I Spy Something Red!
t risk of his own life, Moravian missionary Johann Gottleib Ernestus Heckewelder acted as a spy for General Washington during the American Revolution. It was not uncommon for colonial governments to commission missionaries to render secular services.
While answering his call to civilize and Christianize the Indians, Heckewelder was quick to finger the British agents in his neck of the woods, Eastern Ohio. He also is most likely the first white to see our Cuyahoga River.
John had penetrated far into Ohio’s wilderness as early as 1761 and in 1772 helped establish the village Schoenbrunn (the first organized settlement in Ohio) for the Christian Delewares in Tuscarawas County. Other Moravian communities quickly followed, including one near the junction of Tinkers Creek and the Cuyahoga River called Pilgerruh, meaning Pilgrim’s Rest. They constructed 28 buildings on the ruins of an old Ottawa village. In 1787 the Moravians had left Pilgerruh and headed west to establish New Salem near Milan, Ohio.
A map Rev. Heckewelder drew and description of the village
are archived by the Western Reserve Historical Society.
Ten years later, in 1797, members of the Connecticut Western Reserve Land Company arrived to survey the land for permanent settlement by pioneers from New England. There, they discovered the ruins of the Moravian ghost town. They renamed the area Tinker's Creek, after the survey team's principal boatman, Joseph Tinker.