Conrad Weiser, born Johann Conrad Weiser, Jr. , was a Pennsylvania Dutch pioneer, interpreter and diplomat between the Pennsylvania Colony and Native Americans.
Background
Johann Conrad Weiser, was born near Herrenberg, in Württemberg, Germany, the son of Anna Magdalena (Uebele) and Johann Conrad Weiser. His father was a magistrate of the village of Gross-Aspach and a man of some means. Following the death of his wife, the elder Weiser and eight of his children emigrated to New York in 1710 and settled at Livingston Manor. In 1714 they removed to Schoharie. Conrad spent the winter of 1713-14 with the Iroquois chief Quagnant, when he learned much of the Maqua (Mohawk) tongue and Indian customs. After his return to his family in July, he quarreled with his new step-mother, ran away the following winter, and set up a farm for himself at an Indian village near Schoharie.
Career
He served the white people as an interpreter from 1719 to 1729. He removed his family to Tulpehocken, Pa. , in 1729 and cultivated a farm, which in thirty years he increased to about a thousand acres. When he settled at Tulpehocken, he possessed a knowledge of Indian tongues and an appreciation of Indian affairs rivaled by only a few men in the colonies. He renewed his friendship with Shikellamy, the agent of the Iroquois in Pennsylvania, and for many years they worked together. He early saw the significance of the support of the Six Nations in checking French expansion in the West and convinced James Logan of this by 1730. In 1731 and 1736 he arranged for the conferences at Philadelphia, which resulted in winning the Iroquois to the interests of the Penns. Weiser and Canasatego, the Onondaga, firmly cemented the Iroquois alliance by the treaty of 1742, although the Delaware were alienated and the Shawnee became suspicious of the Pennsylvanians. This abandonment of Penn's traditional policy was urged by Weiser as vital to the safety of all the colonies, even at the expense of his own. His view was imperial rather than provincial. In 1743 he averted war between the Iroquois and Virginia, and, through his influence, the Lancaster Treaty of 1744 marked a shifting of the direction of Indian affairs from New York to Pennsylvania. In King George's War Weiser and the colony of Pennsylvania supported the Six Nations in their efforts to remain neutral and enabled them to resist the efforts of Sir William Johnson, for whom Weiser had little respect. George Croghan and Weiser won over the Western tribes at the treaty of Logstown in 1748, thereby extending Pennsylvania Indian trade to the Mississippi. In 1748 Shikellamy died, and with him went Weiser's commanding position as a backwoods diplomat. He remained one of the best of the interpreters until his death, but Sir William Johnson and George Croghan superseded him in the formulation of policy. He spoke and wrote in German and in English. Several of his hymns, especially "Einweihungs-Lied", and his Indian reports show literary ability. He urged and supported the press of Christopher Sower at Germantown. For a period of years, from 1735 to 1740 or 1741, most of his energies were absorbed in religious activity. He was also interested in the Moravian missions to the Indians and made a trip to Onondaga to aid them. In 1742 he was to save Count Zinzendorf's life at one of these missions. In 1741 he was commissioned justice of the peace for Lancaster County, probably the only German to hold such an office in the colonial period. The following year he was made ranger for northern Lancaster County. At this time he identified himself with the governor's party by exhorting his countrymen to vote against the pacific Quakers in the coming elections. About 1743 he severed his connection with Ephrata, probably with the advice of Henry Melchior Mühlenburg, later his son-in-law. He became a naturalized subject of Great Britain in April 1744. His vigorous support of the proprietary party led the Moravians to draw away from him. He joined the Lutheran Church in 1747, and his coreligionists electioneered for him, when he unsuccessfully ran for the Assembly against a Quaker. Upon the erection of Berks County in 1752 he was made a justice of the peace and later served as the first president-judge of the county, from 1752 to 1760. He was also a trustee of the board to educate German youths in Pennsylvania in 1753. He led an expedition on the frontier in the French and Indian War, and he was commissioned colonel in the Berks County regiment. He was one of the commissioners to lay out Reading where he went to live in 1755. There he opened his famous "White Store" and joined the Reformed Church. He lost his health gradually in the last five years of his life. He died on one of his farms, at Womelsdorf.
Achievements
Religion
Although born a Lutheran, in Tulpehocken he worshipped at the German Reformed Church led by John Peter Miller and by 1735 was its chief elder. Under the influence of the religious revival of 1735, Miller and Weiser formed a Baptist group and were baptized by Johann Conrad Beissel in May. Following this "religious somersault, " Weiser withdrew from the world, grew a beard, and became a "teacher" at Tulpehocken. In August he removed his family to Ephrata and became a member of the cloister under the name of Brother Enoch. His children, Magdalena and Peter, also entered the cloister, but his wife returned to the farm. Weiser now endured fasts and vigils, played the part of evangelist and exhorter, and made at least two proselyting trips to New Jersey. Beissel and Weiser quarreled, and the latter withdrew from the cloister, being incensed, it is said, among other things at receiving punishment for having four children by his wife during his celibacy. He returned later, however, and was consecrated priest by Beissel in 1740.
Interests
In his frontier home he maintained a music room furnished with an organ, and in his library, in addition to religious and law books, were the works of Voltaire and Arnholtz.
Connections
On November 22, 1720, he was married to Anna Eve Feck by a German Reformed clergyman. They had fifteen children.