>t Class 15^ Book , '' ,— \ Copyriglitl^^._ L-i caenBiGm DEPosm \ A HISTORY OF Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 1741—1892 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS FOUNDERS AND THEIR EARLY ACTIVITY IN AMERICA BY JOSEPH MORTIMER LEVERING JBlflbop of tbe flDoravian Cburcb PRESIDENT OF THE MORAVIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND FORMERLY ARCHIVIST AT BETHLEHEM ISSUED AS A MEMORIAL VOLUME BY THE SESQUI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE OF THE MORAVIAN CONGREGATION OF BETHLEHEM Bethlehem, Pa. TIMES PUBLISHING COMPANY Printers and Publishers 1903 Ur^inn^ iHt l;Braryof CONiSKtSS, Two Copies Received JAN 4 1b04 CwpyriKht Entry cuss A- XXa No. J .73 5- L^ CopY 2. COPYRItJHT, 1903, BY THE CONG REG AXIOKT OF UNIXED BRETHREN OF THE BOROUGH OF BETHI^EHEM AND ITS VICrNITY. PROLOGUE. It is but justly due the advance subscribers of '> History of Bethlehem" that a foreword on the part of the Committee to which had been entrusted the preparation of this, the crowning feature of the Sesqui-Centennial celebration of the founding of the town, should partake of at least an apologetic flavor. The passing of a full decade before the fulfillment of the task was due, in part, to the long-continued illness of Prof. Edwin G. Klose, who had assumed the greater part of the many details involved m the projection of the Volume and who, almost to the day of his death, had cherished the hope that returning health would enable him to contribute to its pages the main part of the work. His regret- table demise, occurring before he was able even to pen a chapter thereof, led to the devolvement of the task upon the Rt. Rev. J. Mortimer Levering, then one of the pastors of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, custodian of the Archives at this place, and signally qualified to bring the work to a successful issue. Although given occasional respite from his pastoral duties, oft recurring periods of ill health and bodily suffering disabled him from persistent application to this work, requiring as it did a close study of manuscript material, rendered trying and laborious alike by its dififuseness and by its frequent approach to illegibility. The resuh of his labors embodied in these pages, the Committee beheves, will be found by the reader to fully compensate for the delay. Indeed the delay has made possible what could otherwise not have been accomplished, viz., an authoritative history based on origi- nal documents and manuscript sources. He has treated the history of the town without any undue attempt at conciseness, yet, in the carrying out of his work, he stops short of fatiguing elaboration; he maintains, moreover, the dignity commen- surate with the high aims had in view by the first settlers of Bethle- hem so that they only will be disappointed who may look for a collec- tion 'of amusing tales recounting the eccentricities or failings of some of the worthies of a century and more ago. On the other hand, the IV PROLOGUE. student of history will find in this monograph an important contri- bution to the secular and religious history of our country. The many illustrations with which the volume is embellished are, in a great number of instances, reproductions of rare prints, manu- scripts and drawings and materially enhance the value of the book. Abraham S. Schropp, Charles H. Eggert, Henry T. Clauder, Joseph A. Rice, Robert Rau, J. Samuel Krause, William V. Knauss, J. Taylor Hamilton, Harvey W. Kessler. Bethlehem, Pa., June 25th, 1903. PREFACE. Bethlehem, being a town with a past far from common-place, has been much and variously written about from its beginning to the present time. Correct historical and descriptive information has never been entirely lacking, and has increased in recent years, but more numerous have been the published accounts which have propagated erroneous ideas, hard to eradicate, in regard to former institutions and usages of the place and to the Church that founded it. These have been lauded and traduced, idealized and caricatured according to the knowledge or fancy, animus or object of different writers, and usually the most unreal elements of these diversified views have the firmest hold on the popular mind. Many persons yet derive all their notions of Bethlehem from fantastic portrayals of "Moravian customs," for the entertainment of newspaper readers, by imaginative correspondents who continue to devise variations of the theme and occasionally to freshen it with newly-invented features. Such stock terms as strange people, quaint community, interesting brotherhood, which even in olden times expressed conceptions largely fanciful and are as little appH- cable to the Moravian Church now as to other churches of Bethle- hem, had become tiresome before the place ceased, half a century ago, to be what it is still often styled in print, a Moravian town. Since the modern examination of Moravian archives in Pennsyl- vania and the writing of history from these sources began about fifty years ago, the pubHcations of the Moravian Historical Society, with many other books and pamphlets, contain much matter about Bethlehem, but scattered through more general history or given in disconnected treatment of specialties. Very Httle of it extends beyond the first fifty years, much of it serv^es rather a mere antiquarian curi- osity or reminiscent fancy, and some has been superseded by maturer work resulting from a more thorough study of records. Meanwhile, nothing that can be called a history of Bethlehem has appeared. The volume of miscellany from historical documents, official state- ments, tourists' descriptions and village tales, called "Bethlehem and VI PREFACE. the Moravians," published in 1873, by John Hill Martin, "entirely for amusement," is not a connected history and remains without the corrections which would doubtless have been made in a second edition. The Rev. William C. Reichel was engaged in 1876, at "A Memorial Volume of the Bethlehems by way of a Centennial Record," adver- tised to be issued by August 15, of that year, but his lamented death in October left the task unaccomplished. His notes were subse- quently utilized in a variety of ways — a few of them in a history of Northampton County, compiled in 1877, for which Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz furnished a section on early Bethlehem in addition to what the compilation contains in other parts. The desire for a more complete history of the town, which, in 1892, revived the project of a Memorial Volume, will perhaps be met to a fair degree by the present work, completed after a long delay and under peculiar difficulties. It having eventually taken the form of a history from one hand instead of a collection of monographs, as at one time proposed, the absence of fuller specializing under that plan is possibly compensated for by the advantage of a more closely- woven, consecutive body of matter. Only first sources have been used in what pertains to Moravian affairs in America and to all Bethlehem events prior to the middle of the nineteenth century. After that, so far as possible, only those written and printed statements have been followed which, in the nature of things, could be reHed upon. While entire absence of errors is not presumed, many obscurities, inaccuracies and contradictions in extant history have been corrected. The length of the chapters, embracing epochs and periods, may seem to bury many details of interest in the mass, but it is believed that the careful indexing of subjects and names separately, which has been prepared by an assistant, will make amends for this. The writer ventures the hope that the work may, on the whole, not be disappointing to those who have been awaiting it. J. M. Levering. January, 1903. PRINCIPAL SOURCES. [The manuscripts — all originals or authentic contemporaneous copies, and mostly German— are named, not by exact titles, but in a general, somewhat explanatory way, and, for brevity, in classified groups. Printed works are likewise briefly men- tioned and an asterisk marks those in which the matter used consists of published original documents having all the authority of first sources for ordinary purposes.] MANUSCRIPTS. Diaries. — General Moravian diary of Bethlehem, 1742-1900; diaries of Single Brethren's House, 1744-1814, and Sisters' House, 1748-1844; George Neisser's notes, Georgia and Pennsylvania, 1734-1742; J. P. Meurer's journal en route with Sea Congregation and later, 1 742-1 744; Neisser and Hoepfner's journals. Second Sea Congregation, 1743; Henry Miller's memoranda, 1 742-1 745; journals, Beth- lehem itinerants among Indians and settlers, 1 742-1 762. Official Minutes. — General Moravian Executive Board in Pennsylvania under successive titles — after 1782 Provincial Helpers' and General Helpers' Con- ference and after 1855 Provincial Elders' Conference — 1744-1857; Bethlehem Boards of Elders, Stewards, Supervisors {Au/seher), etc., School Boards and Con- gregation Councils, 1 742-1 85 1 (Elders and Parochial School Directors to 1892); early records, District School (incomplete) and sundry extracts and reports, Public Schools, 1 836-1 872. Synodical Records. — Pennsylvania Synods, first union, and after 1748 ex- clusively Moravian, 1 742-1 835 ; General Synods, Moravian Church (Europe), 1736- 1836. Personal Records.— Autobiographies— Peter Boehler, Martin Mack, John Boehner, and other pioneers — and numerous memoirs filed in archives and entered in register, Moravian Church. Correspondence. — Bethlehem officials with European General Moravian Board, 1742-1857; and with civil and military authorities of Pennsylvania, New York, New jersey, and Nation, more than a century. Miscellaneous. — Lists of Moravian Immigrants, 1 735-1 800; historical reminiscences at laying of corner-stone, Nazareth Hall, by Peter Boehler; account of Revolutionary times by John Ettwein ; sundry statements, petitions and appeals during Revolution ; history, Moravian property and finances, by Lewis David de Schweinitz ; legal opinions, advice and instructions, Lewis Weiss, Benjamin Chew, Horace Binney, and others ; maps, drafts, surveys abstracts of title, deeds and other conveyances; sundry account books, 1744-1851, of general management, schools and industries ; annual reviews and statistics, 1742- 1892. Vlll PRINCIPAL SOURCES. PRINTED WORKS. Principal writers, from 1771 (Cranz) to 1895, °^ the Unitas Fratrum — general history and special subjects. *Buedingsche Sammlungen (Buedingen Collections), issued 1 742-1 744. *Authentische Relation, etc., account of the First Pennsylvania Synod with various related documents, 1742. *Zinzendorf's Peri Eautou or Naturelle Reflexiones, 1746. *Acta Fratrum Unitatis in Anglia, 1749. ■^Spangenberg's Declaration ueber Beschuldigungen, Darlegung richtiger Ant- worten and Apologetische Schluss-Schrift, 1751. Spangenberg's Life of Zinzendorf, 1772. Risler's Life of Spangenberg, 1794. *Autobiographies, Bishop Spangenberg, Nicholas Garrison, John Christopher Pyrlaeus, Frederick William von Marschall, John Heckewelder, and others m Nachrichten aus der Bruedergemeine. Benham's Memoirs of James Hutton, 1856. ^Pennsylvania Archives and Colonial Records. ^Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania and Register. *Occasional items in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Local newspaper files in Bethlehem Archives: Die Biene, 1 846-1 848; The Moravian, 1856-1892 ; The Bethlehem Advocate and the Lehigh Valley Times, between 1858 and 1861 ; The Bethlehem Times. 