Miller says that the prior (Eckerlin) conceived a notion to make himself independent of Beissel, and was stripped of all his dignities.
The Eckerlins appear to have gone into the wilderness, and encamped on a creek flowing into the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania, to which stream they gave the name of Dunkard Creek, which it still bears. They afterward seem to have removed to Dunkards’ Bottom, on Cheat River, which they made their permanent residence. After many vicissitudes, Miller tells us that Eckerlin and his brother were taken prisoners by Mohawks, and sold to Quebec, whence they were transported to France, “where, after our prior had received the tonsure and become a friar of their church, they both died.” The Ephrata Chronicle says (chap. xxiii.) that the prior went out of time twenty years before Beissel. The latter died in 1768. By the former reckoning, the prior went out of time in 1748, or about three years after the difficulty about the bell at Ephrata.
[54] The reader is referred to an article alluded to in the preceding essay, namely, Dr. Seidensticker’s “A Colonial Monastery,” in The Century magazine for December, 1881. Dr. S. is a professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
[55] The Tulpehocken Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill, which rises in Lebanon County, and empties at Reading, in Berks County.
[56] In Rupp’s “Thirty Thousand Names” of immigrants to Pennsylvania will be found, under date of August 29, 1730, the names of Palatines with their families, imported in the ship “Thistle” of Glasgow, from Rotterdam, last from Cowes. Among these occurs Peter Müller, whom by a note Rupp connects with the Peter Miller of the text. As to the name John Peter, as given by Andrews, it is surprising to see how many of these immigrants bear the names of John, Hans, Johan, Johann, and Johannes, prefixed to other names. I count twenty in a column of thirty-four.
[57] Mr. Andrews, from whom I quote, was a graduate of Harvard, who seems to have come to Philadelphia in 1698, and to have preached in an Independent or Presbyterian church, or in both.
[58] The Conestogas were a small tribe ... consisting in all of some dozen or twenty families, who dwelt a few miles below Lancaster. They sent messengers with corn, venison, and skins, to welcome William Penn. When the whites began to settle around them, Penn assigned them a residence on the manor of Conestoga. (Day’s Historical Collections.)
[59] When this letter was written, Miller was about eighty years old. He doubtless spoke German during the sixty years that he lived at Ephrata, as well as before that time. It will be observed that he does not write English elegantly.
[60] In the year 1740, says Fahnestock, there were thirty-six single brethren in the cloisters, and thirty-five sisters; and at one time the society, including the members living in the neighborhood, numbered nearly three hundred.
Rev. C. Endress says that some were anxious to retain the solitary life, and some (it appears) were opposed to giving to Beissel the title of Father. Sangmeister left the society and retired to Virginia (whence, however, he returned to Ephrata). “His book,” says the same writer, “is much tainted with bitterness, and undertakes to cast a dark shade upon the whole establishment.”