author
John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder
1743–1823
A Moravian missionary, interpreter, and writer, he spent decades living and working among Native communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio. His books and journals became important early records of Lenape and other Indigenous histories, customs, and languages.
1 Audiobook
History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States.
by John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder
About the author
Born in Bedford, England, on March 12, 1743, he came to Pennsylvania with his family as a child and grew up in the Moravian community at Bethlehem. He was later apprenticed as a cooper, but his language skills and close ties to Moravian mission work drew him into a very different life.
Heckewelder became known for his long work among Native peoples, especially the Lenape, and served in Moravian missions in Pennsylvania and the Ohio country. He acted not only as a missionary but also as an interpreter and intermediary, traveling widely and witnessing a turbulent period in early American frontier history.
He is remembered today as an author as well as a missionary. His best-known writings, including A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians and An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States, preserved observations that later historians and readers have continued to study, even as modern readers may also approach them with awareness of the limits of an outsider's perspective.