When the news reached Philadelphia that Washington had died,[died,] bells were muffled for three days, a funeral procession was held and Major General Henry Lee delivered an oration.
With Washington gone, the removal of the capital to the new Federal City did not bring such a wrench to the people of Philadelphia, who dearly loved the great and good man and his estimable wife.
Moravian Mission at Wyalusing Established
May 23, 1763
During the month of May, 1760, Christian Frederic Post, the renowned Moravian, on his way with a message from James Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, to the Great Indian Council at Onondaga, the seat of government of the Six Nations, stopped overnight at Wyalusing in now Bradford County. At the request of Papunhank, the chief of the Munsee, and the other Indians, he preached a sermon. Among those in the crowd on that occasion were Job Chilloway, the friendly Delaware Indian interpreter, and Tom Curtis, another Indian of much consequence.
Papunhank was losing his influence among his people on account of his own dissolute life, and a movement was started to bring in white teachers. In their councils, however, they were divided in opinion, one party favoring the Quakers and the other the Moravians, and so equal was the strength of the two parties that neither was willing to yield to the other. Their differences were compromised by agreeing to accept the first teacher who came.
John Woolman, the prominent Quaker evangelist, having made the acquaintance of some of the Wyalusing Indians at Philadelphia, probably of Papunhank himself, after much deliberation, set out in company with Benjamin Parvin, to visit the town, in May, 1763, purposing, if he should be well received, to remain with them and teach them the gospel.
In the meantime, news of the awakened interest in religion at Wyalusing reached the ears of Reverend David Zeisberger, the celebrated Moravian apostle to the Indians, and he left Bethlehem May 18, 1763, meeting Woolman on the mountain below Wilkes-Barre, where they dined together. Zeisberger proceeded on his way and reached Wyalusing on May 23, two days before Woolman arrived there.
When Zeisberger had arrived a short distance above the Lackawanna, he was met by Job Chilloway who informed him of the conclusion of the council at Onondaga, and accompanied him to Papunhank’s town. Here Zeisberger was received as the divinely sent messenger, and though wearied by his long journey, at once set about preaching the gospel to his waiting and anxious hearers.