Friedensstadt
North Beaver Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Abandoned April 13, 1773, when its inhabitants, with the Rev. John Heckewelder, moved to new towns on the Muskingum in present Ohio. There some of them were massacred, March 8, 1782, by Pennsylvania militia.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
By April 1773 the Christian Delaware of Friedensstadt, guided by the missionary John Heckewelder, abandoned their Beaver River town and resettled on the Muskingum River in what is now Ohio. There tragedy overtook them: on March 8, 1782, Pennsylvania militiamen murdered scores of these peaceful, unarmed converts at Gnadenhütten in one of the darkest atrocities of the Revolutionary frontier. The marker traces the thread from this quiet Pennsylvania mission to that infamous massacre.
Why it matters
It links a local mission to the Gnadenhütten massacre, a stark reminder of the violence visited upon Native Christians who sought only peace during the Revolution.
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Related people
- · John Heckewelder
Related events
- · Gnadenhütten massacre
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Squaw Campaign
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In the bitter winter of 1778, with the Revolution raging on the frontier, General Edward Hand marched some 800 militia out of Fort Pitt intending to strike a British supply depot near present-day Cleveland. Weather and poor roads doomed the expedition before it reached its target, and the frustrated force instead fell upon a small Native settlement in the river fork below this spot, killing a man and an elderly woman before turning home. The dismal, aimless outcome earned the venture a mocking name that has clung to it ever since.
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.
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.
Friedennsstadt - PLAQUE
North Beaver Township, PA · est. 1922
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.