"Dunkard's Bottom"
This tablet commemorates the first white settlement west of New River, made in 1745 near here by "Dunkers". In 1756 they built a fort for protection against Indians. In 1771 Col. William Christian built a home on this site. The stones in this monument are from the chimneys of that home. This marker erected 1937 by Count Pulaski Chaper D.A.R., Pulaski, VA.
(from: (
visit link)
DUNKARDS BOTTOM (MAHANIAM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the early settlements in the valley along the west bank of New River was Mahaniam, meaning "two camps", in what is now Pulaski County and now lies beneath the waters of Claytor Lake. The settlement was founded about 1745 by three Germans from a group, which had crossed the Atlantic seeking religious freedom and were called Sabbatarians and later became known as Dunkards. From this latter name came the identification of the settlement as Dunkards Bottom. It is reported that 900 acres of rich river bottomland was chosen and surveyed for the colony, which later had the only mill west of New River. However, many of the Dunkards became unhappy with their lot in the wilderness on the frontier of a new nation. They were said to be "odd" people who were very clannish and shunned by other settlers.
In 1749 the Moravian missionaries noted that in the region of Dunkard's Bottom they found a "kind of white people who wore deer skins, lived by hunting, associated with the Indians and acted like savages." Once the Dunkard's got to America they changed their ways to fit the lifestyle of the American Frontier.
John BUCHANAN, agent for Colonel PATTON's Wood's River Company and assistant surveyor of Augusta County, made his exploratory trip to the region in the fall of 1745. He found inhabitants already in the New River area. These inhabitants were German eccentrics of German Seventh Day Baptists from the Ephrata Society of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and were called Dunkers Dunkard's. (Many people incorrectly refer to this sect of the Anabaptists as Dunkard's. The word "Dunker" was actually a anglicized corruption of the German Word "Tunker", which means "dipper" or immerserer referring to the mode of baptism practiced by this group.)
Being pacificists, the Dunkards became discontented and fearful, realizing their helplessness if attacked by Indians. So just five years after being established, Mahaniam disappeared as a budding settlement. Some of the settlers returned to Pennsylvania and other parts of Virginia with a few remaining in the immediate area.
To fully understand the "Dunkard's" we must trace back to the place where they came from, Pennsylvania and neighboring regions. Before they came to Pennsylvania they traveled from Germany. Going to Germany for a start, researchers found a little group of serious-minded citizens situated about Strasburg chafing under the Catholic rule of the Province. Alexander MACK, reader of the bible, Conrad BIESEL, a salesman, and Michael ECKERLING, a member of the city council, made up the group of independent worshippers, then called "Pietists", and held secret services at private homes until they were hounded out of the country to become citizens of America.
In Germany, the Dunkard's wore long beards and were highly skilled in many trades as well as agriculture. The Dunkard's were also pacifists. They were ill suited for life on Virginia's wild frontier. Thomas Walker describes the Dunkard's as:
"A Sect of People who call themselves of the Brotherhood of Euphrates, and are commonly called the Dunkard's, who are the upper Inhabitants of the New River....The Dunkard's are an odd set of people, who make it a matter of Religion not to Shave their Beards, ly on beds, or eat flesh, though at present, in the last, they transgress, being constrained to it, they say, by the want of a sufficiency of Grain and Roots, they have not long been seated here. I doubt the plenty and deliciousness of the venison and turkeys has contributed not a little to this. The unmarried have no property but live on a common stock. They don't baptize either Young or Old, they keep the Sabbath on Saturday, and hold that all men shall be happy hereafter, but first must pass through punishment according to their Sins. They are very hospitable."
When John BUCHANAN made his trip to the New River, he noted the individuals here. These people were; Israel LORTON and Adam HARMAN of Tom's Creek, Jacob HARMAN at the Horseshoe, Charles HART on Back Creek, William MACK on Reed Creek and a group of German eccentrics on the Dunkard's Bottom. Three more Dunkard's also came to the New River area: Alexander MACK, Conrad BIESEL, and Michael ECKERLING.
