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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 N ^ N X ^ :\viD ZEfSBERGER BK .e CRETHREN ^ ^ v> \ R'^V. ^^ \' H . RICE, 1 HURCH, ONADKNHUTTKN, OHia •K N ^ f M?Af« '^>f^ Ceia€«rii» I «:V '■;'■•?■;. ^r- <■■., T ■^ ) 1^ AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 25 ) " French and Indian War " put an end to the promis- ing work of evangelization which he had been permitted to begin at Onondaga as a centre. When, after an in- terval of comparative inactivity on account of the war, he resumed his life-work as a missionary among the Indians, he took up his work among the Delaware In- dians of Pennsylvania and Ohio. As a proof, however, that the zeal of the Mission Board at Bethlehem was unabated, on the very eve of the outbreak of Indian hostilities, the fact is cited that a Missionary Conference was held at Bethlehem (after the defeat of the English under Braddock at Fort Duquesne in July, and just about the time, in September, of the defeat of the French, under Dieskau, near Lake George), which was attended by sixteen missionary brethren and eighteen missionary sisters, who made hopeful reports of their operations. But war in all its horrors put an end, for seven years, to active missionary operations in their chosen field, in which the Lord had blessed them with many gracious ingatherings of souls. Seven years of war were seven years of enforced cessation from active gospel work among the Indians. Zeisberger was frequently employed to facilitate the establishment of peace relations, by treaty, with the various Indian nations. Soon after the close of hostilities, in May, 1763, Zeisberger gave joyous and eager response to a call which came to him from the Indian settlement of Machiwihilusing (in what is now Bradford County, Pennsylvania, some two miles below the present Wya- 26 DAVID ZEISBERGER 11 ' III lusing, on the Susquehanna) to preach to them. Afoot, with Anthony, a Delaware Indian convert, as his companion, Zeisberger left Bethlehem to resume once again his apostolic life-work. For two days, amid drenching rain, in the pathless forests and swamps of the Broad Mountain, in what is now Monroe County, these two messengers of Jesus crept for miles on hands and feet, beneath and between laurel -bushes whose tangled mazes made walking impossible. Their only guide was l pocket-compass. After two days they struck the trail to Wyoming. They reached Machi- wihilusing after more than seven days, on the evening of May 23. Although thoroughly exhausted by the toil of the journey, Zeisberger at once began to preach the gospel. " The Indians flocked from every side " to hear his blessed message. Next morning, after a short night-rest, the work was resumed, and for three days he preached Christ with great power. A deep impres- sion was made upon the hearts of his hearers. Tears rolled down their cheeks and their whole frames were convulsed with emotion as they listened to the preached word. The Mission Board appointed him as resident missionary, at the request of the Indians of Machiwihi- lusing. Once again he was in his element, preaching to his beloved Indians, calling them to repentance and explaining to them free grace in Christ Jesus. He taught the converts to sing the hymns which he transla- ted into their native Delaware Indian tongue. The visiting Quaker evangelist, John Woolman, attended his services and prayed that " the great work " AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 97 which Zeisberger had undertaken might be crowned with success. One day their foremost " prophet," Pa- punhank, who had been converted by Zeisberger's preaching, was to be baptized. All the town came to- gether in solemn assembly. After singing a hymn in the Delaware language, he preached on Baptism. He then examined Papunhank, the candiuale for bap- tism, as to his faith and experience. After answering the questions addressed to him, Papunhank added this voluntary confession : " The Saviour has made me feel my misery and my utterly depraved state. I used to preach to you ; I imagined myself a good man ; I did not know that I was the greatest sinner among you all. Brothers, forgive and forget everything I have said or done." The " prophet " was then baptized by Zeis- berger, receiving the name John. Rev. John Hecke- welder, in his Manuscript Biographical sketch, says, " Had Zeisberger inherited a kingdom, his joy would not have been as great as it was over the conversion of the Indian ' prophet,' the first one whom he brought into the church of Christ." At an afternoon service of the same day a second Indian convert was baptized, receiving the name Peter. Thereupon Zeisberger joy- fully exclaimed, " Now my heart is light ; before it was heavy, so heavy that I could scarcely endure it !" An awakening in a neighboring Indian town engaged his labors for the next three days. But the outbreak of Pontiac's War cut short this renewal of his mission- ary work and compelled his speedy return to Bethle- hem, 28 DAVID ZEISBERGER liiii Now came a time of terrible ordeal for the Indian Christians and their Moravian pastors. The govern- ment of the Pennsylvania colony under the stress of public sentiment ordered the transfer to Philadelphia, as prisoners of war, of all the Indian converts, men, women, and children, who had fled the wilderness and had sought refuge within the Moravian settlements of Bethlehem and Nazareth in Northampton County. On tiieir first arrival in Philadelphia they almost became the victims of the murderous violence of a mob. Or- dered to be led to New York city, they were halted on their toilsome march through New Jersey and turned back again to Philadelphia, where for sixteen months these Indian Christians were imprisoned. In that time nearly one-half their number died of small-pox. Dur- ing this time of captivity, Zeisberger and his colaborers, Grube and Schmick with their wives, shepherded the persecuted sheep of the wilderness in a way worthy of the followers of the Good Shepherd, sharing in all their perils and ministering to them in all their distresses. In the spring of 1765, like a flock of partridges that have been cooped up in the winter-quarters of a farmer's barn-yard and are set free, this company of the " chil- dren of the forest " were allowed to return to their forest home, Machiwihilusing on the Susquehanna. Rev. John Heckewelder, the young assistant of Zeisberger in the leadership of the Indian Christians, says that when they went out to the chase or fished in the river, when they roamed the woods gathering roots and herbs, the game they found, the fish they caught, and every REV. JOHN HKCKF.WEI.nKR. f lit I in AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 29 product of the ground seemed to them as specially given by the hand of Providence. With praiseful song men, women, and children busily engaged in building a town. " Behold," says Zeisberger, " this is making a right use of their liberty. Beginning their work in this way, God will abundantly bless them. Under these circumstances it is a joy to work among the Indians." The new town on the Susquehanna, to which the Mission Board gave the name Friedenshuetten (Tents of Peace), is thus described. It had twenty-nine log- houses with windows and chimneys, like the home- steads of white settlers, and thirteen huts. These were built along one street, in the centre of which stood the church, thirty-two feet by twenty-four, with shingled roof, and a wing used as a schoolhouse. The mis- sionaries' house stood opposite the church, on the left- hand side of the street. Each house-lot had a frontage of thirty-two feet. A ten-feet-wide alley ran between every two lots. Gardens and orchards stocked with vegetables and fruit-trees lay to the rear of the home- steads. A post and rail fence inclosed the town. In sum- mer time the street and alleys were kept scrupulously clean by a company of women, who swept them with wooden brooms and removed the rubbish. Two hundred and fifty acres of meadow and farm land, between