The New Student's Reference Work/Zeisberger, David

Zeis'berger, David, a Moravian missionary, born in Moravia, April 11, 1721, who, after emigrating to America and living in Georgia a number of years, became one of the founders of the Moravian colony at Bethlehem, Pa., in 1740. Soon after this he became a missionary to the Indians, laboring zealously at various places in the colony. In 1772 he explored the Tuscarawas valley in Ohio and laid out a town, about ten miles from the present town of Canal Dover, being joined soon after by a number of Moravian Indians from Pennsylvania. In 1781 this settlement was broken up, and Zeisberger and his Indians were compelled to move to Sandusky, but in 1798, when Congress granted to the Moravian Indians the tract on which they had formerly lived on the Tuscarawas, a portion of them returned and formed a new settlement, which they named Goshen. Here Zeisberger died on Nov. 17, 1808.