The first settlement in Carbon County was the Moravian mission Gnadenhutten, established in 1745 in the Northampton County of the day. Deeply moved by the deplorable state of the Leni Lenape Indians in America, twelve Moravian missionaries left their home in Herrnhut Germany and traveled by sea to the wilderness of Pennsylvania, a place known for religious tolerance under the auspices of Count Zinzendorf. Located where Lehighton now stands, Gnadenhutten exemplified communal simplicity. Home to hundreds of Lenni Lenape (Delaware) and Mahican Indians displaced by white settlements, predation, bigotry and subjugation to the Iroquois, the Delaware peoples were being squeezed out of the southern counties and New Jersey westwards and against the Blue Ridge escarpment. The mission was a scene of quiet, humble and unobtrusive heroism and the Indians' shelter. Although the wilderness of Carbon County was quite treacherous, the Moravians traveled in the wilds of Carbon County undaunted. By 1752, increased hostility put Gnadenhutten at risk for attack, but the missionaries' pious good works did not go unnoticed. The frankness and earnestness of the simple Moravians had won respect with the many tribes of Pennsylvania Indians, and they lived without incident until 1755. At that point an Amerindian uprising drove settlements away from the Lehigh Gap, and whites didn't re-enter the area before the late 1780s according to Brenckman. In 1791, a homesteader, Phillip Ginter hunting on 'Sharp Mountain' along Pisgah Ridge found a black" 'stone coal' "outcropping, and conveyed a chunk of it to Weissport, PA. (For a more complete set of details & events, see Lehigh Canal and Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company articles.")