the town and the river, were inclosed with two miles of fencing. A canoe for each household was tied at the river bank. Hundreds of cattle and hogs, and poultry of every kind, were raised in abund- 3o DAVID ZEISBERGER I ance. More time was given to farming than to hunt- ing, and plentiful crops were raised. Corn, maple- sugar, butter, and pork, together with canoes of white pine, were sold to the white settlers and to visiting In- dians. But greater than the material prosperity was the spiritual blessing which rested upon the Indian church in the wilderness. The first baptism of an Indian con- vert, in October of the first year, marked the beginning of a great revival. Visiting Indians, who came from near and from far — Mohawks, Cayugas, Senecas, Onon- dagas, Mohicans, Wampanoags, Delawares, Tutelas, Tuscarora;' and Nanticokes — heard the story of Jesus. Zeisberger wrote : " For several months a great revival has been prevailing among the Indians who visit us. All who attend our services are deeply impressed and listen as though they never had enough of the message of a Saviour. Often while I am preaching the power of the gospel message makes them tremble with emo- tion and shake with fear, until they almost lose con- sciousness and seem about to faint. This shows with what violence the powers of evil within them oppose the work of the Cross. As a rule when such a paroxysm is over they weep in silence. We have many candi- dates for baptism. Anthony, our native helper, enjoys the particular esteem of his unconverted countrymen, and he sets forth the Saviour's love with such feeling that not infrequently his hearers burst into tears, and he is constrained to weep with them." Without waiting for the inevitable crisis — which AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 3t came in 1772— when the land upon which this Christian community was located should be sold to the white settler, the Mission Board sent Zeisberger, who had come to be the recognized leader in all missionary work among the Indians, on a journey of exploration to the western part of the Pennsylvania colony. " Intelligence reached us that there were Indians living on the Alle- gheny River who desired to hear the gospel." The purpose of this perilous journey was to find out "wheth- er anything could there be accomplished for the Sa- viour." Zeisberger set out with the helpers, Anthony and Papunhank, as his companions, on foot, with one pack- horse, in September, 1767. From Friedenshuetten they made their way by canoe and on foot through the al- most impenetrable wilderness of northern and north- western Pennsylvania, where doubtless no white man had ever travelled, to the head waters of the Allegheny River, in what is now Potter County. Cii their journey they came to the lodge of a Seneca vl.icf. "Whither is the pale-face going?" " To Gosch- goschiink " [a Monsey Indian town on the Allegheny, near the mouth of Tiones'a Creek, in what is now Ve- nango County]. " Why ..es the pale-face come on so unknown a road ? This i^ no ro?.d for white people, and no white man has come this trail before." " Sen- eca, the business that <:alls me among the Indians is very different fiom that of other white people, and hence the roads 1 travel are different too. I am here to bring tli- Inuians good and great words." For two 32 DAVID ZEISBERGER 1 'i l, \ El i ll'-] hours the host and his guest kept up a cross-fire of at- tack and defence of the missionary's purpose. At length he demanded his guest's name. Zeisberger's response, " I am Ganousseracheri," acted Hke a charm. The chiefs stern face relaxed, breaking out into smiles. He grasped his guest's hand, called him his brother, said he had often heard of him, and begged him to ex- cuse his cold reception of him. He warned Zeisberger, '* The Indians of Goschgoschiink will not hesitate to murder you." But nothing could keep tiie intrepid messenger of the cross from continuing his journey to its destination. He reached it on the i6th of October. Of the effects of his first preaching service, on his arrival, he says, " Never before have I seen both the darkness of hell and the invincible power of the gospel so clearly depicted in the faces of Indians." After a stay of seven days, during which Zeisberger secured permission to establish a permanent mission at this point — a matter which was only settled favorably after a fierce conflict with the Indian " prophet" Wangomen — he returned to report to the home Board. In June of the next year, 1768, Zeisberger and Gottlob Senseman and wife, together with three families of Indian Chris- tians, the Helpers, Anthony and Joanna, Abraham and Salome, Peter and Abigail, arrived on the Allegheny to begin the new mission. Subsequently it was trans- ferred to a second site and finally to a third site, within what is now the " Oil Region " of Pennsylvania, in Lawrence County, on the Beaver River, between the Shenango River and Slippery Rock Creek. Amtilctii HaroM. 6 AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 33 The missionaries encountered the fierce opposition of heathen Indians in their attempts to Christianize those who came to hear the gospel. Twice did Provi- dence prevent the carrying out of a plot deliberately laid to murder Zeisberger, " the man in a black coat," who wrote at this time in his Diary : " They will cer- tainly not succeed, for He that is with us is stronger than they." The most signal triumph in these years of hard campaigning under the banner of the cross, in the Allegheny region, was the conversion of the elo- quent Indian warrior, Glikkikan, who had never yet met his equal among whites or Indians. He came to the mission to confound the heralds of Christ, but like Saul at Damascus was himself confounded. His conversion marked the turning of the tide in favor of the mission. A revival broke out at the new mission station, named Friedenstadt (City of Peace). In the house of Abraham, the Helper, inquiry meetings were held every evening, sometimes lasting until midnight. Even the children were impressed and talked of Jesus. Among the converts who were baptized was Glik- kikan, who received the name Isaac. Zeisberger says of him that he was the wisest counsellor and bravest captain of his Chief, and that when the latter reproached him for having gone over to the missionaries, saying, " In good time you will discover how miserably you have been deceived," Isaac Glikkikan replied, " You are right ; I have joined the Moravians. Where they go, I will go ; where they lodge, I will lodge ; nothing shall separate me from them. Their people shall be mv .~ 11 '•' 34 DAVID ZEISBERGER m m , my people, and their God my God." One day after listening to a sermon on sin and grace, Glikkikan, deeply moved, walked to his hut through the village sobbing aloud. " This is wonderful," writes Zeisberger ; " a proud war-captain sheds tears in the presence of his former associates. Thus the Saviour by His word breaks the hard hearts and humbles the pride of the Indians." .■)0 complete was the triumph of the gospel over its enfj!iies that on their own proposal Zeisberger was adopted into the Monsey tribe of Indians, and the religion of Jesus was recognized as that of a majority of the tribe. In March, 1771, an urgent invitation from the Grand Council of the Delaware Nation led Zeisber- ger to visit their capital situated in what is now Ox- ford township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Here he was entertained as the guest of the head-Chief Net- awatwes. It was his first visit to Ohio, the theatre of his most successful missionary activity and of his most appalling trials during the next thirty-seven years of his career. He was just fifty years old when he first came to the Western territory. In accordance with Zeisberger's recommendation, on his return, the Foreign Mission Board determined to accept the formal invitation of the Grand Council of the Delawares. It was resolved that the entire body of Indian converts (at Friedenshuetten on the Susquehanna and at Friedenstadt in the Allegheny region) be removed to a new settlement to be begun in AND HIS BROWN BRETHRExN. 