1 874-1 892. ^Official publications of institutions and corporations of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introduction. — The Pennsylvania Experiment — Seventeenth Century Con- ditions — Persecution — Early Settlements, Dutch, Swedish, English — Penn's Province — Religious Turmoil — Moravian Pioneers — Praised and Defamed - Their Gospel of Peace Pages i-6 CHAPTER II. The Unitas Fratrum or Moravian Church, i457-i735- Origin and Name — Hussite Parties — Brethren found Association — Are Op- pressed — Principles and Organization — Episcopate — Developed System — Affinities — Persecution — Education — Hymnology - Bible Translation — Confessions of Faith — Utter Suppression — Friendship of England — Come- nius — American Prospects — Resuscitation — Christian David and Zinzendorf — Moravians to Saxony - Herrnhut - Plans of Zinzendorf- Clerical Assaults - Zinzendorf reads Comenius — Deputation to England — Adjustment to State Church — Missionaries to the Heathen — American Settlement Planned — Jablonsky transfers Episcopate — David Nitschmann founds Church in America Pages 7-3° CHAPTER III. From Herrnhut to the Forks of the Delaware, 1735-1740. American Plans — Georgia and Pennsylvania — First Moravians — Skippack Union — Attempt in South Carolina — Georgia Abandoned — Moravians with Whitef^eld to Pennsylvania — Christopher Wiegner, Henry Antes — Whitefield's Nazareth Plan — Employs Moravians— Arrival in the Forks — Region Described — Scotch-Irish Settlements — William Allen — Indian Complications — Walking Purchase— Moravians commence Nazareth House- Disagreement with White- field — Nathaniel Irish offers them Land on the Lehigh — Bishop David Nitsch- mann and Company arrive — First Christmas at Nazareth — Site Selected on the Lehigh — First Tree Felled — The Spring at the Monocacy, . Pages 31-58 CHAPTER IV. The Settlement Founded and Named, 1741. Missionary Beginnings — Indians of Welagameka — Captain John and Christian Froehlich — Allen Tract on the Lehigh finally Selected — Building Operations Commenced — Land Purchased for Moravians by Antes — First House Built — Journeys and Visitors — Pioneers remove to Allen Tract — A Busy Summer — First Preaching and Communion — Lovefeasts and Prayer-days — The Com- munity House — Sectarians and Fanatics visit the Forks - George Neisser's Records — Count Zinzendorf arrives in America - Screeds and Pasquinades — Zinzendorf at Philadelphia - Visits Henry Antes - Evangelical Alliance Planned — Reaches the Forks — A Memorable Christmas Eve — The Name Bethlehem Pages 5^79 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Connecting Events and the Sea Congregation, 1742. Zinzendorf's Tour through the Country — Sects Encountered — He settles in Philadelphia — Plans for Pennsylvania — Confusion and Strife — He distin- guishes Religions and Sects — His Scheme Elucidated — His Conception of the Moravian Church — His Ecclesiastical Status — Entanglements of Rank — Insult and Calumny — Proposes to renounce Rank and Title — Preaches for Lutherans in Philadelphia — Crusade of Rev. John Philip Boehm — Pyrlaeus Mobbed — The Bechtel Catechism — The Hirten Lieder — Antes calls Con- ference of Religions — The Seven Conferences Treated — Zinzendorf as Moder- ator — Excited Opposition — His Course Misrepresented — Use of the Lot Explained — First Moravian School in Germantown — The " Sea Congregation" arrives — Attracts Attention at Philadelphia — Joins Pennsylvania Synod — Names of Colony with Notes, Pages 80-126 CHAPTER VL From the Organization to the Return of Spangenberg, 1742-1744. The Colony reaches Bethlehem — Community House Chapel Dedicated — Con- gregation Organized — The Sabbath Question Discussed — First Arrangements — Ofificials and Functionaries — Pharmacy and Dispensary — Postal Arrange- ments — Organization of Labor — The Prayer Bands — A Typical Sunday — First Interment in Cemetery — Baptism of Indians Described — Community House Enlarged — First Decorative Art — First Hospital and Tavern — Plans for the Barony of Nazareth — Boarding Schools Planned — Bethlehem People Misunderstood by Neighbors — Zinzendorf 's Tours in the Indian Country — Second Christmas at Bethlehem — Zinzendorf 's Departure — Ad Interim Ar- rangements — First Grist-mill and Ferry — Whitefield House Finished — The Demented Hardie — School of Indian Languages — Nazareth Colony arrives — Early Musical Instruments — Musicians Organized — Single Men's House Built — Missionaries Oppressed in New York — Spangenberg returns to Beth- lehem Pages 127-177 CHAPTER VII. The Economy During Spangenberg's First Term, 1745-1748. Spangenberg's General Plan — The Economy — Popular Misapprehensions — Detailed Organization — Henry Antes Superintendent of Externals — Organized Labor — System of Accounts — Labor Made Pleasant — Idyllic Scenes — Mur- murers — The Herrnhaag Extravagances — Zinzendorf 's Connection There- with — The Climax — Herrnhaag Abandoned — Fanaticism slightly affects Bethlehem — Success of Co-operative Union — Crown Inn Built — First Semi- nary — Industries Developed — Indian Converts from New York build Friedens- huetten — Small-pox Scourge — Missionary Society Formed — Mills Built — Brethren's House Built — The Irene Built and Launched — Local Improvements — Culture, Medicinal Herbs — Polyglot Song Service — Collegium Musician — Notes on Various Schools — First School South Side of River — The Old Man's Place — Henry Antes Justice of the Peace — Complications with Neighbors — Bethlehem Township Formed — Legal Status of Moravians — Acts of Parlia- CONTENTS. ^^ ment 1747 and 1749 - Bishop de Watteville comes to Bethlehem — Official Changes Made — Spangenberg retires Pages 178-229 CHAPTER VIII. The Course of Things to the Indian Raid, i749-i755' De Watteville's Labors and Journeys— Schools Reorganized- John Nitsch- mann supersedes Spangenberg — Greenlanders at Bethlehem - The Jones Farm — English Cloth-weavers come to Bethlehem — David Brainerd and his Indians - Gilbert Tennent denounces Moravians — Unique Service at Bethle- hem — Greenlanders, Arawacks, Indians. Negroes — Gnadenhuetten Indians — Teedyuscung - Meniolagomeka — John Nitschmann's Administration Object tionable — Antes leaves Bethlehem - Nitschmann's Arbitrary Course — Presen- Old Chapel Built - Sister's House Enlarged - Grist-mill Rebuilt - New Phar- macy - Store in Horsfield House — Indian House at Monocacy - The Nazareth Road - John Nitschmann Recalled to Europe - Spangenberg returns to Bethlehem - Easton Founded - William Parsons - Northampton County Erected — Moravian Properties Secured — Individual Proprietor and Adminis- trator - Financial Crisis in Europe- Nazareth Hall Built -The Family House - Proposed New Bethlehem Tavern - The Little Irene - The Bethlehem Water-works — Silk Worms — General Economy Reorganized— Death of Henry Antes Daniel Brodhead and James Burnside - Approaching Indian Troubles Pages 230-296 CHAPTER IX. Bethlehem During the Indian Uprising, i755-i756- Braddock's Defeat Announced at Bethlehem — Moravians Accused of Furnish- ing Arms and Ammunition to Indians - Teedyuscung tries to allure Moravian Indians — Frederick Post alone in Wyoming — Wild Stories Circulated — Be- ginning of Violence in Eastern Pennsylvania - First Refugees to Bethlehem - Moravian Settlements in Danger- Massacre at Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoning — This vindicates Moravian Missionaries — Bethlehem becomes a City of Refuge - Spangenberg urges Building Fort at Lehigh Gap - Franklin com- mands Frontier Defences - Women and Children Concentrated at Bethlehem _ Savages plan Attack - Dreaded Christmas safely Passed - Impatience of Franklin and Authorities with Panic Stricken Settlers - They burden Bethlehem heavily - Spangenberg pleads their Cause - Assembly objects to Expenses for Keeping Indians at Bethlehem by Order of Government — Bickerings of Public Men jeopardize Life and Property - Bounty for Scalps Proclaimed - Teedyuscung Dreaded at Bethlehem, Pages 297-343 CHAPTER X. To the End of the General Economy, 1756-1762. Bethlehem Escapes — Christian Indians of much Service — Great Council at Easton — Tranquility Preserved at Bethlehem — Nazareth Hall Dedicated — Peter Boehler returns to Bethlehem - Nain Built for Christian Indians - Neighbors object — Teedyuscung Permitted to spend Winter at Bethlehem — Leaves in the Spring of 1758 - His Melancholy End - Sun Inn Built - Post's Services to the Government - Close of Indian War - Church Ship Irene Captured Xll CONTENTS. and Sunk — Klemm and Tanneberger Organ Builders — Death of Father Nitsch- mann — Plans to dissolve General Economy — School Opened in Nazareth Hall — Founding of Wechquetank — Small-pox — Many Visitors — Descriptions Recorded — A New Church Ship, The Hope — Problems Involved in Dissolu- tion of General Economy — The Task is Consummated — Departure of Bishop Spangenberg for Europe, Pages 344-385 CHAPTER XI. The Decade to the Second Re-organization, 1762-1771. Personal Changes — Post and Heckewelder to Ohio — Distinguished Visitors — Topography in 1762 — New Water- works — Indian Troubles again Brewing — Demand for Removal of Indians from Nain and Wechquetank — Threats against Bethlehem — Cowardly Murder of Indians by Captain Wetterhold's Militia — Retaliation by Savages at Stenton's Tavern — The Wounded Captain dies at the Crown Inn — Bethlehem again Stockaded for Defence — Oil Mill Burned by Incendiaries — First Fire Engine in America Brought to Bethlehem — Indians of Wechquetank and Nain Removed to Philadelphia — Mob and Riot in the City — Designs of the Paxton Rangers — Indians Brought Back to Beth- lehem — Klein's Stage-wagon to Philadelphia — Beginning of Allentown — Many Visitors — Industrial Progress — New Oil Mill — Widows' House Built — Widow's Society Founded — Friedensthal — Brandmiller's Printing-press — Founding of Hope, New Jersey — Re-organization of Bethlehem — Financial Settlements . Pages 386-425 CHAPTER XII. Into the Depths of Revolutionary Trouble, 1772-1778. The New Order — Industrial Developments — Calumnies about Moravians — Visitors and Tourists — Death of Bishop David Nitschmann — Inoculation for Small-pox Introduced — Political Excitement — Standpoint of Moravians Eluci- dated — The War begins — First Troops pass through Bethlehem — Declara- tion of Independence — Arms Searched for — Prayer for King Omitted in Litany — Brethren's House Taken for Hospital — Soldiers Buried West of Monocacy — Threats against Bethlehem — A Night of Peril — Moravians Mis- construed — Petty Tyranny of County Lieutenant Wetzel — Prisoners Quartered upon Bethlehem — Military Stores arrive — Liberty Bell in Bethlehem — Members of Congress from Philadelphia — Lafayette at the Eeckel House — Congressional Order of Protection — Brethren's House again a Hospital — Invasion of Rabble — Value of Trustworthy Soldiers — Supplies Furnished by Moravians — Malig- nant Fever in Crowded Hospital — The Dead no longer Counted — Contagion spreads in the Town — Riotous Militia — Imposition by Minor Officers — The Town Relieved — Hospital Closed, ..... Pages 426-483 CHAPTER XIII. Through the Revolution to Another Re-organization, 1778-1785. Prominent Men in Bethlehem — Tract Against " Quakers and Bethlehemites " — Count Pulaski at Bethlehem — His Famous Banner — General Riedesel and Family — Brunswick Troops — Exorbitant Prices — Martha Washington in CONTENTS. XIU Bethlehem — Refugees from Wyoming — Tradesmen Harassed by County Lieutenant and Squires — Moravians at Emmaus Arrested — Marched Through Bethlehem as a Spectacle — Such Activity Financially Profitable — AUentown Squires summon all the Men of Bethlehem — Higher Authorities advise that it be Ignored — Squires threaten Ettwein — Discussion at Bethlehem on the Test Act — General Washington's Nephew in Bethlehem — Bishop John Fred- crick Reichel arrives — Position to be Taken by Moravian Villages — Recogni- tion of New Government — Official Changes — General Washington visits Bethlehem — More Distinguished Foreigners — The Marquis de Chastelloux — Captain Paul Jones at Bethlehem — Deals with Ruffians at Crown Inn — Ruin of Missions in Ohio — Slaughter of Christian Indians at Gnadenhuetten — Death of Bishop Nathanael Seidel — Dr. Schoepf 's Description of Bethlehem — Thanks- giving Service after Treaty of Peace — Rehabilitation of Industries — Bishop de Watteville arrives to Re-organize Work — Rigid Exclusivism Introduced — Boarding-schools at Bethlehem and Nazareth Re-established, Pages 484-535 CHAPTER XIV. Two Decades Under the Close Regime, 1786-1806. Spirit of the Age Felt — Combated by Stringent Rules — Fiftieth Anniversary of Bethlehem — Official Changes Reviewed — Postmasters and Physicians — The Sun Inn and Mail Stage — First Lehigh Bridge — Ferry and Crown Inn Abandoned — New Store — New Building for Boarding-school — Visitors — John Penn the Poet — Duke de la Rochefoucauld — Society for Propagating the Gospel — Correspondence with President Washington — Indian Chiefs at Bethlehem — Moravian Ministers preach in Surrounding Country — Churches Dedicated — Political Turbulence — The Fries Insurrection — Memorial Ser- vices, Death of Washington — Proposition to build a Large Church — Long Delay and Many Plans — Building Commenced — Laying of Cdrner-stone — Original Form of Church Described — The Organ — The Church Con- secrated, Pages 536-582 CHAPTER XV.* The Beginning of Modernizing Movements, i 807-1 825. Climax of Close Regime — Moravian Village Culture — Music — Decay of Old System — Hope, New Jersey, Abandoned — Theological Seminary Founded — Unfortunate Controversies — Domineering Paternalism — Organization of Single Men declines — Death of Bishop Loskiel — Official Complications — Brethren's House Abandoned — Converted into Boarding-school — Day-schools Discussed — School Board Organized — School House on Cedar Street Built — Contro- versy with Administrator on Sale of Land — Clamor for Change of System — Antiquated Customs Abolished — Sunday-school Work Begun — Women's Missionary Society — Northampton County Bible Society — Neighborhood Church Dedications — External Changes — Eagle Hotel — Mercantile Enter- prises — Industries Sold — Administrator Cunow Removed from Office — Suc- ceeded by Lewis David de Schweinitz — Land Controversy Settled — Close Regime Broken Pages 583-639 * Erratum. Two chapters of manuscript were consolidated without changing the numbering of the next three. XVI-XVIII, in the volume, should be XV-XVII. XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. Transition from Church-Village to Borough, 1826-1845. Reconstruction Planned — Marks of Progress — Coal Industries — The Canal — Old South Bethlehem — Fourth of July, 1826 — American Colonization Society — Young Men's Missionary Society — Home Mission Society — Financial De- pression — Complications with Leases — Public Schools — Bleck's Academy — Philharmonic Society — Bethlehem Bands — Village Government — The Water- works — The Fire Department — Goepp's Financial Policy — Properties Sold — Associations of Sand Island — Historic Industries — Great Freshet, 1841 — Beth- lehem's Centennial — Financial Crash — Abolition of Lease System — Incor- poration of Borough, ........ Pages 640-682 CHAPTER XVII. Three Decades of Progress, i 846-1 876. Ground-rents and Sales — Moravian Church Re-organization — Division of Property — Changes in Church Buildings — Nisky Hill Cemetery — Beginnings of Other Churches in Bethlehem — Other Religious Work — Young Men's Christian Association — New Parochial School Building — Van Kirk's Academy — Schwartz's Academy — Public Schools and Teachers — Music and Art — The Press of the Bethlehems — Municipal Improvements — Hotels — Island — Boats — Piano Factory — Brass Works, Pages 683-717 CHAPTER XVIII. Three Decades of Progress, Continued, 1846-1876. South Side Beginnings — Farms Sold — The Water Cure — Fontainebleau — The Zinc Works — Railroads — Iron Industries — Proposed Government Foundry — Bethlehem Iron Company — South Bethlehem Incorporated — Gas and Water Company — South Bethlehem Schools — Lehigh University — Bishop- thorpe — St. Luke's Hospital — South Bethlehem Churches — New Street and Broad Street Bridges — Great Freshet, 1862 — Railroads, North Side — Banks — Post-ofifice — The Civil War — First Troops from Bethlehem — War-time Ad- vertising — Moravian Woolen Mills — Impressive Scenes — Union League — Battle of Gettysburg — Christian Commission ^ Close of the War — Decoration Day — Grand Army Post — National Centennial, . . . Pages 718-754 CHAPTER XIX. A Century and a Half Completed, 1877-1892. Features of New Period — Small-pox Epidemic — Borough of West Bethlehem — West Side Schools and Churches — Industrial Progress — Silk Mills — Electric Light — Street Improvement— New Bridge Projects — Electric Cars — Fire and Water Departments — New School Houses — New Theological Seminary — Musical Achievements — Anniversaries — Comenius Celebration — Columbus Celebration — Sesqui-Centennial of Bethlehem — Municipal and Ecclesiastical Preparations — Festival Described — Zinzendorf Bi-Centenary — Close of Nine- teenth Century, Pages 755-776 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. THE THREE CHURCHES, . . Frontispiece ANCIENT SEAL OF THE UNITAS FRATRUM, 5 EPISCOPAL SEAL, 1902, .... 6 COUNT ZINZENDORF, 20 DAVID NITSCHMANN, (Episc). . . 30 CERTIFICATE OF SAVANNAH LOTS, . 33 PETER BOEHLER, 38 THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 53 THE FIRST HOUSE OF BETHLEHEM, eo DAVID NITSCHMANN, (Sen.) ... 64 TITLE PAGE OF TEXT BOOK, 1767, . 120 PAGE OF BETHLEHEM DIARY, . . .134 FRENCH HORN, 172 AUG. G. SPANGENBERG, . . . .178 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 184 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . . .190 CROWN INN RELICS, 229 ITINERARY MAP OF PENNA., , . .236 APOTHECARY'S UTENSILS, 1752, . . 256 INDIANS' HOUSES AND BAPTISM, . . 258 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 266 THE FAMILY HOUSE, 284 BETHLEHEM, 1750, 1755, .... 290 TROMBONE, 331 PLOT OF 1757, 344 INDIANS' SIGNATURES, . , . ,346 BETHLEHEM LANDS, 1761, . . .352 BETHLEHEM, 1757, 358 THE SUN INN, 360 ZEISBERGER PREACHING TO THE INDIANS, 368 COMMUNION SERVICE, 385 PLAN OF BETHLEHEM, 1758, . . .391 FIRE ENGINE, 400 WIDOWS' HOUSE VIEWS, .... 410 BETHLEHEM, 1767, 1784, 430 FIRST HOUSE AND ADJOINING BUILDING OF 1776, 443 ORDER OF SAFE-GUARD 466 LETTER FROM GEN. WASHINGTON, . 478 JOHN ETTWEIN VS. COL, CROPPER, . 480 LETTER OF HORATIO GATES, . . .491 JOHN ETTWEIN, 504 GEORGE WASHINGTON, .... 518 PAGE. GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 522 YOUNG LADIES' SEMINARY OF 1790, . 550 LETTER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, . 518 BETHLEHEM, 1793, 1795, . . . .564 THE MORAVIAN CHURCH, 1806, . . 576 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . .580 BETHLEHEM, 1805, 1810, 582 MORAVIAN COLLEGE AND THEOLOG- ICAL SEMINARY, 592 BETHLEHEM, 1810, 594 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . . ,598 BETHLEHEM, 1830, 1848, .... 628 STAGE LINE, 630 CALYPSO ISLAND, 1832, . . . .632 EAGLE HOTEL, 634 BETHLEHEM, 640 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . . .662 CHARLES D. BISHOP, 666 CALYPSO ISLAND, 1850, 668 MOUNTAIN PATH AND THE SPRING, 670 MAIN STREET, 1842, 672 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 674 GROUP OF PORTRAITS 680 BETHLEHEM, 1850, 1851, .... 682 MONOCACY VIEWS 684 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 686 BETHLEHEM, 1852, . .... 688 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . . .694 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, , . . .700 SCHOOL BUILDINGS, 704 FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL HOUSE, . . 706 BETHLEHEM VIEWS 708 MAIN STREET, 710 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 714 THE SOUTH SIDE, 1852, 1872, . . .718 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, .... 720 GROUP OF PORTRAITS 726 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, ... .728 FRANCIS WOLLE, 732 THE FRESHET OF 1862, . . .736 GROUP OF PORTRAITS. . ' . .746 EDM. A. DE SCHWEINITZ, . . .752 TWO PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, . . 760 TWO PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, . 