USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 25
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I adore, and praise and worship Him. I know and confess that He, the Lord my God, the same who forgave my sins and washed my heart in his most precious blood, grasped me in his Almighty hand and held me safe,-and hence I live no longer for myself, but for Him, whose holy will to do is my chiefest pleasure."
" Christian Frederic Post, the most adventurous of Moravian mission- aries employed among the North American Indians, was born at Conitz, Polish Prussia, in 1710. He immigrated to this country in June, 1742. Between 1743 and 1749 he was a missionary to the Moravian Indians in New York and Connecticut. He first married Rachel, a Wampanoag, and after her death, Agnes, a Delaware. Having become a widower a second time, he, in 1751, returned to Europe: hence he sailed for Labrador in 1752, engaging in an unsuccessful attempt to bring the gospel to the Esquimaux. Having returned to Bethlehem in 1754, he was sent to Wyoming, where he preached to the Indians until in November of 1755. In the summer of 1758 Post undertook an embassy in behalf of government to the Delawares and Shawnees of the Ohio country, which resulted in the evacuation of Fort Duquesne by the French and the restoration of peace. In September of 1761 he engaged in an independent mission to the Indians of that distant region, and built him a hut on the Tuscarawas, near Bolivar, in Stark County, Ohio. John Hecke- welder joined him in the spring of 1762. But the Pontiac war drove the missionaries back to the settlements, and the project was abandoned. Im- pelled by his ruling passion, Post now sought a new field of activity in the southern part of the continent, and in January of 1764 sailed from Charles- ton, via Jamaica, for the Mosquito coast. Here he preached to the natives for upward of two years. He visited Bethlehem in July of 1767, returned to Mosquito, and was in Bethlehem, for the last time, in 1784. At this date he was residing with his third wife, who was an Episcopalian, in German- town, Philadelphia. Here he deceased April 29, 1785. On the 5th of May his remains were interred in the Lower Graveyard of that place, Rev. William White, of Christ Church, conducting the funeral service. A marble slab, bearing an appropriate obituary record, was placed, some thirty years ago, upon the veteran missionary's grave."-Transactions of the Moravian His- torical Society, vol. i.
The second minister to cry aloud in this wilderness was the Rev. John Heckewelder in 1762. He came from Bethlehem over the Chinklacamoose trail to Punxsutawney. He was a Moravian missionary, and travelled thirty thousand miles in Indian missionary work between the years 1762 and 1814.
The third preacher to penetrate this wilderness was a Moravian min- ister, the Rev. David Zeisberger, and he passed through or near Brockway- ville over the northwest trail to what was then the Ohio, now the Allegheny (in what is now Forest County) River.
I quote as follows from " Day's Collections":
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" In the year 1767 an unarmed man of short stature, remarkably plain in his dress, and humble and peaceable in his demeanor, emerged from the thick forest upon the Allegheny River, in the neighborhood of the Seneca towns. This was the Moravian missionary, Rev. David Zeisberger, who, led by Anthony and John Papanhunk, Indian guides and assistants in his pious labors, had penetrated the dense wilderness of Northern Pennsylvania, from Wyalusing, on the Susquehanna, to preach the gospel to the Indians in this region. His intended station was at Goshgoshunk, which appears to have been on the left bank of the Allegheny, not far from the mouth of the Tionesta. Possibly Goshgoshunk was the same as the Indian name Cush-cush.
" The Seneca chief, believing Brother Zeisberger to be a spy, received him roughly at first; but, softened by his mild demeanor, or perhaps by the holy truths which he declared to the chief, he at length bade him welcome, and permitted him to go to Goshgoshunk. He warned him, however, not to trust the people there, for they had not their equals in wickedness and thirst for blood. This was but another incentive to him who came to preach . not to the righteous, but to sinners.' However, on his arrival he was well re- ceived, and shared the hospitality of a relative of one of his guides. Gosh- goshunk, a town of the Delawares, consisted of three villages on the banks of the Ohio [Allegheny]. The whole town seemed to rejoice at the novelty of this visit.
