Brodhead’s successful expedition against the Coshocton Indians, in April, 1781, led to preparations for a retaliatory foray. Headed by the renegade Capt. Matthew Elliott, a party of about 250 Indians,––mostly Wyandots, with chiefs Half King, Pipe, Snip, John and Thomas Snake, and others––assembled at Gnadenhütten, for a talk with the Moravian teachers, preparatory to an expedition against Wheeling. They arrived August 17, and Zeisberger at once secretly sent a message of warning to Ft. Pitt, which threw the frontier into alarm, and caused the garrison at Wheeling to be fully prepared when the enemy appeared. A boy whom the Wyandots captured outside of Wheeling told them of Zeisberger’s warning, and when the unsuccessful war party returned to Gnadenhütten (Sept. 2), vengeance was wreaked on the Moravians. The town was sacked that day, and the missionaries were kept as prisoners for several days. Finally they were released (Sept.6), on promise that they remove their converts from the line of the warpaths. September 11, the Moravians and their teachers left Salem in a body, with but few worldly goods, for most of their property had been destroyed by the Wyandots. They proceeded down the Tuscarawas to the mouth of the Walhonding, thence up the latter stream and Vernon River, and across country to the Sandusky, where they arrived October 1, and erected a few huts on the east bank of the river, about two and a-half miles above the present Upper Sandusky. Fourteen days later, the missionaries were summoned to appear before the British commandant at Detroit, Major De Peyster. Zeisberger, Heckewelder, Edwards, and Senseman left for Detroit, October 25. De Peyster questioned them closely, and finally released them with the statement that he would confer with them later, relative to their final abode. They reached the Sandusky, on their return, November 22. Meanwhile, the winter had set in early; and in danger of starving, a party of the Moravians had returned to the Tuscarawas to gather corn in the abandoned fields; while there, a party of border rangers took them prisoners and carried them to Fort Pitt. Brig.-Gen. William Irvine, then in command, treated the poor converts kindly, and allowed them to go in peace, many returning to their old villages on the Tuscarawas, to complete their dismal harvesting.––R. G. T.
Footnotes for Chapter 14
One hundred and eighty-six men, mounted, from the Monongahela settlements. Early in March, 1782, they assembled under David Williamson, colonel of one of the militia battalions of Washington County, Pa., on the east bank of the Ohio, a few miles below Steubenville. The water was high, the weather cold and stormy, and there were no boats for crossing over to Mingo Bottom. Many turned back, but about two hundred succeeded in crossing. The expedition was not a “private” affair, but was regularly authorized by the military authority of Washington County; its destination was not the Moravian settlements, but the hostile force, then supposed to be on the Tuscarawas river. It seems to have generally been understood on the border that the Moravian towns were now deserted.––R. G. T.
Contemporary accounts speak of a council of war, held in the evening, at which this question was decided. But a small majority voted for the butchery; Williamson himself was in the minority. Dorsey Pentecost, writing from Pittsburg, May 8, 1782 (see Penn. Arch., ix., p. 540), says: “I have heard it intimated that about thirty or forty only of the party gave their consent or assisted in the catastrophe.”––R. G. T.
Lineback’s Relation (Penn. Arch., ix., p. 525) says: “In the morning, the militia chose two houses, which they called the ‘slaughter houses,’ and then brought the Indians two or three at a time, with ropes about their necks, and dragged them into the slaughter houses where they knocked them down.” This accords with Heckewelder’s Narrative, p. 320, which says they were knocked down with a cooper’s mallet. The victims included those converts living at Salem, who had peaceably come in to Gnadenhütten with their captors; but those at New Schönbrunn had taken the alarm and fled.––R. G. T.