Early Western Travels, 1748-1846/Volume 1/Introductory Note (3)
III
Source: Proud's History of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1798), ii, appendix.
Christian Frederick Post, author of the following journals, was a simple, uneducated missionary of the Moravian Church. His chief qualifications for the perilous journeys herein detailed, were his intimate acquaintance with Indian life and character, the belief of the tribesmen in his truthfulness and honesty, and his own steadfast courage and trust in the protection of a higher power. Born in Polish Prussia in 1710, Post early came under the influence of the Moravians, whose remarkable missionary movement was just beginning to germinate.
The first attempt of this church to christianize the American Indians in Georgia having failed because of Spanish hostility, the Moravian disciples removed to Pennsylvania (1739), and were granted land on which to establish their colony at Bethlehem. Thither in 1742 came Post, eager to join in evangelizing the Indians; for which purpose he was sent the following year to assist Henry Rauch in his mission to the Mohegans and Wampanoags. This mission had been established about 1740, Count Zinzendorf, the great Moravian bishop, having visited its site at Shekomeko (Pine Plains, Dutchess County, New York) and baptized three Indians as its first fruits. The work spread to the neighboring Indian villages of Connecticut, and Post was assigned to a circuit in Sharon Township, Litchfield County, consisting of the villages of Pachgatgoch and Wechquadnach. Here, in his zeal for the service, he married a con-verted Indian woman (1743), and endeared himself to all the tribe.
But persecutions began to assail the humble brethren and their converts; they were accused of being papists, arrested and haled before local magistrates, by whom they were no sooner released than a mob of those whose gain in pampering to Indian vices was endangered by Moravian success, set upon them and rendered their lives and those of their new converts intolerable. Post, who had been on a journey to the Iroquois country (1745), was arrested at Albany and sent to New York, where he was imprisoned for seven weeks on a trumped-up charge of abetting Indian raids.
The situation made retreat necessary; therefore, in 1746, the Shekomeko and Connecticut settlements were broken up, and the Christian Indians with their missionaries moved in detachments to Pennsylvania, where, after kindly entertainment at Bethlehem, a town called Gnadenhütten (huts of Grace), was built for them, at Weisport, Carbon County. It was during their stay at Bethlehem that Rachel, Post's Indian wife, died (1747), and there two years later he married a Delaware convert, Agnes, who lived only until 1751.
Meanwhile, Post was employed as missionary assistant, going to Shamokin in 1747 to aid the missionary blacksmith established there, to clear and plant more ground. Again in 1749, he revisited the scene of his early labors, and helped David Bruce to re-establish a mission among the remnant left at Pachgatgoch. Two years later he was summoned to a more distant field on the dismal shores of Labrador, where a company of four Moravian brethren were sent to begin a mission to the Eskimos. An untoward accident rendered this project futile; the major part of the crew of the vessel which had transported them having been lost, the captain impressed the missionaries to carry his ship back to England.
Thereupon Post again sought his home in Pennsylvania, dwelling principally at Bethlehem, until called upon by the Pennsylvania authorities to assist in public affairs. There is no certain information of his introduction to the managers of Indian matters in Pennsylvania; but several Christian Indians from his flock had been utilized as interpreters, and the Friendly Association of Quakers, which was assuming so large a rôle in treating with the natives, was well-inclined toward the Moravian brothers.
The first mention of Post in the public records is in connection with a message which he was employed to carry (June, 1758) in conjunction with Charles Thomson to Teedyuscung at Wyoming.[1] On his return to the settlements, he was immediately commissioned to go back to Wyoming with a message from the Cherokee auxiliaries, who had come to join the army of Forbes, and whose presence caused consternation among Pennsylvania's savage allies. With but five days' respite, Post again started on a journey beset with perils on every side, through the wilderness of Northern Pennsylvania.[2] At Teedyuscung's cabin he met two Indians from the Ohio, who declared that their tribes were sorry they had gone to war against the English; they had often wished that messengers from the government would come to them, for then they should long before have abandoned war.
On the receipt of this important information, the council at Philadelphia debated to what use it might be put in furthering the plans for Forbes's advance. "Post was desired to accompany the Indians, and he readily consented to go."[3]
Antiquarians and historians have alike admired the sublime courage of the man, and the heroic patriotism which made him capable of advancing into the heart of a hostile territory, into the very hands of a cruel and treacherous foe. But aside from Post's supreme religious faith, he had a shrewd knowledge of Indian customs, and knew that in the character of an ambassador requested by the Western tribes, his mission would be a source of protection. Therefore, even under the very walls of Fort Duquesne, he trusted not in vain to Indian good faith.
The results of this embassy were most gratifying. The report of his mission coming during the important negotiations at Easton, aided in securing the Indian neutrality which made the advance of Forbes so much less hazardous than that of Braddock.
But the work was only begun; and to complete it Post's renewed co-operation was necessary. This time he was not to venture alone. Two militia officers, Captain John Bull and Lieutenant William Hays, volunteered for the service,[4] and having joined Post at Reading, all proceeded with Indian companions in their van, to overtake the army and reach the Ohio in advance of the column.
Their mission was not in time to save the Indian ferocity at Grant's defeat; but it contributed to assure the French that aid from the neighboring Indians was dubious, and that in retreat lay their only safety. Through the simple narrative of Indian speeches and replies, one feels the intensity of the strain: the French captain "looked as pale as death;" "we hanged out the English flag, in spite of the French, on which our prisoners folded their hands, in hopes that their redemption was nigh." Then the news came "which gave us the pleasure to hear, that the English had the field, and that the French had demolished and burnt the place entirely and went off."
