Suspect Dunkards?
Not Drunkards --- Dunkards.
They were odd, different and therefore suspicious enough to be thought of as possible spies. Beyond that, they were living relativel near Fort Duquesne. They might tell the French what they see.
Timeline of Suspicion and Investigation
Williamsburg 8 August 1757
Sir,
the Bearer hereof Sam. Akerling has desir’d my Leave to go to see his Brothers, near the Monongahely proposing to give Security with You of his return to be here in the Octr Court; as I am a Stranger to the Evidence against him on Suspicion of being a Spy, which he sincerely denies & begs to be tried, but that cannot be ’till Octr—wherefore I refer him to You, & if You have any favorable Circumstances in his Affair, I give You Leave to allow him to go to his Brothers, giving Security for his Return by the above Time; & then the Evidence against him must be collected & sent here.1
1. “Sam. Akerling” is the Dunker (Dunkard) Samuel Eckerlin who came with his brother Israel Eckerlin to Virginia in the 1740s. Since 1755 they had lived with other Dunkers on the Cheat River to the west of Fort Cumberland. For Eckerlin’s subsequent dealings with GW and Dinwiddie, see GW to Dinwiddie, 5 Oct. 1757, Dinwiddie to GW, 24 Oct. 1757, Robert Stewart to Dinwiddie, 9 Nov. 1757, and Robert Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757, and enclosure.
Source
Dinwiddie to GW 8 Aug 1757
Williamsburg 24 Oct 1757
It looks like a Dunker faced "Council" (the upper chamber advising the Governor and also serving as an ultimate Supreme Court). Lt Governor Dinwiddie wrote, "the dunker is to be Examind before the Council, when I Shall take notice what You write of him, & then I shall write You what is thot necessary to be done, . . " For the action the council took on 20 Oct. 1757 with regard to the petition of the Dunker Samuel Eckerlin, see Dinwiddie to GW, 24 Oct. 1757.
That 24 Oct 1757 decision was this: "The Duncard’s Petition was heard before me & the Council, & Yr Letter in regard thereto, & as the People on the Frontiers are uneasy with them, believing them to be Spies, it was resolv’d that You send a Party out to bring in the other two Brothers, with their Cattle & Horses & any Thing they have that they conveniently can bring with them, & to remain among the Inhabitants durg the present War, after which to be restored to their Lands, which Order You are to comply with in the most prudent Manner."
Founders Online footnote states, Samuel Eckerlin’s petition was heard on 20 Oct. 1757. GW’s letter was dated 5 Oct. 1757. For the trials and tribulations of Eckerlin’s brothers, see Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart, November 1757, n.1, enclosed in Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
Because they spoke German, no one (meaning Indians, English, French) trusted these Dunkards. And besides, their story is pretty odd even for these very open modern times. See this section on what they believed.
Fort Loudoun Winchster Va 9 Nov 1757
We run into a letter from Captain Robert Stewart, 9 Nov 1757. He writes this letter from Fort Loudoun Winchester VA. He was with George Washington helping a mortally wounded General Braddock on to his sash as a stretcher to carry off the battlefield. He once wrote George Washington for a position after the Revolution. See the story of the curt reply. His name adorns a street in Winchester VA.
But back to that letter.
His letter is about those Dunkards.
The Virginia Regiment was assigned to investigate.
And it looks like they're heading to Place 4 on this Jefferson Fry Map.
What the Dunkards did wrong has so many conflicting stories.
One source says a Colonel Wood investigated them. But this source indicates this Colonel Wood was not our James Wood.
Another source says George Washington escorted one of them to Williamsburg to plead his case. But the letter of 9 Nov 1757 quoted here tells how sick our Colonel George Washington is from the "bloudy flux," during this time period.
Captain Robert Stewart sent order to Captain Waggener on the South Potomac to find the Dunkards and investigate.
In particular, the very active Eckerlin brothers were not trusted.
One of the sisters married a Simon Girty.
Look for more updates to this story.
Compiled by Jim Moyer 11/9/21, 11/11/2021, 11/14/21, 11/15/21, updated 1/14/2024
And what are they doing here?
We are tracking the movements
of the Eckerlin brothers
who joined with the Dunkards.
They came from
Strasburg Germany Alsace area
to Germantown (now in Philadelphia)
to the Ephrata Cloister (Lancaster Co, PA)
to the New River in Virginia,
a settlement now under the waters
of Lake Claytor
since the 1939 dam was built
for the rural electrification projects.
Then they moved
to "the mouth of what is now
(named for them)
on the Monongahela River,
and subsequently
(due to threats of Indian attack)
to a fertile bottom
(now in Preston County)
in the Cheat River valley.
Camp Dawson is on this land today."
See link.
More on the Dunkards? See here.
And why does that matter to the men of Fort Loudoun?
Captain Robert Stewart at Fort Loudoun is keeping track of Captain Waggener and Captain MacKenzie about their pursuit of the Dunkards.
In particular they are to go after the Eckerlin Brothers.
Captain Stewart is keeping track of this for the ailing Colonel George Washington.
GW has left Fort Loudoun 9 Nov 1757 or the day before to seek recovery of his "bloudy flux."
The Dunkards are suspect of having French sympathy.
More Details:
This part of the letter is about the Dunkards:
Captain Robert Stewart at Fort Loudoun
writes a letter 9 Nov 1757.
He informs Lt Gov Dinwiddie:
In consequence of your Orders
the Colo. [George Washington] has Commanded
Captn Waggener
[He was in charge of building forts
on the South Branch of the Potomac
and of garrisoning those forts
and of scouring the woods for the enemy
and taught Lt Charles Smith how to build a fort
who was put in charge of building Fort Loudoun]
to Form as strong a Party as he can
by Detachments from the different Garrisons
on the Branch
[short for South Branch of the Potomac River]
to bring in the Duncards
But he humbly conceives
it would have been prudent to have confin’d the Duncard Doctr
till the Return of this Party
[Suspicion of Enemy Sympathies]
as it’s more than probable
that if he’s disaffected to our Government
which many violently suspect
he and his Brothers will immediatly move to Fort Duquesne,
give the Commanding officer there
Intelligence of our Intentions
and thereby enable him
to Form some Plan for the Destruction of our Party
But as the Colos. Orders were positive he did not choose to defer the Execution of them.3
Founders Online Footnote:
See Eckerlin's in this section.
3. The orders to Capt. Thomas Waggener have not been found, but for Robert McKenzie’s mission to the Eckerlin brothers’ encampment, see note 1 of McKenzie’s letter to Stewart enclosed in Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
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Source:
There are different names for the brothers in this link:
Most sources agree with the names of the brothers listed here:
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End of our Short Story
Blog compiled by Jim Moyer 11/9/2021
The above story contains links to more below.