762 GROUP OF PORTRAITS, . . . .764 CHAPTER I. Introduction. Pennsylvania stood foremost among the primitive commonwealths of the United States in presenting favorable conditions to many kinds of particular associations and undertakings. Therefore it most readily afforded a home to a settlement like Bethlehem, unique in some striking features but in its essential and lasting characteristics fully at one with the best elements of the Province. It is proposed to treat of the origin, founding and growth of this settlement viewed not in its isolation but in its connections, ante- cedent and contemporary. Accordingly the effort may properly be introduced by a cursory survey of the situation previously developed in the Province. Cosmopolitan ideas, broad tolerance and philanthropy entered conspicuously into the large plans on which the Province was founded, and the severe tests to which the hosts attracted by the proffered liberty subjected them worked out problems of vital importance. Discordant and rival elements abused the privileges and so tried the ideal scheme that for a time its failure seemed inevitable, but the people thus brought together learned finally that they could affiliate and produced a result that fulfilled the dreams and vindicated the faith of the projectors. This, in brief, was the process of the colonial period of Pennsylvania to which so many races and languages, so many social and religious factors, such a variety of special designs and movements contributed. In the bold venture to invite together such a heterogeneous mass, wath so little discrimination or restriction, and to undertake the fusion of this mass into a composite citizenship on the principle that the greatest good of the greatest number must be sought in all things, Penn with his commonwealth anticipated the future great Republic. The Pennsylvania experiment was in this respect the first lesson in what would be the experiment of the Nation. Its plan took high rank among the products of advanced thought in that age in which the modern structures of Christian civilization 2 2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. were slowly arising out of the chaotic ruins left by the Thirty-years' War. Nowhere in the new world did peoples directly involved in those protracted reUgious and political struggles of the seventeenth century figure so largely as in the region entered through the gate- way of the Delaware River. The pioneers of its earliest settlements bore the flags of two nations which were prominent during those troublous decades as advocates of humane principles and as friends of the helpless and the down-trodden, the fugitive and the exile. Holland, the first to colonize on the shores of the Delaware, had a keen eye to material gain and less to say, in proclamations, charters and advertisements, than some other nations, about propagating the gospel, but was beyond any other the refuge of persecuted religion- ists chased like hunted beasts from one dominion to another; and, having suffered so grievously herself, turned a sympathizing ear to the cry of the bleeding masses over whose heads the chariots of war had so long rolled to and fro. There, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, Puritans and Quakers, Mennonites, Labadists and Tunkers found shelter and received help to cross the ocean. Thither fled multitudes from the Rhine Palatinate, from Silesia and the North German country, together with impoverished Waldenses and exiles from Bohemia and Moravia, bereft of everything to live from or worth living for at home, and glad to find a spot where even bare existence was possible. The salt of the land, sturdy yeomanry from the desolate fields, in- telligent craftsmen and skilled artisans from the ruined cities and the villages sacked and burned, nobles of ancient name reduced to beg- gary, learned schoolmen, philosophers and theologians made up those expatriated hosts who were fed and clothed in the Netherlands, where the conviction that all men were created equal produced the leading effort of the time to educate the masses, accorded to men the right to have a conscience, permitted them to think and express their thoughts, to formulate the many-sided truth as they appre- hended it, and to worship God in the manner that satisfied their minds and hearts. How numerously these mixed multitudes, who caught new breath and learned to hope again in Holland, entered into the early popula- tion of Pennsylvania, and how largely by the help of Holland they reached this country, history has often told. The settlement to be called New Amstel, which later became New Castle on the Dela- ware, elaborately planned by the Dutch during their second brief INTRODUCTION. 3 occupation of the region, was to be especially an asylum for such, and the Dutch West India Company expected great advantage to the colony by the acquisition of settlers like these, with character which could neither be bought nor crushed. Sweden's more substantial settlements on the Delaware originated in the plans of the great Gustavus Adolphus, who, as the ultimate champion of the Protestant forces, had given the decisive turn to the struggles of the time. He not only thought to reap material benefit for his country and to evangelize the heathen, but also to ofTer a place of refuge beyond the sea to the sufferers of desolated regions and the homeless exiles whose tribulation awakened his sym- pathy and aroused his fiery indignation. His plans were modified by narrower spirits who carried them into execution after his un- timely and lamented death, and rigid confessionalism curtailed some- what the terms he would have offered to men of different creeds, yet his successors colonized with other aims than merely the gratifi- cation of avarice or political ambition. They helped to establish the precedent of toleration which distinguished the future Province. They anticipated the principle of William Penn, that the land must be purchased of its savage possessors or at least acquired with their free consent, whatever grant or patent might otherwise be held. They also made the first attempt to evangelize the natives of the region and to translate Christian literature into their language. The Dutch and the Swedes did, it is true, quarrel in unseemly man- ner about their claims, so vague and contradictory in language, and both of them quarreled with the English who several times tried to get foothold on this middle coast before the time and the man ap- peared to introduce the best spirit of England, yet from the first, more largely than elsewhere, Christian motives and philanthropic impulses bore a part to be perpetuated in the first constitution of the "state prayer-founded" in which at last "the sectary yielded to the citizen and peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men." When finally the nation mightier than Holland or Sweden acquired the whole country drained by the Delaware and its tributaries and the power of Great Britain inspired confidence in the new order, the oppressed, the impoverished and the down-trodden, little benefited by the reconstructions thus far effected in their countries and beHev- ing that the statements and offers of the noble-minded Proprietary could be trusted, began to come in by thousands ; and the long- mooted idea of a new, free state in which sufferers for conscience' 4 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. sake, strugglers in the cause of liberty and enterprising home-seekers might find the desire of their hearts, began to be reaHzed. Then it came to pass that the scheme of peace with freedom at first produced a spectacle of turmoil. The population increased in number and diversity beyond the provisions for ordering and unify- ing it. Many who had never known what freedom was were not capable of using it peaceably. There came troublesome agitators, reckless adventurers and worthless vagabonds who could not be kept out. These exerted a pernicious influence among the masses who had been accustomed to look upon all authority in state or church as tyranny to be submitted to only under sullen protest if too strong to be violently resisted, and consequently regarded all efforts to establish order as but so many acts of oppression. The conflicts of the generations before them having been mainly conflicts with ecclesiastical tyranny, these people for the most part held the inherited idea that reUgious liberty was the greatest boon to be sought. Therefore the confusion and strife which marked the early periods of the Pennsylvania experiment prevailed most con- spicuously in the domain of religion. Bigotry and intolerance were intensified among the adherents of the dominant confessions. A morbid propensity to follow pretending prophets, to indulge in mys- tical vagaries, to embrace startling novelties of doctrine, to become fanatical in specialties and to multiply conventicles was developed among those who turned away from the old church-establishments or were forced out of them by repressive measures. The atmosphere of the age had bred an epidemic of religious extravagancies which continued far into the eighteenth century. The multitude of sects goaded by persecution ran to extremes in the defence and promulga- tion of their distinctive tenets and many became the persecutors of each other where they could. No religious body that strove for something more than mere theoretical orthodoxy or outward con- formity to church-order escaped entirely the infection of fanaticism. All this, when transplanted out of the repressing conditions of the old world into the new Province of Pennsylvania, where all persua- sions could assert themselves, produced a religious babel. At the same time many who associated estabHshed churches with the old tyranny from which they had fled, while they were repelled by the wrangling of sects and separatists, discarded all religion and became practically atheists. INTRODUCTION. 5 At the most confused and uncertain stage, when those who had no faith m the Pennsylvania plan called the Province bedlam and predicted the triumph of anarchy, the men who founded Bethlehem appeared upon the scene to seek a place in this region of great oppor- tumties and to undertake their part in helping to work out the prob- lem of Its future. They came with a definite purpose which was in accord with the highest aspirations of its best people. Persons of several nationaHties were among them, but no colonists in the coun- try were more closely bound together. Their organization was com- paratively new, but they had back of them a historv recalled by the name^ they bore which had its beginning before America was discov- ered; the history of a religious body which Holland, Sweden and England had known as a disrupted church in exile for more than a hundred years. None had suffered more terribly in the Thirty- years' War than the spiritual fore-fathers of these men. No banner carried through the conflicts of the previous three hundred vears was more pierced and rent than was their historic banner with legend and device^ calling them to follow the Lamb whose sacrifice" for humanity was destined to result in mighty conquests by love. Ancient Seal of the Unitas Fratrura. Now these colonists came bearing it into the new world to proclaim true liberty with true brotherhood under the dominion of the con- quering Lamb. All their undertakings were subordinate to this ceiu ral purpose. Their positi on was not readily understood. Men • From the first they were most commonly called "the Moravians" by English speakine people m the American colonies. - The episcopal seal of the Church has upon it a shield with the figure of a lamb carrymg a cross from which is suspended a banner of victory, and around the shield is the motto- l2at .