David Zeisberger

Who was David Zeisberger?

David Zeisberger was a Moravian clergyman and missionary among the Native Americans in the Thirteen Colonies. He established communities of Munsee converts in the valley of the Muskingum River in Ohio; and for a time, near modern-day Amherstburg, Ontario.

Zeisberger was born in Zauchtenthal, Moravia and moved with his family to the newly established Moravian Christian community of Herrnhut, on the estate of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in the German Electorate of Saxony in 1727. However, when his family migrated to the newly established English colony in Georgia, Zeisberger remained in Europe to complete his education. In 1738, he came to Georgia in the United States, with the assistance of governor James Edward Oglethorpe. He later rejoined his family in the Moravian community at Savannah, Georgia. At the time, the United Brethren had begun a settlement, merely for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the Creek nation. From there he moved to Pennsylvania, and assisted at the commencment of the settlements of Nazareth and Bethlehem.