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The Complete Letter:
Captain Robert Stewart writes to Lt Gov Dinwiddie from Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.
He starts the letter saying his Colonel George Washington is so sick he had to leave this fort to help recover from a bloody flux.
He ends the letter asking for leave to apply for a Commission in the official British Army under Lord Loudoun.
Robert Stewart to Robert Dinwiddie,
9 November 1757
Robert Stewart to Robert Dinwiddie Fort Loudoun Novr 9th 1757 Honble Sir
The "Bloudy Flux"
For upwards of three Months past
Colo. Washington has labour’d under a Bloudy Flux,
about a week ago his Disorder greatly increas’d
attended with bad Fevers,
the day before yesterday
he was seiz’d with Stitches & violent Pleuretick Pains
upon which the Docr Bled him
and yesterday
he twice repeated the same operation.
Good Air better than Leeches
This Complication of Disorders
greatly perplexes the Doctr
as what is good for him in one respect
hurts him in another,
the Docr has strongly Recommended
his immediatly changing his air
and going to some place where he can be kept quiet
(a thing impossible here)
being the best chance
that now remains for his Recovery,
Advice to Leave Now
the Colo. objected
to following this advice
before he could procure Yr Honrs Liberty
but the Docr gave him such reasons as convinc’d him
it might then be too late
and he has at length with reluctance agreed to it,
therefore has Directed me to acquaint Yr Honr
(as he’s not in condition to write himself)
of his resolution of leaving this immediatly1
and of his reasons for doing it
which I have now the honor to do.
New Commissar Mr Ramsay
Yr Honr’s Letter of the 24th Ulto (by Smith)
did not reach the Colo.
till the afternoon of the 6th Instant
he has since sent a Copy of Yr Contract with Mr Ramsay
to the Commandg Officer
of each Garrison in this and Hampshire Counties
and issued the necessary Orders relative thereto.2
Bounty Paid for Catching Deserters
there’s no Deserters
been brought to the Regiment by Constables
or others
for which the Colo. has not paid Rewards
In consequence of your Orders
Waggener's Orders to to confine Duncards
the Colo. has Commanded Captn Waggener
to Form as strong a Party as he can
by Detachments from the different Garrisons
on the Branch to bring in the Duncards
But he humbly conceives it would have been prudent
to have confin’d the Duncard Doctr
till the Return of this Party
as it’s more than probable
that if he’s disaffected to our Government
which many violently suspect
he and his Brothers will immediatly move to Fort Duquesne,
give the Commanding officer there Intelligence of our Intentions
and thereby enable him to Form some Plan
for the Destruction of our Party
But as the Colos. Orders
were positive he did not choose
to defer the Execution of them.3
Capt Stewart trying for a British Commission
When I last had the honor of writing You4
I inform’d Yr Honor of my Intentions of applying to Lord Loudoun
so soon as [I] could
hear of His Lordship’s going into Winter Quarters
I have since communicated my Intentions to Colo. Washington,
who was Pleas’d to approve of it
but exprest some Inclination
to have Yr Honrs approbation
to my leave of absence
to Wait on His Lordship wherever He may be,5
this I flatter myself You will be Pleas’d to do which will much oblige &ca Robert Stewart
Copy, DLC:GW.
The signed copy is in Robert Stewart’s hand and was enclosed in Stewart’s letter to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
Founders Online Footnotes
1. GW probably left on 9 November. Robert Stewart gave GW a receipt at Fort Loudoun on 9 Nov. for “Forty Five Pounds Curry of Virginia to be accounted for” (DLC:GW), and GW was in Alexandria by 13 Nov. 1757 when he wrote to the Rev. Charles Green.
2. No such orders have been found. The contract with William Ramsay is printed as an enclosure in Dinwiddie to GW, 24 Oct. 1757.
3. The orders to Capt. Thomas Waggener have not been found, but for Robert McKenzie’s mission to the Eckerlin brothers’ encampment, see note 1 of McKenzie’s letter to Stewart enclosed in Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
4. The letter from Stewart to Dinwiddie has not been found.
5. In the missing letter from Stewart to Dinwiddie, Stewart requested a leave of absence in order to seek from Loudoun a commission in a British regiment. See Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757, and Enclosure II (Dinwiddie to Stewart, 15 Nov. 1757).
Source:
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Enclosure I: Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart, November 1757
Enclosure I Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart Saturday Night [November 1757]
Sir I am glad to find by your Lettr to Capt. Waggener
that the Duncard Doctr is not escaped
which we took here for granted.
There is not a Man upon the Branch that can positively undertake to pilot the Party to his Settlemt & at this Time of the Year it is very dangerous to go such a Distance & over such bad Mountains witht a proper Guide.
I wish you would undertake to send him up immeadiately, & if his Bail is not yet released I will be bound to return him safe, or bring a certain Certificate to prove that the Country will suffer Nothing from him for the future.
I am to command the Party, & am therefore more anxious for its Success—I am sure the Good of the Service necessarily requires his Presence.1
A Party of 8 Indians fell upon two Hunters abt Sunsett. They fired 4 Shot at the Enemy but upon seeing the rest (three only being seen at first) they run off two different Ways both untouchd. One is come in the other missing—I shall endeavor to know what is become of him in the Morng—The man missing is Lane, the other Cox.2
I am Sir Yr Most obedt
Robt McKenzie
ALS, DLC:GW.
Founders Online Footnotes:
Footnote 1.
Samuel Eckerlin led McKenzie’s party to the Dunkers’ encampment.
The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 5 Jan. 1758, quoted from a letter from Dumfries, Va., dated 27 Dec. 1757:
“Captain M’Kenzie,
who was sent out for the Dunkers,
told me Yesterday,
he found nothing on the Spot they inhabited
but some Spears, broken Tomahawks, and the Ashes of their Hutts.
The Spears were of French Make.
(These Dunkers,
as they live unmolested by the French,
were supposed to be in their Interest.)”
Eckerlin himself was released.
A later item in the Gazette (26 Jan.) reported that about the middle of September
“Israel and Gabriel Eckerling, t
wo of the Dumplers,
who lately lived, as Hermits,
in the Allegheny Mountains,
near the Monongahela,
with their Man Robert” were seen “in Prison at Quebec.”
Footnote 2.
On 8 Dec. 1757 the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis) reported
“that on Friday the 25th of November, as one Cox,
and another Man, were hunting for Deer,
on the Virginia Side of Patowmack,
a little above the Mouth of Conococheague,
they discovered Three Indians sitting on a Log,
and agreed each to Fire at his Man,
which they did,
and kill’d them both on the Spot,
but the other made off immediately,
and soon returned with 6 or 7 more Indians,
when a Skirmish ensued,
in which Cox and his Companion,
Fired, one of them 4 Times,
and the other 5,
and mortally wounded one Indian,
but were at last separated,
and one of them made his Escape,
but the other was taken Prisoner.