35 what is now northern Ohio, in the Tuscarawas Val- ley. In the valley of the Muskingum River, in what is now Tuscarawas County, near the " Beautiful Spring " pointed out to them by Chief Netawatwes, who made them a grant of land in its immediate vicinity, the first settlement was begun by Zeisberger and Heckewelder in the spring of 1772. He gave it the name Sch6n- Brunn, the German for the Indian name which signified Beautiful Spring. In the course of a few years this had grown into a cluster of Christian communities: Gnadcnhuetten (Tents of Grace), Lichtenau (Meadow of Light), New Schon-Brunn, and Salem. Here were dwelling in peace and plenty hundreds of Indian converts and their families, and a corps of devoted missionary Brethren and Sisters who labored under the superin- tendency of Zeisberger, Rev. John Heckewelder and wife. Rev. Gottlob Senseman and wife, Rev. John G. Jungmann and wife. Rev. John Roth and wifb. Rev. John J. Schmick and wife, Rev. Michael Jung, and Rev. William Edwards, and at a later time Rev. Ben- jamin Mortimer and Rev. Abraham Luckenbach. So complete was the success which crowned these gospel labors, and so commanding became the personal influence of Zeisberger, that just before the breaking out of the War of the Revolution the Grand Council 01 the Delawares solemnly adopted an edict of which the following is the principal part: '• Liberty is given the Christian religion, which the 11 36 DAVID ZEISBERGER U i Council advises the entire nation to adopt. The Chris- tian Indians are on an entire equality with the Dela- wares, all constituting together one nation. Christian Indians have like property rights in the nation's lands with the rest of the nation. Only converts may settle near the towns of the Christian Indians." The following statutes for the government of his Indian communities were drawn uj> by Zeisberger, and in accordance with them were all their affairs regu- lated : " We will know no other God but the one only true God, who made us and all creatures, and came into this world in order to save sinners ; to him alone we pray. We will rest from work on the Lord's day, and attend pubUc service. We will honor father and mother, and when they grow old and needy we will do for them what we can. " No one shall have leave to dwell with us until our Pastors have given their consent, after due examination by the Helpers. We will have nothing to do with thieves, murderers, whoremongers, adulterers, or drunkards. We will not take part in dances, sacrifices, heathenish festivals or games. We will use no witchcraft in hunt- ing. "We will obey our Pastors and the Helpers ap- pointed to preserve order in our public services, and in the towns and in the fields. We will not be idle, nor scold, nor beat one another, nor tell lies. Whosoever injures the property of his neighbor shall make restitu- tion. r r c c t ii wl AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 37 " A man shall have but one wife, shall love her and shall provide for her and for his children. A womar shall have but one husband, shall obey him, care for her children, and be cleanly in all things. Young persons shall not marry without the consent of their parents and their pastor. " We will not admit rum or any other intoxicating liquor into our towns. If strangers or traders shall bring intoxicating liquors, our Helpers shall take it from them and not restore it until the owners are ready to leave the place. ** No one shall contract debts with traders or receive goods to sell for traders, without the consent of the Helpers. Whoever goes on a hunt or journey must give due notice to the Pastors or Stewards. When- ever the Stewards or Helpers appoint a time to make fences or to do other work for the common good, we will assist and do our part. Whenever corn is needed to entertain strangers, or sugar for lovefeasts, we will freely contribute from our supply. We will not go to war and will not buy booty taken in war." The government of these towns was administered by the Missionaries and the Helpers, who constituted a municipal Council. Whenever the question of re- moval came up after the dispersion in 1781, the de- cision was always left to the vote of the people. Agri- culture and stock-raising were what mainly employed these communities of Indian converts, although hunt- ing was not given up altogether. The material and spiritual prosperity of this re- 3^ DAVID ZEISBERGER markable cluster of Indian towns in the valley of the Tuscarawas, under the superintendency of Zeisberger and his devoted assistants, excited the wondering admi- ration alike of the white man and of the red man. Many came long distances to visit these habitations of peace and plenty upon which rested the smile of God. The church at Schon-Brunn, the oldest settlement, had room for five hundred hearers, yet it often proved too small to hold the people who crowded to hear the gospel message. * Among the converts were many chiefs of the vari- ous tribes of the Delaware Nation, together with Mohicans, Nanticokes, Shawanese, and others, who constituted a part of the abundant ingathering of this most prosperous Indian mission. On Easter morning, 1774, Zeisberger led the people in the praying of the beautiful Easter Morning Litany of the Moravian Church, which he had translated into the Delaware Indian language. The six years from 177 1 to 1776 mark the time of Zeisberger's greatest success in his life-work of evangel- izing the Indians. It can be said with truth that no man has ever reached an equal degree of success in evangelizing the American red man. With the beginning of the American Revolution began the troublous years of Zeisberger's missionary work, culminating, in 1781, in the destruction of the fair fabric of Christian Indian civilization in the Tuscarawas Valley and the dispersion of his Indian church. There- after for more than twenty years he shepherded his AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 39 little flock of" brown brethren " in the face of appalling perils, and amid fearful privations, in its wanderings hither and thither in the wilderness, until, within ten years of his death, he was recalled to the Tuscarawas Valley. The flourishing- settlements in northern Ohio were about half-way between the American and British fron- tier lines, with the American headquarters for all that Western territory at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), and the British at Fort Detroit. As an apostle of peace Zeis- berger was helpless in the face of these bitter antago- nists, and was open to assault from either as the sup- posed favorer of the other. The Indians among whom he was laboring were the objects of rival diplomacies and plottings, that they might be secured as allies of the one against the other. It is easily understood that at such a time of war and intrigue the work of the mis- sionary must either cease for the time being or be an- nihilated. The crisis came in the summer of 1781 when the emissaries of the British commandant at Detroit ap- peared at Schon-Brunn, in the month of August, with three hundred Indian warriors, under the leadership of the British captain, Elliott. It had been determined that the presence of this body of neutral Indians, under the leadership of Zeisherger and his fellow-missionaries, could no longer be tolerated. To this end the order was given to remove the missionaries at any cost. This fell in with the plans of the heathen Indians, who always found in these sctdements a barrier against their ma- raudings and murderous assaults. 