by Rob Harper
county. a pennsylvanian by birth, Williamson had served for several years in
the Virginian militia, but he now quietly accepted a commission under mar-
shel. in October 1781, he led an expedition to investigate the abandoned
muskingum mission towns. On that occasion, he brought back and released
schebosh and the others, alive and wel .30
With the support of Williamson and other ex- Virginians, marshel’s ef-
forts began to bear fruit. during the fall of 1781, he mobilized men through
“volunteer plans,” in which individuals accepted militia assignments, and re-
ceived militia pay, by choice rather than by draft. This method presumably
made possible Williamson’s visit to the mission towns. to establish a draft for
future needs, he divided the adult male population geographical y into five
battalions, which he subdivided into companies of fifty to seventy men. each
company consisted of eight “classes,” to be called on tours of duty in rotation.
The battalions began electing officers and submitting class rol s in september
and October. in november marshel declared the militia were almost “in full
form.” later that month, he successful y drafted men to garrison the fort at
Wheeling, and in January he drafted another detachment to relieve them. his
work went smoothly in the western part of the county, where inhabitants
most needed militia protection, but faced more opposition in the mononga-
hela Valley, long a hotbed of anti- pennsylvania sentiment. early in 1782, “a
large mob” interfered with the election of militia officers at tenmile creek,
probably doubting that marshel would count the ballots honestly. instead,
the crowd insisted on a voice vote, which its favored candidates won “by a
great majority.” marshel, seeing little alternative, complied. By giving
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pennsylvanian commissions to longtime pennsylvania opponents, he and his
government gained a semblance of legitimacy.31
meanwhile, the United states’ few remaining indian allies made new
homes around pittsburgh, hoping for security and fearing further violence.
nonhelema, one of the only shawnee leaders to have supported the ameri-
cans throughout the war, lived with her daughter in a house in the Fort pitt
orchard, making and selling moccasins and other “beautiful articles.” Betsey,
a delaware woman, lived in the fort itself with her children and husband,
John gibson. meanwhile, gelelemend and perhaps a few dozen delaware
men, women, and children huddled through the winter on smoky island, a
twenty- acre woodland a few hundred yards downstream. even more than
their famished counterparts at sandusky, they now depended whol y on
their military allies for food, supplies, and physical protection. The fort’s
commanders supported them, but nearby colonists and soldiers grew in-
creasingly hostile. in January, two corporals from the garrison allegedly tried
to murder moses, a former moravian convert who had joined gelelemend’s
band. irvine sharply censured the men, but a court- martial found insuffi-
cient evidence to convict them. like Brodhead and gibson before him, ir-
vine stationed regular soldiers to guard the delawares’ camp. Then he left
Fort pitt to visit his family and to lobby for a more welcome assignment. in
his absence, gibson barely kept his poorly clothed and seldom paid men
from mutiny.32
Thanks to a mild winter, Wyandot and delaware warriors attacked upper
Ohio colonists early in 1782. in mid- February, robert Wal ace returned to his
raccoon creek homestead to find “his wife and children gone, his house
broke up, the furniture destroyed, and his cattle shot and laying dead about
the yard.” he raised a party of his neighbors to pursue the attackers, but a
heavy snowfall that night, and the dozens of warrior footprints nearby, de-
terred them. The captors soon killed Jane Wal ace and her smallest child,
probably because they could not keep up, but her husband did not learn of
their deaths, or of the survival of his remaining son among the Wyandots, for
nearly three years. elsewhere, six warriors captured John carpenter and his
two horses on the road from Buffalo creek to pittsburgh. The cruelest of his
captors, carpenter later reported, “called themselves moravians” and spoke
german. after swimming the frigid Ohio, captors and captive found refuge
at the muskingum mission towns, where both carpenter and the warriors
reportedly warned the corn- gathering moravians “to be off,” as “the whites . . .
would follow up the warriors, and fall upon them.” They then headed on
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137
toward sandusky. soon carpenter got hold of his horses and escaped, riding
all the way to Fort pitt.33
carpenter’s report of the moravians’ return revived long- standing suspi-
cions that they were aiding warriors, if not participating in raids themselves.
