Friedensstadt was founded in 1770 by Christian Delaware Indians brought from the upper Allegheny by the Reverend David Zeisberger. Settling on the eastern river bank on May 3, they moved to the west side about three months later. It was abandoned on April 13, 1773, when its inhabitants, with the Reverend John Heckewelder, moved to new towns on the Muskingum in present Ohio. There some of them were massacred on March 8, 1782, by Pennsylvania militia.