40 DAVID ZEISBERGER f 1 In his Diary Zeisberger describes how this was car- ried out. " They laid hands on me and Brothers Heckewelder and Seuseman, and led us away captive. They stripped us, taking away all our clothes. We were then brought to the Englishman's tent, where they gave us some old clothes, so that we were not en- tirely naked. Mrs. Senseman with her babe, only three days old, was forced to get up out of her bed at night, and together with Mrs. Zeisberger and Mrs. Jungman, all in their night-clothes, these Christian women were carried down the creek in a canoe to the rendezvous near to their imprisoned husbands. Mrs. Heckewelder, with her five-months'-old baby daughter, was undis- turbed until the following morning. After plundering the missionaries' houses and ruthlessly destroying their effects (cutting open their pillows and feather-beds, etc.), shooting their cattle and swine and poultry, they com- pelled the missionaries and their wives to set out on foot upon a toilsome march through the wilderness in the direction of Detroit." Bishop de Schweinitz, in his Life of Zeisberger, says : " It was a sad journey. Zeis- berger and his fellow-missionaries were turning their backs upon the scenes of more than eight years' indus- try (1772 to 1781), and of a Christian community never equalled in the history of missions among the American Indians. They were leaving behind rich plantations with five thousand bushels of unharvested corn, besides large quantities stored in barns ; hundreds of young cattle and swine roaming the woods ; poultry of every kind; gardens stocked with an abundance of vegeta- AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 41 bles ; three flourishing towns, each with a commodious house of worship ; all the furniture of their homes ; the implements of husbandry ; in a word, their entire prop- erty save what could be carried on pack-horses or in canoes." But more than all the material loss was the terrible blow to the prestige of the work of the mission among the Indians. Its glory was gone. The independence of the Indian Christians, as recognized in their rela- tions to the nation of Delaware Indians, and which se- cured to them Indian rights and immunities at the hands of all the other Indian clans and nations, was destroyed. Zeisberger, at the age of sixty, after having given more than thirty of these years to unremitting labors in behalf of the evangelization of the red man, saw the shipwreck of his Hfe-work. For well-nigh twenty fol- lowing years of laborious and harassing leadership he was the Moses of the remnant of the Indian Church, guiding it with all the firmness and gentleness and in- trepid devotion of the Hebrew leader, hither and thither through the wilderness of northern Ohio and southern Michigan and the adjacent parts of Canada, until, in 1798, he was pc i t^^ted, in God's good provi- dence, to return to the Tuscarawas Valley, and near to the " Beautiful Spring " and the site of Schon-Brunn, to found his last Indian settlement, Goshen, in the sev- enty-eighth year of his pilgrimage. The record of these seventeen years of leadership of the Indian Church in the wilderness has been recently 111 4a DAVID ZEISBEKGER h i published by the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, in an English translation, by Eugene F. Bliss, of the German Manuscript Diary o^ '/eisberger. It tells how the news of the " ..ienhuetten Mas- sacre " was brought to the captive missionaries at their first halting station at " Captives' Town " [in what is now Antrim township, Wyandot County, Ohio], near Sandusky, in March, 1782, after their first winter in captivity. Ninety Indian Christians, men, women, and children, had returned to their former homes in the Tuscarawas Valley, in early springtime, to recover a portion of their still unharvested corn-crop. A force of American militia-men from the vicinity of Pittsburgh, under the command of Colonel Wii' ison, surprised them at their labors in the field and dered them in cold blood ! We will let Zeisberger tell the story, as he records it in his Diary under date of March 23, 1782. " To-day we have the first trustworthy news of the horrible mur- der of our Indian brethren at Gnadenhuetten and Sa- lem, March 7 and 8. Our Indian brethren (who had been driven away from the Tuscarawas towns when the missionaries were driven off and had shared the cap- tivity of their pastors) during the whole winter had suffered great hunger, for in this neighborhood nothing was to be had. Since now they heard that there was corn enough in our towns and that they had nothing to fear to go there and get it, they made ready and went away. For they saw nothing else before them, if they remained, than that they and their children must starve. t GNADENHL-TTKN, OHIO. i •' ¥ I AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 43 " We advised them at Christmas and at New Year's to go there, for as long as snow remained there was the least danger. But they did not go until the snow melted, and then it was too late and dangerous. When they were there they believed themselves quite secure. Instead of hastening to get away again, they stayed several weeks in the towns and fields, having then enough to eat. '• The militia, some 200 in number, as we hear, came first to Gnadenhuetten. Our Indians were mostly in the cornfields and saw the militia come, but no one thought of fleeing, for they suspected no ill. The militia came to them and bade them come into town and no harm should befall them. They trusted and went, but they were all bound, the men being put into one house and the women into another. The brethren began to sing hymns and spoke words of encouragement and consolation one to another, until they were all slain. The sisters soon afterwards met the same fate. Christina [a widow who had been edu- cated at Bethlehem], the Mohican (who spoke English and German fluently), fell upon her knees before the colonel and begged for life, but got for answer that he could not help her. The brethren and sisters of Salem were bound in like manner, led into town and slaugh- tered. The militia, before murdering them, had made our Indians bring out all their hidden goods, and then took them away. They had to tell the soldiers where the bees were and help get the honey out. Other things also they had to get for them before they were 44 DAVID ZEISBERGER killed. They prayed and sang until the tomahawks of the militia-men stuck in their heads. The young man Jacob (who brought the news), who was scalped and got away, said the blood flowed in streams into the cellar of the house. They burned the bodies together with the houses, which they set on fire [a day or two after the massacre]." Thus were butchered in cojd blood twenty-nine men, twenty-seven women, eleven boys, eleven girls, and twelve babes at the breast, members of the Indian church now in captivity. Zeisberger adds : " This news sank deep into our hearts, so that these our brethren and sisters, who as martyrs had all at one time gone to the Saviour, were always, day and night, before our eyes and in our thoughts, and we could not forget them. But this in some measure comforted us : that they passed into the Saviour's arms in such a resigned disposition of heart, where they will for ever rest protected from the sins and all the wants of this world." On April 8, 1782, he writes in his Diary: " Nowhere is a place to be found to which we can retire with our Indians and be secure. The world is all too narrow. From the white people, or so-called Christians, we can hope for no protection, and among the heathen we have no friends left, such outlaws are we ! But, praise be to God, the Lord our God yet lives, who will not forsake us. He will punish us if we deserve punishment, that afterwards he may be the more merciful to us." "Our Indian church," dispersed and persecuted, 111 ii' AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 45 like sheep that have no shepherd, knowing^ not whither to turn or whom to trust — prayer for them was the burden of all his petitionings. At length in July, 1782, by permission of the Detroit commandant. Major Schuyler de Peyster, Zeisberger began a settlement for the scattered remnant of the In- dian church in what is now Clinton township, Macomb County, Michigan, and named it New Gnadenhuetten. It was situated some twenty-three and a half miles from Detroit. After four years of quiet and measurable