Gnadenhutten

Under the pretense of ending Native American raids on American farms, militia, led by Col. David Williamson, marched from Mingo Bottoms to Gnadenhutten.  On March 7, 1782, the militia entered Gnadenhutten and convinced the villagers to surrender their arms.  That night the militia imprisoned the villagers and massacred them the next day. The militia followed the massacre by burning the village.  

The tragic events of the Williamson expedition against the Moravian Native Americans did little to reduce the number of hostile Native American attacks against settlers in the Western Pennsylvania and Ohio territory. In fact, the resentment and desire for revenge for the incident fueled Native American hatred of the settlers in the Sandusky River/Upper Sandusky region. This ultimately worked to the detriment of those soldiers captured during Crawford's Defeat.