The New Schoenbrunn Mission / David Zeisberger 1721-1808

Side A: Here, on April 10, 1779 during the Revolutionary War, David Zeisberger founded one of the five Delaware Christian missions to occupy the Tuscarawas Valley between May 3, 1772 and September 8, 1781. Living at the Lichtenau mission near the Delaware capital of Goschachgunk (presently Coshocton, Ohio), Zeisberger feared that the Delaware nation was about to break their neutrality and join the British led Indians. Accordingly, he decided to disperse his Christian congregation and move his converts thirty-five miles up river to a place of safety in this large alluvial plain adjacent to the Tuscarawas River. Side B: Born in Zachtenthal, Moravia (now Czechoslovakia), Zeisberger came to America in 1738 to join his parents who were missionaries to the Cherokee Indians at Savannah, Georgia. In 1741 the family moved to Pennsylvania and helped found Bethlehem which became the headquarters of the Moravian Church in America. Entering the Indian missionary service in 1745, he served for 63 years as a missionary to the American Indians, principally among the Delaware Nation. He twice resided in the Tuscarawas Valley during the years 1772-1781 and 1798-1808. He died at the Goshen mission in his 88th year and is buried in the Indian cemetery three miles south of this location.