suc- cess, the peace between Great Britain and the United States seemed to open the way for the return of the veteran Missionary Superintendent and his reunited remnant of the Indian church to the Tuscarawas V1I- ley. Here Congress had made a large grant of land for the abode and the support of the Moravian Indians. But the complications with the various Indian nations in the Northwestern Territory, who refused to submit to the virtual confiscation of their land, rendered such a return inadvisable. Their Chippewa neighbors urged upon them the fact that they had been granted an asylum on their ter- ritory only until peace should be reestablished. Ac- cordingly Zeisberger determined upon a return to Ohio territory. In two sloops they were conveyed across Lake Erie, and after many " perils in the waters " and " perils in the wilderness " they were landed at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, where Cleveland is now built. " Pilgerruh," a temporary abiding-place, was built in what is now Independence township, Cuyahoga County, i; 46 DAVID ZEISBERGER Hit on the eastern bank of the river, " probably not far from the northern boundary." After only a year's sojourn at this " lodge in the wilderness," Zeisberger transferred his setdement to what is now Milan township, Erie County, Ohio, a few miles from the mouth of the Huron River. De Schwei- nitz locates the site as probably near to that of Milan. They reached the site of the new settlement in May, 1787. It bears the name of New Salem in the records of the Indian mission. Until March, 1791, this Indian settlement flourished with a degree of material and spiritual prosperity that seemed to bring back again the golden days of blessed and fruitful missionary activity on the Lehigh and the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, and in the Tuscarawas Valley before the Gnadenhuetten massacre. Many conversions attended the faithful preaching of the gospel message, Gelelemend, " the great chief of Goschgo- schiink " (the former capital of the Delaware Indians) " came like any other sinner, weeping and begging for grace at the Saviour's feet." He was baptized after months of probation, and became a faithful Helper in the church. Here the faithful Brother Schebosch entered his rest, aged sixty-eight. Identified since 1742 with the Mora- vian mission among the Indians, he had been one of Zeisberger's most trusty and efficient helpers. He says of him in his Diary, under date of Friday, September 5, 1788, the day of his burial, " He was serviceable to every man without distinction, white or Indian, at all AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 47 times ready to help when he could. He bore his cross with patience, for in this life he seldom had things easy and good. But he was never heard to complain or fret, even if things went hard with him, and he had not even enough to eat. He loved and was loved. We shalJ long miss him among us. His stay here below will re- main with us and with the Indian brethren in blessed remembrance." Of a female helper, the Indian woman Agnes, who died in peace at New Gnadenhuetten, in Michigan, 1783, who had been baptized in September, 1 751, at the station Gnadenhuetten, on the Mahoning, in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, he says : " She went through all the fatali- ties, difficulties and changes through which the Indian church passed : at the burning of the first Gnaden- huetten in 1755, then at Nain, and in imprisonment in Philadelphia; in 1765 at Friedenshuetten on the Sus- quehanna, in 1772 at Friedenstadt on the Allegheny, and thence to the Tuscarawas Valley. In the year 1 78 1, when the Indian church on the Muskingum was carried away captive, she had part in all the hardships we encountered. After 1782, when the Indian church had been altogether robbed of its missionaries, she took the first opportunity to rejoin us at New Gnadenhuetten, in Michigan, where she died in peace. She is a clear example and proof that whoever has a true heart the Saviour helps through all tribulations and upholds to the end." To " our dear old Abraham," who died a few years later, in 1791, Zeisberger pays this tribute (he was 48 DAVID ZEISBERGER ii I:. one of the fruits of the Friedenshuetten revival, on the Susquehanna, in 1765) : "By the grace of the Saviour he made himself free altogether from Indian supersti- tion and gave himself entirely to the Saviour. He proved this in his life, and through all these years to the very end he remained true to the church, and he is therefore a rare example. He was formerly one of the greatest drunkards and fighLers, so that all had to flee before him. But he had put off the old man with his works and had put on Christ who lived in him. Dur- ing all opposition, amid reproach and persecution from the savages, he freely acknowledged Christ and praised him as the Redeemer and only Saviour of the heathen. He often ended his exhortations to the savages with these words : * Now, my friends, I have told you how you will be happy and can attain to eternal life. I have also told you what you have to expect in case you do not receive it. I have spoken everything which one must know who wishes to be saved. It is a comfort to me to have had this opportunity of saying this to you, so that you cannot on that day accuse me, We were with the believers, but they told us nothing of this.' He filled the office of Overseer in the Indian church for many years unweariedly, in perfect fidelity day and night. He went through much suffering and hardship with the Indian church. In his last illness he said that if it were the Saviour's will that he should depart it was well. He should go to him with joy as a poor sinner, who had nothing good to show but only Jesus' blood and righteousness. He was conscious to the last. AmtricftD HeroM. AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 49 When the Lord's blessing had been imparted to him, he said, * Now I am happy.' We have had but one Abraham. We shall miss him, but we do not begrudge him his blessed call to rest in Jesus' wounds. Wt thank the Saviour for lending him to us so many years. May he be pleased further to think of us and to send us more such true helpers, supplying them with grace, courage, and strength to his praise." Of William, a national Helper, who died in 1791, Zeisberger records : "In his youth he was much with the late Sir William Johnson, whose interpreter he was at the treaties. He was honored by the Indians and by the whites r.s a man of consequence. He joined the church at Friedenshuetten in 1770, and at once formed the resolution to live all his life in the church and to say good-night to the world, Indian councils, the chiefs and their affairs. He kept this resolution to the end. He came to Ohio in '72 and soon became a national Helper and our interpreter, for which he had a fine talent. He had a fine gift, when preaching Christ to the heathen Indians, to make them understand plainly, after the In- dian way and manner of speech, what served for their salvation ; and his words found acceptance, for he was loved and respected by all in and out of the church. His intercourse with the brethren was upright, straightfor- ward, and for their blessing and edification. As often as we had to treat with the chiefs about our affairs v e always employed him, for we could depend upon it that our purpose would be attained. More than others he had a successful hand in such transactions. He con- 5° DAVID ZEISBERGER .:it-li: sidered well what he had to accomplish, and he knew well the manners and customs of the chiefs, and the Saviour was with him. The last business of this sort which he undertook was to take back the hatchet sent to our Christian Indians from Fort Wayne (Gigeyunk) summoning them to war. He did not want to go, but went from obedience ; for he was not well, and the mat- ter was unpleasant to him. But in this affair also he was so successful that since that time we have had no further trouble about this. He came back from his errand to Fort