This movement into the fertile valley lands of the Yadkin and the Catawba continued unabated throughout the entire third quarter of the century.

Owing to their unfamiliarity with the English language and the solidarity of their instincts, the German settlers at first had little share in government.

But they devotedly played their part in the defense of the exposed settlements and often bore the brunt of Indian attack.
The bravery and hardihood displayed by the itinerant missionaries sent out by the Pennsylvania Synod under the direction of Count Zinzendorf (1742-8), and by the Moravian Church (1748-53), are mirrored in the numerous diaries, written in German, happily preserved to posterity in religious archives of Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

These simple, earnest crusaders, animated by pure and unselfish motives, would visit on a single tour of a thousand miles the principal German settlements in Maryland and Virginia (including the present West Virginia).

Sometimes they would make an extended circuit through North Carolina, South Carolina, and even Georgia, everywhere bearing witness to the truth of the gospel and seeking to carry the most elemental forms of the Christian religion, preaching and prayer, to the primitive frontiersmen marooned along the outer fringe of white settlements.