Oppelt, Godfrey Sebastian

Oppelt, Godfrey Sebastian a well-known German Moravian missionary among the Indians of North America, was born March 20, 1763, at Gorlitz, Silesia. In 1799 he began to preach to the converts in Canada, and in 1804 inaugurated an enterprise among the Delawares on the Pettquotting, now Huron River, Ohio. Subsequently, from 1810 to 1818, he was the agent of the "Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen," incorporated in 1788, and lived in the Tuscarawas Valley, Ohio, administering the grant of 12,000 acres of land made by Congress to that association in trust for the Christian Indiana. He died at Nazareth, Pa., Aug. 9, 1832. (E. de S.)