" The missionary found, however, that the Seneca chief had told him truly. He was shocked at their heathenish and diabolical rites, and espe- cially by their abuse of the holy name of God. An Indian preacher, called Wangomen, strenuously resisted the new doctrines of the missionaries, espe- cially that of the incarnation of the Deity, and instigated the jealousy of his people ; but the truth, preached in its simplicity and power, by the mission- aries, overcame him, and he yielded his opposition so far as to join the other Indians in an invitation to the missionaries to settle among them. The old blind chief, Allemewi, was awakened, and afterwards baptized, with the Chris- tian name of Solomon. The missionary went home to report his progress to his friends in Bethlehem. The following year Zeisberger returned, accom- panied by Brother Gottlob Senseman and several Moravian Indian families from the Susquehanna, to establish a regular mission at Goshgoshunk. They built a block-house, planted corn, and, gathering round their block-house sev- eral huts of believing Indians, they formed a small hamlet, a little separated from the other towns. 'To this a great number resorted, and there the brethren ceased not, by day and night, to teach and preach Jesus, and God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.' These meetings were fully attended, 'and it was curious to see so many of the audience with their faces painted black and vermilion and heads decorated with clusters of feathers and fox-tails.' A violent opposition, however, succeeded, occasioned by the malicious lies of the magicians and old women,-' the corn was blasted, the
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deer and game began to retire from the woods, no chestnuts nor bilberries would grow any more, merely because the missionaries preached a strange doctrine, and the Indians were changing their way of life.' Added to this, the grand council at Onondaga and Zeneschio (Ischua) looked with extreme jealousy upon this new encroachment of white men upon their territories and discountenanced the establishment. In consequence of these things the missionaries left Goshgoshunk, and retired fifteen miles farther up the river, to a place called Lawanakanuck, on the opposite bank, probably near Hickory- town. Here they again started a new settlement, built at first a hunting-den, and afterwards a chapel and a dwelling-house, 'and a bell, which they re- ceived from Bethlehem, was hung in a convenient place.'
" About the year 1765 the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger estab- lished the mission of Friedenschnetten, near the present town of Wyalusing, in Bradford County. This town, the name of which signifies ' tents of peace,' contained ' thirteen Indian huts, and upward of forty frame houses, shingled, and provided with chimneys and windows.' There was another mission about thirty miles above Friedenschnetten,-' Tschechsehequanink,' or, as it was translated, ' where a great awakening had taken place.' This latter mission was under the charge of Brother Roth.
" These missions prospered greatly, and much good was done among the Indians, until 1768, when the Six Nations, by the treaty made that year, 'sold the land from under their feet,' and the missionaries encountered so much trouble from both the Indians and whites, that in 1772 the brethren decided to abandon these missions and remove to the new field which had been planted by the indefatigable Zeisberger on the banks of the Ohio. They therefore started from Wyalusing on the 12th day of June, 1772, in number two hun- dred and forty-one souls, mostly Indians, of all ages, with their cattle and horses. Their destination was Friedenstadt,* near the present site of Beaver, Pennsylvania. They were under the guidance of Brothers Roth and Ettewein, and their course was from the North Branch across the Allegheny Mountains, by way of Bald Eagle, to the Ohio River. Brother Roth conducted those who went by water and Brother Ettewein those who travelled by land. In 1886 the Moravian, published at Bethlehem, gave the journal of Rev. John Ette- wein, and we give the extracts from it of the progress of the party, with the explanatory foot-notes in the Moravian, translated by Mr. Jordan :
"'1772
"' Tuesday, July 14 .- Reached Clearfield Creek, where the buffaloes formerly cleared large tracts of undergrowth, so as to give the appearance of cleared fields. Hence, the Indians called the creek " Clearfield." Here
*" The Annals of Friedenschnetten, on the Susquehanna, with John Ettewein's Journal of the Removal of the Mission to Friedenstadt, 1765 and 1772, by John W. Jordan."
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at night and next morning, to the great joy of the hungry, nine deer were shot. Whoever shoots a deer has for his private portion, the skin and inside ; the meat he must bring into camp and deliver to the distributors. John and Cornelius acted in this capacity in our division. It proved advantageous for us not to keep so closely together, as we had at first designed; for if the number of families in a camp be large, one or two deer, when cut up, afford but a scanty meal to each individual. So it happened that scarce a day passed without there being a distribution of venison in the advance, the centre, and the rear camp. (On the route there were one hundred and fifty deer and but three bears shot.) In this way our Heavenly Father provided for us; and I often prayed for our hunters, and returned thanks for their success.
