Pioneers of the Old Southwest: a chronicle of the dark and bloody ground. Constance Lindsay Skinner
the love he taught for over fifty years and converted many savages. Zeisberger was taken before the Governor and army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good reason to be suspicious of priestly counsels in the tents of Shem: but he was able to impress white men no less than simple savages with the nobility of the doctrine he had learned from the Apostle.
In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand acres in North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg was commissioned to survey this large acreage, which was situated in the present county of Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is historically listed as the Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren left the Moravian settlements of Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to begin the founding of a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, one of the twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition. ¹
¹ This diary is printed in full in Travels in the American Colonies edited by N. D. Mereness.
Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, in some measure, to the primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their warrior strength and their fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for their enterprise and for their sacrifice unto blood that free conscience and just laws might promote the progress and safeguard the intercourse of their kind. Now let us take up for a moment Brother Grube's Journal even as we welcome, perhaps the more gratefully, the mild light of evening after the flooding sun, or as our hearts, when too strongly stirred by the deeds of men, turn for rest to the serene faith and the naïve speech of little children.
The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their number, Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were not caused, as we might expect, by anticipations of the painted Cherokee, but by encounters with the strenuous “Irish.” One of these came and laid himself to sleep beside the Brethren's camp fire on their first night out, after they had sung their evening hymn and eleven had stretched themselves on the earth for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their leader, hanging his hammock between two trees, ascended—not only in spirit—a little higher than his charges, and “rested well in it.” Though the alarming Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts of that race continued, for Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: “About four in the morning we set up our tent, going four miles beyond Carl Isles [Carlisle, seventeen miles southwest of Harrisburg] so as not to be too near the Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren shaved and then we rested under our tent.… People who were staying at the Tavern came to see what kind of folk we were.… Br Gottlob held the evening service and then we lay down around our cheerful fire, and Br Gottlob in his hammock.” Two other jottings give us a racial kaleidoscope of the settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one day the Brethren bought “some hay from a Swiss,” later “some kraut from a German which tasted very good to us”; and presently “an Englishman came by and drank a cup of tea with us and was very grateful for it.” Frequently the little band paused while some of the Brethren went off to the farms along the route to help “cut hay.” These kindly acts were usually repaid with gifts of food or produce.
One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in Shenandoah Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as “Severe.” Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of names other than German requires editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the name he attempted to set down as it sounded to him was Sevier. And we wonder if, in his brief sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and blond, with daring and mischievous blue eyes, and a certain curve of the lips that threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he should be a man and reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his desires. If he saw this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to become one of the most picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old Southwest.
Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. “Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.… We took the right hand road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to drive five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace.” Two of the Brethren went ahead “to seek out the road” through the darkened wilderness. There were rough hills in the way; and, the horses being exhausted, “Brethren had to help push.” But, in due season, “Br Nathanael held evening prayer and then we slept in the care of Jesus,” with Brother Gottlob as usual in his hammock. Three days later the record runs: “Toward evening we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down so very steep a hill that we fastened a small tree to the back of our wagon, locked the wheels, and the Brethren held back by the tree with all their might.” Even then the wagon went down so fast that most of the Brethren lost their footing and rolled and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith makes little of such mishaps: “No harm was done and we thanked the Lord that he had so graciously protected us, for it looked dangerous and we thought at times that it could not possibly be done without accident but we got down safely… we were all very tired and sleepy and let the angels be our guard during the night.” Rains fell in torrents, making streams almost impassable and drenching the little band to the skin. The hammock was empty one night, for they had to spend the dark hours trench-digging about their tent to keep it from being washed away. Two days later (the 10th of November) the weather cleared and “we spent most of the day drying our blankets and mending and darning our stockings.” They also bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother Grube observed without irony,
are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money for them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested our souls in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close to Him.…
Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank was so steep that we hung a tree behind the wagon, fastening it in such a way that we could quickly release it when the wagon reached the water. The current was very swift and the lead horses were carried down a bit with it. The water just missed running into the wagon but we came safely to the other bank, which however we could not climb but had to take half the things out of the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could pull, help our horses which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark again to dry land.
On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely on their land on the “Etkin” (Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had provided for them. This time the gift was a deserted cabin, “large enough that we could all lie down around the walls. We at once made preparation for a little Lovefeast and rejoiced heartily with one another.”
In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one of those mansions “not built with hands” and descended miraculously from the heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while wolves padded and howled about the walls; and in that Pentacostal hour the tongue of fire descended upon Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto the Lord. Who shall venture to say it is not better worth preserving than many a classic?
We hold arrival Lovefeast here
In Carolina land,
A company of Brethren true,
A little Pilgrim-Band,
Called by the Lord to be of those
Who through the whole world go,
To bear Him witness everywhere
And nought but Jesus know.
Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and “Br Gottlob hung his hammock above our heads”—as was most fitting on this of all nights; for is not the Poet's place always just a little nearer to the stars?
The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families who set off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for there was a lad in this family whose name and deeds were to sound like a ballad of romance from out the dusty pages of history. This family's name was Boone.
Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood a blend of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His grandfather George Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, near Exeter in Devonshire. George Boone