Petquotting (pronounced "pay cutting" ) was the name that the

Moravian Missionaries , image = AgnusDeiWindow.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , caption = Church emblem featuring the Agnus Dei.Stained glass at the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States , main_classification = Proto-Prot ...

gave to their two settlements on the

Huron River (Ohio) The Huron River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 19, 2011 waterway in the north central Ohio in the United States. The watershed drains large portions of E ...

. The first Moravian Christian Indian village of Petquotting was established in 1787, on the east side of the Huron River, and just north of what is now Mason Road, Milan Twp.,

Erie County, Ohio Erie County is a county located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 75,622. Its county seat is Sandusky. The county is named for the Erie tribe, whose name was their word for "wildcat". ...

. In 1790, this village was officially named 'New Salem' by the Moravian synod. But it was abandoned by the Moravian-Indians shortly later, due to Native-American unrest in the area. About 1804, the Moravian-Indians returned,Diary(1804-1806) of G.S. Oppelt, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, PA to a site a few miles south of the old village, and established a new village of Petquotting, upon what is now the village of

Milan, Ohio Milan ( ) is a village (United States)#Ohio, village in Erie County, Ohio, Erie and Huron County, Ohio, Huron counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 1,367 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is best known as the birt ...

. This second village of Petquotting was abandoned about 1808, with the coming of the new pioneer Caucasian settlers from the Eastern U.S. The Moravian Missionaries also referred to the Huron River, itself, as "the river Petquotting", mainly in order to differentiate it from the

Huron River (Michigan) The Huron River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed November 7, 2011 river in southeastern Michigan, rising out of the Huron Swamp in Springfield Township in north ...

, upon which the Moravian-Indians had a prior, and also a later, settlement. The word 'petquotting' originated from a Native-American word "pay-ka-tunk" or "petquattunk", meaning a "high round hill", which referred to a specific, currently unknown, location somewhere in the general vicinity of the Huron River (Ohio) (and perhaps as far as 10 miles distant from later-day Milan village). This earliest "petquattunk" was a Native American-Indian fortified village, and was said to be several miles south of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

, but (according to the Moravian Archives) was high enough to view Lake Erie from that hill.

References

{{authority control History of the America (North) Province of the Moravian Church Populated places in Ohio Settlements of the Moravian Church