"'Thursday, July 16 .- ... I journeyed on, with a few of the brethren, two miles in a falling rain, to the site of Chinklacamoose [Clearfield town], where we found but three huts, and a few patches of Indian corn. The name signifies " No one tarries here willingly." It may, perhaps, be traced to the circumstance that some thirty years ago an Indian resided here as a hermit, upon a rock, who was wont to appear to the Indian hunters, in frightful shapes. Some of these, too, he killed, others he robbed of their skins; and this he did for many years. We moved on four miles, and were obliged to wade the West Branch three times, which is here like the Lehigh at Beth- lehem, between the island and the mountain, rapid and full of ripples.
"'Friday, July 17 .- Advanced only four miles to a creek that comes down from the northwest .* Had a narrow and stony spot for our camp.
""Saturday, July 18 .- Moved on without awaiting Roth and his divi- sion, who on account of the rain had remained in camp. To-day Shebosch lost a colt from the bite of a rattlesnake. Here we left the West Branch three miles to the Northwest, up the creek, crossing it five times. Here, too, the path went precipitately up the mountain, and four or five miles up and up to the summit-to a spring the head-waters of the Ohio. + Here I lifted up my heart in prayer as I looked westward, that the Son of Grace might rise over the heathen nations that dwell beyond the distant horizon.
"' Sunday, July 19 .- As yesterday, but two families kept with me, be- cause of the rain, we had a quiet Sunday, but enough to do drying our effects. In the evening all joined me, but we could hold no service as the Ponkis [gnats] were so excessively annoying that the cattle pressed toward and into our camp, to escape their persecutors in the smoke of the fires. This vermin is a plague to man and beast, both by day and night. But in the swamp through which we are now passing, their name is legion. Hence the Indians
* " Anderson's Creek, in Clearfield County, which they struck at a point near the present Curwensville."
t " Probably the source of the North Branch of the Mahoning, which rises in Brady Township, Clearfield County, and empties into the Allegheny, in Armstrong County, ten miles above Kittanning."
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call it the Ponksutenink,-i.c., the town of the Ponkis .* The word is equiva- lent to living dust and ashes, the vermin being so small as not to be seen, and their bite being hot as sparks of fire, or hot ashes. The brethren here related an Indian myth, to wit: That the aforecited Indian hermit and sorcerer, after having been for so many years a terror to all Indians, had been killed by one who had burned his bones, but the ashes he blew into the swamp, and they became living things, and hence the Ponkis.
"' Monday, July 20 .- After discoursing on the daily word-" The Lord our God be with us, may he not forsake us"-we travelled on through the swamp, and after five miles crossed the path that leads from Frankstown + to Goshgoshunk, and two miles from that point encamped at a run. At 5 P.M., came Brethren Peter, Boaz, and Michael, with fourteen unbaptized Indians, from Lagundontenink, to meet us with four horses, and five bushels of Indian corn, also Nathaniel's wife from Sheninga # with a letter from Brother Jungman. I thought had I but milk or meat, I would add rice, and prepare a supper for the new-comers. But two of them went to hunt, and in half an hour Michael brought in a deer to my fire. My eyes moistened with tears. Sister Esther hunted up the large camp kettle, and all had their fill of rice and venison, and were much pleased. That night and the following morning there were four deer shot by the company.
"'Tuesday, July 21 .- The rear division came up, and the destitute-viz., such as had lived solely upon meat and milk-were supplied each with one pint of Indian corn. We proceeded six miles to the first creek. In the even- ing a number of the brethren came to my fire, and we sat together right cheerful until midnight. Once when asleep I was awakened by the singing of the brethren who had gathered around the fire of the friends from Lagun- dontenink. It refreshed my inmost soul.
"' Wednesday, July 22 .- We journeyed on four miles, to the first fork § where a small creek comes down from the mouth.
"'Thursday, July 23 .- Also four miles to the second fork, to the creek, coming in from the south-east. | As a number of us met here in good time we had a meeting. Cornelius's brother-in-law stated that he was desirous of being the Lord's; therefore he had left his friends so as to live with the brethren, and to hear of the Saviour.
"'Friday, July 24 .- The path soon left the creek, over valleys and heights to a spring. Now we were out of the swamp, and free from the
" Kept down the valley of the Mahoning, into Jefferson County. Punxsutawney is a village in Young Township, Jefferson County. The swamp lies in Gaskill and Young Townships, Jefferson County."
t " Near Hollidaysburg. See Scull's map of 1759 for this path."
