The French and Indian wars of the mid-18th century caused immense turmoil and suffering in upstate and western Pennsylvania. Almost all non-Indian settlers fled down to the more settled and safer parts of the state, but many other families and individuals were killed by the Indians. Panic spread throughout Pennsylvania, and initially many contemporary observers partially blamed the Moravians, who had close relations with the local Indians, for in some way causing or abetting the Indian attacks. These charges were long ago refuted, and will today seem particularly unfair when you read the actual words of some of the Moravian ministers involved.

The rare 1934 book Old Dansbury (now Stroudsburg, Penna.) and The Moravian Mission, also included here, was originally published in a private edition of which extremely few copies exist today. It includes numerous verbatim documents and the like, among them a photograph of a 1757 petition with the signatures of many of the early settlers, to be found nowhere else.

Few written records for this time and place exist today, and many of those are `locked-up' to the average researcher as they are written in German or Swedish, making it all the more exciting for Picton Press, with the cooperation of the Monroe County Historical Society, to be able to bring you the first translation and publication of the Moravian diaries of that time and place. Several thousand settlers with their families are named, as are hundreds of Indians. This is a unique window into an uncertain time in Pennsylvania's past.