In November 1755, at the start of the French and Indian War, a small Moravian mission in eastern Pennsylvania was destroyed in a brutal attack by Delaware Indians. The massacre at Gnadenhutten, on the Mahoning Creek near the Lehigh River, claimed the lives of eleven people and marked a violent turning point for a community already caught between hostile Indians and distrustful white settlers. The Moravians had been among the first non-Catholic Christians to attempt missionary work among North American Indians. Beginning around 1748, figures like David Zeisberger helped establish settlements such as Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, and the mission at Gnadenhutten was one of several established further west toward the frontier.
As war broke out, the Moravian converts found themselves endangered from all sides. Hostile Indians tried to entice them away from their Christian communities, while many English, Dutch, and Scots-Irish settlers suspected the Moravians of being in league with the French. A forged letter published in a newspaper falsely claimed that the Moravians and their Indian converts were French allies. The accusation spread quickly and deepened local hostility.
The first Indian attacks of the war had already begun in October 1755, with more than twenty people killed or captured along Penn’s Creek near Shamokin. By mid-November, raids had reached the east side of the Susquehanna River, killing thirteen settlers in the Tulpehocken and Swatara Creek areas. Panic spread, and many families fled toward Bethlehem as a place of refuge, while some settlers openly spoke of destroying the Moravian mission in self-defense. At Gnadenhutten, missionary Martin Mack wrote letters describing the tense situation and the steadfast faith of the Indian converts.
Many of the men were off hunting, and the small community waited in uncertainty. Zeisberger had just delivered a message to the mission and crossed the river when the attack began. He heard the gunfire and saw the flames rising, but only later learned what had happened. That evening, around fifteen adults and one infant were gathered for their meal in the main building of the mission.
Senseman, the steward, went out to lock the doors of the chapel building after hearing the dogs bark. When he returned, he was met by George Parch, who told him that Indians had rushed the house and were shooting at the people inside. Unarmed and unable to help, the two men fled across the river to the east side and raised the alarm. The attackers set fire to the buildings one by one: first the barn, then the kitchen, then the single men’s dwelling, then the store, and finally the main building with the chapel.
About twelve Indians were involved in the raid. The survivors who escaped included Joseph Sturgis, who was grazed by a bullet, and Susanna Parch, who hid in a hollow tree near the river until rescuers arrived the next morning. Others were not so fortunate. Martin Nitschmann was killed instantly when the Indians fired through the open door.
John Leslie, John Gattermeyer, and Martin Presser also fell in the first volleys, with Presser later found dead in the nearby woods. Susanna Nitschmann, Martin’s wife, was wounded and then dragged off into captivity. The remaining people fled to the garret and secured the trap door, but when the building caught fire, only Sturgis and Susanna Parch managed to escape through the window. The others, including two women and a small child, perished in the flames.
In all, eleven people were killed. Six of the victims were Moravian missionaries and helpers, while five were Indian converts. The charred remains of the dead could not be distinguished when rescuers arrived the next day. One victim, George Fabricius, had been shot, scalped, and mutilated, and was found outside the building watched over by his dog.
The attackers left a blanket with a hat and knife stuck through it on a stump as a defiant warning. News of the massacre reached Bethlehem in the early hours of November 25. Bishop Spangenberg broke the news at the morning prayer service, and the community went into mourning. The attack had an immediate effect on local opinion: even some who had suspected the Moravians of conspiring with the French now had to acknowledge that the savages would not murder those secretly working with them.
The survivors of the mission, including about seventy Indian converts, made their way to Bethlehem, where they were sheltered in the Indian house. But their presence created new tensions within the town. Some residents feared that harboring the converts would provoke another attack. A few weeks later, Spangenberg had to urge the congregation not to let bitterness take hold against the remnants of the mission flock.
Susanna Nitschmann’s fate remained unknown for months. In July 1756, a baptized Indian reported that she had been taken by her captors first to Wyoming and then to Tioga. She was recognized as a Moravian sister along the way, but was dragged further north, where she lived in constant weeping and sank into deep melancholy. She reportedly died at Tioga.
The Indian who led the attack and captured her was himself killed in August 1757 under accusation of having acted as a French spy. The massacre brought an end to the Moravian mission at Gnadenhutten. The site lay neglected until 1771, when it became the center of a white congregation. In 1786, the minister there requested permission to place a memorial stone, and on December 10, 1788, a slab with simple inscriptions was laid on the grave of the martyrs.
A monument at the head of the grave was added on August 7, 1848, the centennial of the first Indian burial at the site. The attack on Gnadenhutten demonstrated how quickly the fears and suspicions of the frontier could turn deadly. The Moravians, who had sought to bridge the divide between white settlers and Indians, instead became victims of that divide, suffering at the hands of the very people they had hoped to reach.