The Indians burnt the Bodies of the Two Dead Indians,
and carried off their Prisoner,
and the Wounded Indian,
who Died on the Way,
and they buried him.
The Second Night after, the Prisoner made his Escape, and came back the same Road, and got safe in; but on his Way, when he came to the Indian’s Grave, he dug his Body up, and scalp’d him, with a sharp Stone; for he was deprived of his Knife and every Weapon of Defence by the Indians, when he was taken Prisoner.”
If Robert Stewart’s letter to GW enclosing McKenzie’s letter is correctly dated this incident must have occurred a week earlier than the newspaper account indicates.
The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 2 Mar. 1758, provided other details:
“This Mr John Lane . . . was taken Prisoner by the Indians last November (after he and one Cox had killed Two of them) stripped Naked, Pinioned, and had a Halter tied about his Neck, on which the Indians lay down, when they went to Sleep, but cut himself loose with a broken Piece of Bottle,
which he had found on General Braddock’s Road,
and concealed under his Arm; and on his Return,
dug up an Indian which they had buried,
took away his Match-coat,
and scalped him with a broken Stone.”
The same item appears in the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 16 Feb. 1758.
The hunters John Lane and James Cox were shot and killed in April 1758 by a detachment of the Virginia Regiment when the two hunters were disguised as Indians (see James Baker to GW, 10 April 1758, and GW to John Blair, 17 April 1758).
Source:
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Vignettes on the Dunkards:
To fully understand the "Dunkard's" we must trace back to the place where they came from, Pennsylvania and neighboring regions.
Strasburg Germany
Before they came to Pennsylvania they traveled from Germany. Going to Germany for a start, researchers found a little group of serious-minded citizens situated about Strasburg chafing under the Catholic rule of the Province.
Alexander MACK, reader of the bible, Conrad BIESEL, a salesman, and Michael ECKERLING, a member of the city council, made up the group of independent worshippers, then called "Pietists", and held secret services at private homes until they were hounded out of the country to become citizens of America.
In Germany, the Dunkard's wore long beards and were highly skilled in many trades as well as agriculture. The Dunkard's were also pacifists. They were ill suited for life on Virginia's wild frontier.
Then this summary quotes from Thomas Walker's Journal who wrote his observations of the Dunkards on New River in Virginia.
New River in Virginia
When John BUCHANAN made his trip to the New River, he noted the individuals here. These people were; Israel LORTON and Adam HARMAN of Tom's Creek, Jacob HARMAN at the Horseshoe, Charles HART on Back Creek, William MACK on Reed Creek and a group of German eccentrics on the Dunkard's Bottom. Three more Dunkard's also came to the New River area: Alexander MACK, Conrad BIESEL, and Michael ECKERLING.
But before they arrived on New River in Virginia:
Germantown
(Now part of Philadelphia)
Conrad BIESEL came first in 1720 joining the congregation at Germantown.
In 1725 the ECKERLINGs, four sons and mother, came after the death of their father Michael. Alexander MACK followed in 1729.
Ephrata Cloisters
(Lancaster Co PA)
BIESEL of the new congregation held out for the observance of the seventh day as the Lord's Day and established a monastic society with buildings suitable for the solitary life the members desired to live.
With the help of the ECKERLING brothers,
Israel, Emanuel, Samuel, and Gabriel,
the colony prospered until it became the well-known institution at Ephrata.
This link mentions different first names for the Eckerlin brothers:
In the year 1740 there were 36 single brethren in the cloister, and 35 sisters. At one time the society numbered nearly 300.
New River in Virginia
Pay particular notice to the Eckerling name. That name is who the Virginia Regiment letters mention.
And compare this story on the Eckerlin brothers with the rest of this blue quoted text here.
The ECKERLING brothers, (Israel and Samuel), and Alexander MACK chose a site on the banks of the New River. Soon a third ECKERLING brother, Gabriel, joined them.
Other Dunkard's of the Mahanaim settlement included: William MACK, Gerhart ZINN and his wife, George HOOPAUGH, Henry ZINN, Peter SHAVER, Jacob HOHNLY, John NEGLEY and others.
The ECKERLINGS were interested in expanding the activities of the group to include more industries along with religious practices and in building an institution of some reputation. When they were caught in unauthorized transactions, it became clear to them that they should leave the area. In September of 1745 Israel and Samuel ECKERLING and Alexander MACK Jr. set out for the wilderness. They traveled by way of York until they were beyond all settlements and arrived on the west side of the New River. In October, Buchanan found them with a cabin which they had built.
Several of the known leaders left Mahanaim to a new settlement on the New River. They found John MILLER in possession of parts of the bottom land, and a roadside store site of 37 acres, which he had purchased from Peter SHAVER, located on the Sinking Spring or Mill Creek, now called Dublin Branch; Garrett ZINN who purchased the ECKERLING land; John NEGLEY and John STROUPE, probably associates on a branch of Peak Creek; William MACK on Reed Creek; and John Bingaman on the New River. Sometime in 1746 Gabriel ECKERLING and Jacob HOHNLY joined the others at their new settlement in the New River.
Return to Ephrata
In 1750 the ECKERLINGs returned to Ephrata and the land holdings were transferred to Garrett ZINN who obtained the patent.
Indian Attack
In 1754 George HOOPAUGH, one of the Dunkard's, said that the previous May 60 "Norward Indians" came to his house and burned it and the stable. Before that, the Indians had threatened him, burned his corn and killed his best dogs.
In May of 1755 Henry ZINN was killed on the New River by the Indians. This was probably one of the reasons for the sudden and premature dispersal of the remaining Dunkard's.
To keep from being murdered by the Indians, Garrett ZINN moved to Carolina, where he died in 1765.
Recorded in the chronicles of the Cloisters: "They fled as if they were chased by someone, for justice persecuted them for the spiritual debts which they had contracted in the Cloisters, until they reached a water which is running toward the Mississippi, called New River, beyond all Christian government. There they made their home among riffraff, the dregs of human society who spend their time murdering wild creatures. With such people they had communion instead of their Brethren whom they left."
Back to New River in Virginia
Eventually, the Dunkard's moved back to their settlement in the New River.
In a letter written by Annie CHRISTIAN, William CHRISTIAN's wife, to Ann FLEMING, her sister-in-law, dated Dec. 3, 1770, we learn that the CHRISTIAN family had moved back to the "new location" on the New River. It stated that the Christians were delighted with Mahaniam. In 1772, the Christians had built a new home in the Dunkard's Bottom community.
In 1774 William CHRISTIAN and friend James McCORKLE agreed on an operation of a store at New Dublin. This partnership was to last until 1776. In the spring and summer of 1774, William was a colonel of the Fincastle County troops and prepared for action against the Indians.