in the past, colonists had called for attacks on the mission towns but failed to
launch actual expeditions: acting on their own, the plotters had no means of
raising the necessary men and supplies. This time, James marshel answered
their cal . On 1 march he drafted the first and second classes of six compa-
nies, over one hundred men in total, “to go to muskingum” and investigate
the moravian towns. These were men from his own and nearby townships,
on the west side of the county, including the friends and neighbors of car-
penter and the Wal aces. This requisition dwarfed his previous drafts to pa-
trol the frontier or occupy small stockades. On 4 and 5 march he called up
several more classes, this time from the eastern battalions. no doubt some of
those drafted failed to appear, while others joined voluntarily. But marshel’s
initiative had turned a nebulous and inconclusive series of musings into a
real expedition. The formal structure he had devised, the ammunition he
supplied, and his position as pennsylvania’s appointed militia commander
together overcame the obstacles that had foiled prior attempts. Within days,
over 160 men gathered at the Ohio and elected david Williamson to com-
mand. They swam across the river, then rode westward to gnadenhütten.34
in some respects, marshel rebelled against army authority.35 he pointedly
failed to consult with the acting commander of Fort pitt, John gibson, a well-
known supporter of the moravians. a year before, david shepherd, marshel’s
Virginian counterpart, had helped Brodhead squash an anti- moravian plot;
now, marshel threw his authority behind one. nonetheless, his defiance of
the army hinged on his position as pennsylvania’s appointed militia com-
mander. if marshel thumbed his nose at the army, he did so by exploiting his
position within the emerging revolutionary state.
On the muskingum, the moravians stayed to salvage more corn, trusting
in “the good treatment” reported by Williamson’s former captives. as they
neared the end of their harvest, Joseph schebosh went to fetch stray horses in
the woods to the north. as he worked, a rifle shot tore through his arm. Fall-
ing to the ground, he saw three white men running toward him wi
th toma-
hawks. he identified himself as the son of “minister schebosh” and asked
why they had shot him. he got no answer. The men hacked him to death, cut
off his scalp, and moved on toward the town. across the river, Joseph’s
brother- in- law, Jacob, busied himself bagging corn while another man loaded
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bags into a nearby canoe. suddenly a large group of white men appeared rid-
ing toward gnadenhütten. Jacob recognized some of them from his capture
the previous fal , but before he could greet them one raised his rifle and shot
the man by the canoe. The wounded man managed to paddle across the river
but then fell down and did not rise. swallowing his greeting, Jacob ran into
the woods in panic. The white men recognized his horses, just as he had rec-
ognized them, and later asked where he was, but he stayed out of sight, too
terrified to return.36
Back at gnadenhütten, twelve- year- old Thomas watched more than one
hundred militia surround the town, on both sides of the river. Thomas, a
third- generation christian, was born and raised in gnadenhütten. his
Wampanoag father and grandfather were baptized in the 1740s; his munsee
delaware mother, in 1767. together with his parents; his older brother, petrus;
and four- year- old sister, sara, he had endured the forced march to sandusky,
the long hungry winter, and the desperate return to the muskingum. The mi-
litia found them and dozens more scattered through the fields, gathering and
bagging corn. to their relief, Williamson offered to take them to Fort pitt,
promising to “show them every mark of Friendship,” just as he had treated
those he had taken in October. Unaware of Joseph schebosh’s fate, the group
readily agreed. at the militia’s urging, they retrieved tools and other posses-
sions they had buried in the woods for safekeeping, and even extracted honey
from a nearby beehive. They handed over everything to their new friends,
including “all rifles, hatchets, axes &c.”37
at the time, Johann martin, one of the missionaries’ mohican assistants,
and his son were working in the woods west of the river. On their return,
they were alarmed to find the fields empty of people and full of hoofprints.
They climbed a nearby bluff for a better view of the town, where they saw the
moravians walking “up and down the streets together with the white people,”
seemingly “quite merry together.” reassured, he sent his son to join them and
set off to share the news with the moravians of salem, a few miles downriver.
There he met with several of his fellow assistants, including isaac glikhican
and Jacob’s father, israel Welapachtschiechen. On hearing of the militia’s ar-
rival, Welapachtschiechen brought out the wampum belts and strings that
documented his long friendship with the United states. hoping “that god
had prepared a Way & place for them,” he and the others sent messengers to
the americans asking for refuge. The next day, the salemites welcomed the
white men as guests, offered them food, and pledged to go “wherever they
intend[ed] to take them.” two unconverted delaware men, kin to one of the
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139
missionaries’ assistants, insisted on coming with them out of a desire to be-
come christians. a former convert, catharina, who had been expelled from
the congregation for committing adultery, also begged to be taken along. a
few, anxious about their starving families, set off instead for sandusky. The
rest departed together for gnadenhütten. Before they left, the militia burned
the town to the ground.38
as they made their way up the river, the militiamen seemed friendly.
