880 



MISSIONS 



[b. a. e. 



Stockbridge and Brotherton tribes from 

 New England, then living in the Oneida 

 country. Owing to the drinking habits 

 of the Indians, but little result was accom- 

 plished. The removal of the Oneida and 

 Stockbridges, about 1822, and the subse- 

 quent disturbed condition of the tribes 

 brought about, first, the curtailment of 

 the work, and afterward its abandonment, 

 about 1843. 



In 1740 the Moravian missionary. Chris- 

 tian Ranch, began a mission among the 

 Mahican at Shecomeco, near the present 

 Pine Plains, Dutchess co., N. Y., which 

 attained a considerable measure of success 

 until the hostility of the colonial govern- 

 ment, instigated by the jealousy of those 

 who had traded on the vices of the In- 

 dians, compelled its abandonment about 

 5 years later. During its continuance 

 the work had been extended, in 1742, to 

 the Scaticook, a mixed Vjand of Mahican 

 and remnant tribes settled just across the 

 line, about the present Kent, Conn. Here 

 a flourishing church was soon built up, 

 with every prospect of a prosperous fu- 

 ture, when the blow came. Some of the 

 converts followed their teachers to the 

 W. ; the rest, left without help, relapsed 

 into barbarism. The Shecomeco colony 

 removed to Pennsylvania, where, after a 

 a brief stay at Bethlehem, the Moravian 

 central station, a new mission, including 

 both Mahican and Delawares, was estab- 

 lished in 1746 at Gnadenhuetten, on Ma- 

 honing r., near its junction with the Le- 

 high. A chief agent in the arrangements 

 was the noted })hilanthropist. Count Zin- 

 zendorf. Gnadenhuetten grew rapidly, 

 soon having a Christian Indian congrega- 

 tion of 500. Missions were founded at 

 Shamokin and other villages in e. Penn- 

 sylvania, which were attended also' by 

 Shawnee and Nanticoke, besides one in 

 charge of Rev. David Zeisberger among 

 the Onondaga, in New York. The mis- 

 sionaries, as a rule, if not always, served 

 without salary and supported themselves 

 by their own labors. All went well until 

 the beginning of the French and Indian 

 war, when, on Nov. 24, 1755, Gnaden- 

 huetten was attacked by the hostile sav- 

 ages, the missionaries and their families 

 massacred, and the mission destroyed. 

 The converts were scattered , but after some 

 period of wandering were again gathered 

 into a new mission at Nain, near Bethle- 

 hem, Pa. On the breaking out of Pontiac's 

 war in 1763 an order was issued by the 

 Pennsylvania government for the convey- 

 ance of the converts to Philadelphia. 

 This was accordingly done, and they 

 were detained there under guard, but 

 attended by their missionary, Bernhard 

 Grube, until the close of the war, suffer- 

 ing every hardship and in constant dan- 

 ger of massacre by the excited borderers. 



On the conclusion of peace they estab- 

 lished themselves on the Susquehanna at 

 a new town, which was named Friedens- 

 huetten, near the Delaware village of 

 Wyalusing. In 1770 they again i-emoved 

 to Friedensstadt, on Beaver cr., in w. 

 Pennsylvania, under charge of Zeis- 

 berger, and two years later made another 

 removal to the Muskingum r., in Ohio, 

 by permission of the western Delawares. 

 By the labor of the missionaries, David 

 Zeisberger, Bishop John Ettwein, Johan- 

 nes Roth, and the noted John Hecke- 

 welder, who accompanied them to the 

 W., the villages of Schoenbrunn and 

 Gnadenhuetten were established in the 

 midst of the wild tribes within the pres- 

 ent limits of Tuscarawas co., the first- 

 named being occupied chiefiy by Dela- 

 wares, the other by Mahican. The 

 Freidensstadt settlement was now aban- 

 doned. In 1776 a third village, Lichte- 

 nau (afterward Salem), was founded, 

 and tile Moravian work reached its high- 

 est point of prosperity, the whole convert 

 population including about 500 souls. 

 Then came the Revolution, by which the 

 missions were utterly demoralized until 

 the culminating tragedy of Gnadenhuet- 

 ten, IMar. 8, 1782, when nearly 100 Chris- 

 tian Indians, after having been bound 

 together in pairs, were barbarously mas- 

 sacred by a party of Virginia borderers. 

 Once more the missionaries, Zeisberger 

 and Heckevvelder, gathered their scat- 

 tered flock, and after another period of 

 wandering, settled in 1787 at New Salem, 

 at the mouth of Huron r., L. Erie, n. 

 Ohio. A part of them settled, by in- 

 vitation of the British Government, at 

 Fairfield, or Moraviantown, on*Thames 

 r., Ontario, in 1790, under the leadership 

 of Rev. Christian Dencke, while the rest 

 were reestablished in 1798 on lands 

 granted by the United States at their 

 former towns on the Muskingum. Here 

 Zeisberger died in 1808, after more than 

 60 years of faithful ministry without sal- 

 ary. He is known to philologists as the 

 author of a grammar and dictionary of 

 the Onondaga, besides several smaller 

 works in the Delaware language. 



The mission, by this time known as 

 Goshen, was much disturbed by the War 

 of 1812, and the subsequent settlement of 

 the country by the whites so far demor- 

 alized it that in 1823 those then in charge 

 brought it to a close, a small part of the 

 Indians removing to the W., constituting 

 the present Munsee Christians in Kansas, 

 while the remainder joined their brethren 

 in Ontario, C-anada. The latter, whose 

 own settlement also had been broken up 

 by the events of the same war, had been 

 gathered a few years before into a new 

 town called New Fairfield, by Rev. Mr 

 Dencke, already mentioned, who had also 