^^mus nosier, Et,m sequamur, i.e., Our Lamb hath conquered, Him let us follow A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. differed widely in their attitude towards them, for both good report and evil report had preceded them across the ocean, and they were soon the most highly praised and the most bitterly denounced people in the Province. The material benefits which their settlement brought to the region were speedily recognized by those in authority. In a short time their name carried with it high credit in business circles. Their educational efforts won for them the respect of the most intelligent persons and their missionary activity excited the interest of the philanthropic, while many sick of sectarian strife were attracted by the preaching of their itinerants who avoided polemics. On the other hand a variety of misrepresentations and calumnies circulated in print by prejudiced and unscrupulous ecclesiastics in Europe found eager agents for their propagation in Pennsylvania, where the conditions that existed so greatly favored such work. One decried them as wild visionaries and dangerous fanatics. Another hurled denunciations at them as disseminators of grievous heresies. Another agitated the passage of laws against them as Papists in disguise. They paid little heed to these things, for their spiritual ancestors had encountered fiercer onslaughts than these. In the Indian's wigwam, in the settler's cabin, in the hut of the despised negro, among churchmen, sectarians and separatists of every nationality, creed and name, in the town and the forest, where- ever they found people who would listen, these men of Bethlehem preached the one gospel of the cross, advocated union of heart around this standard, with cessation of controversy on non-essential dif- ferences, and sought to ally the well-meaning of all parties in efforts for the common good. The period of their arrival and first attempts constituted an epoch in the religious life of the Province. Who were these people and whence came they? What were their antecedents and associations? Correct knowledge in reference to these questions is necessary in order to understand the history of Bethlehem. The Episcopal Seal, 1C)02. CHAPTER II. The Unitas Fratrum or Moravian Church. A.D. 1457-1735- The founders of Bethlehem represented a Church variously known as the Brethren's Church, the Unitas Fratrum, the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, the Church of the United Brethren and the Moravian Church.^ It arose in the fifteenth century in the twin countries of Bohemia and Moravia, lying mountain-encircled in the heart of Europe, small in area but long the theatre of great events. For more than seven hundred years their history had been one of successive struggles for freedom and for the preservation of their primitive Christianity in character and form. What their first evangeHsts, Cyrill and Alethodius of the Greek Church gave them in the ninth century; what Rome deprived them of in the eleventh century, the Bohemian Reformation came so near restoring at the opening of the fifteenth century that the Papal authorities resorted to the desperate measure of burning the intrepid leader John Hus at the stake July 6, 141 5, to intimidate the uprising hosts. The subsequent contentions were partly political, partly re- I The original Bohemian name was Jednota Brafrska. The word Jediiota means associ- ation of any kind. It was chosen instead of Cirkev (church) in deference to the National Church, as Unitas was later used as a Latin equivalent of Jednota — both meaning what is meant by Church in the restricted sense, as applied to single church divisions or denomina- tions in America. Unitas passed into German as Unitaet. Hence Jednota Bratrska = Unitas Fratrum=z Brueder Unitaet=zBretkren's 6'w?V>', but all meaning simply Brethren's Church in the sense just stated. In the i8th century the Latin title was revived in negotiations with England, with its meaning construed to denote union ideas, in view from the first, leading to its selection with this especially in mind. This has been shown to be unhistorical and has been officially abandoned; the General Synod, since 1889, having ceased to set forth a sharp difference between the terms Brethren's Church and Brethren's Unity. The German branch of the Church calls its corporate whole a Unitaet instead of a Kirche (church) for reasons deemed important, but where no State Church e.xists there is no occasion to affect this oddity. Church of the United Brethren is the English title adopted in the i Sth century when the superfluous word "united" was thought necessary to adequately render Unitas Fratrum. Its retention in legal titles and some Church formularies is unfortunate in the 7 8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ligious. The Four Articles of Prague (1421) which declared for unhindered worship and preaching in the vernacular ; the communion cup to the laiety; secular power taken from the clergy; discipline impartially maintained among all ranks and classes, became the general platform of the Hussite patriots. Two main parties arose. United States, because of confusion with a quite different modern denomination, the United Brethren in Christ. There being also other claimants for even the simple and correct name Brethren's Church, and the title Unitas Fratrum being not suited for popular use, the name Moravian Church, gradually adopted in England and America, seems to be a survival of the fittest among English-speaking people. In America particularly, where nearly all religious bodies trace their origin to some foreign country, its use is not open to the same objection which a Saxon or Prussian would raise against calling his church Die Maehrische Kirche. The use of " Moravian " in America to denote ecclesiastical descent is sustained by the following considerations : 1. Such a geographical or ethnical designation — Anglican, Roman, German, Moravian, Gal- ilean, etc., like Judean, Syrian, Galatian, Roman, etc., in the primitive Church — is more consis- tent with the idea oione Church Universal than special titles which either recall dissension, strife and schism, or obtrude some peculiarity of doctrine, polity or ritual, or suggest an eccentric con- venticle, or were formed from the name of a man, or were first mere epithets either of cant or reproach. 2. The "hidden seed" of the suppressed Unitas Fratrum in Moravia sprang from the residue of the only body which after the middle of the 17th century could be called the Moravian Church in the sense of local origin and character. The Utraquist Church of the realm was in decay, never to be revived. The Roman hierarchy was an invading foreign power, i he Protestant bodies under limited toleration there represented confessions and affiliations of neighboring states in which they originated. 3. That "hidden seed" of Moravia principally furnished the nucleus of the first congre- gation with which the modern resuscitation of the Church began in .Saxony. Their patron Count Zinzendorf continually called them " the Moravians," the Church of their fathers " the Moravian Church," and five of their chief men who emigrated together to seek a place where they might reorganize it, " the five Moravian Churchmen." 4. Zinzendorf's scheme of combining elements fostered three historic cults which he called Tropi Pcedias — a Lutheran, a Reformed and a ''Moravian-Episcopal" Tropus. Under the latter he classed all elements in the make-up of .the modern Church derived from the ancient Unitas. 5. The episcopate of the Church preserved from extinction in the 17th century mainly through the efforts of Comenius, the most distinguished native Moravian of his time and the pre-eminent Moravian bishop of the Unitas, over against its Bohemian and Polish bishops, was passed on by his grandson, Jablonsky, to one of those five Moravian Churchmen, David Nitschmann, the first bishop of the Church after its resuscitation, its first bishop in America and the official founder of its first American settlement. 6. Emigrants from Moravia figured so conspicuously among the first missionaries and first colonists of the Church in America that immediately the name Moravian was applied by English-speaking people to the entire body of the Brethren. While therefore this name as now generally applied to the Renewed Church of the Brethren is held to be preferable in English, the various designations will be used ad libitum in these pages as convenience or suitableness may require. THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- 9 One bore the names Calixtines, from their emblem the communion chaHce, and Utraquists from the phrase sub utraque forma, i. e. the communion in both kinds. The other was known as the Taborites from the name of their chief stronghold in the Hussite wars. They were the most uncompromising radicals, politically and ecclesiasti- cally. The Utraquists, more disposed to negotiate with the Papacy and to accommodate discipline to circumstances, embodied the uni- versity party and most of the titled classes. They became the domin- ant body, strong enough at the Council of Basle (1433) to gain temporary concessions from the diplomats of Rome in what are known as the Compactata of Basle, and in sanctioning the ordina- tion, for the Waldenses, of two new priests. Frederick and John, sur- named Nemez and Wlach — German and Walloon — and their con- secration as bishops in 1434, as a stroke of policy to enlist the Utraquists and their proteges against the Taborites and for other interests then deemed more important. The Taborites rejected the Compactata, again resorted to arms, with now the Utraquists also against them, and met with an overwhelming defeat (1434) which led to their disintegration and put the Utraquists in control to de- velop a national church. Besides the Orphans, the most extreme faction of the Taborite party, and numerous smaller sects, there existed certain circles of quiet, godly men within the Utraquist and Taborite parties who held aloof from issues between the two, declined to engage in war- fare and fostered Apostolic teaching, discipline and fellowship. These constituted the most genuine followers of Hus and furnished the seed of the Brethren's Church. From their central nucleus in Prague a colony under the leadership of Gregory, a nephew of Roky- cana, Utraquist Archbishop elect of Prague, located, early in the year 1457, near the village of Kunwald on the domain of Lititz in the north-eastern part of Bohemia, the property of George Podiebrad who the next year became King of Bohemia and who, like Rokycana, was at that time in sympathy with them. There they formed an association — tradition says on March i — ^based upon the Scriptures and the Articles of Prague and directed by twenty-eight Elders, three of them priests and the rest laymen of various stations — schoolmen, artisans, noblemen and peasants. For a while they seem to have spoken of themselves as "Brethren of the Law of Christ ;" adverting to an utterance of John Hus, to signify their scriptural foundation and the nature of their union. Otherwise their name during: the lO A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. first years was simply "the Brethren." They did not propose to found an independent church, but merely to foster Apostolic teaching and fellowship as a society within the National Church, doing what good they might to their surroundings, receiving the sacrament from reputable priests of the neighborhood, and pastoral care from those who had joined them, notably Michael of Bradac, called