Wayne so sick that he was scarcely able to give an account of his journey and what he had done. He said to Brother Samuel, who was also sick, ' We cannot know which of us two will first go to the Saviour, you or I. If you go first, be assured that I will remain faithful to the Saviour ; if I go before you, do thou remain faithful, so that we may see each other again.' He fell asleep calmly and happily, conscious to the last." Rich fruitage of the veteran missionary's life-labor ! Happy indeed amid all the countless trials and poign- ant sorrows that clouded his career, in the triumph of the Saviour's grace over the powers of darkness, in the salvation of hundreds and thousands of precious souls. In the midst of the fruitful activity of the settlement at New Salem came the " foreboding " of another en. forced pilgrimage. The warlike relations of the ne»v Government with the Indians of that Western terntory made it no longer safe for the Indian church, /^gain the mournful plaint finds a place in his Diary : " The k AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. SI world, which yet is large and contains land enough, will soon be too small for them, a handful of believing Indians, who because they believe in Jesus Christ are despised, of whom the world is unworthy." " We have had an inkling for some time that we must soon again take the pilgrim's staff, after dwelling here for four years," he writes under date of Wednes- day, January 12, 1791. They had been four fruitful years in another important respect. Zeisberger found leisure to prepare a translation into the Delaware lan- guage of the " Harmony of the Four Gospels," and a hymn-book in the same language. Time for the estab- lishment and conduct of schools was also given, and three schools were kept with a hundred pupils, chil- dren and adults, who were anxious to leam to read and write. On Sunday, April 10, 1791, the day before the sev- entieth anniversary of his birth, Zeisberger preached the farewell sermon preparatory to the breaking up of the settlement. The removal began next day, and by Thursday, the 14th, the last canoes left, carrying with them the patriarchal Zeisberger and the rear-guard of twenty helpers. Again did the hostilities between the American Government and the Indians compel the sorely dis- tressed Indian church, under the guidance of Zeisber- ger, to seek an asylum under the British flag. Their pilgrimage led them to a temporary halting- place or " night-lodge " near the mouth of the Detroit River, on the Canada side, near the present Amherst- ir 52 DAVID ZEISBERGER burg, where they established themselves for one year. In May, 1792, they took up their abode in Oxford township, Canada West, on the River Thames. Here Zeisberger founded the settlement of Fairfield, upon a tract of land granted them by the British Government, twelve miles long and six miles broad. The new set- tlement soon grew to be a flourishing town with forty houses, regularly built, a church, and parsonages for Zeisberger and his fellow -laborers. Brother and Sister Gottlob Senseman, and the Brethren Edwards and Jung. Here he labored in the gospel for six years among his beloved "brown brethren," until August, 1798. In that year the Mission Board commissioned Hecke- welder and Edwards to lead a colony of converts back to the Tuscarawas Valley, where a new Indian settle- ment, named Goshen, was founded. Hither the vener- able and apostolic Zeisberger was called to spend the last years of his long life of labor for the salvation of the red man. Here at Goshen, on November 17, 1808, he entered on his eternal rest, in his 88th year. John Heckewelder, next to Zeisberger the most il- lustrious name in the annals of Moravian missionary labor among the Indians, gives us this picture of one with whom he was associated in these labors for many years, and whom he loved as" Brother David." " Zeisberger was endowed with a good understand- ing and a sound judgment ; a friend and benefactor to all men, and justly beloved by all who knew him, with perhaps the exception of those who were enemies of the gospel which he preached. Pi I AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 53 I " As the result of the peculiar circumstances of his life, we note his reticence. He undertook many soli- tary journeys, and in the first half of his life he lived at places where there either was no society or such as was not congenial. Hence he withdrew within himself and lived in close communion with his unseen but ever- present heavenly Friend. " In the formation of his judgments he was very thorough, not impulsive. He did not suffer himself to be carried away by outside influences. He gave ex- pression to his opinion only after he had come to a positive and settled conclusion in his own mind. Experience usually proved the correctness of his judgment. To this his fellow-missionaries all bear witness. " Receiving as it were a glimpse of the future through the deep thoughts and silent prayers in which he was engaged, he stood up, on most occasions, full of confidence and knew no fear. Amid distressing and perilous circumstances his fellow-missionaries and his Indian converts invariably looked to him. His cour- age, his fearless readiness to act, his comforting words, cheered them all. " Brother Zeisberger would never consent to have his name put down on a salary-hst, or become a ' hire- ling,' as he termed it. He said that although a salary might be both agreeable and proper for some missiona- ries, yet in his case it would neither be the one nor the other; that he had devoted himself to the service of the Lord among the heathen without any view of a 54 DAVID ZEISBERGER reward other than such as his Lord and Master might deign to bestow upon him." Benjamin Mortimer, his youthful associate in the last years of his service, says : " Father Zeisberger was fully persuaded that from his earliest youth God had called him to preach the gospel to the heathen. In this assurance he gave up all the vanities of a worldly life, the comfort and ease so highly esteemed among men, and took up his life-work in the assured faith that the Lord would grant his blessing and help. With joy- ousness of spirit he stood up courageously in the face of reproach and scorn, persecutions and threatenings ; he gladly took up his daily task, enduring hunger and varied perils, assured of victory over every foe, in the attainment of his one great object, the winning of souls from heathendom for Christ. Great were his zeal and his perseverance in all the long years of his faithful service. " He was never happier than when assured that the souls to whom he preached the gospel had sought and found the forgiveness of their sins and could rejoice in Jesus as their Saviour. To win one soul for Christ, and help it to come into the blessed experience of par- don, was more to him than to hp <_ g d the whole world. It is impossible to ' > adequately the joy he always manifested wh iome wan< .ing sinner would return in penitence and find iiis way back again to the fold of the Shepherd. " His record of missionary service among thelndi .ns in the eighteenth century is unequalled. For sixty years, f AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 55 r' amid many and varied trials, he preached the gospel among them. During^ the last forty of these years he was not absent from his post, at any one time, for a period of six months. Only three times in the same period was he a visitor in the home churches. The last visit of this sort he made almost thirty years before his death. " With his boldness in God, and fearlessness in the face of the greatest perils, he combined to a rare degree meekness of spirit and a lowly mind. He was a trans- parently unselfish man, who never thought highly of himself. He was a prudent man, who, although con- stantly exposed upon his incessant journeyings and wanderings in the wilderness, never sacrificed his health needlessly. He never used intoxicating liquors as a beverage. " In all the work of his ministry he never lost sight