Having come to Georgia in the mid-1730s to evangelize among the Indians, the members of the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Church, were encouraged by the Methodist evangelist George Whitefield to emigrate to Pennsylvania in 1740. Seeing great potential for evanglical success among the large German population in the Province, as well as among the Indians, they settled on lands purchased with Whitefield's assistance near Nazareth, Pa. Before the winter had set in, however, theological differences with the Calvinist Whitefield over the issue of predestination led to a serious rift, and in the spring on 1741, the Moravians moved ten miles southward, establishing a communal home on 500 acres near present day Bethlehem.

Within a decade of their arrival in Pennsylvania, the Moravians could claim some degree of success in converting Indians to Christianity, particularly among the Delawares. By the outbreak of the French and Indian War, a substantial number of converts occupied a string of settlements along the Lehigh River, most importantly at the mission at Gnadenhutten.

An early settler and prominent citizen in the Moravian heartland, Timothy Horsfield was serving as justice of the peace when Northampton County was formed out of Bucks in 1752, just prior to the eruption of war. Since at least the period of the Walking Purchase in 1737, northeastern Pennsylvania has been a flashpoint between Indians and whites due to the influx of white settlers and concomittant dispossession of Indians (both legal and extralegal), as well as intertribal and international rivalries. When war finally broke out in 1753, Horsfield was one of those given responsibility for shoring up local defences, raising militia, providing intelligence to military authorities, and, when a large swath of the county was depopulated of whites due to the violence, for caring for refugees.

The Timothy Horsfield Papers offer a window onto the tumultuous history of northeastern Pennsylvania during the 1750s and 1760s. Centered in the region around Bethlehem, Pa., where Horsfield was justice of the peace, the collection is comprised largely of correspondence and related documents between Horsfield, William Parsons, and provincial and military authorities. It includes particularly important and vivid information on the Indian assaults on the region in 1756 and 1757 and the military and diplomatic response.

The majority of the letters in the Horsfield Papers were written during the critical months of October 1755 through August 1756, when northeastern Pennsylvania was under embroiled in violence, with another, somewhat smaller clutch during the summer and fall of 1763 and scattered letters at other times. Concerned with local defense, the raising of militia, intelligence on Indian movements, and forging contacts with Indian allies, the network of Horsfield's correspondents included some of the most prominent figures in provincial Indian affairs, including Benjamin Franklin, Richard Peters, Conrad Weiser, governors Robert Hunter Morris, William Denny, and James Hamilton, and Moravian men of influence such as August Gottlieb Spangeberg and David Zeisberger. An equally prominent assemblage of Indians appears in the collection, including Delaware chief Teedyuscung, Lewis Montour, Kolapeeha, and the Mohawk Sachem, Jonathan.

The supremely violent events of the late fall 1755 are particularly well documented, including letters and several depositions relating to the Indian attacks at Penns Creek in October and Gnadenhutten in late November. The latter event underscores a running theme in the collection: the complex web of relations between Christianized (Moravian) Indians, the Moravian brethren, English settlers, and non-Christian Indians.

The Horsfield letters were originally laid into two volumes, which were disbound in 1984. The original numeration of the pages has been retained, however the letters have been rearranged in chronological and alphabetical order.

None.

Gift of Joseph Horsfield, 1818.

Cite as: Timothy Horsfield Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Recatalogued by rsc, 2002.

The Horsfield letters pertaining to Indian affairs are indexed in On-Line Guide to Manuscripts Relating to the American Indian at the APS.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania houses several Horsfield items, including the Timothy Horsfield Letterbook, 1754-1755 (Collection 296) and the Horsfield Receipt book, 1756 (Collection 297), and there are several letters of his in the Northampton County Papers (Collection 456). The papers of William Parsons (Collection 470) also contain valuable contextual material.