# " Sheninga is a township in Lawrence County, just above Friedenstadt."
§ " A branch of the Mahoning."
|| " Query .- The creek that comes in and up below Punxsutawney."
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plague of the Ponkis. Also found huckleberries, which were very grateful. Our to-day's station was five miles, and about so far we advanced on.
"'Saturday, July 25 .- On which day we encamped at a Salt Lick, and kept Sunday some three miles from the large creek, which has so many curves, like a horseshoe, so that if one goes per canoe, when the water is high, four days are consumed in reaching the Ohio, whereas, by land, the point can be reached in one day .* Our youngsters went to the creek to fish, and others to hunt; and at sunset they came in with two deer, and four strings of fish.'"
" John Roth was born in Brandenburg, February 3, 1726, of Catholic parents, and was brought up a locksmith. In 1748 he united with the Mora- vians and emigrated to America, arriving at Bethlehem in June of 1756. He deceased at York, Pennsylvania, July 22, 1791.
" John Ettewein was born 29th of June, 1721, in Freudenstadt, Wür- temberg. He united with the Moravians in 1740, and came to Bethlehem in April of 1754. Here he was set apart for service in the schools of his adopted church, when, in 1758, a new field of labor was assigned him at the Brethren's settlements in Western North Carolina (Forsyth and adjacent counties). During his residence in Wachovia he itinerated among the spiritually desti- tute Germans of South Carolina ( 1762), and visited the Salburgers and Swiss of Ebenezer (in Georgia) in 1765. The following year he was recalled to Bethlehem. This place was the scene of his greatest activity, as here, under God, he led the Moravian Church in safety through the stormy times of the Revolution. He was ordained a bishop in 1784. In 1789 he sailed for Eu- rope, and attended a general synod convened at Herrnhut. John Ettewein was one of the remarkable men of the Brethren's Church in North America. He deceased at Bethlehem, 2d of January, 1802." .
ASSOCIATE REFORMED, SECEDER, OR THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
This church is one of the youngest of the Presbyterian bodies in America, but the history of its antecedents extends back more than a century. Its original antecedents were the Associate and Reformed Presbyterian bodies. The former body was composed of Presbyterians who seceded from the Gen- eral Assembly of Scotland in 1733 and formed themselves into what was known as the "Associate Presbytery," or, as the masses knew them, " the Seceders." The first minister of that denomination to arrive in America was Rev. Alexander Gellatly, who settled at Octorara, Pennsylvania, in 1753.
* The Mahoning, formed by the junction of the East and South Branch, which meets at Nicholsburg, in Indiana County. This route to the Allegheny was the same path taken by Post in 1758, when returning from his second visit to the Ohio Indians in that year, and between Chinklacamoose and the Allegheny, over the same path travelled by Barbara Leininger in 1755, when Chinklacamoose and Punxsutawney were villages.
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where he labored for eight years. Many members of the body had preceded him to this country, settling along the seaboard, and some of them going as far south as the Carolinas. The church was largely increased by immigra- tion from year to year, and the Presbytery of Pennsylvania was organized in 1758.
The first minister of the Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter Church to arrive in America was Rev. John Cuthbertson, who came in 1752.
I here reproduce an extract from Rev. David X. Junkins's centennial sermon delivered at New Castle, Pennsylvania, in July, 1876:
"One hundred and nine years ago there came to the Indian town of Gosch-gosch-kunk, at the mouth of the Tionesta Creek, where it debouches into the Allegheny River, in what is now Forest County, Pennsylvania, a solitary German, a minister of the gospel in the Unitas Fratrum Church, usually called Moravians. Accompanied by two converted Indians, he had set out from the Christian Indian town of Friedenshutten, on the north branch of the Susquehanna, which stood near to the present town of Wya- lusing (Bradford County). Traversing the unbroken and dense forests of Northern Pennsylvania and Southern New York on foot, with but a single pack-horse to carry their baggage, after many dangers and hardships they arrived at Gosch-gosch-kunk, at the mouth of the Tionesta, on the 16th day of October, 1767. This village was only two years old, having been founded after the close of Pontiac's war.
