American Moravian missionary to the Indians, born at Bedford, England, on the 12th of March 1743. His father brought him to Pennsylvania in 1754, where he was afterward apprenticed to a cooper. In 1762 he visited the Indian tribes on the Ohio with Christian F. Post, a colonial Indian agent, and in 1771 he became a missionary to the Delaware Indians. In 1792 and 1793 he accompanied the United States commissioners sent to make treaties with Indian tribes near the Great Lakes. After staying in Ohio for some years as postmaster, justice of the peace, and also of the court of common pleas, he retired to Bethlehem, PA, where he studied the languages and customs of the Indians, especially the Delawares, and wrote a History of the Indians of Pennsylvania (1818); Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians (1820); and a collection of Names which the Delaware Indians Gave to Rivers, Streams and Localities within the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, with Their Significations (1822). A Life of Heckewelder was written by Edward Rondthaler (1847). He died at Bethlehem, PA, on the 21st of January 1823.
