He died on the 30th of September, the first Moravian to "fall asleep"
in the United States, though others had given up their lives
for the mission work in the West Indies. His spiritual condition
had at times caused much concern to Toeltschig, who was especially charged
with the religious welfare of the first company, many of whom
had been under his care in Germany, but in the main he had been
an earnest man, a willing and industrious partaker in the common toil,
and his death caused much regret. The burial customs in Savannah
included the ringing of bells, a funeral sermon, and a volley of musketry,
but learning that these ceremonies were not obligatory
the Moravians declined the offer of the citizens to so honor their Brother,
and laid him to rest in the Savannah cemetery with a simple service
of hymns and prayer.
As they were robing Riedel for his burial, a young man came to the door,
and asked if he could not make them some pewter spoons. In the conversations
that followed it developed that he was a native of Switzerland,
the son of a physician, and after his father's death he had sailed
for Pennsylvania, intending there to begin the practice of medicine.
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