In the summer of 1784 William CHRISTIAN and his wife Annie moved to Kentucky where he received a military grant and where his father had claimed lands. William sold 400 acres of the Dunkard's Bottomland to James McCORKLE that year.
Source:
"Dunkard's Bottom" -
Virginia Historical Markers on Waymarking.com
More sources:
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Dunkard settlement at bottom of Lake
Rural Electrification and Claytor Lake
William Penn's Recruitment in the old Holy Roman Empire:
Description of Dunkards by Thomas Walker:
16th March.[1750]
We kept up the Staunton (7)
to William Englishes. (8)
He lives on a small Branch,
and was not much hurt by the Fresh.
He has a mill, which is the furtherest back
except one lately built by the Sect of People
who call themselves of the Brotherhood of Euphrates,
and are commonly called the Duncards,
who are the upper Inhabitants of the New River,
which is about 400 yards wide at this place.
They live on the west side,
and we were obliged to swim our horses over.(9)
The Duncards are an odd set of people,
who make it a matter of Religion not to
Shave their Beards,
ly on beds,
or eat flesh,
though at present, in the last, they transgress,
being constrained to it,
they say, by the want of a sufficiency of Grain and Roots,
they have not long been seated here.
I doubt the plenty and deliciousness
of the Venison and Turkeys
has contributed not a little to this.
The unmarried have no Property
but live on a common Stock.
They don't baptize either Young or Old,
they keep their Sabbath on Saturday,
and hold that all men shall be happy hereafter,
but first must pass through punishment
according to their Sins.
They are very hospitable.
March 18th. The Sabbath.
19th. We could not find our horses and spent the day in Looking for them. In the evening we found their track.
20th. We went very early to the track of our Horses and after following them six or seven miles, we found them all together. we returned to the Duncards about 10 O'clock, and having purchased half a Bussell of Meal and as much small Homony we set off and lodged on a small Run between Peak Creek and Reedy Creek.(10)
Footnotes to this Journal:
Footnote 7
Summers states that the north fork of the Roanoke River is "formed by the junction of the Staunton and the Dan rivers in Halifax Co. about ten miles north of the dividing line between Va. & N. Carolina. It rises in the Alleghaney mountains and flows S. E. The upper portion of Staunton River is now called Roanoke, the lower portion Staunton, and after the junction with the Dan the Roanoke again."
Footnote 8
Summers locates William English's land as "Near the present village of Blacksburg, Montgomery Co. Virginia."
Footnote 9
Summers identifies this crossing of the New River as "near the present crossing of the turnpike which runs from Wytheville to Christiansburg and several miles above the crossing of the Norfolk and Western Railroad," and adds that "It was afterward known as Ingles's Ferry. It is still owned and occupied by descendants of William and Mary Ingles."
Footnote 10
Summers states that "Peak Creek enters the New River near the village of Newburn, in Pulaski Co.," and that Reed Creek was "Probably Reed Creek in Wythe County." The 1751 Fry-Jefferson map, however, shows Peak and Reedy as only a few miles apart, both on the west side of the New River, which seems more likely since Williams states that Max Meadows is the present (1928) name of the Reedy Creek site near McCall's, and that "James McCall served in Col. William Christian's campaign against the Cherokees in 1776."
Sources:
Journal of Thomas Walker:
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Other German migrations
The Palatine Migration — 1723 From Schoharie to Tulpehocken By JOHN W. AND MARTHA B. HARPER
This article originally appeared in the Summer 1960 issue of the Historical Review of Berks County.
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More Sources:
By David Sibray, Editor-in-Chief -March 19, 2017
The history of West Virginia is filled with stories of religious diversity — of hermits and holy men and women who escaped the clamor and confines of civilization. Beyond the edge of the American frontier, its sheltered valleys promised both freedom and isolation in a potential Garden of Eden. That promise was not always fulfilled.
The following version of this history is recounted in the "Chronicum Ephratense," written by a monk of Dunkard faith in 1789, according to a citation in the West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia, Vol. 7, pages 1420-1421. There seem to be many varied versions of the tale. (The surname Eckerlin is also spelled Eckerly and Eckarly in other accounts, and the given names of the brothers included in these records vary as well.)
Michael Eckerlin, a councilman of Strasbourg, Germany, left the Roman Catholic church and professed his faith of the German Baptists, or Anabaptists, also known as the Dunkards. After his death, his wife and four sons emigrated to America, reaching Philadelphia around 1725.
Three of the children — Israel, Samuel, and Gabriel — were baptized into a Dunkard church, which later became a monastic community, and took as their names Onesimus, Jephune, and Jotham (or Jonathan) sometime between 1728 and 1732.
In the latter years the brothers and a number of others, known as The Solitary Brethren, moved into a cloister called Zion at Ephrata, Pa. The Brethren, both men and women, held all property in common, and marriage was forbidden.
Onesimus became the prior of Zion, but as such he caused controversy among the brethren because of his desire to expand the order and construct additional buildings and a bell tower at the cloister, a desire which was called "vanity" by the others. After a time an open conflict developed, and the Eckerlin brothers departed from the group, journeying into the Allegheny Mountains until they reached the New River [near present day Pulaski, Va.], where they built huts at a place they called "Mahanaim."
Thus the Eckerlins were among the first (if not the first) settlers west of the Alleghenies. Others joined them briefly but later returned to Ephrata or to the secular communities from which they had come, reporting that the Indians made life in the wilderness untenable — but the Eckerlin brothers stayed on.
The Eckerlins had varying occupations. Jephune attended to the border people as a physician. Onesimus spent most of his time writing. And Jotham, for a while, did all the hunting until he was order to stop by Onesimus, who believed that such activity was unseemly for a monk. In 1750 Onesimus and Jotham returned to Ephrata for a visit but soon came back to the New River, despite the rigors of a bad winter and heavy snow.
Dunkard Creek near Pentress, W.Va.
When the first land grants were made by Indians in the Ohio Valley, Onesimus requested leave of the Six Nations to settle on the Youghioghany River but was told he must apply to the Onondaga council and be recommended by the governor of Pennsylvania.
Unwilling to return to Philadelphia for that purpose, the brother applied to Christopher Gist, land agent of the Ohio Company, and received a tract on the Monongahela on what is still known as Dunkards Creek.
In 1753 or 1754 the brothers moved to Cheat River in what is now Preston County, led by friendly Delaware to a remote area now known as Dunkard's Bottom [near Kingwood] where they expected to be safe from the French and hostile Indians. Here they proposed to build their hermitage, which they proposed to develop into a religious community.
Forests never seen by Europeans
The brothers raised horses and cleared the land, and there is even a tradition that they were planning to develop a gold and silver mine.
