[76] The Mennonites and Quakers were peaceably disposed towards the Indians, but the Presbyterians from the north of Ireland, who had settled at Paxton, felt a deadly animosity against them, and, as Day says, against the peaceful Moravians and Quakers, who wished to protect the Indians, at the expense, as the Paxton men thought, of the lives of the settlers. The Paxton rangers were commanded by the Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Colonel Elder, who seems to have opposed the massacre of the Indians at Lancaster by the “Paxton boys.” Day says that no historian ought to excuse or justify the murders at Lancaster and Conestoga, and adds that they must ever remain dark and bloody spots in our provincial history.
[77] See Carey’s “American Museum.”
[78] An insignificant hill overlooking the meadow where the brother- and sister-houses now stand.
[79] A remarkable statement.
[80] Compare this inflated language with Miller’s letter, as quoted.
[81] The different modes of spelling what appears to be the same name will not surprise those who are familiar with our Pennsylvania German names.
[82] It may be observed how nearly this description of the chapel agrees with that given by the British officer of the one he visited here some eighty-five years ago.
[83] Fahnestock says that, like some dilapidated castles, Ephrata yet contains many habitable and comfortable apartments. The brother- and sister-houses, etc., form but a small part of the modern village of Ephrata. He wrote some time ago.
[84] See article “Francis Daniel Pastorius,” by Dr. Seidensticker, in the Penn Monthly, January and February, 1872.
[85] The name Hacker, still heard at Ephrata, is doubtless the same as the above.