USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume I > Part 10
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Evangelistic activity, using the term in its broadest sense, supported by such industry and steadfastness, made neglected people feel the thrill of a strong religious life. Of this the German colonists in Pennsylvania, in partic- ular, were sadly in need, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Their condition was deplorable. It was akin to religious anarchy. Multitudes had been abandoned by the ecclesiastical authorities in Europe to spiritual starvation and moral decadence. There was almost complete destitution of Christian ministrations worthy the name. There were, it is true, numerous
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sects and parties that made up the motley religious composition of the province. But they promoted, mainly, conflict of doctrines and confusion of tongues. In consequence, irreligion and distaste for all forms of public worship prevailed to an alarming extent. It had become a proverbial expres- sion that a man who was utterly indifferent to revealed religion belonged to "the Pennsylvania church."
To meet the needs of such a situation, plans elaborate and comprehensive were matured and the connection of the Moravian settlements at Bethlehem and Nazareth with many points was established. As early as July, 1742, ten itinerant evangelists were sent out. It was enjoined upon them not to interfere with the work of any other denomination, but to minister to the unchurched colonists. From time to time they reported at headquarters and were appointed to new fields of labor. They sought no compensation from those among whom they labored. Their own brethren provided the frugal support with which they were content. Their congregations gath- ered in private houses, barns, schoolhouses, occasionally in an humble log or stone church. In course of time, groups of persons here and there became definitely identified with them. The efforts of the itinerant evangelists were followed up by "visitors" who did the work of pastors. Advance of the Moravian church as such was not the primary aim. The furtherance of vital religion, not denominationalism, was the object of the evangelists and their coadjutors. Throughout Pennsylvania and the neighboring colonies these fervent heralds awakened a great hunger for the word of God. By their agency the "Great Awakening" of 1740-42, started through the influence of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and others, had its counterpart among the German settlers. The more important places that were centres of this itinerant work were Germantown, Philadelphia, Lancaster, York, Donegal, Heidelberg, Lebanon, Lititz, Oley, Allemaengel, Maguntschi, Salis- bury, Falckner's Swamp, the Trappe, Mahanatawny, Neshaminy and Dans- bury, in Pennsylvania ; Manocacy, in Maryland; Maurice River, Penn's Neck, Racoon, Oldman's Creek, Pawlin's Mill, Walpack and Brunswick, in New Jersey ; Staten Island and Long Island; Newport, in Rhode Island; Broad- bay, in Maine; and Canajoharie, in New York. In covering distances to reach these scattered points the devoted itinerants were undaunted by con- ditions of weather or road or season of the year when they started on their toilsome foot-journeys, sometimes hundreds of miles in extent and months in duration.
Quite in harmony with the spirit of this activity was an attempt, in the earliest days, to unite the different German religious bodies of Penn- sylvania in closer fellowship. Zinzendorf was the life of the movement, as he was, to the end of his career, the dominant figure in all the widespread Moravian interests. The effort to effect an evangelical alliance of German Protestants in Pennsylvania proved, however, an impracticable ideal for the condition of those days, and, to say the least, was far in advance of the times. Its inevitable failure, coupled with the fact that other denominations, particularly the Lutheran and the Reformed, were assuming organic form in America, forced the Moravians to shape the course of their activity anew. As they had gained a foothold in the not inconsiderable number of preaching
MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM
MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM
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places established in seven of the original thirteen colonies, the logic of events gradually led them to enter upon the natural denominational effort of church extension.
The Indian mission made heavy demands on the timc and care of the Moravians. It was hampered by difficulties that have attended all mission- ary enterprise among the aborigines of this country. The nomadic char- acter of the red men made it impossible to secure anything like the abid- ing results aimed for in the prosecution of missionary work among any people. It was clear at the outset that no Christian Indian state could be built up to crown the labors of faithful missionaries. Nevertheless, the Moravians addressed themselves, without delay, to the task.
