Note 165 — Chapter XXXII · PASSAGE OF THE OHIO CANAL AND LAKE ERIE TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA, FROM THE 21ST TO THE 30TH OF JUNE

The Moravian missions to the Indians were begun about 1745, in eastern Pennsylvania. In 1772, at the special request of their Delaware converts, the mission was removed to the Tuscarawas Valley, and three towns founded therein—Salem, Shoenbrunn, and Gnadenhütten. The latter was the scene of the massacre (1782) of the Christian Indians by a party of backwoods militia. See Theodore Roosevelt, Winning of the West (New York, 1889), ii, pp. 142-167; and Thwaites, Withers's Border Warfare (Cincinnati, 1895), pp. 313-329. For sixteen years after this atrocity, the village of Gnadenhütten was deserted. About 1798 it was restored by the Moravians, and the following year white settlers began to move in. The first emigrants were Pennsylvania Germans; later, many Germans came direct from Europe to this region, which has still a considerable Teutonic element in its population. The town of Gnadenhütten was incorporated in 1824.—Ed.