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MICHIGAN CHAPTER 16 Influx of Settlers
He mentions by name many of the residents whom or whose children he baptized while dwelling here for a time. De Peyster was evidently satisfied that there was nothing harmful in the apparently inoffensive missionaries, for he persuaded them to establish themselves upon the Clinton where a tract of land was temporarily procured from the Chippewas. He aided them in all practical ways, even to the extent of money and supplies. Here they founded a village of some twenty or thirty huts and a rude chapel. They did not think it worth while to erect a stockade, which) shows their abiding faith in the silent influence of Christianity upon the
savage nature. The savages do not appear to have been very numerous in the vicinity and the records do not show that the missionaries made any progress in converting them. The place was christened Gnadenhutten, which signifies in the Moravian language "Tents of Grace. " The houses were built upon each side of a street seventy feet in width. The people cleared and cultivated the land and subsisted by hunting and fishing and upon the crops which they raised from the land. They made canoes, baskets, brooms, bowls, ladles and other simple articles which sold readily in Detroit. They laid out and built a straight road to Detroit which was the first wagonway constructed to the interior, a distance of twenty-three and one-half miles. On Christmas 1782 Zeisberger notes "there were together fifty-three of us, white and brown, " probably mostly brown. Among the births was Susanna, daughter of Richard Connor, born December 16, 1783. In 1784 eight children were born, three couples married, two adults died. It is to be noted that this settlement was purely a mission. The purpose was to convert the Indians to Christianity and not to create a permanent home for the people who joined in the scheme. Perhaps they contemplated remaining indefinitely, but mainly with a view to spread the gospel and not to improve their own temporal condition, and least of all to improve the country as a place of habitation.
The Indians never disturbed the little community; in fact, took little interest in it.
MICHIGAN
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