British Destroy Moravian Indian Town on
Order of De Peyster, August 25,1781
Colonel Daniel Brodhead had been sent with his Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment to the Western frontier, and as most of the soldiers in this renowned command had been recruited in that part of the State this assignment was gladly received. The men could do double duty by serving their country and at the same time assist in protecting their own homes.
But all did not go well for Brodhead. He was a great soldier and knew how to fight Indians, but was remiss in other matters and soon got into trouble with the Supreme Executive Council, on account of becoming involved in quarrels with officers and civilians.
Congress selected Brigadier General William Irvine, of Carlisle, to succeed Colonel Brodhead in the command of the Western Department, September 24, 1781, and he repaired to that post of duty.
Colonel J. W. de Peyster, the British commandant at Detroit, who believed the presence of the Moravian missionaries along the Tuscarawas River had seriously interfered with prosecution of the war, ordered their removal to the Sandusky Valley, where they were planted amid the villages of the hostile Wyandot and Shawnee.
On August 25, 1781, he sent Captain Matthew Elliott, the Tory officer, with a small party of Tories and French-Canadians, and 250 savages, including Wyandot under Dunquat, Delaware under Captain Pipe, and a few Shawnee to carry his order into effect. Elliott performed his errand with unnecessary brutality.
The missionaries and their converts claimed a strict neutrality, but did not observe it. Bishop Zeisberger and Reverend Heckewelder were secretly the friends of the Americans and conducted a regular clandestine correspondence with the officers at Fort Pitt, giving valuable information of the movements of the British and hostile savages. This was suspected by Colonel de Peyster and he ordered the Moravians to move nearer Detroit. The hostile Indians threatened the converts with destruction because they would not join in the war, while many borderers believed these Indians did occasionally participate in raids upon the settlements. The settlers did not take much stock in the Christianity of the Moravian Indians.
To save the Moravians from dangers on both sides, Colonel Brodhead advised them to take up their residence near Fort Pitt, but they refused to heed his warning. These converts remained between the two fires, but Zeisberger and Heckewelder were blind to their imminent peril.
The Moravian Indians numbered about one hundred families in their three villages of Schoenbrun, Gnadenhuetten, and Salem. Their homes were log cabins, with vegetable gardens and cultivated fields, and fine herds of cattle, hogs and many horses.