Friedennsstadt - PLAQUE
North Beaver Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This stone marks the site of the former Moravian Indian village of Languntoutenunk, or Friedensstadt, or city of Peace. Settled by the Moravian Indians in the spring of 1778. The majority of the members of this Mission had formerly belonged to the Mission at Wyalusing. Before removing to Lawunakhannek on the Allegheny River, from which place they removed to this site in the spring of 1773, the inhabitants of this village moved to Gnadenhuetten and Schoenbrunn in the Tuscarawas Valley, where other Moravian Missions were organized.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
This stone marks Friedensstadt, or "City of Peace," a mission village of Christian Delaware Indians founded here in the early 1770s under the guidance of Moravian missionaries. Many of its people had followed the same faith from earlier settlements at Wyalusing and along the Allegheny, moving repeatedly to stay clear of the mounting violence of the frontier. The community's long westward journey eventually carried it to the Moravian missions of Gnadenhütten and Schoenbrunn in the Tuscarawas Valley of Ohio.
Why it matters
It traces the hopeful yet tragic path of the Moravian Indian congregations, whose search for a peaceful home ended in one of the darkest episodes of the frontier era.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Moravian Indian missions
- · Founding of Friedensstadt
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kuskuskies Towns
Mahoning Township, PA · est. 1948
The Kuskuskies Towns were a cluster of Native villages that once stood along the Shenango and Beaver rivers near present-day New Castle. This marker recalls the last of them, still occupied in 1785 when Gen. William Irvine surveyed the surrounding 'Donation Lands' — tracts the state set aside as bounties for its Revolutionary War soldiers. His tour came just as the old Indian country was about to be carved up and handed to veterans, a quiet hinge between two worlds.
Fort McIntosh
Beaver, PA · est. 1946
Built in 1778 during the Revolution, Fort McIntosh was the first military post the young United States raised north of the Ohio River, a foothold in contested Indian country. In 1785 it hosted the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, one of the early agreements by which the new republic pressed Native nations to cede lands in the Northwest Territory, and it also served as a base for surveying that opening frontier. The garrison was abandoned around 1790-91 as the line of settlement moved on.
Legionville
Harmony Township, PA · est. 1946
Through the winter of 1792-93, General Anthony Wayne drilled the newly formed Legion of the United States at this camp on the Ohio, turning raw recruits into a disciplined fighting force. The training paid off in 1794 when Wayne's army defeated a Native confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, breaking Indigenous resistance in the Northwest Territory. Legionville is remembered as one of the first formal basic-training encampments in American military history.
Friedensstadt
North Beaver Township, PA · est. 1948
In 1770 the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger led a band of Christian Delaware (Lenape) converts down from the upper Allegheny to found Friedensstadt — 'City of Peace' — on the Beaver River. Arriving on the eastern bank on May 3, the community soon shifted to the west side, seeking a stable home for a mission that tried to carve out a place of refuge for Native Christians amid the pressures of the frontier. It was one of a chain of Moravian Indian towns whose fortunes rose and fell with the turbulence of the era.