As early as 1740, Christian Henry Rauch, landing in New York, met there certain Mohicans. He returned with them to their home village, Shekomeko, in what is now Dutchess county, New York. Results of his work gave omen of a fine future. Among his earliest converts was the notorious Wasamapa, formerly fierce as a savage bear. While this missionary was wintering in his lonely hut amid the pines of Shekomeko, trying to reach the hearts of the wild Mohicans, his brethren in the Nazareth woods made the first Moravian missionary effort among the Delawares. The interest of the Indians in hearing "the great word" stimulated the desirc of the missionaries to acquire the language of these people. During the early weeks of the organization of the settlement at Bethlehem, strolling bands of Indians were among the most interesting visitors. In the summer of 1742 some such were escorted to the Chapel, where the Moravians enter- tained them with instrumental music and endeavored to speak to them about the Saviour. In September of that year two Indians were baptized at Bethlehem. At one of the early conferences, Gottlob Buettner and John Christopher Pyrlaeus, besides Christian Henry Rauch, all of them ordained men, werc set apart for missionary service among the Indians. With a view to opening the way for these and other missionaries, Zindendorf under- took three tours into the Indian country. The first, July 24-August 7, 1742, took him into the region beyond the Blue Mountains. Of particular import- ance was his meeting with deputies of the Six Nations at Tulpehocken. With them he ratified a covenant of friendship, securing permission for the Moravians to pass to and from and sojourn in the domains of the great Iroquois confederation as friends and not as strangers. His sccond journey, August 3-30, 1742, was to Skekomeko, where he organized a congregation consisting of ten Indian converts, fruit of the labors of the Missionary Rauch. His final Indian tour, September 21-November 8, 1742, by far the longest and most perilous, was that to the Upper Susquehanna and into the Wyoming valley, then a terra incognita to white men. On this journey he encountered heathenism and savagery in their darkest colors. He endurcd great hardships and his life was more than once imperilled, for the fierce tribes of those regions were a different kind of men from the Indians of the low- lands. The account of thesc tours given at Bethlehem awakened the greatest enthusiasm for cxtensive plans of missionary work among the red men of the forest. At a conference held in November, the Count unfolded his scheme for carrying on this work. His vivid account of the experiences
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made among the Shawnees, far from deterring men and women, had the effect of increasing the number of volunteers for this service to fifteen.
From Skekomeko missionary interest reached out to the neighboring villages. Rauch, and others sent to assist him, visited the natives in various parts of New York State and extended operations into Connecticut. Within a year, however, the opposition of unscrupulous whites, rum-sellers and the like, caused the government of the New York colony to assume an unfriendly attitude. In consequence, the Moravians determined to transfer their Indian mission activity to Pennsylvania, beyond the settlements of the colonists, the treaty with the Six Nations having been renewed.
In course of the following years a body of capable, devoted men devel- oped an extensive Indian mission in Pennsylvania and the contiguous terri- tory. Noteworthy among these were David Zeisberger and John Hecke- welder. Both have left important philological and literary works relating to their field of activity. Zeisberger, in the event, rounded out sixty-two years of continuous, unwearied labor in behalf of the red men, a career perhaps not equalled, certainly not surpassed, in point of length of service by any missionary of any church among any people. These men and others among their brethren began their labors by applying themselves to the study of the Indian languages, especially the Delaware and Iroquois, not only by taking instruction from competent teachers but, also, by taking up their residence among the Indians for months at a time. Their work, directed by an intense and wise devotion, extended over a wide field of operations. Necessi- ties proceeding from the conditions of the time and the habits of the natives determined that their missionary careers should be largely a succession of missionary journeys. In many respects the constant enforced wanderings were a hindrance to their work. Yet frequent removal of the mission stations from place to place and the journeys incident thereto served to spread the knowledge of the Gospel over a vast stretch of territory and among many tribes. The missionaries travelled through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and entered Michigan and Canada. They brought the Gospel to the Mohicans and Wampanoags, to the Nanticokes and Shawnees, to the Chippewas, Ottawas and Wyandottes, to the Unamis, Unalachtgos and Monseys of the Delaware race; to the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas of the Six Nations, and those who heard often carried the message of the truth into regions where the missionary never appeared. These journeys acquire additional significance when it is remembered that they represent the missionaries' resolute faithfulness to the remnant of a people often cruelly and heartlessly driven from one locality to another.