But their solitude was short-lived. A band of Iroquois raided the settlement and took everything, including the carpets and the clothes the brothers wore on their backs.
Meanwhile, the settlers of the South Branch Valley began to fear that the brothers were in league with the Indians and agitated successfully to prevent the Ecklerlins from getting legal title to the land on which they were living.
When the brothers came to the valley for supplies, they were arrested, and for a time Onesimus was held prisoner in one of their forts [Fort Pleasant near Moorefield], although he was later allowed to return.
But the end came in 1758 when Jephune was marched back from the South Branch under armed guard, the settlers having determined to dissolved the hermitage and escort the brothers back east.
As they approached the settlement, Jephune and his escort saw it attacked by Mohawk under the command of a French officer. Onesimus and Jotham were taken prisoner, the monastery was set on fire, and Jephune returned to civilization with his guards.
Onesimus and Jotham were taken to Fort DuQuesne (now Pittsburgh) where they were sold to the French and were reasonably well-treated afterwards as their captors respected religious men and monks in particular.
However, France and England were at war, so there was no hope of their return to any English settlement. They were taken to Canada and then to France where Onesumus became converted to Catholicism and became a monk known as "Le Bon Chretien."
Both brothers died soon afterward. Jephune, according to tradition, spent his last days in Easton, Pa., among the Dunkards there.
Source:
The Eckerlin Brothers
Marion Co. WV
The Eckerlin brothers were early settlers in Marion County. They were born in Germany, and the 5 brothers and 2 sisters came to Philadelphia with their parents. Though their parents were devout Roman Catholics, about 1740 the Eckerlin brothers moved to Ephrata in Lancaster County. It was here that one brother became an outcast for committing some unknown act, and the family never spoke to him again. He lived in a cave near Ephrata as a hermit until he died, even his name unknown to us. The other brothers, Samuel, Gabriel, Isaiah, and Emanuel, joined the Seventh Day Baptist Church, also known as Ephratians or Dunkards.
NOTE: The name Eckerlin is often written as Eckarly, and indeed one brother, Dr. Samuel, is often called Dr. Thomas Eckarly.
The sisters, Rebecca Ann and Mary, moved near their brothers after the death of their mother, around 1743.
In 1736, Mary married Thomas Newton, who drowned just a few months after the wedding. In 1737, she married Simon Girty, Sr. Her first son, born in 1738, was named Thomas Newton Girty. Simon, Jr. was born in 1741, James in 1743, and George in 1745. A widow once more, she married John Turner in 1753, and in 1754 John, Jr. was born.
Rebecca Ann married Adam Doane, whose family became the most feared outlaws in eastern Pennsylvania and later in the upper Ohio and Monongahela valleys. She was captured by indians about 1745 and taken to
the indian town Chartier's Town, now Tarentum near Pittsburgh. She was later released to her husband, and lived until 1789. She died near Wadestown, West Virginia, in present Greene County, PA.
Around 1745, after some serious disagreement with their church, Dr. Samuel Eckerlin, along with his brothers, robbed the church of "a great fortune" in gold and gems. The brothers, joined by Samuel's wife and son, Paul, and others, then fled into the wilderness.
Samuel quickly turned up along New River, and then moved into the Monongahela River valley around 1751.
His brother, Emmanuel, had already settled along the Youghiogheny River near present Cranesville, WV. Emmanuel was taken by indians for a year or so until ransomed by his brothers and then, being ill, he went to Philadelphia where he died in 1754.
The other three brothers and their party settled, in 1751, on the Monongahela River, at the mouth of now-named Dunkard Creek. On the Cheat River they erected the first church in what is now West Virginia.
In 1757, Samuel went to Winchester, Virginia, for supplies and was held at Ft. Pleasant on the South Branch of the Potomac, accused of being a spy for the indians. He was released only with a squad of soldiers to accompany him and investigate his claim of having a purely religious
colony. Arriving at the Cheat River settlement, they found all of the buildings burned and the bodies of 27 of the 30 inhabitants. The missing settlers were Samuel's brothers, Gabriel and Isaiah, and an indentured servant named Baltzer Shilling. The treasure was never found, but Shilling would later tell what had happened at the massacre.
Shilling was found near present Hundred, WV, in 1759 by indian trader John Owens and taken to his house along the Monongahela at Ten Mile Creek. Samuel Eckerly would find him there a few months later. Shilling told him that about 50 Delaware Indians, led by a French priest, had attacked the Cheat River settlement. Before the attack, Gabriel had hidden the treasure in an unknown location. The three survivors were taken to Ft. Duquesne. Gabriel and Isaiah were taken on to Quebec and never heard of again. Shilling was taken as a slave to an indian settlement on the Sandusky River, from where he eventually made his escape. Samuel and Shilling took up residence in present Fayette County, PA. Samuel would doctor settlers along the Monongahela River and beyond, and the two of them would often return to the Cheat River to search for the lost treasure. Shilling died about 1795, and Samuel finally lived at the William Linn home until his
death.
Source:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/wv/marion/bios/EckerlinBrothers.txt
Great Map tracks the Dunkards locations:
Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe
Ephrata monks experienced an intentional and dramatic physical transformation.
Ephrata’s émigrés in Virginia
In the mid-eighteenth-century world of competing global empires, the Ephrata monks of Pennsylvania and Virginia existed in an excruciating limbo between Protestant and Catholic, French and English, “savage” and “civilized,” male and female, mystic sexuality and corporeal celibacy, asceticism and ceremony, individual and community.
Ezekiel Sangmeister, a former carpenter’s apprentice and German immigrant who joined the Ephrata sect in 1748, vividly captured the personal cost of this spiritual and social marginality in his memoir of life first in the Ephrata Cloister and then at a breakaway Ephrata commune in Virginia.
This remarkable source describes a brief moment before the Seven Years’ War, when the sect actually flourished. During these years Sangmeister and his cohort of male Protestant celibates experimented with fluid categories of confession, ethnicity, and gender. The strange utopian communities this undertaking produced probed the limits of religious toleration in the American colonies, but in the end, those limits proved more powerful than this band of pietistic Protestants. Most of them were forced from their incongruous homosocial communal cabins back into the heterosocial world of marriage and conventional domesticity.