Of Post's later life and its vicissitudes, we get but scattered glimpses. For the two years succeeding these adventurous journeys, he served the Pennsylvania authorities as messenger and interpreter, at the same time begging to be allowed to go and preach to the newly-appeased Indians on the Ohio. The last official act of Governor Denny was the affixing of his signature to a passport for Post, of whose loyalty, integrity and prudence he testifies to have had good experience.[5]
This desire to begin a mission to the Western Indians was consummated in 1761, when Post proceeded alone to the Muskingum and built the first white man's house within the present limits of Ohio. The following spring, he applied to the Moravian brethren for an assistant; whereupon John Heckewelder was assigned to this service, and in his Narrative describes their courteous reception by Bouquet at Fort Pitt, the restless conditions among the Delawares and Shawnees, and the warnings against the storm of fire and blood which was so soon to break over the frontier. Heckewelder retreated in due season; Post barely saved himself by a sudden flight.In 1764, the ecclesiastical authorities saw fit to send this intrepid missionary to the Mosquito Coast, where he stayed two years, making a second visit in 1767. Toward the close of his life he retired from the Moravian sect, and entered the Protestant Episcopal Church. His death occurred at Germantown in 1785.
The journal of the first tour to the Ohio Indians (July 15-September 22, 1758), was printed in the appendix to An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British Interest (London, 1759; reprinted Philadelphia, 1867). This book was published anonymously, but was known to be the work of Charles Thomson, a prominent Philadelphia Quaker, later secretary of the Continental Congress. Thomson gives a brief preface to Post's journal, and the matter in the notes thereof is evidently by his hand; it is probable that the notes to the second journal are also by him. The first journal was reprinted by Proud, History of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1798), ii, appendix, pp. 65-95, from which edition our reprint has been made. Craig also published this in The Olden Time, i, pp. 99-125, following almost verbatim the edition of Thomson and Proud. Rupp, Early History of Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburg and Harrisburg, 1846), appendix, pp. 75-98, gives the same journal. The Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 520-544, also contains this journal, evidently taken from the same manuscript, with but slight variations in the spelling of proper names.
Heckewelder, Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren (Philadelphia, 1820), pp. 55, 56, says: "To enumerate all the hardships, difficulties and dangers, Frederick Post had been subjected to on these journies, especially on the first, in the summer of the year 1758, is at this time both impossible and needless. Suffice it to say, that what he intended the public should know, was published in the year after, in England, under the title of 'Christian Frederick Post's Journal from Philadelphia to the Ohio,' &c. His original manuscript journal, however, which had for some time been placed in the hands of the writer of this narrative, was far more interesting, and evinced that few men would be found able to undergo the fatigues of a journey, bearing so hard on the constitution, or a mind to sustain such trials of adversity—at least not with that calmness with which Mr. Post endured it."
The diary of the second journey of Christian Frederick Post to the Ohio, October 25, 1758—January 8, 1759, was first printed in London, 1759, for J. Wilkie; see Field, An Essay towards an Indian Bibliography (New York, 1873), p. 315. Proud, History of Pennsylvania, ii, appendix, pp. 96-132, also reprints Post's second journal, and from this our reprint is made. It appears also in The Olden Time, i, pp. 144-177; and in Rupp, Early History of Western Pennsylvania, appendix, pp. 99-126. The extract from a journal in the Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 560-563, entitled "Journal of Frederick Post from Pittsburg, 1758," is in reality that of Croghan's—see ante, p. 100. For an example of the form and spelling of the original manuscripts of these journals before they were rigorously edited, see letter of Post's in Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 742-744. The following is a sample extract therefrom:
To his honnour da Governor of Pansylvanea:
Broder, I cam to Machochlaung, wa mane Indeans luve, I cald dam all togader, and I told dam wat we bous had agread on wan we sa one anoder last, and wat you ar sorre for and have so mouts at hart, and dasayrt me to mack it avere war noun avere war, and dasayrd dam to be strong and sea dat your flasch and blod may be rastord to you; now br'r, you know dat it is aur agreamand, dat as soun as I hoar any ting, I geave yu daracktly notys of, and as I am as jat closs bay you, so I sand daes prasonars to you which da daleverat to me, and I geave dam to Papunnahanck to dalever dam to you; br. I do not sand daes poepel daun, da have had damself a long dasayr to go daun to sea dar br. da Englesch, so I tot it proper to sand dam along; I hop you will rajoys to sea dam and be kaynd to dam, and allso to dam poepel dat bryng dam daun; wan I am farder from you and I schall meat wit som, I schall bryng dam maysalf daun wan I com along; br. you know aur worck is grat, and will tack a long taym befor we coan com back, I salud all da schandel pepel, and dasayr you to be strong.
Ye 20 Day of May, 1760, rot at Machochloschung.
Ordinarily, the modern historical student very properly deprecates any tampering with original manuscripts; but an examination of the foregoing inclines one not only to forgive but to thank the early editors for having translated Post's jargon into understandable English.
- ↑ Pennsylvania Colonial Records, viii, p. 132; Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 412-422.
- ↑ Journal of this journey in Pennsylvania Colonial Records, viii, pp. 142-145.
- ↑ Pennsylvania Colonial Records, viii, p. 147.
- ↑ Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 556, 557.
- ↑ Pennsylvania Colonial Records, viii, pp. 341, 419, 463, 466, 469, 491; Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 581, 582, 689, 702, 703.