These missionaries were not attracted to the Indians by any romantic notions about the character and traits of these men of the woods. They learned to know them, if ever men did. In their diaries and accounts of the Indians, their country, manners and customs, they denounce their cowardice, treachery, licentiousness and indolence in all but unmeasured terms, even as they do full justice to their few redeeming qualities. Yet they loved them. They spent their lives in the effort to do them good.
Among the most illustrious features of their work were the Christian
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Indian communities they established. Against all odds, they established a number of such, which enjoyed a degree of permanence. These were the wonder of all who saw them. They proved beyond shadow of a doubt how much could be accomplished by a practical application of Christianity to savage life. They were not aggregations of hunting lodges; they were agricultural colonies. The chase was not neglected, but played a subordinate part. These settlements, moreover, were governed by a published set of laws. They proved that under the matchless power of the Gospel even the Indian could be constrained to exchange his wild habits and unsettled ways for peaceable life and regular duty, to give up unrestrained and arbitrarily used liberty in order to submit to municipal enactments that secured the greatest good to the greatest number.
The missionaries were successful, too, in the character of the native helpers whom they raised up. And thus their missionary work sustains one of the severest tests applied in estimating the real value and advance of such effort. Only that great day, when "every man's work shall be made manifest," will reveal how many precious souls were led out of darkness into light through the ministry of these intrepid missionaries and that of the faithful men trained by them to be spiritual leaders of their fellows.
Another department of activity instituted was school work for neglected children. In 1739, Spangenberg had written to Count Zinzendorf in Europe that the educational needs of the colony of Pennsylvania were very great. It was the day of beginnings. The whole region was sparsely settled by whites. In most parts of it they were battling with the wilderness. The "Log College on the Neshaminy" to the south had reached only its teens. In Spangenberg's language there was "almost no one who made the youth his concern."
For several reasons this part of the pioneer's report met with a sympa- thetic response. Moravians were the conservators of traditions that connected them with the Ancient Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian church, and the labors of Comenius, at this time dead about seventy years, who was a pioneer in advocating the equal education of the sexes, the system of object teaching, the necessity of physical training and the importance of aiming to develop the whole human being. It is not possible to affirm that when George Neisser took his stand behind the desk in 1742 in Bethlehem, and other Moravians at about the same time began their instructions elsewhere, they had a complete apprehension of the Comenian principles. But we cannot peruse the manuscripts left by the first Bethlehem school teacher and avoid the conviction that in him and in others vital traditions of what was best in the church of the forefathers survived. Moreover, Moravians were force- fully affected by the influence of what was best in European education. Men from Halle, Wittenberg and Leipzig had identified themselves with the Moravians. They knew the value of liberal culture. They stimulated Moravian traditions, so that Moravians founded schools wherever they went, in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Britain and Ireland.
Naturally, therefore, Moravians in America included educational effort in their plans. Their special zeal and capacity for the training of the young blossomed out in schools of various kinds, particularly in Pennsylvania,
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where the provincial authorities during the first three-quarters of the eight- eenth century did next to nothing for the cause of general education, and, in consequence, various denominations established elementary schools. In 1742 the daughter of Zinzendorf inaugurated a school for girls in German- town. After sundry migrations this school has been located in Bethlehem since 1749. A school for boys was founded at Nazareth in 1743, but was, two years later, transferred to Frederickstown, now Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. During the next three years schools were established at Oley, near Reading, at Maguntschi, now Emaus, at Germantown, at Lan- caster, at Heidelberg, at Tulpehocken, at York, at Lebanon, at Muddy Creek, near Reamstown, Lancaster county, at Milton Grove, Lancaster county, at Muehlbach and most likely elsewhere; for it was an essential feature of. the policy of Zinzendorf and Spangenberg to organize schools wherever they established a congregation or posted a preaching station. These were. schools of various grades. Unfortunately, circumstances hindered the perma- nence of most of them .*
When Braddock's defeat opened the floodgates and a turbulent stream of savagery poured into the back country beyond the Blue Mountains, hundreds of refugees from desolated homes were received in the incipient towns. Schools ceased in the open country. Thus Moravian educational effort was driven back upon itself and, apart from the parochial and board- ing schools in the settlements, Moravian schools here came to an end. As the savage raids of this time were succeeded by other disturbances, notably Pontiac's conspiracy, and the premonitory thunders of the life and death struggle of the colonies rumbled in the distance, these schools were not opened again.
