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 44
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The threats thus made on every side led the Indians at Nain and Wechquetank, the latter part of July, 1763, to address Governor Hamilton with an appeal for protection. This was promised them, and, by arrangement between the Government and Justice Horsfield,
2 In view of the wild excitement and fierce resentment against all Indians whatsoever which the terrible experiences of so many along the borders had aroused, and the utter ina- bility of such men as many of those Scotch-Irish frontiersmen were, by nature and training, to understand or sympathize with missionary efforts, it is easier, after the lapse of many years, to condone their blind injustice in this matter, and even the retaliatory acts of barbarity, quite equal to that of the savages, which some finally perpetrated, than it is to read with patience the pages of some modern historians who continue to reproduce those unmerited imputations, as if they were established facts.
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certain careful regulations were adopted, drawn up by Horsfield and officially communicated to the settlers in the surrounding country, to which strict compliance was promised and observed by the converts, respecting their movements, dress, manner of meeting and greeting white men, method of carrying and handling their guns, and other details, so that they might easily be distinguished by people from savages or even from strange Indians in civilized dress. This was done at the Governor's suggestion.
It had little effect, however, among the kind of men who were making threats, for they had no desire to avoid disturbing the Indians, but were rather planning to make an end of them, or, at least, to force their removal. Zeisberger, who had again been trying to accomplish some good in Wyoming, and had on June 26, baptized the noted Monsey chief Papunhank, a genuine convert, but had been officially recalled to Bethlehem towards the middle of July when the danger around him became serious, went up to Wechquetank some weeks later to see how Grube and his Indians fared. He returned on August 15, and reported that several hostile Indians who had been prowling about, evidently bent on mischief, had been called to account for their actions by an old Indian at the mission, named Petrus, and sternly admonished by him to forsake their evil ways, to return to their homes and to commit no depredations on the way, lest they help to bring calamity upon themselves and their country ; and that the strangers had thereupon gone their way crest-fallen. In Wyoming, which region the Indians still claimed as their own, the melancholy death of Teedyuscung, on the 19th of April, charged by his partisans among the savages to the instigation of the Six Nations, the assuming lords of the Delawares and Shawanese, led those who were disposed to co-operate with Pontiac's conspiracy, to urge disre- gard of the message that was sent them with a belt by those lords, in July, commanding them to remain quiet and not take part in the war. The receipt of this message was reported by peaceable Indians as a re-assurance to the converts at Nain on July 29, and again at Bethlehem by some others on August 10. They stated that the Six Nations would not permit attacks to be made "this side of the Susque- hanna." Even if this policy on the part of those chiefs was seriously meant, the turbulent and discordant elements in Wyoming could not thus be restrained. There again the reckless fatuity of white men helped to precipitate what it was hoped might be averted. In the night of August 20, three peaceable and unoffending Christian Indians,
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a man and two women, with a little child, on their way from Wechque- tank to their place of abode on the upper Susquehanna, were sleeping at a place on the Pocopoco Creek where Captain Jacob Wetterhold and his company of militia were lodging. These Indians had put themselves under the protection of the troops and, taking their promise of security in good faith, lain down to sleep. The militia fell upon them in their defenceless situation and, in cold blood, put them all to death. Such an occurrence showed clearly how the disposition of some white men was not a whit better than that of the savages, while they could surpass the latter in the blundering folly of some of their deeds. They were recklessly throwing the fire that all were dreading into the straw. The treachery of the act gave the same excuse to the Indians for concluding that no white man could be trusted because some could not, that many white men found for class- ing all Indians together and declaring that none of them could be trusted. The cowardly nature of the act was quite