varying traditions concerning the further circum- stances of his end will ever be verified. Perhaps, as some hold, the heads of the Six Nations had a hand in it. Perhaps-and this is more likely-he was foully dealt with by jealous and revengeful associates who had resented his assumptions and superior influence,
6 The Bethlehem diary has this brief record on April 25. 1763 : " We heard from Wyo- ming that the Indian chief, Teedyuscung, had come to a miserable end through a fire which broke out in his house, and that thereupon the other Indians, who were all drunken, set fire to the whole town and laid it in ashes."
7
JES192
BETHLEHEM, 1757
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1756-1762.
or charged to his agreements with the Government, features of the settlements of 1757 which they repudiated but had to submit to. There are indications that, after the second treaty at Easton, he felt the current of such sentiments towards him emanating from some who were not fully in accord with the settlement and on whom his hold was not strong, and that he did not feel his life entirely secure. Perhaps the fate of the Shawanese Indian who led the attack on Gnadenhuetten and carried off Susanna Nitschmann as a prize, and who was assassinated by one of his own people, haunted him; and that the dread of a like end had something to do with his plan to spend the winter of 1757-58 at Bethlehem, until some tangible results of the third treaty for the benefit of the Indians of Wyoming should appear, to mollify those who were dissatisfied. There were qualities in his nature that made him a heroic figure. There were others that made him appear more as a mere blustering braggart. He was an astute diplomate, with whom the Government officials found it difficult to trifle. He cherished a romantic sentiment, as the champion of the name and claim of his ancestors. He was a forceful and eloquent orator. At the same time he was weakly vain in trifling things, and affected a mock state which appeared grotesque and has caused some to think of him more as a buffoon whom the Government had, by force of circumstances, to cajole. He was religious at times, but of very frail moral fibre. As men will always differ about the questions at issue between him and the Government, they will also take almost opposite views of Teedyuscung, some having him in mind as he is depicted by those who present only his worst qualities or purvey the ludicrous stories invented about him, while others exalt him to association with the heroic romance of the "Indian Rock" on the Wissahicon.
At the Crown Inn, where host and guests had so long to endure the disagreeable proximity of these disorderly campers, some improvements were made to render the house more pleasant to genteel guests, although even before this, it was the best country tavern, according to current testimony, in all the region. The erection of the new inn on the north side was delayed longer than had been expected. Among other things, a better stable was built and a new well was dug, and at the end of November, 1757, the rope rigging for the ferry was substituted for the much slower process of poling.
Ephraim Culver, who had been burned out of house and home at the beginning of the Indian outbreak, had charge of the inn from
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
October 18, 1756, until June 3, 1757, when he removed to Nazareth. He was the third who had his troubles with those Indians. His predecessor, from April, 1756, Nicholas Schaeffer, and, before that, John Godfrey Grabs, who, in 1752, had followed John Leighton, the successor of Hartmann Verdriess, had both had their trying exper- iences with them, and likewise their burdens in quartering panic- stricken refugees. Culver was succeeded temporarily, in June, 1757, by George Klein, the former owner of the site of Lititz, with several assistants. September 15, 1757, Andrew Horn took charge, with two single men as assistants ; Peter Worbas, who had escaped from Gnadenhuetten, and who now gained some experience preparatory to his appointment as the first keeper of the new Bethlehem Inn, and August Hermann Francke; these assistants being followed a year later by John Garrison, who principally served as ferryman, and John Lischer, who thus served an appreticeship at what became his chief business. He, in 1762, became one of the succession of regular landlords of the Crown, in 1765, succeeded Culver at the Rose and remained there until it was closed as a public house in March, 1772, when he became the first host of the Nazareth Inn.7
Horn was the landlord who had the gratification of seeing the last of these undesirable frequenters of his kitchen and tap-room depart, and of renovating the Crown for more welcome guests. The need of proper hotel accommodations at Bethlehem was becoming more urgent and at last, on May 25, 1758, the corner-stone of the "new tavern" on the north side was laid. Before June the cellar walls were laid up and much material for the building was gotten ready; but then, in consequence of a variety of interruptions, the work moved very slowly, and it was well on in the autumn of 1760 before it was finished. It was opened, however, for public enter- tainment in the previous spring, when it was yet unfinished. Peter Worbas and his wife moved down from Gnadenthal and took charge on March 24, 1760. In July it was still uncompleted, when the local authorities were considering the matter of procuring a license from Court. A mere "permit" was at first taken out at the September term, when the name "The Sun" was given it, this name first
7 These items about those old time inn-keepers may be found of use by some, in tracing connections in other records, and, as regards the Crown, serve to correct some inaccuracies in print, in giving the succession. Sometimes allusions are made to a tavern, in journals of travel, by the mere name of the host, and it is often desirable, in tracing an itinerary, to be able to identify the public house thus referred to.
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THE SUN INN, BUILT 1758
1763-1816 1816-1851
AB.