In subjecting to scrutiny the curricula of these early schools, it should be remembered that textbooks were rare. The accessories of the modern schoolroom were mainly wanting. Nevertheless, in some of them special. attention was paid to English, French and German. Mathematics, astronomy and history find their places beside the more elementary branches. At Nazareth, Latin and Greek were read. Instrumental and vocal music and drawing contributed pleasant accomplishments. The Bethlehem spinning, needle-work and embroidery were famous, fitting young women for life. It is of more than ordinary interest that the boys' school in the Brethren's House, at Lititz, furnished opportunity for the learning of various trades, and thus for the time and the place the question of industrial training was solved. Unobtrusively in all these schools, and, in a way free from sectarian bias, religion was imparted as a matter of course. In the light of modern educational development, defects, and crudities will be discovered, but here were the essentials of a liberal education.
A word is in order concerning the mission schools among the Indians.
* It is interesting to note that in November, 1746, a school was opened in the "Great Swamp" for boys who had learned bad habits and whom it was not desirable to have with those in the other institutions." It was a kind of reform school. Its maintenance in "the Great Swamp" being encumbered with difficulties, it was trans- ferred, in 1747, to the Ysselstein farm-house, south of the Lehigh at Bethlehem. It was the first school in what is now Bethlehem, South Side. It continued but a short time.
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Wherever the Moravians obtained a foothold among the Indians, with a prospect of doing good, they built a schoolhouse and opened a school. Dur- ing the short time they were in Georgia, they had in operation a school for the children of the Creek Indians. At Bethlehem and Nazareth schools for Indian children were opened at an early time. Wherever it was possible in the Indian country, within and beyond the bounds of the Pennsylvania colony, church and school were established. Among the principal stations thus established were Meniolagomeka, in Monroe county; Shamokin, now Sunbury ; Wyoming, near Wilkes-Barre; Schechschiquannink, Bradford county ; Goschgoschuenk, Venango county ; the several place's successively named Gnadenhuetten, in Pennsylvania and Ohio; Friedenshuetten, on the Susquehanna; Lawunnakhannok, in Venango county; and Friedensstadt, in Lawrence county. Not until one hundred and thirty years after these and other schools had been established by the Moravians, not till hundreds of tribes and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children had been swept from the face of the earth, did the United States learn the lesson taught by these and other missionaries in their efforts to civilize the Indians. Wickersham, in his "History of Education in Pennsylvania," pays the Mora- vian mission schools this tribute: "Even Carlisle and Hampton, with all their merit, have less to recommend them as schools for Indians than had the old Moravian towns of Gnadenhuetten, Friedenshuetten and Friedens- stadt."
Educational conceptions and methods exemplified by these early Mora- vian schools were mainly that the personality of the teacher counted for much in securing the results of training; that education was regarded not as something to be sought for its own sake, but as a means to greater perfection of character ; that it was understood that education should render the youth thoroughly at home in the world, to the end that recognizing opportunities they should best serve their age; that a liberal education must be a Christian education.
