The Life of (John) Conrad Weiser, the German Pioneer, Patriot, and Patron of Two RacesJohn Conrad Weiser was among very few colonial settlers to achieve fluency in Native American languages, working for decades as an interpreter and peacemaker between European settlers and native tribes. The services rendered by Conrad Weiser were immensely important to the colonists of North America. He spent time living with the Maqua tribe, learning their customs and culture, and achieving supreme command of their language. When disputes arose, Weiser was called upon - on several occasions, his mediation and diplomacy prevented disagreements from descending into violence. In maturity, he served as Superintendent of the Indian Bureau; an agency which promoted peaceful cooperation between Native Americans and white Europeans. This biography charts Weiser's humble beginnings in Germany, his boyhood emigration to America, and his first communications and residence with the Maqua. His greatest successes as interpreter and promoter of peaceful understanding are related in detail. Strongly revered for decades after his death in 1760, George Washington himself revisited Weiser's gravesite in 1793 to remember his contributions. Weiser remains a pivotal figure in the history of colonial America, and his house in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania is today a museum dedicated to study of the era. The author of this biography, Clement Zwingli Weiser, was a descendent keen on family research, who lived at the turn of the 20th century. |
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... told of the promi- nence of the man and his works . The wonder is , not that the links which compose his long and eventful history , should now be united in a chain ; but that this service had not been done for him long ago . The " Life ...
... told that the stone had been carefully replaced during the rebuilding of the house in 1799 . Conrad's manuscript autobiography contains this note touching his forefathers : " My great - grandfather was Ja- cob Weiser , and my ...
... told that the name is still worn by living representatives and descendants there . On the first day of May , A. D. 1709 , she died in the forty - third year of her life . The primal sorrow of her sex carried her from the bosom of her ...
... told us . Is not such a woman a martyr in a certain sense ? Her noted son , Conrad , had then been in his thirteenth year , and tender enough never to have forgotten his early and great loss . He kindly writes of her : " She was much ...
... told them they had their all , after which they were liberated without provision or suitable clothing . They embarked a second time from Boston , after having begged or bought their outfit , and arrived in London poor , strange and ...