of the fact that he was contending with the prince ol the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, but he ever remembered that he had God on his side to secure to him the victory. And indeed he did overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony, and loved not his life unto death." A few days before his departure, as he lay upon his dying bed, the saintly man gave this testimony : " As my weakness is continually increasing, I believe that the Saviour intends to take me to himself. During the many sleepless hours of the past days and nights, I have been going over all my past life, with the Saviour, mmmm 56 DAVID ZEISBERGER and have lound so much occasion to ask his forgive- ness that nothing else was left me. I know I am his. I trust in his blood, which covers all my sins. He is mine. His meritorious sacrifice avails for me. " Some of our brethren and sisters depart with great joyousness of heart. This is not so in my case. I can only depart as a poor sinner. God will take unto him- self my spirit. This I know. The sinful part I leave behind." This was modestly spoken, but with greatest assur- ance of faith in the Lord his Redeemer. In the library of Harvard University, in a case pro- vided for this special purpose by the donor, Edward Everett, under lock and key, are preserved fourteen Zeisbeigcr manuscripts, including a dictionary of the Delaware Indian language, a grammar, a " Harmony of the Four Gospels," a hymn book, a volume of Litanies and Liturgies, of sermons to children, all in the Delaware Indian language. Other manuscripts are de- posited in the library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, the property of the American Moravian Church, whose own archives contain many more equally valuable manuscripts and records of t^e labors of Zeisberger. These literary remains are an illustrious memorial of the patient scholarship of the rran who forgot self in his indefatigable service of the despised American Indian. But more glorious and imperishable memorials of the endurance and unswerving devotion of David Zeis- berger to his call as a herald of the Saviour's cross to i ) i ■I AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. 57 the Indians of America are garnered in the upper sanctuary— the host of precious souls that he was per- mitted to lead out of the darkness of heathendom into the light of salvation through Christ. Side by side in the old Goshen graveyard rest the bodies of the brother missionaries, Zeisberger and Ed- wards. A granite block marks each grave within the enclosure. Edwards died in 1801. It was on Sunday, Novem- ber 20, 1 808, when they laid the body of Zeisberger to its grave-rest amid the scenes of his greatest triumphs and sorest trials. On the granite block which marks his grave is a plain white marble slab, the simple inscription upon which tells the story of Zeisberger's heroic devotion : DAVID ZEISBERGER, BORN APRIL II, 1 72 1, IN MORAVIA; DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOVEMBER 1 7, 1808 ; AGED 87 YEARS, 7 MONTHS, 6 DAYS. THIS FAITHFUL SERVANT OF THE LORD LABORED AMONG THE AMERICAN INDIANS AS A MIS- SIONARY DURING THE LAST SIXTY YEARS OF HIS LIFE. 58 DAVID ZEISBERGER Rl 'i ■.li THE MARTYRS MASSACRED ON FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 12, 1782. " TAe annals of the Morainan Church link in the same chain of sorro'ivs and calamities the burning of fohn litis at Constance (1415) and the murder of the hapless Christian Indians at Gradenhiltten on the Muskingum."— Vi. D. HoWELLs /« ^' Three Villages." The names of the men, women, and children who met death as Christian martyrs, on the spot marked by the monument, are preserved in the record of baptisms in the archives of the Moravian Brethren's Church. Pi-'^e of the men were Elders of the congregation. The most prominent of the Elders was Isaac Glikki- kan (v. pp. 33, 34). Since his conversion in 1770, during the revival that winter on the Beaver River in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, he had approved himself a church member conspicuous for fidelity and prudence. In time of danger he had always been ready and fearless in his devotion to the Missionaries, in whose defence he was ever ready to lay down his life, if necessary. After twelve years of steadfast discipleship he sealed his faith in Jesus as a member of this Church in the wilderness, with a martyr's glorious death, at the massacre. Samuel Moore was another Elder. He had been a member, in his youth, of the Missionary David Brainerd's congre- gation in New Jersey. After Brainerd's death he joined our Moravian Indian congregation at Friedens- hiitten on the Susquehanna. Samuel received his education from Brainerd. He could read and under- stand the English language so well that for many years he was our interpreter of the sermons preached. Tobias, another former member of Brainerd's Indian congregation, and Jonas were both Elders, who lived ~.J»UUJ»Jn.-W»».-.,^ AND HIS DROWN BRETHREN. 59 most consistent Christian lives. Another Elder and interpreter was John Martin. He was always marked for his exemplary conduct as a true disciple of Jesus. He and his two sons, Paul, a young man, and An- thony, a mere lad, died as martyrs at the massacre. Two of these Elders were fifty years old; the other three Elders were over sixty years of age. Many of the massacred brethren and sisters were the children of Christian parents who had been con- verts of the Moravian Indian congregation in Penn- sylvania in 1763 and 1764 and earlier. Children and grandchildren, born in Ohio, died the death of martyrdom. Heckewelder adds: "The loving chil- dren! who had so harmoniously raised their voices in the church, at school, and in their parents' houses in singing praises to the Saviour. Their tender years, innocent countenances, and tears made no impression on these white Christians. The children (together with twelve babes at the breast) were all butchered with the rest." The roll of the names of the martyrs: Isaac Glik- kikan and his wife Anna Benigna; Jonas and his wife Amelia; Samuel Moore; Tobias; John Martin and his sons, Paul and Anthony; Christian and his wife Augustina; Adam and his wife Cornelia; Henry, his wife Joanna Salome, and their two sons, mere lads, Benjamin and Gottlieb; Luke and his wife Lucia; Philip, his wife Lorel, and their little daughter Sarah; Lewis and his wife Ruth; Nicholas and his wife Jo- anna Sabina; Israel, a former war-captain; Abra- ham, the aged Mohican, the first one of the brethren to be massacred; Joseph Sheborsh, son of the Mis- sionary Sheborsh, a white man; Mark and his little daughter ]\Iaria Elizabeth; Hannah, wife of Joseph; Judith, an aged widow, the first one of the sisters led forth to be massacred; the venerable Christiana, a woman of refinement, educated at Bethlehem, Pa., who spoke English and German fluently; John; 6o DAVID ZEISBERGER 8! ■■■' Mary and her little daughter Hannah; Abel, who survived his scalping and was killed when trying to escape; Henry; John; Michael; Peter; Gottlob; David; Rebecca; Rachel; Maria Susanna; Anna and Bathsheba, aged respectively fifteen and eighteen (daughters of the Elder Joshua, the Mohican, v/ho brought the first news of the massacre to Captives' Town, to Zeisberger and Heckewelder) ; Julianna; Elizabeth; Martha; AnnaRosina; Salome. The names of the other boys and girls who have a place on this roll are: Christiana; Leah; Benigna; Christine; Gertrude; Anna Christina; Anna Salome; Joseph; Christian; Mark; Jonathan; Christian Gottlieb; Jonah; Timothy. Five or six unbaptized adult Indians also met death in the massacre. Two lads, Thomas and Jacob, got away. They were scalped with the rest of the men and boys, but not killed. Thomas revived toward evening. So did Abel, who was in the act of getting up when a militiaman happened to come into the cooper-shop to look at the bodies of the massacred. Spying Abel, as he lifted up his scalpless head, the militiaman des- patched him. Thomas kept still until it grew dark. Then he crept from out