A Lenape-Moravian village stood here in 1782

Clinton Township’s first recorded settlement was not a Yankee farm village. In July 1782, Moravian missionary David Zeisberger arrived with a group of Christian Lenape people. They established New Gnadenhutten on high ground beside a river then called the Huron of St. Clair.

Zeisberger’s map showed 29 cabins and a meetinghouse. His diary also described old storage pits in the ground. Those pits showed that another Native community had lived there earlier. Lenape families grew food, built homes, and received visitors from Detroit. Hunger, land conflict, and pressure from nearby powers made the settlement hard to hold.

The community left in 1786. Later farms and neighborhoods covered the site, but the township’s Moravian Road and Historical Village still carry the memory of those four unsettled years on the Clinton River.

There is no rebuilt village to walk through. More than two centuries of development have reshaped the land. The township Historical Commission’s account draws on Zeisberger’s diary and map. It also keeps the sequence clear. New Gnadenhutten was a Lenape community led by Lenape families, not simply a mission planted on empty land. The older storage pits point to Indigenous life there before 1782 as well.