Day of Remembrance held at Gnadenhutten Historical Park

A time of reflection, with the buildings and museum open for two hours, was held for those attending this year’s Day of Remembrance at the Gnadenhutten Historical Park March 8, the date of the Gnadenhutten massacre in 1782 when 96 Moravian Christian Indians were killed by the members of the Pennsylvania militia.

Day of Remembrance organizer, Theresa Johnson from Moraviantown, Canada, was unsure if she would be able travel to the event this year and suggested a simpler schedule.

Johnson did attend and she was happy to bring two great grandsons with her. It’s extremely important to her to be able to share their history.

“It's my family that was buried here,” Johnson said.

Johnson has a double connection to tragedy, which she didn’t know about until she first visited Gnadenhutten around 2016 and began doing research.

One of the events preceding the Gnadenhutten massacre was a massacre of a white family by the Senecas near Pittsburgh. The Senecas kidnapped a young boy from the family who ended up on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Canada.

The boy, Peter Klingensmith, was known as White Peter.

“When he grew up, he had four kids, three sons and a daughter. I come from the daughter. She married a Stonefish from our community,” Johnson said.

Though the massacre is a hard topic to deal with in your family history, Johnson is grateful to those who help keep the story alive at Gnadenhutten and at Trumpet in the Land.

Jan Stevenson of Massillon was a guest at the Day of Remembrance.

“I recently found some information in my family genealogy that I had relatives that were here on this beautiful piece of property,” Stevenson said. “I'm here to not only pay respects to them but also learn more about my native culture.”

She was grateful for the chance to ask questions at the event.

“I've always known that there has been Lenape in my family, but now that I'm older, I’ve spending more time researching, just paying more attention to things and learning about it,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson thinks the yearly Day of Remembrance is important.

‘“When an old man dies, a library burns down,’ that's an old African saying,” Stevenson said. “It’s our history, good, bad, beautiful, ugly. We can't forget our ancestry. We can't forget our history. And I really think that we need to understand all aspects of it.”

Gnadenhutten Historical Society president Andy McMillen was pleased the group could again host the Day of Remembrance.

“We're living in complex times right now with very different points of view, a lot of conflict, a lot of anger, and it's important not to forget what has happened, and hopefully we gain from and learn from it,” McMillen said.

The members of the Gnadenhutten Historical Society are working on planning events for the remainder of 2026. They again plan to hold their Gründungstag festival Oct. 10. The new event was well received in 2025.

“We were very blessed to have different people contribute their talents with different presentations. I think it was a good start,” McMillen said.

He thanked the community and the village of Gnadenhutten for their support.

“We live in a very good community who are very good to us, and they understand the value,” McMillen said.

One idea they are working is to host programs that include information on more recent history that happened in the village or at the school.

Currently, the group is focusing on completing a ground penetrating radar survey of the historical park to determine the layout of the original village. They have already received a $15,000 grant from Kimble, which is half of the amount needed. They have ideas for other fundraisers to contribute to the total.

The Gnadenhutten Historical Park will be open regular hours for the summer beginning Memorial Day weekend. New volunteers are welcome and can call McMillen for information, his number can be found on the Gnadenhutten Museum and Historical Site Facebook page.