Conrad BIESEL came first in 1720 joining the congregation at Germantown. In 1725 the ECKERLINGs, four sons and mother, came after the death of their father Michael. Alexander MACK followed in 1729.
BIESEL of the new congregation held out for the observance of the seventh day as the Lord's Day and established a monastic society with buildings suitable for the solitary life the members desired to live. With the help of the ECKERLING brothers, Israel, Emanuel, Samuel, and Gabriel, the colony prospered until it became the well-known institution at Ephrata. In the year 1740 there were 36 single brethren in the cloister, and 35 sisters. At one time the society numbered nearly 300.
The ECKERLING brothers, (Israel and Samuel), and Alexander MACK chose a site on the banks of the New River. Soon a third ECKERLING brother, Gabriel, joined them. Other Dunkard's of the Mahanaim settlement included: William MACK, Gerhart ZINN and his wife, George HOOPAUGH, Henry ZINN, Peter SHAVER, Jacob HOHNLY, John NEGLEY and others.
The ECKERLINGS were interested in expanding the activities of the group to include more industries along with religious practices and in building an institution of some reputation. When they were caught in unauthorized transactions, it became clear to them that they should leave the area. In September of 1745 Israel and Samuel ECKERLING and Alexander MACK Jr. set out for the wilderness. They traveled by way of York until they were beyond all settlements and arrived on the west side of the New River. In October, Buchanan found them with a cabin which they had built.
Several of the known leaders left Mahanaim to a new settlement on the New River. They found John MILLER in possession of parts of the bottom land, and a roadside store site of 37 acres, which he had purchased from Peter SHAVER, located on the Sinking Spring or Mill Creek, now called Dublin Branch; Garrett ZINN who purchased the ECKERLING land; John NEGLEY and John STROUPE, probably associates on a branch of Peak Creek; William MACK on Reed Creek; and John Bingaman on the New River. Sometime in 1746 Gabriel ECKERLING and Jacob HOHNLY joined the others at their new settlement in the New River.
In 1750 the ECKERLINGs returned to Ephrata and the land holdings were transferred to Garrett ZINN who obtained the patent.
In 1754 George HOOPAUGH, one of the Dunkard's, said that the previous May 60 "Norward Indians" came to his house and burned it and the stable. Before that, the Indians had threatened him, burned his corn and killed his best dogs. In May of 1755 Henry ZINN was killed on the New River by the Indians. This was probably one of the reasons for the sudden and premature dispersal of the remaining Dunkard's. To keep from being murdered by the Indians, Garrett ZINN moved to Carolina, where he died in 1765. Recorded in the chronicles of the Cloisters: "They fled as if they were chased by someone, for justice persecuted them for the spiritual debts which they had contracted in the Cloisters, until they reached a water which is running toward the Mississippi, called New River, beyond all Christian government. There they made their home among riffraff, the dregs of human society who spend their time murdering wild creatures. With such people they had communion instead of their Brethren whom they left." Eventually, the Dunkard's moved back to their settlement in the New River. In a letter written by Annie CHRISTIAN, William CHRISTIAN's wife, to Ann FLEMING, her sister-in-law, dated Dec. 3, 1770, we learn that the CHRISTIAN family had moved back to the "new location" on the New River. It stated that the Christians were delighted with Mahaniam. In 1772, the Christians had built a new home in the Dunkard's Bottom community.
In 1774 William CHRISTIAN and friend James McCORKLE agreed on an operation of a store at New Dublin. This partnership was to last until 1776. In the spring and summer of 1774, William was a colonel of the Fincastle County troops and prepared for action against the Indians.
In the summer of 1784 William CHRISTIAN and his wife Annie moved to Kentucky where he received a military grant and where his father had claimed lands. William sold 400 acres of the Dunkard's Bottomland to James McCORKLE that year.