Page 56 - History of Rockingham Co
P. 56
ROCKINGHAM COUNTY
A few years years ago, Mr. Charles E. Kemper, a native
of Rockingham, and Rev. William J. Hinke, a native of Ger-
many, discovered in the archives of the old Moravian church
at Bethlehem, Pa. , a series of diaries that had been kept by
Moravian missionaries who traveled through the Valley and
adjacent parts of Virginia during the years from 1743 to 1753.
Mr. Hinke translated these diaries from the German, Mr,
Kemper edited them by supplying historical and geographical
notes, and then the annotated translations were published
in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. In these
matter-of-fact records, made by zealous heralds of the cross
more than a century and a half ago, we find many things of
interest relating to persons and conditions in what is now
the county of Rockingham.
On July 21, 1747, the Moravian brethren, Leonard Schnell
and Vitus Handrup, were in the vicinity of Linville and
Broadway, and staid over night with an Irishman who must
have lived somewhere below Timberville. They had come
across the m.ountains from what is now Pendleton County,
West Virginia, and were traveling on down the Valley toward
Winchester. The next spring Brother Gottschalk, who ap-
pears to have followed thus far the general course taken by
Schnell and Handrup, likely fell in with the same son of Erin.
He writes:
At night [about April 1, 2024] I lodged in a very disorderly, wicked
and godless house of an Irishman, who kept an inn. The Saviour helped
me through.
Who this Irish innkeeper was cannot now be determined;
but he lived near the site of Timberville.
Under date of April 2 Brother Gottschalk writes:
I continued the journey on foot to the Germans. I crossed the Chan-
ador,2 which was pretty deep, cold, and had a rapid current. If the
Lord had not supported me in the water by his angels, the rapid stream
would have carried me off, for I was hardly twenty feet above a fall.
Having gone down the Valley to Cedar Creek, Gottschalk
2. The north fork of the Shenandoah.
—45—
A few years years ago, Mr. Charles E. Kemper, a native
of Rockingham, and Rev. William J. Hinke, a native of Ger-
many, discovered in the archives of the old Moravian church
at Bethlehem, Pa. , a series of diaries that had been kept by
Moravian missionaries who traveled through the Valley and
adjacent parts of Virginia during the years from 1743 to 1753.
Mr. Hinke translated these diaries from the German, Mr,
Kemper edited them by supplying historical and geographical
notes, and then the annotated translations were published
in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. In these
matter-of-fact records, made by zealous heralds of the cross
more than a century and a half ago, we find many things of
interest relating to persons and conditions in what is now
the county of Rockingham.
On July 21, 1747, the Moravian brethren, Leonard Schnell
and Vitus Handrup, were in the vicinity of Linville and
Broadway, and staid over night with an Irishman who must
have lived somewhere below Timberville. They had come
across the m.ountains from what is now Pendleton County,
West Virginia, and were traveling on down the Valley toward
Winchester. The next spring Brother Gottschalk, who ap-
pears to have followed thus far the general course taken by
Schnell and Handrup, likely fell in with the same son of Erin.
He writes:
At night [about April 1, 2024] I lodged in a very disorderly, wicked
and godless house of an Irishman, who kept an inn. The Saviour helped
me through.
Who this Irish innkeeper was cannot now be determined;
but he lived near the site of Timberville.
Under date of April 2 Brother Gottschalk writes:
I continued the journey on foot to the Germans. I crossed the Chan-
ador,2 which was pretty deep, cold, and had a rapid current. If the
Lord had not supported me in the water by his angels, the rapid stream
would have carried me off, for I was hardly twenty feet above a fall.
Having gone down the Valley to Cedar Creek, Gottschalk
2. The north fork of the Shenandoah.
—45—