Bradacius, an aged priest of Senftenberg, their first minister. Their increase was rapid. Four years later they had several thousand members and affiliated groups began to form at other points both in Bohemia and Moravia. The infectious influence of various erratic sects upon this mixed multitude soon made it necessary to define some principles more clearly and to adopt further regulations. The determination to search the Scriptures for authority in all things, to obey the law of Christ in life and fellowship and to avoid political entanglements was reaffirmed. Controversies on the Eu- charist having invaded the Society, the position was taken that the sacrament should be received in faith, accepting the words of Christ without formulated definition, rejecting only the doctrine of trans- substantiation. This principle laid down in 1459 was maintained permanently and is the position of the Church now. Watchful enemies aided by renegades soon found occasion in these things to accuse them before the authorities. The King and Rokycana, both fearing the growing numbers of the Brethren and desiring to keep peace with Rome in the pursuit of their own ambitions, were readily influenced against them. Persecution ensued and the main body of them retired into the mountains of Reichenau where they worshiped and held synods in the open air. In 1464 they took further steps in the hour of trial to strengthen their bond. They adopted a more elaborate code of statutes remarkable for their enlightened evan- gelical character in such times as those, for their calm, heroic tone and for their exalted charity. They constitute the earliest formal declaration of the Brethren preserved to posterity and yet extant in translations. In 1467 they took the next step to which the logic of events directed them as indispensable to maintain their organization and pursue its high aims. This was the establishment of their own ministry through the good offices of the Waldenses with whom they had opened com- munication on the subject. After weighing the matter well in all its bearings and with much prayer, they submitted the main question to the drawing of a lot in which they beheved, Hke the Apostles, THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- II that Divine guidance would be given, and the result was affirmative. Nine worthy candidates were elected. Then they again resorted to the lot and three of these were drawn. First the priests who were present, Michael Bradacius and the rest — an aged Waldensian taking the lead — set them apart by the laying on of hands after the entire synod of about sixty men had pledged them cordial recognition. Then Michael with the Waldensian priest and another who had re- nounced allegiance to Rome and joined them, were sent to Stephen, an aged bishop of the Waldenses of Moravia, who with another of their bishops yet living claimed a genuine episcopate in their own ancient line which, however, Utraquist documents refer to as derived through the procedure at Basle in 1434. Stephen was asked to confer the episcopate upon them that they might have a ministry which would be recognized as valid amid all the circumstances that might arise in time to come. He complied by consecrating Michael who was a regular priest of Roman ordination and had been identified with the Brethren from the beginning. Michael, upon his return, ordained the three chosen men to the ministry. They were Matthias of Kunwald, Thomas of Prelouc and Elias of Chrenovic. Then he consecrated Matthias the first bishop, the others being subsequently also consecrated.- An Executive Council of twelve men, presbyters 2 For the information of those readers who are interested in the subject of Moravian Orders it naay be stated that this brief sketch rests on the most reliable sources now extant. The episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum and back of it that of the Waldenses have been made to appear doubtful by the reproduction of Romanist and Utraquist documents tending to belittle the origin and discredit the statements of the Brethren. It is characteristic of the kind of ecclesiastics who permitted the propagation of the Waldensian episcopate as a con- cession to the Nationalist parties (1433-3 4-) that they should suppress recorded reference to the fact and file documents misrepresenting or distorting it — as characteristic as was the burning of the Waldensian Bishop Stephen at the stake in 1469 for having transferred the episcopate to the Brethren that they might become a distinct Church. That Utraquist sources are not trustworthy in this matter follows logically from their attitude and measures over against the Brethren during that and the following decade. That the Utraquist prelate, Rokycana, allied himself with the Papal party in opening a fierce persecution of the Brethren and the W^aldenses, when the transactions of 1467 became known, indicates that he and the representatives of Rome took the episcopate involved and the act of transfer at their full value. When hypercritical and captious inquiries, unfairly pressed, call for an amount of docu- mentary evidence which is not to be expected, the vicissitudes through which the historical sources of the Church have passed must be remembered. During the earliest period the Brethren recorded and published little about their doings for obvious reasons. Subsequently documents in abundance were collected but they, like the Church itself, were pursued relent- 12 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and laymen, was associated with Matthias as President, and thus the Jednota Bratrska or Unitas Fratrum assumed the position of a distinct Church to which both NationaHsts and Papists drove it by the measures adopted to terrify and scatter its members. In the system which grew out of these beginnings, and was well established before the year 1500, the native genius of the Church asserted itself, free from the clogs which would have attended a move to reconstruct an existing national establishment, or a process organically connected with the Papal system. It had much of the character of an original institution developing from the germ and directed according to primitive Christian models. First was the Congregation as the unit — a voluntary association of like-minded be- lievers bound by a brotherly agreement and governed by an elected eldership. Then, with increase of such groups, arose the Synod as the unit of power, legislating by delegated authority. This was not altered by the introduction of the episcopate. The Synod com- mitted executive authority and administration to the Council, which again was elective and representative ; for while the episcopacy was placed at the head of it — first one bishop alone, later several — the presbvtery and the laiety had a voice in it, with the central principle of conferential government and collegiate administration established. lessly by the spirit of destruction. The first archives at Senftenberg were scattered and in part destroyed before 1500. Those then collected at Leitomischl were consumed by fire in 1546. When the Counter-Reformation opened in 1621 special attention was devoted to the destruction of the remaining and added literature of the Brethren, the valuable library of Comenius, e.g. being burned in the public square. Again at the fall of Lissa in 1656 his second library and the documents of the Unitas Fratrum, once more gathered with much effort, suffered another ordeal of fire and pillage. Those rescued were conveyed from place to place, scattered and to a great extent eventually lost. Those embraced in thirteen volumes of the so-called Lissa Folios — now the most valuable collection known — did not come back into possession of the Church until 1838, when an examination of them served to correct current inaccuracies and furnish anew much forgotten information. No one, unless predisposed to make out a case against the validity of the episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum, will seriously base conclusions on detracting extraneous sources as more credible than the few ancient records of the Brethren which have survived the pitiless devastations of the centu- ries. The most that can be made of adverse sources by a historian worthy of attention is presenled by Dr. Jaroslav Goll in his Quellen unci Untersuchttngen zur Geschichte der Boehmischen Brtieder, Prague, 1878, and even he, although a Romanist, does not assume to have finally disposed of the matter. Extensive treatment of the subject, with citation and dis- cussion of sources, may be found in the History of the Unitas Fratrum^ by Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, S.T.D., Bethlehem, 1878. See also the Moravian Manual, Bethlehem, 1901, for a succinct narrative and a complete list of bishops from Matthias in 1467 to the last consecrated in 1901. THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- I 3 This principle, with the authority of the Synod supreme, served as a standing check on what seemed undue power committed to the bishop who was President. Later the lay element and eventually also the presbytery disappeared from the Council and it became en- tirely episcopal. This was not due however to a deliberate change of principle but resulted from the stress of perilous times when con- centration of authority was desirable ; when masterful personal lead- ership was of more value than any kind of governmental machinery ; when born leaders naturally found their way into the episcopacy. Elementary conceptions entered into the system from first to last, which gave it aflfinity to widely divergent Protestant types of the sixteenth century. It anticipated Luther in emphasizing the priest- hood of individual believers, Zwingli in maintaining the rights of the congregation over against hierarchy, and Calvin in restoring eld- ership in church government, while, like the Church of England, it did not, in repudiating the Papacy, discard the historic episcopate and adopt parity of the clergy. These relationships appeared later in the intercourse of the Brethren with the leaders of the Reformation and, together with their doctrinal position, made possible their alliance with Lutheran and Calvinistic Protestants in the Consensus of Sendomir in 1570 and the joint Bohemian Confession of 1575, while prior to that, in 1548, when because of the alleged connection of some of their nobles with the Smalcald League a general perse- cution came upon them which led to the founding of the Polish branch of the Church, their position secured for those of them who fled to England a cordial reception as a distinct party among the "foreign Protestants" cared for in London by command of the young King Edward VL The complete constitution of the Church in its maturity, as last revised and adopted in 1616, shortly before its most disastrous crisis, was first published in print in 1632-33 in Bohemian, German and Latin ; its title, best known in Latin, being Ratio DiscipUnae Ordin- isquc ccclcsiastici in Unitatc Fratnim