some discussed scripture with the missionaries’ assistants, several of whom
spoke english. Others grilled Welapachtschiechen and glikhican about fron-
tier politics. The younger men “were playing all the Way” with their mora-
vian contemporaries, including israel’s son david and twelve- year- old tobias,
who later reported they had “no apprehension of any danger.” Then, as they
neared gnadenhütten, someone spotted a canoe on the riverbank stained
with blood, and the “bloddy tracks of a wounded person”: the man Jacob had
watched die. When they reached the town and joined the rest of Williamson’s
party, games and conversation gave way to threats and rough handling. The
white men bound their hands and herded men into one house and women
and children into another, together with the people of gnadenhütten. some
accused the moravians of going “to war against them” or harboring those
who had. They argued that the christian indians had stolen their horses,
tools, even cups and saucers, reasoning that only “White people” used such
things. isaac and the others protested that they had fed visiting warriors only
under duress, and had tried to help their captives. They detailed how they
had fed Brodhead’s men the year before and warned colonists of enemy at-
tacks. Welapachtschiechen even “[held] up the speech wampum” he had re-
ceived during his embassy to congress. The militia were unimpressed.39
The captors’ erratic behavior reflected the expedition’s size, lack of disci-
pline, and internal divisions. some of the men were trigger- happy while oth-
ers were more inclined to talk scripture. The men who approached
gnadenhütten from the north, on both sides of the river, had chosen to shoot
first. Williamson’s main party, by contrast, had surrounded the town and
brought the scattered moravians together for questioning. Both the conduct
of the militia at salem and the moravians’ willingness to surrender their pos-
sessions suggest that many in the party at least feigned goodwill toward their
captives. according to one report, based on militia accounts, they had
“liv[ed] with them apparently in a friendly manner for three days.” nonethe-
less, a vocal minority of the expedition— perhaps one in four— insisted that
the moravians “must dye.” Williamson, who endured sharp criticism for
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failing to kill his captives four months before, now proved more sympathetic
to the “Bigotted notions” of indian haters. Withholding his own opinion, he
told his men to choose “either to carry the indians as prisoners to Fort pitt, or
to kill them.” some spoke against the slaughter, calling the captives “good and
true christians,” but no one dared to protect them from the murderers’
wrath. instead, by one account, they “wrung their hands, and called god to
wittness that they were not guilty of the Blood of these innocent creatures.”
But most remained silent, perhaps contemplating their share of the
plunder.40
On learning their fate, the captives begged a day’s respite for “praying and
preparing for death.” The militia gave them a few hours. in the women’s
house, christina, a mohican widow baptized over thirty years before, begged
Williamson in english to save them. he replied that “he could not help her.”
Johann martin’s two sons, anton and paulus, somehow freed themselves and
ran for safety; militiamen shot
them down before they reached the river. in
the men’s house, abraham, another aged mohican, openly confessed his sins,
trusting that god would “forgive us al .” The women began singing hymns
and psalms and the men joined in, filling the ears of the “condemning party”
as they debated methods of execution. The next morning, as the moravians
sang, Thomas watched a white man push into the men’s house, throw a rope
around abraham’s neck, and drag him outside. The others kept singing. The
man almost immediately came back, carrying a bloodstained mallet that a
moravian cooper had once used to pound barrel staves. One by one, he
brought the mallet down against each man’s skul . after fourteen lay dead,
he handed the tool to another, who continued the slaughter. Those who
remained sang on. One by one they crumpled to the floor: israel Welapacht-
schiechen; isaac glikhican; Johann martin; samuel moor; adam Wula-
lowechen; the recently widowed abel and his infant son, Jonas; Thomas’s
father, philippus; his older brother, petrus. Thomas himself, one of the
youngest in the house, likely watched the others die before receiving a similar
blow himself. as their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons fell silent, the
women in the other house still sang. There, the murderers first struck down
Judith, “a very loving old Widow.” Then the others: glikhican’s wife, anna
Benigna; her sister, niece, three daughters, and baby grandson; the mission-
aries’ assistant, amalia, and her three young daughters; and dozens more.
They “kept on singing as long as there were three alive.”41
Only two escaped the slaughter. as the women died, tobias and another
boy hid in a cel ar underneath the house. as blood poured through the
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141
floorboards, tobias squeezed out through a small hole and fled into the
woods. The other boy could not fit and stayed behind to die. in the men’s
house, Thomas came to his senses, feeling sharp pain where someone had cut
off his scalp. nearby abel struggled to get to his feet until a white man gave