Little did the fathers of one hundred and seventy years ago, with all their faith, comprehend the abundant harvests of all these years enfolded in the seeds they cast into the soil of the wilderness. When in their log cabins they introduced children to the fundamentals of knowledge or led young men and women of rustic habits forward to the beauties of classical literature and the practical demonstrations of science, a cloud covered from their vision the development which, in five generations, should not only contribute much to fill the region of their self-denial with the fruits of culture, but from that very region, too, send forth the abundant offerings of learning, science and refinement, in hallowed union with religion, across the continent and to the ends of the earth.
CHAPTER VII
INDIAN MASSACRES
Though the Indians had been treated fairly by William Penn, it cannot be denied that in numerous instances, besides being cheated by the traders, they were in many cases abused by the settlers. The treaty of 1732 with the Delawares had hardly been accomplished when the Governor of Penn- sylvania realized that the Six Nations must be placated. Two weeks after the signing of the deed with the Delawares, another deed was executed with the Six Nations, covering all their claims to the land drained by the Delaware river and south of the Blue Mountains. Previous to this date the Six Nations had never laid any claim to lands on the lower Delaware. This deed established the Iroquois' claim to all the lands owned by the Delaware Indians. The latter tribe never acknowledged the justice of the "Walking Purchase," it being contrary to their understanding of the original treaty. The English, to gain their point, held a conference with the Six Nations in 1742, to which the Delawares were extended an invitation. The latter were disheartened by the Iroquois orator Canarsatego, who assured the governor that the Delawares had misbehaved in continuing their claim and refusing to remove from land on the Delaware river, notwithstanding their ancestors had sold and deeded it for a valuable consideration to the Proprietors upwards of fifty years ago. The speaker condemned the Dela- wares as unruly people, that they should be chastised and in future quit the lands already sold to the English. The Delawares were given no opportunity to defend themselves, and sullenly withdrew to brood over the insult received and the wrongs they contended that had been perpetrated on them.
The agent of the English, who consummated plans for the welfare of the province of Pennsylvania, was Conrad Weiser, whose full name was John Conrad Weiser. He was the son of John Conrad and Anna Magdalena (Ultele) Weiser. The Weiser family for generations resided at Gross-Aspach, County of Backnang, Duchy of Württemberg, Germany, where father and son had held the office of "Schuldheisz," or chief magistrate. The younger Weiser was born November 2, 1696, and accompanied his father when the latter in 1709 emigrated with his family to America, locating in the province of New York. Four years later, when Conrad was only seventeen years of age, he paid a visit to the Six Nations, with whom he remained eight months and became familiar with their language and habits. As early as 1721 Conrad Weiser had taken a conspicuous place in provincial affairs, and for some ten years he stood between the Indians and English. He removed to Penn- sylvania in 1729, locating at Tulpehocken, one-half mile cast of Womelsdorf. His appointment as the official interpreter of Pennsylvania and head of its Indian Bureau took place in 1732. In discharge of his duties of that office he arranged and satisfied many important treaties with the Indians. In 1742 he was commissioned as a justice of peace for Lancaster county, and after
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the erection of Bucks county in 1752, was the first judge of its courts, a posi- tion he held until his death, July 13, 1760.
At the breaking out of the French and Indian war the necessity of an Indian alliance became apparent. The French had already secured the aid of the Shawnees, while Sir William Johnson had gained the assistance of the Mohawks. The other tribes of the Six Nations and the Delawares were still wavering in their alliance. There was a deadly hatred and enmity between the Delawares and the Cayugas, Onondagas and Oneidas, and no one knew better than Conrad Weiser that the existing differences must be placated. Both contending forces respected and trusted him; he knew the weakness of the Delawares, a conquered nation, and the strength of the Six Nations; that the forthcoming strife between the English and French must take place in the territory commanded by the Iroquois, and without their assistance the result would be unfavorable to the English. Weiser was not blind to the fact that an alliance with the Six Nations would breed hostility of the Dela- wares that would lead to death and destruction to the white settlers of Pennsylvania. Therefore, with his vast knowledge and experience, he was instrumental in obtaining the great treaty at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, by which the Six Nations won and the Delawares thrown over and lost.
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