Bohemorum. There will be oc- casion to refer to it again. It would exceed the purpose and limit of this sketch to trace events in chronological order, even very briefly, from the important year 1467 to the disruption of the Church which terminated the ancient period of its organized existence soon after the opening of the Thirty- vears' War. 14 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Its history during that century and a half is most conspicuously one of persecution renewed again and again with a relentless deter- mination that has few parallels in the records of religious intoler- ance and political tyranny. The Brethren, more than any other people of the realm, were hated and dreaded by those who ruled by these means, because they fearlessly advocated truth and right, spread the teachings of the gospel, educated the masses to think for themselves, which was dangerous to corrupt domination in church and state; because they were more firmly and intelligently united than any other party, standing upon their own distinct basis and wielding an influence among titled families, scholars, burghers and peasants which neither Utraquists nor Papists could enlist for any joint or rival purpose. Therefore they were the perpetual object of jealous antipathy from both sides, and usually each could count upon the other to support, or at least to not obstruct the edicts which again and again were promulgated against them. When these measures were designed to not merely harass the Brethren, but even to open a general campaign of complete suppression, as was the case with the famous Edict of St. James in 1508 and its renewal in 1547, all the barbarities so common in that rude age, where tyranny and fanaticism resorted to force, were inflicted upon them. Languish- ing in loathsome dungeons, freezing and starving in the forests and mountain fastnesses, enduring every species of torture which refined cruelty could invent, undaunted by the executioner's torch or steel ; or leaving possessions and comforts behind to go penniless by multitudes into dreary exile, their heroic witnesses added a long array to "the noble army of martyrs" who "obtained a good report through faith." There were of course those who in such extremities faltered and renounced that for which others laid down their lives, but, in general, the steadfast loyalty of the Brethren to their Church was as impressive as their resolute adherence to the Scriptures as their standard. Its origin, system, methods, worship and attitude towards all issues of the time embodied the best ideals of the nation and made it in a peculiar sense the people's church, to which they clung with the characteristic tenacity of their race. In the baronial castle and in the peasant's cottage the true heart of the people spoke in its confessions and its hymns. Its power of endurance carried it safely through one after another internal crisis also, in ridding itself of eccentric factions which threatened to pervert its course, extricating itself from narrow trammels when it outgrew THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- 15 them and gradually casting off old errors as it advanced in scriptural knowledge. Its speedy recuperation after periods of persecution and its rapid growth during the intervals of peace were phenomenal. When the German Reformation began in 1517 the Unitas Fratrum had nearly two hundred thousand members and about four hundred places of worship. Its parish schools were educating its peasantry to a standard far above that of their surroundings and its seats of higher learning were sought out by many nobles outside of its pale. It had two Theological Seminaries in Moravia and one in Bohemia in the sixteenth century and one was founded later in Poland. The Brethren led the literary activity of the realm, owning and operating three of the five printing-presses in Bohemia prior to 1520, and during the first decade of that century issuing vastly more printed matter than appeared from all other sources in that country. The fondness of the people for music was gratified and utilized from the beginning by the cultivation of congregational singing. The first collection of hymns was printed by the Unitas Fratrum in 1501, as the latest investigations have proved by the discovery of a copy yet in existence. Successive revisions and improvements were made, and soon after the middle of the century there were complete hymnals in Bohemian, German and Polish, mature in plan and rich in matter ; the principal editions having the notes of the tunes printed with the hymns. The greatest literary production of the Church was its Bohemian version of the Bible, the task of eight of its learned men laboring fifteen years. The translation was, like that of the New Testament alone in 1564, made from the Hebrew and Greek text instead of the Latin vulgate as in the case of other Bohemian versions, and it was published complete at Kralic in Moravia in 1593. Both in its value as the Holy Word given the people in their own tongue and as a noble classic of the national language it was for Bohemia and Moravia what Luther's Bible was for Germany. The importance to which the Unitas Fratrum had risen in the sixteenth century is not generally recognized. It is overshadowed in the retrospect by the magnitude of the movements in Germany in that century. Besides this, the people and language of the land of Hus could not participate in the modern Protestant developments after the issues of the Thirty-years' War were settled, because at the beginning of it the country was ruined by the Romish reactionary crusade which there did its worst, and the Church which most truly embodied the native evangelical spirit was crushed. German Pro- l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. testant writers of church history have usually drawn rather too sharp a dividing line between the old darkness and the new light for all Western Europe at the beginning of the German Reformation, while the leading modern Bohemian historians who patriotically bring out the grand things of their country which were buried under the cataclysm of the seventeenth century and, with a fair degree of appreciation, give the Church of the Brethren the prominence it deserves as the embodiment of noble ideals heroically pursued, do not usually write from the standpoint of Protestants and therefore do not take pains to point out particularly those things in its teach- ing and activity in which the standards of Protestantism were antici- pated by "Reformers before the Reformation." With all they had attained through their diligent study of the Scriptures, they were willing, like all honest searchers for the truth, to learn from any who had a clearer insight into Apostolic teaching in any point. The influence of Luther, with whom they first en- tered into communication in 1522, is evident in their progress in formulating evangelical doctrines after that time. They acknow- ledged his eminence as a restorer of sound theology, while he praised their superiority in maintaining scriptural discipHne and fos- tering vital godhness. He wrote a preface to one of their con- fessions and published it at Wittenberg in 1533, as an evidence of what remained in Bohemia and Moravia from the holy seed sown by Hus more than a century before. Some of their numerous declarations, apologies and confessions were called forth by the frequent necessity of giving an account of themselves to friend or foe; others were intended to supersede previous ones as the fruit of deeper study in Divine things. Their last comprehensive con- fession, presenting their system of doctrine in its final maturity, ap- peared in 1573, two years before the joint confession of the three evangelical parties of Bohemia already referred to. The latest edition of it was published in 1612 when the Church was at last enjoying triumphant liberty, but at the same time was approaching its great catastrophe. In 1609 the persistent efforts of the Evangelical parties in Bohemia and Moravia finally secured an imperial charter of religious liberty, and the Brethren's Church reached the summit of outward as- cendency. Although the influential nobles in its connection, with the adherents of the other Protestant confessions, used the advantage thus gained to strengthen their position in the state and make the THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO I735. I7 victory permanent if possible, subtile forces were at work to produce an irresistible reaction and the Romish Counter-Reformation was taking shape right in the years of exultant triumph. The song of the people entered the ear of a cruel fanatic in whose hand the coun- try's future lay, the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, who had promised his Jesuit preceptor to make the complete re-establishment of Papal dominion in Bohemia and Moravia his great work. The political conditions which were leading the states of Western Europe into three decades of conflict and chaos soon gave him his opportunity. In 161 7 he became King of Bohemia. Futile efforts of the evan- gelical parties to avert the doom which this foretokened, strengthened his purpose. Two years later this sworn enemy of all liberty ascended the throne of the empire as Ferdinand the Second, and it soon appeared how ruthlessly he proposed to execute his plans. In the battle of the White Mountain, November 8, 1620, the Protestant forces were utterly routed and then he commenced his work of desolation. The bishops and ministers of the Unitas Fratrum were put under an edict of banishment, its churches and schools were forcibly closed and all its property was confiscated. The Calvinistic ministers were similarly dealt with and ere long those of the Lutheran confession also. A year later torture and cruel death began to be inflicted upon those who dared to remain, and many of their people shared their fate. June 21, 1621, twenty-seven Bohemian patriots, most of them dis- tinguished noblemen and many of them members of the Unitas, were beheaded in Prague. That day is known in Bohemian history as "the day of blood." During the years 1624 to 1626 special emissaries traversed the land proclaiming the ultimatum, exile or death for all who would not renounce evangelical faith and church connection. Thousands left their homes and fled to Protestant countries. Mean- while other agents were engaged in the systematic destruction of evangelical literature, that of the Brethren being particularly sought for. One person is said to have boasted that he had burned over sixty thousand volumes. To all of these measures were added cun- ningly devised schemes to impoverish the country, bankrupting the rich and starving the poor in order to reduce the people to sub- mission. Finally in 1627 the charter of 1609 was formally revoked and imperial edicts were issued which made every non-Romanist practically an outlaw. This was followed in 1628 by a general exodus of the best people in the country. Some villages were almost de- 3 10 