Johann Tobias Hirte was born in 1707 in Euba, Upper Lusatia. Growing to a young man, he served in the Saxon Army, and eventually was converted to Christianity by the Moravian Brethren there. He was married to Maria Kloss at the “Great Wedding” held at Herrnhaag on May 27, 1743: Count Zinzendorf officiating. They were one of 24 couples at this famous mass wedding ceremony.
Johann Tobias, else unknown to fame, became a master carpenter while with the Moravians and so was called to Nazareth when the need for his trade became evident. He was to build “Nazareth Hall” for the pending residence of Count Zinzendorf, who was expected to become an inhabitant of the Providence. Working harmoniously with men of seven nationalities, Hirte finished the noble structure in the record time of five months in 1755. It is architecturally faultless.
The important issue from the marriage of Johann and Maria Hirte was a son named Tobias, called Toby by his friends. Toby was nurtured in the traditional Moravian atmosphere of the time, and therefore, was provided with an excellent education including musical instruction. He was proficient with violin, spinet, and vocal talents, along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, and could repair musical instruments. He was known to be a bookworm even later in life. Toby’s personal motto was “Liberty and Independence.” He enjoyed social activities with friends and strangers and had an outgoing, congenial personality. His attributes did not go unnoticed, for in 1771, he was assigned as assistant schoolmaster at Lititz, at the corner of Main and Water Streets, under the supervision of Moravian Brother Roessler. He resided in the Brothers’ House: a sworn bachelor.
Toby was an itinerant pharmacist. During his spare time as school teacher he spent winter evenings preparing herbal medicines including cures for “all the ills of human inheritance.” Many of these were old tried and proven Indian remedies, some in use even today. However, there is no doubt that he enhanced their effectiveness and flavor by adding liberal amounts of spirits.
After the winter school session, the early spring weather opened the highways and trails to Toby’s enjoyment, traveling all over the state to sell his medicines. He would mount his big sorrel mare, loaded with huge saddlebags filled with medicines. There was a unique large umbrella of his invention mounted on the saddle pommel for protection from the elements which gave the impression of a very wise, thoughtful, and somewhat bizarre person.
He dressed as any other Moravian brother with a straight, unlapelled, dark brown coat, a broad-brimmed hat, and knee-buckled trousers. His broad, round-toed shoes were also characteristic of the early brethren, and barely fit in the stirrups.
Toby Hirte’s annual travels took him to northwestern Pennsylvania for the purpose of a special visit to the Seneca Indian nation. Here he learned Indian customs, manners, and peculiar traditions, and befriended Chief Cornplanter. The chief was a noble specimen of his race in person and purpose and was a close associate and efficient aid to George Washington when it came to Indian affairs.
Toby purchased Seneca Indian Oil as a magic healer which he concocted with spirits into a saleable product. This oil was found by the Native Americans as a naturally occurring product, floating on the surface of Oil Creek near Titusville, Pa. The Indians would recover the oil by dipping feathers into the water. The oil would cling to the feather. This substance was nothing more than petroleum but was a medicine long before its usefulness as a fuel was discovered. Along with Seneca Oil, one could find Dr. Van Swieten’s renowned pills in Toby’s saddlebags. He imported this English medicine, which was advertised as “a most potent laxative.”
For several years Toby continued his excursions to outlying villages in the wilderness in summer. He was once seen in the Moravian village of Salem, North Carolina, and as far west as Ohio. An itinerant pharmacist was not on the list of accepted trades among the Moravians. His actions were calmly tolerated but somewhat threatening to the established standards set by the town’s governing body, the “Aufseher Collegium” in Lititz. Exposure to the outside world of strangers had altered his constitution considerably. Records show several mentions of various diversions, such as buying a gun, and others which eventually got him expelled from the community for a time.
By January 1778, the Revolutionary War was in full blossom and the military hospital well established in Lititz. In the summer of that year some of the convalescing soldiers were recovered and able to wander about the community. They often ended up relaxing at the big spring area just west of town. Toby thought it only fitting that some entertainment should be supplied for these poor soldiers and other young people who had nothing to do and nowhere to go. He quickly founded an entertainment center at the spring where musicians and dancers could gather for merrymaking. Music and “indulgences” went on late into the night.
Tobias Hirte was immediately summoned to appear before the Collegium and reprimanded for not getting permission for his entertaining idea. He was told to return the place at the spring to its original state. After being called on the carpet for several infractions, this being the last, Toby decided to leave Lititz for good. If troublesome Toby was expected to live under a cloud of disgrace after his ouster from Lititz, he only looked upon it as a new open door to the future. He went north to Lebanon and established a cottage with small acreage adorned with a nice garden and several fruit trees. He called it his “county seat.” From there, he set up a regular itinerary to Philadelphia. In the City of Brotherly Love, he rented a second-floor room and quickly expanded the manufacturing of his many medicines.