" Soon after, this missionary was joined by his wife, and by John Sense- man and his wife, and a band of Christian Indians from the Susquehanna, and they attempted to establish a mission at that point. But they found much opposition from the chiefs and others, and although they were blest in winning a few converts, the roughness of the country, the leanness of the land, and the opposition of the natives proved so discouraging that they soon began to contemplate a change of locality. God prepared the way for this in a most remarkable manner.
" The tribes of Indians which roamed along the Allegheny and the Beaver at that day were chiefly of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware nation, a branch of which was at Gosch-gosch-kunk, called Munseys, but there were mingled with them Senecas, Shawnees, and some Mohicans. The Senecas claimed the soil on the Allegheny, and their chief, Wangomen, took violent ground against the missionaries, and objected to the Munseys, who had built their town by permission of the former tribe, permitting the missionaries to build houses and a church upon it. Failing to obtain by negotiation the necessary privileges, the necessity for a change of locality became imminent. They accordingly moved across the Allegheny River, and built a mission town in what is now the heart of the Oil Creek oil region. The oil 'was gath- ered even then. and used by both Indians and missionaries for medicinal purposes.
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" At that time there were two villages of the Lenni Lenape in this vicinity, -one near the mouth of the Mahoning, called Kas-kas-kunk. The name of the chief who held sway in this valley at that day was Pack-an-ke. His prin- cipal sub-chief, counsellor, and warrior was named Glik-kik-an. He was a man of great natural powers. His fame as a warrior was only eclipsed by his reputation for eloquence. He had fought many battles, both in the wars be- tween the tribes and in the wars of the French against the English, and he possessed a glowing eloquence which carried all before it at the council-fire. He had disputed with Christian Frederick Post at Tuscarawas; he had silenced the Jesuit priests in argument at Venango; and he came up to the mission town in the oil region to dispute with and overcome Zeisberger and Senseman. Escorted to Lawunack-han-nek by Wangomen and a procession of Indians, he entered the mission-house to challenge the missionaries to theological combat. Zeisberger being absent, Glik-kik-an was received by Anthony, a converted Indian, who, as Zeisberger remarked, 'was as eager to bring souls to Christ as a hunter's hound is eager to chase the deer.'
"Placing food before his guests, he at once introduced the subject of religion. 'My friends,' said he, 'I will tell you a great thing. God made the heavens and the earth and all things that in them are. Nothing exists that God did not make.' Pausing, he added: 'God has created us. But who of us knows his Creator? not one! I tell you the truth-not one! For we have fallen away from God-we are polluted creatures; our minds are darkened by sin.'
" Here he sat down and was silent a long time. Suddenly rising again, he exclaimed, 'God who made all things and created us came into the world in the form and fashion of a man. Why did he thus come into the world? Think of this!' He paused, and then answered, 'God took upon him flesh and blood in order that, as man, he might reconcile the world unto himself. By his bitter death on the cross he procured for us life and eternal salvation, redeeming us from sin, from death, and from the power of the devil.' In such apothegms he unfolded the whole gospel. When he ceased, Zeisberger, who had in the mean time entered, briefly corroborated his words, and exhorted Glik-kik-an to lay them to heart.
"' Glik-kik-an,' says De Schweinitz, 'was an honest man and open to conviction. He had upheld the superstitions of his fathers because he had not been convinced that the Christian faith was true.' But now the truth began to dawn upon his mind. In the place of his elaborate speech he merely replied, ' I have nothing to say; I believe your words.' And when he re- turned to Gosch-gosch-kunk, instead of boasting of a victory over the teachers, he urged the people to go and hear the gospel. He had been hired, like Balaam, to curse God's own, but, like Balaam, he was constrained to bless them. Not long after this first visit of the warrior of the Mahoning, Zeis- berger was constrained to go to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) to obtain provisions.
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Senseman accompanied him, and they were instrumental in saving the country from the horrors of another war.
" They passed Fort Venango ( Franklin) on their return. Soon after this they received a second visit from Glik-kik-an. He came to tell them that he had determined to embrace Christianity, and he brought an invita- tion from Pack-an-ke to settle on the banks of the Beaver, on a tract of land which should be reserved for the exclusive use of the mission. Zeis- berger saw the advantages of the offer, but not feeling authorized to accept it without consent of the board at Bethlehem, he sent two runners to that town in Northampton county, for instructions. The board gave him plenary power, and he accepted the offer of a home in our beautiful valley. It took time, however, for the runners to go and come through that vast stretch of wilderness, and the migration was not effected until the next April.
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