Hermann Wellenreuther and Carola Wessel, editors, The Moravian Mission Diaries of David Zeisberger 1772-1781. Penn State University Press, 2005. Maps, appendix, register of persons, index of place and river names and other geographical terms, bibliography, and index, 666 pages, hardcover $65.00.
Primary sources are often given a bad rap. They are dimly remembered as recalcitrant beasts from secondary school or college, dry and confusing and often in storage. They resist the easy gratification of false authority; indeed, radically, they require the reader to think, to do more research beyond and behind and around them, and to think some more. They are work. Primary sources, however (and this is kept as a secret by the cognoscenti), are also fun. Properly approached, they are exciting, provocative, and astonishingly vivid in their expression of a particular time, place, and character. Penn State University Press has given a tremendous gift to the history of the state by publishing David Zeisberger's diaries, one of the most valuable primary source publications in the eighteenth century field.
Who was David Zeisberger, and why should Cumberland County, home of the fierce and touchy Scots-Irish, care about his missions among the Indians? David Zeisberger was born in 1721 in the Carpathian Mountains of central Europe. When he was a boy, he immigrated to the American colonies, which were in their century of involvement in European wars. This was a difficult place and time for the Moravians, a pre-Lutheran Protestant sect that was mercilessly persecuted in Europe and that had naturally developed pacifistic tendencies. The Moravians were and are (they are still a vital faith) worthy of much study. In 1740 David and his parents made their way to Pennsylvania to help found the new Moravian town of Bethlehem. In 1745, having undergone missionary training, David began his lifelong journeys into Indian country. He died in 1808. Being Moravian, which meant he was a profound believer in the written word and the efficacy thereof, he left many journals of his travels and adventures.
A scholarly edition of the journals, which are in the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, was published in Germany in 1995. Penn State University Press, in cooperation with the Max Kade German-American Research Institute, has published in this volume the first English translation of diaries ever. Clichés aside, it is a landmark of tremendous importance for early American studies.
Kevin Patrick, Pennsylvania Caves & Other Rocky Roadside Wonders. Stackpole Books, 2004. Photographs, maps, diagrams, visitor information, bibliography, index, 248 pages, paperback $19.95.