characteristic of the kind of men who went blustering about the neighborhood, threat- ening to "lay Bethlehem in ashes" on account of Indian outrages ; then when the savages took them by surprise, ran panic-stricken to that same Bethlehem to seek shelter and eat the bread of the maligned Moravians, and after the scare was over, went out and denounced them anew with the same braggart threats. A careful study of all the evidence leaves no doubt that this deed was intended to goad the In- dians at Nain and Wechquetank to some overt act or threat that would afford a pretext for attacking them, and they could be attacked with more convenience and less peril than the fierce, painted warriors farther off who did not pretend to be followers of Jesus. The brothers of the unfortunate Indian who was killed by the militia lived at Wech- quetank. Thither these militia, joined by others, then went, with a view to destroying the place, presuming that some alleged move of retaliation could easily be put forward as a reason. Twice and thrice such demonstrations were made, but without even inducing the con- verts to make any show of special preparation to as much as defend themselves. The patient heroism of the missionary Grube and his noble wife, sitting there through these ordeals, while on the other hand treacherous spies of the savages lurked about to the peril of the place, most of the time alone, single-handed and unarmed, encour- aging the little band to remain quiet and trust in God, was sublime. At any moment, the Indians might, upon a word from him, have gathered up their effects at night and fled to the forest and made their escape, and he could have slipped off with his wife and found
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his way to a place of safety. Far more reason and right had he to flee to Bethlehem than many of his maligners from the settlements who did so. When explanations and declarations of the missionaries, appeals to the Government protection that had been assured and expostulations by Horsfield as Magistrate, availed nothing, threats to lodge formal complaint against Wetterhold before the Governor for the unprovoked, unsoldierlike and cowardly act of August 20, for lawless disturbance and contempt of orders promulgated under the Government seal, had the effect of restraining these rangers from further menacing Wechquetank just then. Ere long, shocking retri- bution came upon some of them and their Captain by the hands of savage avengers, for the occurrence of August 20, soon became known in the Indian country, and what they brought upon them- selves as the result of their folly, caused the spark they had kindled to burst into a flame, for others had to suffer with them and an extensive region was again terrorized. On October 7, 1763, Captain Wetterhold and some of his men were in night-quarters about nine miles from Bethlehem at John Stenton's tavern, which stood a little more than a mile from the site of the present village of Howertown in East Allen Township. Some savages had determined to avenge the killing of those Indians, against whom they had no grudge because they did not live at the mission but in the Indian country, and to base upon this their first new incursion in the Lehigh Valley. They made an attack upon the tavern at night, mortally wounded the Captain, killed several of his men and also Stenton and a servant. This deplorable affair was reported at Bethlehem early the next morning, as well as other acts of violence at several places. The Bethlehem diary says the road from the Irish Settlement was thronged with refugees to Bethlehem. "They were received with willing hearts and, as far as possible, housed and cared for. At noon several brethren were sent to bring in the wounded, who were how- ever, with the bodies of the dead, already on the way. They arrived in the afternoon. The dead soldiers were buried on the Burnside farm." The unfortunate Captain was carried to the Crown Inn south of the Lehigh, where a number of terror-stricken people had gathered. He died there the next day, October 9, and was buried in the little graveyard on the hill nearby.3 October 10, word came
3 In The Crown Inn, appendix 2, page 131, the Rev. W. C. Reichel gives the burial of Captain Wetterhold as the last in that little cemetery. Five more, at least, took place-cases specially pathetic and strikingly similar. It is recorded that on October 19, 1763, a young
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from Grube at Wechquetank that his Indians had received notice, the previous day, that the blood-shed would be avenged on them. It was now decided that he and his wife with their Indians should be transferred to Nazareth, and David Zeisberger, Sr.,4 was sent up with several others to deliver this message and aid them in their exodus.
