But there yet remains a tale of murderous character to be recorded, which, in its black and inexcusable atrocity, transcends any and every Indian massacre which marked that protracted and unnatural contest It is a tale of blood, too, in which the white men--not the Indians--are to be branded as the savages. On the banks of the Muskingum resided several communities of Indians, who had embraced the peaceable tenets of the Moravians. They were of the Delaware nation, and had removed to the Muskingum from Friedenshutten on the Big Beaver, and from Wyalusing and Sheshequon on the Susquehanna, in the year 1772. Notwithstanding the annoyance experienced by them in consequence of the Cresap war, in 1774, their settlements, which were named Schoenbrunn, Salem, and Gnadenhuetten, rose rapidly in importance, and in a short time numbered upward of four hundred people. Among their converts was the celebrated Delaware chief _Glickhickan,_ famous alike for his bravery on the war-path, his wisdom in council, and his eloquence in debate. Their location, being a kind of half-way station between the white settlements and the hostile Indians of the lakes, was unpleasant after the war of the Revolution came on, and subjected them to difficulties alternately arising from the suspicions of both or all of the belligerent parties, against whose evil intentions toward them they were occasionally admonished. Still, their labors, their schools, and their religions exercises were conducted and practised as usual. Their spiritual guides, at the period now under discussion, were, Michael Jung, David Zeisberger, and John Heckewelder, known in later times as the Indian Historian. These people looked upon war with abhorrence; maintaining that "the Great Being did not make men to destroy men, but to love and assist each other." They had endeavored to dissuade some of their own race from taking any part in the contest, and had likewise given occasional information to the white settlements when threatened with Indian invasions. The hostile Indians frequently hovered around their settlements, and sometimes threatened their destruction, under the pretext that their neutrality was equivocal, and that they were secretly in alliance with the Americans, to whom they were in the practice of giving timely notice of the hostile advances of the Indians in the service of the King. [FN] In 1777 they were visited by the noted Huron chief, _Half King,_ at the head of two hundred of his warriors, on his way to attack some of the frontier settlements of Virginia. Half King at first menaced the Moravian non-combatants; but Glickhickan appeased his ire by a timely supply of refreshments, and diverted him from his purpose by an opportune speech, declaring their religious sentiments and praising their missionaries. * * * * * [FN] Doddridge.