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They had settled down in Pennsylvania; they had done good work at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gnadenhütten, Frederick's Town, German Town and Oley; they had won the warm approval of Thomas Penn; and, so far from being traitors, they had done their best to teach the Indians to be loyal to the British throne.
The last sounds that could be heard before the awful butchery was finished were the prayers and praises of the Indian women, of whom there were forty, thus testifying their unfaltering trust in the promise taught them by their white sisters the devoted Moravians of Gnadenhutten.
The teachers settled with the remnant of their converts in Canada, but the Christian Indians always longed for Gnadenhutten, where they had lived so happily, and where ninety-six of their brethren had suffered so innocently. Before the close of the century Congress confirmed the Delawares' grant of the Muskingum lands to them, and they came back.
Regularly every month, Fluellina, accompanied by her son, visited a Moravian missionary who dwelt with his family on the site of the once flourishing station of Gnadenhutten, where, in 1782, was enacted one of the darkest episodes in American history.
Near the place where the Tuscarawas and Walhonding meet to form the Muskingum they offered lands to the Moravians, and in 1772 the Christian Indians left their last village in Western Pennsylvania and settled there at three points which they called Schönbrun, the Beautiful Spring, Lichtenau, Field of Light, and Gnadenhutten, the Tents of Grace.
For him the problem to solve was, how to keep the Indians at bay; and he actually advised the British authorities to construct a line of forts, pointed out the strategic importance of Gnadenhütten, and offered the land for military purposes.
The story of these Moravian Missions for nearly a century is one long religious epic poem, full of action, suffering, battle, bereavement, all illumined with the dauntless, fervent, Christ-like spirit which bore these gentle ministers along their high career. The settlement at Gnadenhutten was the most important and the most interesting, historically considered, of all the stations.
We have seen what they could do when they were at their worst in the Gnadenhutten massacre; but we cannot understand them unless we realize that they not only held all life cheap, but held the life of an Indian no dearer than that of a wolf. Belmont County was the scene of two exploits of Lewis Wetzel, perhaps the most famous of these Indian fighters.
The valley was supposed to be in great danger since its village of Gnadenhutten had been burned and its people massacred. The Moravians, like the Quakers, had suddenly found that they were not as much opposed to war as they had supposed. They had obtained arms and ammunition from New York and had built stockades, and Franklin was glad to find them so well prepared when he arrived.
Some of them fled eastward to the larger towns; others sought concealment in the depths of the forest or on the mountains. The Brethren at Bethlehem and Gnadenhutten resolved to stand at their post. Slowly the fiery circles encompassed them closely and more closely till November, 1755, when the long expected bolt fell.
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