Evening star., 1931-12-27
The Ren. Dauid
Zeisb erger,
MOrduidn
missionary
from PennsyI-
UGflId.
BY M4UDE NJ. HOWELLS.

IN German mythology there is strange
legend of the village Of Germehlshausen
which disappeared from the face of the
earth and on a certain day each year re-
appears and life is resumed as it was the
day it sank beneath the ground.
Nestled among the hills of Eastern Ohio, the
oldest town in the State and the oldest Chris
tian settlement west of the Allegheny Noun
tains lay buried beneath the corn and wheat
fields for more than century and half
Like Germehlshausen, 1t has reappeared amid
the fields, seemingly the same it was when
savage Indians haraSsed the little band of white
settlers huddled there.
And at midnight on New Year Eve, from the
tower Of the Moravian Church built nearby
almost a century ago, four trumpets will watt
their silvery notes across the skies to the newly
risen village that Mcravian forefatherS built
so many years previously, only to it de-
stroyed. 1t is the custom of the Moravians of
that vicinity to ascend the church steeple each
New Year Eve and sound trumpet calls in the
four directions of the compass to announce to
all that new year CT hope has arrived. The
ceremony will be particularly significant this
year for this historic old settlement that is
being recreated.
CHOENBRUNN beautiful Spring., built by
- David Zeisberger Jealous young Moravan
missionary, and brave little band of white
men and women and Christianized Indians from
Pennsylvania, has sprung into being as if some
magic wand had been waved over the fields and
brought to the surface the little group of log
cabins with its palisades of picket fence, its only
protection against the depredations Of warning
Indiana. Roughhewn are the log cabns-repro-
ductions of those of the first Christian settlers
rough because they were hewn by hand just
as were the originals in the Revolutionary
War days, when zeisberger and his followers cut
down the virgin walnut timber which grew to
such magnificent proportions in this part of the
country. Hand-riven shingles curl up their
edges in the sun. Puncheon floors and great
stone fireplaces seem to have been mysteriouslv
brought out of the past and set in this field,
surrounded as it is by a community of modern
homes and in an atmosphere noisy with the
shrieking of motor horns.
1t was at Schoenbrunn in 1772, that the first
school west of the Alleghenes was started It
was there, too, that the first Christian church
was built and the old iron bell rang out in the
wilderness, calling the Indians from their fields
of maize to worship the white mans God.
That same bell which hauled by men
yoked as oxen over the mountains from the
Moravian Church in Bethlehem. Pa, ard which
was saved out Of the wreckage of the Schoen-
brunn of so long ago. has been found and today
its clear tones call the people to worship in the
log church. The same hymns that were sung
then form part of the church services today.
Along the New Philadelphia -Uhrichsville
Highway within half mile of New Philadelphia
and IS miles from Cleveland Schoenbrunn has
been rebuilt as nearly a reproduction of the
original village as it was possible to do. Auto
mobiles make lively din along the highway
but within the picket-inclosed village all is
quiet. No automobile is allowed to enter the
confines of the town-nothing Is allowed that
would destroy the pioneer atmosphere which
has been caught sincerely and placed about
the village.
While thousands of visitors from all parts of
the country permitted to visit the town
without charge. there is an absence of noise
that might tend to destroy the quaint atmos-
phere. David zeisberger welcomed all travellers