the mass of dead bodies, and escaped to the woods. The other lad, Jacob, although scalped, had strength enough left to slip through a trap-door into the cellar of the slaughter- house. Here the blood of the massacred streamed upon him through the floor. He squeezed through a narrow cellar-window and hid himself in the near hazel-bushes until nightfall. In the darkness he, too, escaped to the woods. The two sons of John Martin, Paul and Anthony, managed to get out of the house, but they were shot down and scalped by the sentinels. The men from the Pennsylvania border who mas- sacred these people made their appearance at Gna- denhiitten on March 7, 1782, the day our Christian AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. tfx Indians were bundling up their packs intending to set olf the next morning on their five or six days' journey westward to Captives' Town. The bretliren and sisters, with the young people and the children, were in the river-bottom opposite the town on this (the eastern) side of the Tuscarawas [Muskingum] River, gathering and husking the corn, left unhar- vested since the previous September, when they and the missionaries were led away into the barren wilder- ness in what is now Wyandot County. During the in- tervening months of the fall and winter they had al- most perished from starvation. Many of the infant children had died. In her autobiography Sister Zeis- berger writes of this terrible winter: "Many a time the Indian sisters shared their last morsel with me. Frequently for eight days in succession I had no food of my own." Heckewelder writes of this winter: "In this wretched situation the hungry (heathen) Indians — the Wyandots — would often come into our cabins and look if there were any victuals cooking or nearly cooked. One day just as my wife had set down what was intended for our dinner, the Half- King and Simon Girty and a Wyandot entered and, seeing the victuals ready, without ceremony began eating." When our brethren heard of the unharvested corn standing unhurt and still good in the bottoms here at Gnadenhiitten, a company of men, women, and children set out on the five or six days' journey through the trackless forests, which brought them to their old home on the river bank. They worked day and night gathering the golden ears. They had been here for some weeks, when suddenly the militia- men from Pittsburgh and its vicinage came upon the harvesters. They greeted our brethren as friends and ex- pressed their sympathy and warmest admiration for them as converts to the common Christian faith. 62 DAVID ZEISI'.ERCiER They said: "We have come to remove you to a haven of safety from the murderous heathen Indians on the war-path. We will take you to Pittsburgh." The brethren readily believed these protestations of friendly interest, because they had met many of these bordermen in neighborly intercourse in the streets of Pittsburgh. To the suggestion that they give up their guns and knives to the militiamen they gave instant and cordial assent. As soon as our brethren had thus been rendered defenseless, the friendship of the white Christian was changed, with bewildering suddenness, into the merciless cruelty of enemies thirsting for the blood of their victims. They boimd our brethren as captives, and thus brought them across the river and impris- oned them in some of the houses still standing. A council of war was held to decide wliat to do with the imprisoned men, women, and children. "Shall we carry them to Pittsburg or shall we put them to death? " The men were drawn up in line to give their decision. Any one in favor of carrying the captives to Pittsburgh was commanded to step one step forward. Only eighteen men of the almost two hundred stepped forward. The question yet to be decided was how to carry out this murderous intent: whether they should burn our brethren alive by set- ting fire to the houses in which they were imprisoned, or tomahawk and scalp them. The latter method would furnish these white Christians with the trophies of the scalps of these brown Christian men, women, and children. This consideration made them decide for the latter method of massacre. The original plan was to proceed to massacre the captives at once. But as they were Christians their plea for a night-time of preparation for death was granted them. On recovering from the first terrible shock of the announced massacre, our brethren and sisters, con- nt ANT) HIS 1?K()\VN lUiETIIREN. 63 scious of their innoccMicc of the cruel accusations of their enemies, stood unsliaken in their faith in jesus Christ when tlius brouj^ht face to face with deatli. Led by their Elders, they spent the hours of their last night on earth in prayer and praise. They made confession of their sins, asked forgiveness of one another, and exhorted one another to glorify their Redeemer's name by a faithful and loving endur- ance to the end. Old Abraham, the Mohican (whose flowing white hair caused him to be marked out in the early morning as the first one of the brethren to be butchered, because it would make so fine a scalp- trophy) rose up early in the night to make humble confession as a backslider: " Dear brethren, you well know that I have been a bad man; that I have grieved the Lord; that I have caused our teachers much sorrow; and that I have not done the things that I ought to have done. But now I give myself anew to Jesus, and I will hold fast to Him as long as I live." Until the morning's early dawn they continued in fervent supplication and joyous praises unto God their Saviour. They felt the peace of God. They were filled with cheerful resignation to their impend- ing fate. To the inquiry of the white Christian mur- derers, at early dawn, whether they were ready, our brethren and sisters gave ready reply: "We are ready. Jesus, to whom we have committed our souls, gives us the assurance that He will receive us." The massacre at once began. Two hou.ses had been selected as "slaughter-houses," one for the killing of the brethren and one for the killing of the sisters n-id the children. The victims were led forth, two at a time, bound, into the houses. The cooper- shop was the slaughter-house for the brethren and the boys. The man who led off in the butcher- ing of the brethren took up a convenient cooper's mallet, saying, as he handled it, "This exactly suits 64 DAVID ZEISBERGER. the business in hand! " Beginning with the vener- able Abraham, whom he killed with blows from the mallet, he kept on despatching one victim after an- other until fourteen lay dead and scalped before him. Handing the mallet to his comrades, he said: "You take it; I guess I've done ])retty well; but my arm gives out!" Thus all the brethren and boys were massacred. In like manner the sisters and children were brought out, two and two, and massacred in the slaughter-house for the women and little ones. When the massacre was com])lcted, they set fire to the two slaughter-iiouses in which the mangled bodies of their brown fellow Christians lay, and pro- ceeded to collect the plunder ])rovious to their departure. Besides the bloody tro])hies of almost one hundred scalps, they carried with them to Pitts- burgh about fifty horses, many blankets, and other articles of plunder. A grassy mound marks the spot where loving hands gathered up the bleached bones of our mar- tyred brethren, some seventeen years later, and laid them to an honored grave-rest. The near-by monu- ment, erected in 1872, marks the spot of their Chris- tian martyrdom. On it are inscribed these words of light and peace : Here Triumphed in Death OVER Ninety Christian Indians March 12, 1782. at ' " A noble band of men and boys, The matron and the maid, Arotmd the Saviour's throne rejoice In robes of light arrayed. They climbed the steep ascent of heaven Through peril, toil, and pain; O Gud, to us may grace be given To follow in their train." vener- m the er an- e him. "You y arm s were were in the ones, hre to angled d pro- their [ilmost Pitts- other loving ■ mar- id laid monu- Chris- )rds of scent of lin; :iven