They left at once and all reached Nazareth safely on the 12th. When they took their departure the "well-known" triumphant shout of the savages and gun shots were heard in the vicinity. Later infor- mation revealed that at that time Indians, as well as white foes, were plotting the destruction of the place. Meanwhile, on the 17th, Justice Horsfield had sent a special report of these developments to the Governor. On that day a panic spread in the Saucon Valley and many people rushed together at the Crown Inn. On that and the following days, several companies of militia rode through Bethlehem bound for the Irish Settlement. Tidings of the atrocious massacre of New England settlers in the Wyoming Valley, October 15, 1763, reached Bethlehem three days later. The diary states: "We at once informed our neighbors in the Irish Settlement of this, so that they might be on their guard." Several families, among them "Mr. Lawrence3 of Fort Allen" arrived as refugees in the afternoon.
woman shot in the body in the recent Indian attack, and brought to Bethlehem, died and was buried there, leaving an infant, her first-born, four months old. An earlier case not mentioned in The Crown Inn list was " the young wife of Solomon Davis," one of the refu- gees from the neighborhood, during the first Indian raid, who died at Bethlehem and was buried in that south-side cemetery January 26, 1756. Her infant, born two days before, died and was buried there January 31. Another case was that, on June 15, 1769, of a Mrs. Gender who with her husband " had come from Virginia to visit relatives near Lynn "-for- merly Allemaengel in Lynn Township, work abandoned December, 1770, and minister trans. ferred to former Gnadenhuetten-had taken lodgings at the Crown where a child was born June II and baptized, receiving the name Elizabeth, the mother's name. The child died the next day and the mother on the 15th and both were buried in that graveyard. Possibly missing links of ancestry may be discovered by some one in this note, and traced to un- known graves in that now obliterated place of burial.
4 After another David Zeisberger was in Pennsylvania, the famous missionary is frequently referred to in records as Senior, to distinguish him. In the early days of Bethlehem he was Junior when his father, whose name was also David, was yet living. Further references to him, as the better-known man, will be without any distinction, and if Zeisberger of Nazareth is mentioned he will be distinguished as Junior or otherwise.
5 He is occasionally mentioned in the records in previous references to Gnadenhuetten. He occupied one of the houses of Nain for a while, after the removal of the Indians to Philadelphia. There one of his children, a daughter, died and at the request of the parents
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On October 19, a very different view of the presence of the Chris- tian Indians at Wechquetank, from that taken in the Irish Settlement, came to light, as held by people in the neighborhood of that mission who were better qualified to judge and who had more to fear if their presence had been dangerous. The diary of Bethlehem states: "A petition to the Governor at Philadelphia was taken through here from the people living near Wechquetank beyond the Blue Moun- tains, in which they very greatly deplored the removal of the Indians from Wechquetank, inasmuch as those same Indians had hitherto been their only security, they having put more reliance on them than on a few soldiers; and praying the Governor, therefore, to either have the aforesaid Indians return to their former place if possible, or send an adequate force for their protection, without which they would no longer consider themselves safe at their places." Those people evidently were not imbued with "border ruffian" spirit, and they probably did not share the animosity of some others against Moravians, nor share the ideas of a religion which held that the Indians were simply the heathen to be exterminated to the glory of God. There is no doubt about it that, while the reckless militia rangers-in whose exploits many had little confidence as a defence, of which there is abundant evidence-were bent upon killing the Indians at Wechquetank, these Indians were, by their vigilance and dissuading counsel, when Indian scouts from Wyoming came near, holding back the arm of violence raised against the neighborhood. This is the secret of the shout of exultation and the jubilant shots from the savages hidden in the woods, when they saw these Indians leave the place.
Now the state of things had become so precarious that it was resolved, at a general meeting of citizens, October 25, 1763, to put Bethlehem in a position of defence, as in 1756. The strong guard was again organized, stockades were constructed as before, on sev- eral sides of the buildings, where the women and children lived, and around the barn-yard and stabling, where the most danger from incendiaries was to be feared, and watch-houses were again built at the same corners as before. During the subsequent weeks the chief alarm at Bethlehem was caused by the burning of the oil-mill
was buried at Bethlehem, on the hill back of the Indian House, December 9, the Rev. Jacob Friis having charge of the funeral. Why that spot was selected does not appear. There was no cemetery there. During the Revolution that hill became the burial place of soldiers who died in the hospital at Bethlehem.