The original Ephrata Cloister emerged from a group of mystic, Protestant hermits scattered along Cocalico Creek in central Pennsylvania. An orphaned former baker’s apprentice from south Germany, Conrad Beissel, became the leader of the oxymoronic hermit-commune in the mid-1730s. Beissel adhered to a form of Protestant pietist mysticism, drawn partly from the theology of German Lutheran Philip Jakob Spener (1635-1705). Spener’s theology stressed the experiential aspects of faith, demanding that believers strive towards piety, by which he meant sinless living in accord with biblical dictates. A subset of such pietists, including Beissel and those who joined him, believed that if they could shed their sinful corporeal impulses, they might achieve a mystical union with what they believed to be God’s female aspect, the Virgin Sophia. That Beissel’s extreme pietism took hold was clearly a function of the unsettled nature of Lutheranism in Pennsylvania. Having left the established Lutheran church of their homeland, German migrants to the region found themselves in the novel situation of being able to choose among traveling preachers, some educated, some not, some ordained, some not, all claiming to be the true Lutherans. Conrad Beissel stepped into this confusing ecclesiastical landscape and offered the Germans living near his commune on Cocalico Creek a clear path to salvation.
Before long, however, Beissel and his followers began showing signs of division. The most divisive argument pitted Beissel against three similarly orphaned German brothers, the Eckerlins. Apparently the eldest of the Eckerlin brothers, Israel, who himself had a significant following in the commune, clashed with Beissel over the management of the newly built cloister. In 1745, only four years after Beissel made Israel Eckerlin his second in command, the conflict reached a boiling point, and Eckerlin left for Virginia where he and his brothers Gabriel and Samuel established a successful commune of their own. Beissel’s loyal “brothers” and “sisters” burned Israel’s writings, the Eckerlin brothers’ house, and the fruitful orchards first planted by the Eckerlins.
Three years after Israel Eckerlin fled for Virginia, another orphaned German mystic found his way to the Pennsylvania commune. Ezechiel Sangmeister arrived with fellow carpenter’s apprentice Anton Hellenthal in March 1748 and spent four years living in Beissel’s community. Sangmeiseter, like Beissel and the Eckerlins, had already traveled German-speaking Europe learning his trade and trying to find religious communities tolerant of his mystic pietism. Ultimately, this quest brought him to the Ephrata Cloister on the North American frontier.
Dots on this map show the areas where members from the Ephrata Cloister moved in Virginia. Digital revision based on Map of Virginia and Maryland, engraved by Fenner Sears and Co. (London, 1831). Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society. Sangmeister’s memoir, entitled Life and Change, tells a detailed, if highly subjective, history of one man’s life in Ephrata and beyond. Neither Sangmeister nor Hellenthal had a pleasant experience in Ephrata. Sangmeister felt he was rushed into his decision to join the sect and was perpetually concerned by what he considered crypto-Catholic ceremonial practices, including tonsure (the shaving of the head) and “shameful lust” arising between the brothers and sisters. “Brother Anton’s” plight was dramatically worse. He suffered a mental breakdown, was placed in chains, then managed to escape and wander the woods until he regained his senses. During Sangmeister’s and Hellenthal’s stay at the cloister, the Eckerlin brothers returned and encouraged those discontented with life on Cocalico Creek to come with them to Virginia. Sangmeister and Hellenthal eventually took the Eckerlins’ advice and snuck away from Ephrata “a little after midnight” on October 2, 1752.
Immediately upon their departure, Brothers Ezechiel and Anton experienced the extent to which their bodies, emaciated by ascetic practice and hidden beneath Ephrata’s flowing white robes, challenged the gender categories of those around them. Sangmeister reports that the men “were still wearing the full Ephrata-habit so people everywhere thought that I was the husband and Brother Anton was the wife.” Sangmeister was twenty-nine years old and would have had Ephrata’s requisite long beard to denote his masculinity. Anton, however, must have been significantly younger or at least unable to grow a beard; thus, in the flowing robes, he was mistaken for a woman.
Ephrata monks experienced an intentional and dramatic physical transformation. While Pennsylvania magistrate and Indian agent Conrad Weiser lived at Ephrata, those who had known him before barely recognized him. The brothers and sisters desired androgyny as part of their quest to abandon the body and its drives for a mystical communion with the Virgin Sophia. Their theology held that Adam’s fall began with his division into male and female. Mystics such as Sangmeister wished desperately to reclaim the spiritual purity Adam had abandoned. Not surprisingly, this ambition produced all sorts of struggles with sexual urges, many of which Sangmeister detailed in his memoir. In the service of this androgynous ideal, men like Weiser and Gabriel Eckerlin, who had married before coming to Ephrata, were encouraged to divorce their wives. Of the women who joined the female cloister, a striking number—including the wife of the prominent printer Christopher Sauer—fled their husbands to do so. Other couples vowed to live chastely while remaining married.
No women traveled with Sangmeister to form the Virginia commune so Brother Anton fulfilled the womanly duties of housekeeper—and did so badly in Sangmeister’s assessment. Sangmeister assumed the European male’s traditional role of breadwinner. He worked among the settlers as a carpenter, cabinetmaker, and medic, but his unmarried state exposed him to accusations of womanizing. For an Ephrata monk, already deeply troubled by his sexual urges, such intimations simply reinforced the need to avoid all women. But that was not enough. He would also have to avoid animals, particularly those liable to mate. For Adam too, he thought, met his “downfall” by “looking with the animals and their breeding.” Thus God had “no other solution” but to “get a woman” for Adam. Sangmeister also feared that he and his brother would be tempted to engage in bestiality should they keep cattle.
As the Ephrata outpost attracted “restless people, who came partly out of curiosity and partly to waste time with all sorts of discussions,” Sangmeister decided he and Hellenthal required a “little house on a mountain” to which one could escape for solitude and prayer. But while Sangmeister enjoyed his solitude “for several days, sometimes even almost weeks with great pleasure,” the neighborhood erupted in “tumult” as locals debated whether Sangmeister’s “little room” on the mountain was used for “practicing alchemy” or whether he and Anton “were really catholic [sic] and worshiped our idols there.” Sangmeister and Hallenthal tore down the meditation cabin shortly before locals notified the colonial authorities of its existence.
By Sangmeister’s telling, a court clerk, Colonel Wood, organized a three-man party, including a militia officer, to investigate claims against the brethren. Wood was satisfied, the cabin gone, and peace restored, but only temporarily.
[ My note: This Wood could not have been James Wood of Winchester VA because this Wood investigated Sangmeister's suspect cabin in the Ephrata area of PA. ]
On July 9, 1755, British general Edward Braddock and Virginia militia lieutenant colonel George Washington marched nearly two thousand men headlong into a French and Indian attack, leaving nearly one thousand men dead, including Braddock. Braddock’s stunning defeat left the European settlers of the Shenandoah and Monongahela undefended targets of French and Indian raids. For the Ephratites, the attack was particularly damaging. After this slaughter by agents of a Catholic state, men whose celibacy and asceticism suggested Roman Catholic priests were an almost inevitable target of the region’s renewed anti-Catholicism.
