Note 25 — II A Selection of George Croghan’s Letters and Journals Relating to Tours into the Western Country—November 16, 1750-November, 1765.

This Dunkar (or Dunker) was doubtless Samuel Eckerlin one of three brothers who migrated from Ephrata about 1745, and ultimately settled on the Monongahela about ten miles below Morgantown, West Virginia. The Dunkers were a sect of German Baptists that arose in the Palatine about 1708, and migrated to Pennsylvania in 1719. Their formal organization took place at a baptism on the banks of Wissahickon Creek (near Philadelphia) in 1723. There were several divisions of this sect, one of which founded the community of Ephrata. Their tenets were baptism by immersion, a celibate community life, and refusal to bear arms. The Eckerlin brothers sought a solitary wilderness life, and at first were regarded with favor by the Ohio Indians. A massacre, however, demolished their settlement in 1757. Three of the party were captured, and sent as prisoners to Canada, and later to France. For details see Sachse, German Sectarians of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1900), ii, pp. 340-359.—Ed.