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1756-1762.
appearing in the records, on September 26, 1760, in connection with reference to the appointment of a jury to improve the King's Road, on petition from Bethlehem, "from the Monocacy, where the Gnaden- huetten road passes it, to the new tavern called The Sun, and to the Lehigh a mile below Bethlehem." The inn was not entirely finished and fully equipped until the following spring. Then, on June 17, 1761, Matthew Schropp, Warden, made application to the Court for a regular license, Peter Worbas being vouched for as a suitable and trustworthy person to keep a public house.8
The year 1758, to which many of the matters sketched in the preceding pages belonged, closed in Bethlehem with special services of praise and thanksgiving, in which the review of events in the country at large was combined with the remembrance of signal mercies and blessings experienced in the local situation. The decisive struggle between the English and French arms in the West, resulting in the abandonment of Fort Duquesne by the French in November, had settled the question of English supremacy west to the Ohio. Another great Council between the chiefs of the Six Nations and the Delawares, and the English authorities empowered to treat with them, had taken place at Easton in October. It had resulted in a more decided prospect of weaning the tribes that were at variance with the Government away from French interests than had before appeared. The Moravian missionary, Frederick Post, whose move- ments, as Government agent to deal with the western Indians, were followed with much anxious, prayerful interest at Bethlehem, had safely and successfully passed the supreme episode of his hazardous and inestimable service, when the most vital issues of the war seemed to be in his hands and involved in the fate of his person. The knowl- edge of this had reached Bethlehem before the close of the year.º
8 Jasper Payne succeeded Worbas as inn-keeper, August, 1762, Worbas part of the time assisting him. besides Daniel Kunckler, who had been connected with the old store and the ferry; John Rubel, Peter Goetge and Jost Jensen, previously a sailor on the Irene. Payne was succeeded, at the close of 1766, by John Andrew Albrecht, the musician mentioned before this, who perhaps used his gifts in this respect as a special attraction. Jost Jensen, the sailor, followed on June, 1771. He was the landlord during the most eventful years of the Revo- lutionary period, to April, 1781, when he was succeded by John Christian Ebert, who had the honor of entertaining General Washington. The next landlord, from June 1, 1790, to midsummer, 1799, was Abraham Levering. The next, at the opening of the new century, was John Lennert, June, 1799, to June, 1805.
9 The importance of Post's services, at a most critical period, is well-known to all who are familiar with the history of those times. They have often been enlarged upon by historians, and his journal of that momentous tour to the Allegheny River may be read in the Pennsyl-
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Right heartily did the people, therefore, observe the day of thanks- giving appointed by proclamation of the Governor, on December 28.
In the review of the year, on December 31, a serious loss that had befallen the Church the preceding year, but had not become known at Bethlehem until May 18, 1758, was recalled. This was the cap- ture by a French privateer, off Cape Breton, November 30, 1757, and the sinking, on January 12, 1758, of the church ship, the Irene, which
vania Archives, Vol III. In advance of the army of General Forbes, marching to attempt the reduction of Fort Duquesne, Post had succeeded in his mission to the Indians. This success demoralizing the French garrison, they set fire to the fort and retreated, before the English army had the opportunity to strike the blow. It was the pivot on which the whole struggle in America turned. Frank Cowan, in "Southwestern Pennsylvania in Song and Story." closes a verse which treats of the valiant determination with which the words of the dying Forbes, the "Head of Iron," inspired his army, moving to the intended conquest, with two lines on Post which sum up his part in the issue :
" But the Man of Prayer, and not of boast, Had spoken first in Frederick Post."
The inside history of Post's critical situation at the supreme moment, as related by him in a communication to his brethren, which reached Bethlehem after the close of the year and was read to the people, January 19, 1759, when he was on his way home, vividly pre- sents the situation at that juncture. Not being accessible in print or familiar, like the matter contained in public documents, it may be reproduced here, as given in the records in the third person from Post's account, to show under what precarious circumstances this Mora- vian missionary turned "the fortunes of war." "In November, when the English army moved from Loyalhanning, he and his traveling companions were brought by a convoy of fifteen men to Kaskasking, the Indian headquarters, where the Indians, and especially the chiefs, were very glad to see him again. When the convoy set out on its return. he sent a letter to be given by the Lieutenant to the General. The convoy, while on the way, was attacked by the French, the Lieutenant was taken prisoner and Post's letter was rendered, with its meaning perverted, into the Indian language. Post was represented as having written to the General that when he had beaten the French, he should summon the Indians to a treaty and then massacre them. This alleged translation was sent by the French to Kaskasking and communicated there, and, while the chiefs refused to believe that he had so written, the young men were wrought up to such a pitch, that from the 16th to the 20th of November, at the advice of the chiefs, he did not venture out of his hut. (He was in the midst of Indians with no other white man near.) The chiefs finally insisted upon it that the French Commandant should produce the original letter, which he had to do. When the Indians got possession of it and-several being able to read English-found just the opposite in it, and made this known, their rage was changed to friendliness, and they accepted the propo- sals of peace which he brought them in the name of the Government. Afterwards, when the French also came with a belt, not a single Indian would accept it. The French were so frightened by this, that the next day, they abandoned Fort Duquesne. Upon this he could go his way in peace, after he had recommended to the Indians that they should first establish the outward peace and then he would bring them a yet greater peace"-the "Gospel of Peace."
