AS narrated in the early pages of our chronicle, the northeastern portion of the domain that was in time to become Ohio, the strip known as the Western Reserve, was the arena in which occurred the first events recorded in Ohio history. Those events, it will be recalled, pertained to the war waged by the terrible Iroquois against the Eries or Cat Nation, as mentioned in the Jesuit Relations. And now in the last pages of our pre-state history we return to the same locality.

Before we enter upon the period of the permanent settlement of this section, it is fitting that we revert to the fate of the Moravians, who were the first to inhabit, though only temporarily, the prospective new Connecticut. We left the Moravian missionaries and their band of converted "Brown Brethren," exiled from Captives' Town, at Detroit, where they had arrived in the spring of 1782. Major de Peyster, the Canadian Commandant, gave them the alternative of returning to Bethelem (Pa.), the original home of their Mission, or remain in the vicinity of Detroit, under the espionage of the British. They chose the latter, and accepted the friendly offer of the Chippewas, who granted the Moravians an abiding place among their tribesmen on the Huron River, some twenty-five miles from Detroit. This Michigan settlement was called New Gnadenhutten, and here Heckewelder soon joined his companion Zeisberger. After "four years of quiet and measurable success," it was their destiny to con­tinue their wanderings, for the. Chippewas had offered them an asylum only until peace might be established between Great Britain and the United States. The Huron—or Clinton River—Mission was abandoned in the spring of 1786, and the return to Ohio territory determined upon. In two sloops they were conveyed across Lake Erie and after many "perils in the waters and perils in the wilderness" they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga River—Cayahaga, Heckewelder calls it—they ascended the river "about a dozen miles from the Lake, " where they pitched their camp, erected huts and began to plant corn with the intention of pro­ceeding on to the Tuscarawas after harvest season. This temporary station, Loskiel, their historian, calls Pilgerruh, or "Pilgrims Rest." But the "rest" was only for a year, when the settlement, owing to the hostility of the neighboring tribes was transferred west­ward to the River Huron—in Ohio—a few miles from its mouth, near the present site of Milan. Again the camp became a collection of huts that grew rapidly in number into a "thriving town and a center of Christianty." It bore the name of New Salem in the records of the Indian Mission, and for four years—until March, 1791—flourished with a degree of material and spiritual prosperity that seemed to revive the "Golden days" of their early history on the Tuscara­was. Members of the different tribes, from far and near, flocked to hear the Gospel, the preaching of which was attended by numerous conversions, including many chiefs, among them Captain Killbuck—or Gelelemend—who ever after was a "faithful helper in the church."

It was during the first year of the New Salem sojourn that Congress, just two weeks after the enactment of the Ordinance of 1787 (viz, July 27), passed an act granting the Moravian Indians twelve thousand acres of land adjoining, indeed partly including, their former settlements on the Tuscarawas. And thither they desired to migrate. But the outbreak of hostilities between the American government and the Ohio tribes again compelled the sorely distressed Moravians to seek an asylum under the British flag. This time they found refuge near the mouth of the Detroit River on the Canadian side, where they established themselves for one year, when in May (1792), they took up their abode on the river Thames, building up a snug little village of forty houses, a church and other buildings. At this town, known as Fairfield, peace and happiness reigned for six years, when the time was propitious for the final removal to the land allotted to them on the Tuscarawas. Thither Heckewelder, accompanied by Rufus Putnam and the latter's son, proceeded (1798) to survey the land which was laid out in three plats, called respective­ly the Gnadenhutten, Schoenbrunn and Salem tracts. Of these the Fairfield emigrants and other converts took speedy possession. Zeisberger founded the little settlement of Goshen, some seven miles from Gnadenhutten, where in 1808 he "entered into eternal rest," his "hoary head crowned with glory." Amid the graves of his devoted. red brethren, his mouldering body lies buried in the little "God's acre" by the road­side at the site of Goshen, the scene of his last efforts to Christianize the Ohio savages.

Upon the ground made sacred by the blood of the Moravian martyrs, Heckewelder replanted Gnadenhut­ten, which is now an unpretentious but peaceful and prosperous hamlet. There Heckewelder lived and wrought among the Indian converts until 181o, when he resumed his home at Bethlehem. With the death of Zeisberger and the departure of Heckewelder, the Moravian Brethren date their rapid decline and final disappearance. As with the Jesuit missions, so with the Moravian conversions, there were small, if any, permanent results. The personality of the two heroic and pious leaders—whose careers we have followed—held sway over the converted savages, so long as their presence was permitted, but once that spell and influ­ence was removed the progress of Christian civilization among the tribesmen ceased. There were no disciples sufficiently endowed to continue the work.

Connecticut's charter, granted by Charles II. in 1662, confirming and combining former charters and grants, conveyed to that colony all of the lands west of it, to the extent of its breadth, from sea to sea, or "to the South Sea." This strip extended from 41° to 42° 2' north latitude and, cutting through Pennsyl­vania, would have included the northern part of Ohio. But as we have seen, when the discoverers and explorers located the Mississippi, the South Sea became a myth and the western extent of the English colonial grants stopped at the "Father of Waters." In the cession of Connecticut, by its act of May II, 1786, to the United States, of its claimed domain in the Northwest Territory, it reserved to itself the strip which was bounded north by latitude 42° 2', east by the Pennsyl­vania boundary line, south by parallel 41° and west by a meridian line one hundred and twenty miles west of the boundary line of Pennsylvania. This reserva­tion was known as the "Connecticut Western Reserve."

The disposition to be made of these reserved lands soon became an interesting question to the people of Connecticut for the lands were far from the State that retained them, far for purposes of colonization and far for government by the home authority.

 

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