He was soon listed in the Frances White City Directory as “Tobias Hirte, oil merchant, 118 North Second Street.” Frances White’s directory, forerunner to the Yellow Pages and “Who’s Who in America,” measuring 6½” by 3¾” and over a hundred pages thick, listed every tradesman, craftsman, and other remarkable character in Philadelphia. Reading down the column, one’s eye would catch: Warts, John, sea captain; Washington, George, President of the United States, 190 High Street; Mifflin, Thomas, Governor of Pennsylvania, 248 Market Street; Rittenhouse, David, gentleman, 38 North Seventh Street; Richardson, Joseph, silversmith, 50 South Front street; and hundreds more.
Toby’s ten-by-fifteen foot room at North Second Street was constantly in need of a broom and mop. Since he was no longer under the stringent rules of the Collegium, he got into habits that should have put him into an early grave. Breakfast was at 10 o’clock a.m., lunch at 2 o’clock p.m., and dinner at late evening, consisting of an abundance of food equal to several men’s appetites. Cream, butter, and an offensively odorous cheese were supplied by the local Schwenkfelters. All this was finally settled with several glasses of Madeira wine and a pipe of tobacco at eleven o’clock at night. If all within was of a doubtful temperament, a good number of Swieten’s pills were taken to check the rebellion. He seldom retired before 2 o’clock a.m.
The walls of the room were adorned with fiddles, flutes, French horns, and the like, most awaiting repairs. In one corner stood an old spinet. The table was always cluttered with pill-stuff and other medicines in preparation for the next vending trip. A small boy, who Toby rescued from the Philadelphia docks (a stowaway from a French commercial trader), sat at the table bottling the curatives to pay for his dinner.
Whenever Chief Cornplanter came to Philadelphia to visit President Washington, he would stop to visit Toby at his hermitage on North Second Street. Cornplanter’s Indian associate, Chief Red Jacket, was also on most sociable terms with Toby. The Indians were fascinated with Toby’s musical clock, whose tiny Swiss peasantry would do an hourly dance around the dial to the melody of a well- tuned set of bells. The three would sit for hours discussing wilderness issues and cultivating their friendship.
Red Jacket, whose Indian name was Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, appropriately meaning “He keeps me awake,” was a famous orator and warrior of the Seneca nation. He wore a richly embroidered scarlet jacket which had been presented to him by an English officer soon after the Revolution. He was well known for being a very fast runner. Cornplanter was also known for his uncompromising hatred of strong drink in the Indian nations. Both Chiefs had high regards for the Moravian missionaries who traveled their area in the wilderness. The Indians called the Moravians “Black Coats.” The Chiefs visited Bethlehem often.
Chief Cornplanter and Toby were near the same age and both lived to the ripe old age of “near 100.” Red Jacket died at a Seneca village in 1830. He was 74. Missionaries gave him a Christian burial. Red Jacket and Cornplanter both played important roles in treaty agreements of the time. Their portraits were painted by Charles Bird King when the War Department commissioned him to paint important Indian leaders.
Toby was considered a man of good sound sense by his peers; content with the fruits of his daily labor which he interspersed with reading, writing, and arithmetical calculations on the waste of time by minutes. Although he seldom retired before 2 o’clock a.m., the Sabbath found him in his chair in the choir of the church at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. where the pastor praised him for his faithfulness. Toby departed this life in April, 1833 at his “county seat” at Lebanon, Pa. He was one of the most colorful and exciting figures in Colonial history. Rudyard Kipling included him in several chapters of his book “Rewards and Fairies” and in his poem “Philadelphia,” referring to him as Brother Square-toes (Poetic license).
Editor’s Addendum:
The following excerpt from the auto-biography of Jacob Ritter, Jr. (1784-1840) provides an eyewitness account of visits to Toby Hirte’s lodging in Philadelphia:
“On Sunday afternoons my brother George and I rehearsed hymns and scripture lessons to Br. John Meder (then Pastor of the U.B.’s Church), and in the evening we were wont to go to the German Lutheran Church, in 5th. near Race St. At this time the preaching in our Church was German in the morning and English in the afternoon. The Evenings of the Week Br. George and myself spent at Mr. Tobias Herte’s room, corking bottles of Balsam de Matta & Seneca Oil; and putting Van Sweden’s Pills in boxes &c. Mr. Herte had on one side of his room an old Piano Forte, and above it hung violins, flutes, clarionets, rattle-snakes’ skins &c., and on the other side a long bench, covered with oil-cloth. Underneath was a place for storing sweetmeats, lot-work or apple-butter &c. Br. George raised the curtain which was before our seats and grabbled out of a jar something having a long string hanging from it; he sucked it with avidity, thinking it a good thing, yet tough to his grinders; at length he discovered with disgust that he had been sucking a dead mouse, with its tail for an evidence. Mr. Herte’s room was in the 2nd. story of Mr. Conrad Gerhard’s house, second door from the N. W. corner of Second and Race Sts. Tobias Herte was eccentric to a great degree: was a quack doctor; claimed to be an author; but above all, he was a staunch thorough-going democrat. When the French Frigate was laying off the City in 1794, the Crew formed themselves in a mob, and ran up 2nd. St. brandishing swords and threatening to kill every Englishman they met with; T. Hirte came out to the front door on 2nd. St. as they passed, and sanctioned their proceedings, to the vexation of C. Gerhard, who was quite of an opposite sentiment.”
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