Bernhard Adam Grube

Background

Bernhard Adam Grube was born in Thüringen at Walschleben near Erfurt, Germany on June 24, 1715.

Education

Bernhard Adam Grube was educated in his native village and at Jena.

Career

Entering the Moravian ministry in 1740, Bernhard Adam Grube served some small congregations in Holland and then volunteered for work among the Indians.

Bernhard Adam Grube was sent to Pennsylvania in the spring of 1748, was a teacher at Bethlehem for several years, and then volunteered for work among the Indians.

In January 1752 he took up his quarters at Meniolagomeka, a village west of Wind Gap in what is now Monroe County.

There his clumsiness in wielding an axe nearly cost him a leg, and for weeks he lay in his hut with a board for a bed and a wooden bowl for a pillow.

He held daily meetings for the Indians and studied the Delaware language.

After six months he was transferred to the mission at Shamokin.

In the summer of 1753 he visited the Indian villages along the west branch of the Susquehanna and in the Wyoming Valley.

In the autumn of 1753 he conducted a party of settlers from Bethlehem to the recently acquired Wachovia Tract in North Carolina.

On the evening of November 24, 1755, hostile Indians burned his mission station on Mahoning Creek and massacred eleven of the occupants.

Grube and his converts fled to Bethlehem, where he remained for two years.

During 1758-60 he had charge of the mission at Pachgatgoch near Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut.

In October 1760 he was put in charge of the station at Wechquetanc on Head’s Creek in Monroe County, Pennsylvania.

There he conducted all his services in the Delaware language and wrote his Dellawaerisches Gesangbüchlein (1763) and Evangelienharmonie in die Delaware Sprache Übersetzt (1763), which were printed at Friedensthal by John Brandmiller, the Swiss clergyman-printer.

At the outbreak in 1763 of Pontiac's War Grube and his Indian followers found their lives in jeopardy.

Every one hated them, the whites being even more murderous than the savage Indians.

Boarding up his chapel and huts, he retreated to Nazareth with his converts, later to Bethlehem, and thence to Philadelphia, where he stood a virtual state of siege, the “Paxton Boys” threatening to invade the town and kill the Indians, and the citizens themselves unfriendly.

From 1765 until 1785 he was pastor at Lititz in Lancaster County.

He officiated at the marriage of John Heckewelder on July 4, 1780, in Ohio and at that of David Zeisberger on June 4, 1781, at Lititz.

For short periods Bernhard Adam Grube ministered to congregations near Nazareth, in Philadelphia, at Paulin’s Kill, Warren County, New Jersey, and at Emaus, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Honored as one of the patriarchs of his church, he lived his last years at Bethlehem and on his ninety-first birthday tramped, staff in hand, the ten miles to Nazareth to spend the day with old friends who had shared his labors among the Indians.

Achievements

• He was known as a volunteer for work among the Indians. Bernhard Adam Grube wrote two his famous books Dellawaerisches Gesangbüchlein (1763) and Evangelienharmonie in die Delaware Sprache Übersetzt (1763), which were printed at Friedensthal by John Brandmiller, the Swiss clergyman-printer.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Three Delaware Works of the United Brethren: The Delaware Indian Vocabulary and Phrase Book of 1755; A Northern Unami Word-List; A Mission Delaware Word-List
  • Some Delaware Words and Phrases & Some Short Addresses to the Indians

Personality

Grube comported himself with bravery and tact and found a powerful friend in Benjamin Franklin.

Connections

His wife died at Lititz in 1776, and two years later he married again.

References

• Some Moravian Heroes