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had brought so many of the Bethlehem people to America. She had sailed from New York, November 20, 1757, in charge of Captain Jacob- sen, on her fourteenth and last voyage. The first satisfactory account of this misfortune was received on June 8, through a letter of April 6, written from Bristol, England, by the Rev. L. T. Nyberg. Captain Jacobsen, the sailors Hans Nielsen and Benjamin Garrison, with Henry Ollringshaw and William Schmalling, who had come over in April, 1756, and were on a return journey to Europe, were taken to France, while Andrew Schoute, the veteran sailor, also a passenger intending to remain in Europe, was left at Louisburg, sick, by the prize-crew, which through mismanagement ran the vessel on the rocks. On September 29, Schoute got back to Bethlehem and related his hard experiences and remarkable adventures. A letter was also received from London with the information that Nielsen and Ollringshaw had died in captivity, and that Jacobsen, Garrison and Schmalling were yet prisoners, the middle of June. Captain Jacobsen finally got back to New York, September 15, 1759, on the ship Concord, of which he had command until the fourth church ship, the Hope, was built in 1760.
While there had been no arrivals from Europe since December, 1756, some new names appear in the records between that time and the close of 1758, of persons who figured in capacities of interest and importance. One of these who deserves mention was the old organ- builder John Gottlob Klemm, whose early history, in Germany, pre- sents interesting associations with Zinzendorf and Herrnhut. He had left that place with an alienated heart, come to Pennsylvania with a company of Schwenkfelders in 1735, and become a Separatist. Although some years later again on cordial terms with the Brethren, he now first returned to regular connection with their Church. The work upon which he entered at Bethlehem and Nazareth, in conjunc- tion with David Tanneberger, later, for many years, the best-known member of his craft in Pennsylvania, is among the most interesting industries in this Moravian hive of varied activities. Tilling the soil and some other employments might seem more important, but more interest attaches to the few notices found of men who in those olden times built organs for the churches in town and country, and thus, by their skill, helped to provide the means of cultivating the noblest of the fine arts among the people, in the service of religion, when the desire for something fine asserted itself amid conditions so largely rude and coarse. "Father" Klemm had been occupied at his handi-
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craft in New York, where he stood in cordial relations to the Mora- vian minister and members. He wrote to Bethlehem at the end of September, 1757, expressing a desire to settle down and spend his declining days here. He was welcomed and, on November 25, arrived on the Bethlehem wagon from New Brunswick. He was soon busy putting the Bethlehem church-organ into repair, and directly associ- ated with himself David Tanneberger, a skillful joiner, who had come over with John Nitschmann's colony in 1749. With him as an assistant, he went to Nazareth, March 1, 1758, to build an organ for the chapel of the settlement in Nazareth Hall. Establishing their work-shop in the Hall, they also built a new organ for Bethlehem, which was set up, January 20, 1759. They had their organ-factory at Nazareth until the room was needed for dwelling accommodations. Then they transferred it, August 6, 1760, to the Burnside house, up the Monocacy from Bethlehem. How long they continued to work there is not clear. They evidently built other small organs during those several years, but for what places does not appear. There are repeated references to excursions by Tanneberger to different places in search of lumber suitable for organ-building. They had their shop in Bethlehem at the close of 1761, and on May 5, 1762, the old master of the craft departed this life, after imparting his knowledge to his skillful assistant.10
10 November 17, 1761, the organ previously used at Bethlehem was conveyed to Lititz, and Tanneberger went along to set it up. That was the organ brought to Bethlehem from Philadelphia by Klemm, set up by him in June, 1746, and put in repair in 1751 by Robert Harttafel, of Lancaster County, as noted in these pages. It has commonly been referred to by writers as built by Gustavus Hesselius, the Swedish organ-builder and painter connected with the Moravians in Philadelphia for a while, and spoken of as the " first organ-builder in America." Possibly he and Klemm were associated in this handicraft at one time in Philadelphia. Hesselius died there, May 25, 1755. Harttafel, the third of this group of early Moravian organ-builders, passed the later years of his life at Lancaster and died there, April 29, 1802. Tanneberger, the best-known of them, who built organs for many churches in Pennsylvania, in New York-e. g., in 1767 at Albany-in Maryland and Virginia, and, as it seems, in other provinces, removed to Lititz in August, 1765, where he had his factory until his death. He was associated in later years with John Philip Bachmann who came over from Herrnhut in 1793, to learn the trade with him, became his son-in-law and, in November, 1799, went to Salem, N.C., to set up the organ they had built for the church at that place. Bachmann's son, Ernst Julius, also learned the trade of his father in the old factory at Lititz, but, the business declining, he gave it up and, in 1827, went to Lebanon to teach school. The last organ built by Tanneberger was one for the Lutheran church at York, Pa. While setting it up, he was stricken with paralysis, fell from a scaffold and died, May 19, 1804. He had been negotiated with to build the organ for the Bethlehem church,
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