At the Howland Preserve meeting on Thursday, Dave Buck reminded me of the question he posed back in 2006 at the first River Symposium.  I had just given a short paper on “Europeans and the Susquehanna River” that quoted the opening lines of a poem by the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Nicht am Susquehanna, der durch Wüsten fließt.”  At the time, I had just begun my work on the Shamokin Diaries and was immersing myself in the world of the Moravian missions in Pennsylvania.  He asked if I had ever heard of “Friedenshütten,” a mission on the North Branch near Wyalusing.  I replied that I had but was not that familiar with it.  Dave, in his usual dogged fashion fashion, pursued me after the session and explained where the mission was supposed to have been and that it was linked to one slightly further up the North Branch, Sheshequin.  And so my curiosity was piqued. [Read more…]