Among the brothers, Samuel Eckerlin was most at risk. His regular journeys to and from Winchester, Ephrata, Sandy Hook, and the Eckerlins’ settlement on the Monongahela, to sell medicine and medical advice, left him vulnerable to arrest for spying. And in 1756, he was indeed detained and nearly hung. However, a fellow medic, “Commisary Walker,” who had known Samuel in the Eckerlins’ first settlement in southwestern Virginia, vouched for him and escorted him to Williamsburg to ask for clemency from Governor Robert Dinwiddie. Walker also advised Samuel to retrieve Israel and Gabriel from the Monongahela before they fell victim to the Indian violence raging in the wake of Braddock’s defeat. He refused, and Walker’s prediction became reality.
Two more Ephratites were soon arrested as well. While Samuel waited in Williamsburg for clemency, his brother Israel and Brother Anton were taken into custody at a fort on the South Branch of the Shenandoah while traveling from the Monongahela to Sangmeister’s cabin. When Samuel returned from Williamsburg with a pass for free travel in the Allegheny Mountains, he was in no rush to liberate his brothers. Instead, he dispatched Brother Ezechiel to ride to them. As he passed through country already ravaged by Indian-colonist violence, Ezechiel encountered men from the fort who insisted Samuel’s presence would be required for Israel’s release. Samuel demanded that Ezechiel change from his monastic garb into a quilt coat, which Sangmeister described as “stiff from dirt and bear fat,” before the two men returned together and secured Israel’s release.
Sangmeister, like the Eckerlin brothers, also fell under suspicion as a potential spy for the French and their allied Indians. He and a traveling companion, an aging servant who had completed his time with the Eckerlins, stopped at an abandoned farm with a “fresh Indian track in the sand.” The soldiers nearby were no less wary of Sangmeister than they had been of the brothers Israel and Anton. They thus detained him and his fellow traveler for questioning. Sangmeister reported that while he “felt their anger,” he “gave them short answers.” Following the incident, the travelers again took refuge in what they thought was an abandoned house, but Sangmeister awoke to find the owner and three men, who “attacked us like thieves and scolded, ranted, and raved like the devil and it seemed just as though they were going to shoot us on the spot or kill us otherwise.” After surviving this incident, the two travelers stumbled upon another farm where they confronted “five armed men and a woman with red hair.” When Sangmeister asked directions, the group unleashed a stream of verbal abuse “too dreadful for words” and declared that the travelers were “positively spies.” The settlers insisted that “whenever one of you Dunkers [German Baptists] has come through this area we have always had new savage attacks directly afterwards.” The settlers attacked them for being “the cause [of] all the murder and misfortune in this country, and [declared] they would have absolutely no misgivings about shooting us.” One man revealed that the settlers planned to ambush and kill Sangmeister and his companion, but an approaching storm scattered the would-be attackers and allowed the Ephratites to return home safely.
The slight cultural space for Protestant monks and pacifist hunters vanished from the Virginia backcountry as it became the violent military frontier of the Seven Years’ War. In March 1757, Samuel Eckerlin emerged from the Allegheny Mountains to give Sangmeister a long treatise written by his brother Israel. Four days later, he was arrested again as a spy and taken to Winchester, Virginia. Although Sangmeister and his neighbors were able to raise the thousand pounds bail for Samuel, life for the Ephratites was becoming extremely difficult.
As frontier violence escalated, the expansion of German settlement down the Shenandoah Valley came to a halt. When a settlement six miles from Sangmeister lost twenty-five people to an Indian raid and neighbors’ hostility continued escalating, the German Settlers began their exodus. Some followed a religiously awakened shoemaker, Johannes Martin, back to Pennsylvania. Samuel Eckerlin set off for Williamsburg yet again to defend the Eckerlins against charges “that they sided with the French and Indians[,] that they were sp[ie]s and trying to bring tumult and d[e]struction to the land.” Sangmeister’s neighbors “became hostile” as well, leading to a similar plight for the Ephratites. Some of the neighbors suggested they “be hanged together,” while others leaned towards burning the monks’ house with them in it. Sangmeister was uncertain whether “the savages or . . . so-called Christians” posed a greater threat. Making matters worse, with each successive panic over Indian attack, Sangmeister stayed home while his neighbors took up arms. When asked to give spiritual guidance to one such assembly of armed settlers, Sangmeister traveled to address the group. Upon arrival, his pacifist scruples overcame him, and he went home without speaking.
Autumn 1757 brought with it the end of the Eckerlins’ settlement on the Monongahela. In November, Samuel was ordered to lead the Virginia militia to his brothers. After an emotionally and physically torturous journey, Samuel and his militia escorts arrived at the settlement only to find “everything ravaged, devastated, and burned by the savages, which from all outward signs and appearances happened around harvest time in the year 1757.” The soldiers took the destruction as belated evidence that the Eckerlins were innocent. When the Eckerlins’ servant eventually escaped his native captors and returned to Virginia to tell his tale, he reported that the Eckerlins were tortured until a French officer interceded on their behalf. The French were unsure what to make of the white-robed men, assuming them to be some form of “religious people.” From Fort Duquense, Israel and Gabriel Eckerlin were taken first to Montreal, then to Quebec, where they may have been placed in Jesuit custody. From Quebec they likely sailed on a prison ship for La Rochelle, France.
Unlike Israel and Gabriel Eckerlin, Ezechiel Sangmeister survived not only the Seven Years’ War but also the American Revolution. In 1764, he returned to Pennsylvania, where he settled into a comparatively normal household life with three siblings—two brothers, and a sister of whom he was particularly fond—near Ephrata but not in Beissel’s cloister. Likewise, the surviving Eckerlin brother, Samuel, eventually found his way back to Ephrata, where he continued to sell and practice medicine. Although Sangmeister survived, his vision of a frontier hermitage was no longer a possibility. He never managed to flee society as completely as Israel and Gabriel Eckerlin. That decision saved his life but killed his dreams.
