It is Ohio's oldest existing settlement, being founded by Moravian Christians in 1772 and was the site of the Gnadenhutten massacre during the American Revolutionary War.

[10] Gnadenhutten, originally Gnadenhütten, was founded in October 1772 as the second settlement of German Americans and Lenape Indians affiliated with the Moravian Church.

[11] Tribes of Christian Lenni Lenape people had settled at Schoenbrunn nearby, founded months earlier by missionary David Zeisberger.

[12] This community, originally led by the Christian Mohican chieftain Joshua (who died August 1 of the following year), had grown to about 200 persons by 1775.

However, the British and their Indian Wyandot and Delaware allies suspected that members of the Christian Gnadenhutten, Schoenbrunn, and Salem communities had provided aid to American patriots.

As a result, the British forced the Lenape tribespeople in the region to the Upper Sandusky area of the Ohio territory.

Zeisberger at Fort Detroit, they allowed roughly 150 Lenape to return to their old town to gather the harvest and supplies stored there.

Ninety-six innocent Lenape men, women, and children spent the night in song and prayer knowing they would be slaughtered the following morning.

On March 8, 1782, the Pennsylvanians committed the Gnadenhutten massacre and burned the approximately 60 cabins in the town.

[13][14] Although three 4,000 acre tracts were reserved for Indians as an "act of indemnity",[15] John Ettwein petitioned Congress in 1783 and the area was then opened to European American settlers.

The first Ohio Canal was dug nearby in 1825-1830, providing access to markets as well as further immigrants via Cleveland.

[13] Gnadenhutten erected a monument to the martyrs of the March 8, 1782, massacre during the centennial of its founding, and in 1963 established a museum interpreting it and other aspects of the town's history (including the results of 1970 excavations, and having rebuilt the Mission House and Cooper shop, and erected a mound containing the martyrs' graves).

[citation needed] According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.97 square miles (2.51 km2), all land.