I was directed to this site by Scott Marsh, director of the Lehigh Valley Ghosthunters. We had never heard of the site, and we were intrigued! We located the plaque first, at the corner of an intersection. The plaque marks the site of the original settlement and the site of the massacre. The plaque reads,” This was the first settlement in Carbon County, founded in 1746. On the night of that fateful day in Nov. of 1755, the settlement was attacked by the Shawnees Indians. Eleven people lost their lives, 5 of whom died in the flames of their house. Their remains are buried in the Lehighton Cemetery on the hill to the north.”

Mass Grave marker	Orb over Marker

Sounds like the makings of a ghost story! The area is residential, and the residents aren’t too open to outsiders coming in and asking them if there are any ghosts in the area. We were on our own. We headed up the hill to the cemetery to locate the mass grave. The cemetery is rather large and is apparently used as a playground for the local children.

darkness settled in, the cemetery was invaded by hundreds of lightning bugs and mosquitoes, and I realized that any lengthy investigation would have to take place in a more agreeable season! I took some photos of the area, and had some preliminary success in documenting a paranormal presence. Unfortunately, the insect population was growing by the second and we were forced to let them have their way. As we left the cemetery, I could not stop thinking that there had to be more to this story than what was told in the paragraph on the plaque. I will return to this site in the fall, when the cooler weather chases the bugs away. In the meantime, I will begin researching this incident and the settlement itself to see if, indeed, there is more to this story.

I did some preliminary research, and the accounts of what happened are conflicting. I saw the monument, and the victims listed on the monument match the number of victims referred to on the plaque. These victims have obviously German names, and were likely missionaries, which is what the monument says they were. However, in the Pocono Record an article about a pow-wow, dated September 29, 1998, states that the settlement was raided by white men in retaliation for an Indian raid, and that a lot of Delaware Indians were killed there. This statement was so different from the monument and plaques that I did some more research.

My feeling that there was more to this story was correct. Count Nickolas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf founded this settlement in 1746, with settlers from an established Moravian mission community at Bethlehem, PA. The Moravians also had established communities at Nazareth and Lititz, PA. The new settlement, which was located in the Mahoning Valley in the area currently known as Lehighton, was the first white settlement in the area. According to records of the Moravian mission, the settlement was also inhabited by many Native Americans, who, together with the white missionary families, comprised the 'congregation of gnadenhuetten’. Gnaden Huetten means ‘huts of grace’. The Native American residents of this settlement worshipped and celebrated with the white missionaries and they farmed their own land.

The other tribes in the area did not like the idea of Indians and white settlers living together. The tribes became more agitated when, as a result of the Albany Congress in 1754, their land and hospitality was further imposed upon. As a result of this land purchase of the Albany Congress, the Indians allied with the French, who were beginning their preparations for the French and Indian Wars. Many frontier settlements were ravaged during this time, and I believe that this settlement was a victim of this period of unrest between the various groups inhabiting the region.

The mention of Native American residents and the raid being perpetrated by white men made a little more sense now, and the raid probably resulted in the deaths of some of the Indians. The article referred to them as Delaware Indians, but the historical records stated that they were Mohicans. The records of the Moravian Missionaries, which are kept at the University of Maryland Library, record the Indians of Gnaden Huetten being Mohican. This was not necessarily an error, since Delaware is not an Indian word. It is an English word, and was used by the English settlers to describe a number of tribes, including the Lenape and Shawnee. The settlement was most likely raided by the French and the Indians, resulting in deaths of both white missionaries and Indians. I suppose the Indian victims were buried elsewhere without a marker or monument.

After the raid, troops were sent to build a fort to defend the area. The fort, called Fort Allen, was in use from 1756 to 1761. The surviving settlers had fled the area after the raid, so the fort was most likely built for defense of the area during the war. In 1758, the French surrendered, and I assume that the area was resettled thereafter, because the name ‘Gnaden Huetten’ was mentioned again in the history of a similar Moravian outpost, also called “Gnaden Huetten” in Ohio.

The Ohio settlement was established in 1772 when a Mohican Moravian elder brought a large number of Christian Mohicans to that area. Perhaps some of these were surviving residents of Gnaden Huetten, PA. Unfortunately, they were unable to escape tragedy. The Revolution was imminent, and the British wanted the Indians to fight against the Colonials. They sent tribe members to persuade them to leave, and when they refused, they were raided by Indian warriors, who took them all to a place called Captivetown, where many of them died from disease and malnutrition. When the survivors were granted permission to return to their homes to gather food, they were arrested by Colonial militia, who accused them of raiding settlements in Pennsylvania. The next morning, the Indian members of the settlement were killed, including women and children, and their homes were burned to the ground. Two young boys escaped somehow and told their story.

What a story! Unfortunately, an all too common one in the history of our country. I am now more determined to return to the site of this early Pennsylvania settlement in order to determine, if possible, the identity of the spirits that are said to haunt the area of the settlement and the mass grave. Perhaps they just want the whole story to be told, as I did. The Gnaden Huetten settlement in Ohio has been restored. Are the spirits of those unjustly murdered settlers at rest there? I suppose I will have to travel to Ohio and see.