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 585secretly 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.

Elliott seized and confined the missionaries and their families and gathered them and all the converted Indians at Gnadenhuetten. They were marched from there September 11, leaving behind their great stock of corn and many effects. The sad procession descended the Tuscarawas to its junction with the Walhonding and passed up the latter stream to its source, thence over the dividing ridge to the Sandusky.

By the time the Moravians had reached the Sandusky they had been robbed of their best blankets and cooking vessels and their food was about exhausted. On the east side of the stream, about two miles above the site of Upper Sandusky, they settled down in poverty and privation, built rude shelters of logs and bark and spent the winter in great distress.

In March the missionaries were again taken to Detroit and closely examined by de Peyster, and nothing detrimental could be proved against them, yet de Peyster would not allow them to return to the Sandusky, and they made a new settlement on the Huron River.

During the forcible removal of the Moravians seven Wyandot warriors left the party and went on a raid across the Ohio River. Among the seven were three sons of Dunquat, the half-king; the eldest son, Scotosh, was the leader of the party. They visited the farm of Philip Jackson, on Harman’s Creek, and captured Jackson, who was a carpenter about 60 years of age. This capture was witnessed by Jackson’s son, who ran nine miles to Fort Cherry, on Little Raccoon Creek, and gave the alarm, but a heavy rain that night prevented immediate pursuit.

Bright and early next morning seventeen stout young men, all mounted, gathered at Jackson’s farm, and John Jack, a professional scout, declared he knew where the Indians had hidden their canoes. 586But only six would follow him, John Cherry, Andrew Poe, Adam Poe, William Castleman, William Rankin and James Whitacre, and they started on a gallop for the mouth of Tomlinson’s Run. Jack’s surmise was a shrewd one, based on a thorough knowledge of the Ohio River and the habits of the Indians.

After dismounting the borderers descended cautiously, and at the mouth of the run were five Indians, with their prisoner, ready to shove off. John Cherry fired and killed an Indian and was himself killed by the return fire. Four of the five Indians were killed, and Philip Jackson rescued unharmed, and Scotosh escaped up the river with a wound in his arm.

Andrew Poe in a hand to hand scuffle with two sons of the half-king, succeeded in killing one of them, who had first wounded him. The other Indian escaped and was in the act of firing at Poe when he was shot and killed. Andrew Poe fell into the stream and was mistaken for an Indian and shot in the shoulder by mistake.

The triumphant return of the party to Fort Cherry was saddened by the death of John Cherry, a great and popular leader. Scotosh was the only Indian who escaped, and he made his way back to the Upper Sandusky, with a sad message for his father and the tribe.