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on the night of November 18, the same day on which information was received that the vacated houses of Wechquetank had been burned "by parties unknown." The conflagration at the oil-mill, which was later ascertained to have been the work of white despera- does of the county, was the nearest approach to the execution of the repeated threats to burn Bethlehem to the ground. Four days after that, the first experiments were made with the fire-engine that had been brought from London by Captain Jacobsen, in accordance with the decision of the previous year, but which reached Bethlehem too late to be of service at that perilous fire, which greatly endangered the water-works and, therefore, the water supply of the town, for use in possible further conflagrations as well as for other purposes. That the torch was applied first at that point, in view of this, revealed an intelligent plan in that act of dastardly wickedness which would not have governed the attempts of wild Indians.º
THE PERSEVERANCE FIRE-ENGINE, With Modern Environment. Built in 1698.
6 This ancient engine, old already when brought to Bethlehem, subsequently repaired and improved several times and long used, is now preserved as a relic in the museum of the Young Men's Missionary Society. At its first trial, November 22, 1763, it sent a jet of water over the roof of the Brethren's House. In April, 1773, after being repaired, it threw a stream twenty feet above the terrace on the roof of that building, and its flow was 78 gallons a minute. Its cost in London was £43 12s. It was brought on the Hope, which reached New York October 21. Captain Garrison and his wife returned after an absence in Europe of seven years, to pass their remaining days. Here for a season he did service as cicerone. He died in September, 1781, and his widow, Mary Ann, m. n. Brandt, in March. 1790. Other passengers were the Rev. John Fromelt, called as general superintendent of all the organizations of single men ; Paul Tiersch, first co-director of Nazareth Hall school,
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Meanwhile the move against Wechquetank having been frustrated by the departure of the missionary with his Indians, the hostile attention of those who were more intent upon retaliation for the murder at Stentons, at some point where it would be easiest and least dangerous, than upon aiding the public defence in a proper way or rationally guarding their own houses against savages, was cen- tered upon Nain. The widow of Stenton became the agent in the next move, by professing, under oath, to identify a young Indian of Nain, by the name of Renatus, as having been with the murderers of her husband. Doubtless, in the excitement of the hour, and being of those who refused to regard this as, on general principles, improb- able, she believed it. It was not the first nor the last time that inno- cent men have been thus "identified" in such cases, and many an innocent man has in this way lost his life at the hands of an infuri- ated avenging mob, as at one time threatened to be the fate of Rena- tus. The men who had been persuaded in October, by a just and cool-headed neighbor, probably John Jennings, Sheriff of North- ampton County, to refrain from a proposed attack upon the Indians at Nain, now eagerly availed themselves of this new development to spread bitterness against that peaceable and loyal band. Renatus was formally arrested under a legal warrant from Philadelphia on October 29, 1763, by George Klein, of Bethlehem, deputy of John Jennings, Sheriff. The missionary Schmick, at this time stationed at Nain, was appointed by Klein as further deputy to take him to Philadelphia. Renatus was a son of old Jacob, "the patriarch of Nain," the only survivor of the first three converts baptized in 1742 by Rauch at Oley. This old Indian accompanied his accused son to Philadelphia; Klein, von Marschall and others following. The excitement was intense and, whatever might be the result of the trial, it was evident that the end of the sojourn of the Indians at Nain was near. At Philadelphia, where they arrived, October 30-the day of the earthquake and of the arrival of young John Penn to take the Governor's seat-the best legal counsel was secured to insure the accused man a fair trial. No less a man than John Dickinson under-
and in 1771 ordained and transferred to Wachovia, N.C .; Susan von Gersdorf, called as spiritual overseer of the single women at Bethlehem; Anna Salome Steinmann, called as spiritual overseer of older girls; Maria Wilhelmina Werwing, who became spiritual over- seer of the widows; also the following single women : Justina Erd; Maria Barbara Horn, cook in the Sisters' House ; Dorothea Loeffler, stewardess of the Sisters' House; Fredericka Pletscher and Elizabeth Seidlitz.
