Page:Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state (Vol. I).djvu/22

18 courageous, as determined as the first pioneer wives and mothers were bound to have been, have been equal to influencing a husband even against his will?

This seems apparent. There must have been other and wholly individual reasons. We know many of them. Thwarted opportunity, even in a world comparatively new, poverty where abundance, dependence where liberty, had been the fondest of human hopes. All this and more.

Something more compelling than all else, yet hardest to put into mere words.

Beyond the stony mountains, across the all but impenetrable trails, down the beautiful river, it was MORNING.

The day of life was there, still dawning for human effort.

There the sunrise could still promise, for each day, a better day.

Mistress Owen could hardly have expressed her feelings, had she tried. But what she wanted— and what she found —beyond the grim doorway of the mountains, was a new dawn.

Let us telescope time. Let us turn the spotlight on JOHANNA MARIA HECKEWELDER, first white girl baby born in the whole region that later became the State of Ohio.

This first girl baby was not, it should be kept clear, the child of settlers. Her parents were among the leaders in a religious group that braved the wilderness before there were any white settlements, in order to bring the Gospel to the Indians.

Their fine work was undone by the unjustified attack of a group of infuriated whites on innocent Indian converts and the men and women who had sought to implant the spirit of peace and good-will in this new soil were forced to relinquish their effort and turn to other fields.

Johanna Maria first saw the light of her adventurous, not to say daring, day on April 16, 1781, at Salem, Ohio, a settlement made by Moravian missionaries for conversion of the Indians, on the Tuscarawas River. This was seven years before even Marietta was founded.

Given time to acquire intelligible self expression, Johanna Maria could have given a striking account of herself. Later on, in fact, she did. Ellet’s “Pioneer Women of the West” quotes her as saying—“Soon after my birth, the times became very troublesome. The settlements were often in danger from war parties and from an encampment of warriors near Gnadenhutten. Finally—in September, 1781, we were all made prisoners. Four of our missionaries were first seized by a party of Hurons. They were led to a camp of the Delawares, where the death song was chanted over them. Then the warriors made for Salem and Schonbrunn. About 30 of the savages arrived at dusk. They took my mother prisoner, with myself, led her into the street and set guards to see that she did not escape. Then they plundered the house. What they could not take they destroyed.”