Further Reading:
Ezechiel Sangmeister entitled his biography Leben und Wandel des in GOTT ruhenten Ezechiel Sangmeisters; Weiland Einwohner von Ephrata, 4 vols. (Ephrata: Joseph Bauman, 1825-27), trans. Barbara Schindler in Journal of the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley, 4-10 (1979-1985). As a straight translation, Leben und Wandel means “life and change.” However, Lebenswandel means “way or mode of life,” which Sangmeister surely wished to reference as both a play on words and extra layer of meaning. Klaus Wusts’s The Saint-Adventurers of the Virginia Frontier (Edinburg, Va., 1977) is the only published monograph to my knowledge that focuses exclusively on the Ephrata outposts in Virginia. The other substantial primary document produced by members of the Ephrata commune is Lamech and Agrippa, Chronicon Ephratense: A History of the Community of Seventh Day Baptists at Ephrata, Lancaster County, Penn’a, trans. J. Max Hark (Lancaster, Pa., 1889). Jeff Bach’s Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata (University Park, Pa., 2003) has finally offered scholars a widely researched modern monograph about the Ephrata community. Prior to Bach’s work the best secondary account was E. G. Alderfer, The Ephrata Commune: An Early American Counterculture (Pittsburg, Pa., 1985). To place the unique gender roles of Sangmeister and his cohort in context, a quick survey of Pennsylvania’s colonial newspapers reveals that Anglo-Americans report runaway servants, while German-Americans advertise for runaway wives, a finding corroborated in Christine Hucho’s work. For the extent to which frontier women and particularly frontier German women were testing English definitions of femininity, see St. John de Crevecoeur, Jane Merritt, Drohr Wahrman, Joyce Chaplin, Kathleen Brown, etc. For a detailed account of the Seven Years’ War in Appalachia, see Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York, 2000): 94-107 and Erik Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800 (Cambridge, 1997). A. G. Roeber’s Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore, 1993) is the most fulsome treatment of Lutheran controversies in Pennsylvania. This article originally appeared in issue 7.2 (January, 2007). Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe is assistant director of the office of fellowships and a faculty affiliate of the history department at Northwestern University; her essays on early modern Lutherans have appeared in German and American journals.
Source:
Newspaper article
What's In A Name
Deep History Immersed in Dunkard Water
Morgantown Dominion Post
28 February 2011
By Evelyn Ryan
Dunkard Creek starts in Pennsylvania west of Brave, Pa., and zigzags its way 38 miles east along the Mason-Dixon Line into the Monongahela River at Poland Mines, Pa.
It was named, not for an individual family, but for a religious faith, according to Earl L. Core in “The Monongalia Story,” Volume 1.
Dunkard Creek and Dunkard Bottom “were named for settlements by members of the German Baptist Brethren, who were called Dunkers because of their practice of baptism by immersion,” he wrote.
The best known local settlement of the German Baptist Brethren was that of the Eckerlin (also spelled Eckerling and Eckarly) brothers, Core said.
He credits the Pennsylvania German Magazine, volume 15, with “what seems like the most nearly correct account” of the tale of four brothers: Samuel, Emanuel, Israel and Gabriel, Alsatians by birth, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1725.
After some travels, Samuel and two of his brothers, with some associates, in 1751 settled along the Monongahela River at the mouth of a creek, which other frontiersmen came to call “the Dunkars’ Creek” (now Dunkard Creek), Core wrote.
They lived peaceably with the local Delaware Indians until hostilities from the French and Indian War edged into the area. The Delaware advised the Eckerlins to relocate as hostile Indians were moving into the area.
The group moved up the Cheat River, finally settling at Dunkard Bottom, now Camp Dawson, Preston County.
In August 1757, Samuel went east for supplies, but was stopped on his way back and accused of being a spy for the French, Core relates. He convinced the governor to release him and, with a squad of soldiers to check the truth of his story, started homeward.
They arrived at the scene of a tragedy. The cabins were burned to the ground, and the mutilated corpses of 27 of the 30 settlers were scattered about the clearing. His brothers Gabriel and Israel, along with another settler, Johann Schilling, were missing and presumed to have been taken by the Indians.
An undated Preston County history by Robert Jay Dilger, WVU professor of political science, recounts two different versions of the Eckerlins story at http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/wv/Pre ston/prehistory.html.
Evelyn Ryan researches and writes this column. Submit ideas and suggestions to newsroom@dominionpost.com.
Facebook page
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Data Recovery of the Eberhart Grist Mill and Timber Dam, 36FA428 - Michael E. Workman - Google Books
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Pastor John Corbly - Don Corbly - Google Books
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Christopher Gist and Settlement on the Monongahela, 1752-1754 on JSTOR
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e-WV | Key Dates for German Dunkards
Monongahela County
Other early settlers in the mid-1700's in the original Monongalia County were the families of: Wendell Brown (at present-day Brownsville, Fayette County, PA); David Tygart and Robert Files (near present-day Beverly, Randolph County, WV); the Eckerlin brothers (Dunkard Bottom near Kingwood, Preston County, WV); and Thomas Decker at the mouth of Deckers Creek, present Monongalia County. Others in the Decker party included these surnames: Zern or Zorn, Falls, Thorn, Westfall, Cox, Statler or Stradler.
More detailed timeline
Ephrata Cloister names in parentheses
Israel Eckerlin (Brother Onesimus)
Emanuel Eckerlin (Brother Elimech)
Samuel (Brother Jephune)
Gabriel (Brother Jonathan)
Alexander Mack (Brother Timoteus) & Conrad Weiser (Brother Enoch)
Bretheren Journal
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To George Washington from Robert Dinwiddie, 24 October 1757
From Robert Dinwiddie Williamsburg Octr 24th 1757 Sir I wrote You by Jenkins to which be refer’d.1 As I have contracted with Mr Ramsay to supply the Forces in the Pay of this Country, that are in the Counties of Frederick & Hampshire, I enclose You a Copy of the Contract, that You may see the several Articles thereof properly perform’d, & I am convinc’d this Contract will be a great Saving to the Country—& if Mr Ramsay shou’d at any Time have occasion to transport any Provisions to the Forts in Hampshire, You are to grant him a proper Escort; he is to furnish the Inds. with fresh Proviss. so that You will have no Trouble on these Affairs.2 Several People have applied to me for the Bounty on taking up Deserters, which I cannot pay till I have an Acct from You of receiving those People from the Cunstables, which I desire You will send me by first Opportunity, that they may be paid in order to encourage others to take them up. This comes by Mr Richd Smith the Indn Interpreter, who is to rema. at Winchester till the Indians come in, with whom he is to go out to War—Mr Gist is to take Care of the Indian Goods apropriated for Presents, which he is to dispose of on occasion in the same Method Mr Atkins did. The Duncard’s Petition was heard before me & the Council, & Yr Letter in regard thereto, & as the People on the Frontiers are uneasy with them, believing them to be Spies, it was resolv’d that You send a Party out to bring in the other two Brothers, with their Cattle & Horses & any Thing they have that they conveniently can bring with them, & to remain among the Inhabitants durg the present War, after which to be restored to their Lands, which Order You are to comply with in the most prudent Manner.3 I remain Sir Your humble Servant Robt Dinwiddie LS, DLC:GW; LB, ViHi: Dinwiddie Papers. The last paragraph is not included in the letter-book copy. 1. See Dinwiddie to GW, 19 Oct. 1757. 2. The enclosed contract (Articles of Agreement) with William Ramsay is an Enclosure. 3. Samuel Eckerlin’s petition was heard on 20 Oct. 1757. GW’s letter was dated 5 Oct. 1757. For the trials and tribulations of Eckerlin’s brothers, see Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart, November 1757, n.1, enclosed in Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
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