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took the defence. Renatus, after sitting in prison in Philadelphia for seven months, was brought to Easton, where his final trial took place, the third week in June. The evidence examined was so flimsy and the impression of his innocence and of the unrighteous animus of those who had started and were pushing the prosecution was so overwhelming, that in the face of all the turbulent clamor, he was quickly and easily acquitted, on June 21, 1764, and then, when his life was manifestly in danger at the hands of men as lawless and infuriated as the savages, he was taken back to Philadelphia a few days later, under guard, for safety; for all his fellow-converts from Nain were there under the protection of the Government, excepting his aged father and his wife, who, with more than fifty others, had fallen victims, in the inter- val, of small-pox. Directly after his arrest, an effort was made by influential men at Philadelphia to have special measures adopted by the Government to secure the Indians of Wechquetank and Nain by their confinement under guard and restrictions at the latter place, with a small allowance for their support in lieu of the privilege of hunting and fishing, from which they would be cut off by being thus kept close within their village, as in a fort. This proposition was voted down in the Assembly, and it was finally resolved to have them all brought to Philadelphia in order to meet three ends; to keep the Government pledge of protection, to have them under the eye of the Government and cut off from all communication with other Indians in order to satisfy those who suspected them of treachery, and to end the turmoil which their continued presence in Northampton County caused there. This measure, of questionable expediency, caused more serious disturbance, perplexity and expense than the first plan would have involved. The order for the removal of the Indians reached Bethlehem on November 5, 1763. It was communicated to them the next day, when, upon demand, they surrendered all their guns and then commenced to pack together their effects for the jour- ney. November 8, Grube arrived from Nazareth with the forty-four Indians from Wechquetank. In the afternoon they joined those from Nain, on the south side of the Lehigh, seventy-seven in num- ber. Wagons were in readiness to convey the aged, the infirm women and the children, with the wives of the missionaries, who heroically accompanied the caravan, while their husbands went afoot with the rest of the Indian men and women. A sheriff and guard were on hand to escort them, and thus they set out for Philadelphia,
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where they arrived in the forenoon on November II. Their destina- tion was the barracks that had been constructed in 1755 in the "Northern Liberties." Their first experience was to face the fury of a mob, to the indignities and menaces of which-the soldiers at the barracks joining with the frenzied populace-those noble women, as well as their husbands, were subjected, with the Indians. The authorities were compelled to change their plan, and from the bar- racks they were taken, amid the hootings and cursings of the rabble, to Province Island, where they were quartered. The missionaries Grube and Roth, their wives and David Zeisberger were with them, and in December, when Zeisberger returned to Bethlehem, Schmick took his place. It would lie outside the scope of these pages to fol- low their trying experiences in detail. All features and all versions of what ensued have been often narrated, from every standpoint ; from that of the Government and that of the mob; that of the city and that of the country; that of the Moravians, of the Quakers and of the Scotch-Irish people of the frontiers who had mainly led the crusade, from its beginning, against Moravian missionaries and their converts and against all compromise with Indians of any kind.
The extreme movement in this crusade, by men among whom this sentiment had developed, under the great provocations of the time, into fierce and lawless fanaticism, brought on the most critical epi- sode in the experiences of these Indians and their missionaries at Philadelphia. This was the well-known descent upon the capital by the Paxton rangers early in 1764, with the intention of exterminating the protected converts on Province Island, after these desperate men had, in the previous December, rivaled the deeds of the savages by slaughtering the peaceable Indians of Conestoga Manor. This attempt to get at the Moravian Indians in February, 1764, which, for a while, threatened to make the city of Philadelphia the scene of riot and carnage, but was averted by the show of armed resistance in which even young Quakers, in the dire emergency, joined, and by the dissuading influence of leading citizens, was the most con- spicuous event in Pennsylvania at that time. All that remained of Moravian missions among the Indians was embodied in that band of hunted fugitives on Province Island. Around it, for the moment, were concentrated in a boisterous climax-affrighting at the time, pathetic so far as that mission residue was concerned, ludicrous in some aspects, when looked back upon-the chronic antagonisms of contending political parties, incompatible races and creeds, divergent
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