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. populated. More than thirty-six thousand families went into exile. The success of this insane and barbarous crusade smothered, even if it could not extinguish, evangelical religion in Bohemia and Moravia. The organized existence of the Brethren's Church in those countries was at an end and the Anti-Reformer was satisfied. Other evangelical parties had their strongholds in other lands. Viewed as organizations, they were merely driven out of the country and back home. The Brethren's Church was crushed in its own home where it originated and developed as an element of the nationality. It was an exile and a stranger in other countries and had no home in the day of affliction. This difference explains the cruel ignoring of the Brethren by other evangeHcal parties in the terms they made in the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty-years' War in 1648. Their Church was looked upon as a practically extinct Church which the Protestant powers did not feel moved to consider in the hour of triumph. No princes represented it, and considerations of state policy weighed more than the law of Christ. Disruption and dispersion did not, however, mean extinction. Large numbers who remained in the home lands of the Church con- tinued to cherish its faith and traditions and to meet in secret, par- ticularly in Moravia, where there seemed to be more opportunity to do so, and these came to be called "the hidden seed" of the Church. Those who went into exile found their way in part to the Polish congregations of the Church. Others rallied and held together so far as possible in other regions. The chief center of the Brethren was now Lissa in Poland. This place was sacked and burned in 1656. Then many who had gathered there joined the smaller groups dis- persed in other parts of Poland, or in Silesia and Hungary, while numbers of them followed former refugees to Holland and England. The bishops continued to exercise oversight and provide pastoral care as far as possible, through visits and correspondence, and to secure material help for their destitute people from sympathizing friends ; synods and conferences were held from time to time, adopt- ing such measures as the circumstances permitted to strengthen the things that remained ; the constitution and order of the Church em- bodied in the Ratio Disciplinae and printed in 1633, as already stated, were treasured in the hope of restoration ; the episcopal succession w^as carefully preserved to be a living link across the period of dis- ruption representing the historic identity of the Church. Several centers of administration were temporarily established at points THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- I9 where the Brethren were permitted to congregate as a distinct body, and even Lissa once more became such a seat for a while; but the prevailing conditions during the last three decades of the century ren- dered irresistible the gradual absorption of the scattered remnants by other bodies, mainly the Reformed Church of the realm, of which ultimately even the men in whose persons the episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum was perpetuated were legally recognized ministers. The native language of the exiles was maintained in public services at some places until 1700, when it was entirely displaced by German. Up to 171 5 about fifteen parishes seem to have remained and when the actual resuscitation of the Church took place in the following decade in Saxony, these did not enter into organic connection with it. What survives to recall their existence is to be found in a group of so-called Unitdtsgemeinden in the Province of Posen, whose episco- pate, preserved unbroken until 1841, was in 1844 and again in 1858 and 1883 restored by bishops of the Moravian Church. During the period from the end of the Thirty-years' War until well into the second decade of the eighteenth century the representatives of the suppressed Church maintained frequent and cordial com- munication with the Church of England and particularly with the University authorities at Oxford where considerable sums of money were raised for the impoverished Brethren, scholarships were founded for their students, degrees were conferred upon certain of their bishops, plans of ecclesiastical union were discussed, and arrange- ments existed for the pastoral care of Bohemian and Moravian families who had fled to that country. During the period from the beginning of the Counter-Reformation until far beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, one dis- tinguished man stands pre-eminently associated with the hard for- tunes of the Brethren and with the effort to prevent the extinction of their Church. This man was John Amos Comenius, the last of the old Bohemian-Moravian line of its bishops, consecrated to the episcopacy as an exile, but when the hope of a speedy restoration of the Church in its native land was yet cherished. Ever mourning for the prostrate palaces of Zion and for his bleeding country, he has been called "the Jeremiah of the Brethren's Church." He is far better known to the world in other spheres in which he is given rank as one of the greatest men of his age. In Sweden, Holland and England his fame as a philosopher, and particularly as a reformer of educational principles and methods, was spread abroad and his 20 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. presence was coveted in all of these countries. Even from across the ocean he received an invitation to come to America and assume the presidency of Harvard College, and the learned Cotton Mather refers regretfully to the fact that the attempt failed and "that incomparable Moravian became not an American." When in 1892 the three hundredth anniversary of his birth was celebrated by so many educa- tional institutions and learned societies in Europe and America, and the great service he rendered the world as a pioneer of modern pedagogic science was extolled, few gave a thought to what he did as a Moravian Bishop to preserve the Church of his fathers from oblivion. In Holland, where he ended his days, and in England, in the midst of ceaseless literary toil, harassed in mind and heart by the bewildering unrest and buffeting tumults of the times, his tongue and pen were ever pleading the interests of his exiled brethren and of other fugitives in distress, such as the Waldenses, so often confused in history with the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. The Amer- ican colonies were inviting people like these, and especially was the Dutch West India Company, of which a wealthy literary patron of Comenius at Amsterdam seems to have been a member, offering them inducements. Reference in old documents of this corporation to the desirability of having Bohemian exiles and Waldenses as settlers on the Delaware River suggests association with the plans of Comenius to find places of refuge for his homeless countrymen. Some such did come to the Dutch settlements on the Delaware in that "pre-pennian" period, but whether any of them belonged to the "hidden seed" or the migrating membership of the Brethren's Church has not been ascertained. There is strong reason also to believe that Comenius met the first Quakers who appeared in Holland and who there instituted those connections with the oppressed and unsettled masses which later led to further extensive emigrations to the new world. More than half a century, however, elapsed after his death in Holland in 1671, before the first men who represented not only his national, but also his ecclesiastical connections, are positively known to have come to Pennsylvania ; and they did not come as straggling fugitives, but as messengers sent from a new church home to seek, not a refuge from bloody persecution, but a field of Christian activity. Fifty years after the death of the aged Bishop his hope was fufilled in events as insignificant in appearance, as were those original movements of the Brethren at Kunwald in 1457. Not from Poland, NICHOLAS LOUIS, COUNT OF ZINZENDORF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1/35. 21 where the Church had longest maintained some visible cohesion and organization, and not through efforts instituted by its two bishops yet living, but from the posterity of that "hidden seed" of Moravia, where the smouldering embers of evangeUcal faith were here and there being quickened into flame and the old recollections and hopes were being revived, the movement proceeded which resulted in the re- newal of the Brethren's Church in another country, modified and adapted to other conditions. Christian David, a Moravian carpenter, converted from Romanism and evangelizing among his countrymen, became the conspicuous agent in this movement. Seeking a refuge for some spiritually awakened families who wished to emigrate to a Protestant country, as so many others had done at intervals, he came into contact, early in 1722, with a young Saxon nobleman, Nicholas Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf, who was attracting much attention by his singular devotion to religious work. Moved by the account given him of these people, he promised to help them find a location, little antici- pating the far-reaching result. Near the home of his childhood, Gross Hennersdorf, in Upper Lusatia, Saxony, he had acquired an estate called Berthelsdorf, on which he was preparing to take up his residence and establish one of several centres of Christian activity, which he had been planning in conjunction with a few friends of his youth and godly associates, somewhat after the manner of the old Pietistic societies, and of the institutions of HaUe. There had been no thought of including the care of Moravian refugees in these plans, and co-operation in recon- structing the ancient evangelical Church of that country did not enter his mind. Nevertheless the Divine purpose yet hidden from him brought him by means of this interview with the carpenter of Moravia into contact with what he was ultimately compelled to recog- nize as his pre-eminent lifework — "eine mir von Eivigkeit bestimmte Parochie," he subsequently called it. That he was himself a descend- ant of one who for the sake of evangelical liberty had, hke so many Bohemian and Moravian nobles, abandoned his ancestral seat south of Moravia, where the same ecclesiastical oppression reigned; and that his bride, the Countess Erdmuth Dorothea of Reuss, whom he wedded some months after this interview and who entered devotedly into his work, traced lineage back to the family of Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, the first lordly patron of the Brethren more than two and a half centuries before, are incidental facts — he alluded to them 22 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. years afterwards — which add even a romantic aspect to the destiny that hnked their fortunes to those of the Moravian Church. Some weeks after Zinzendorf made this promise two brothers, Augustine and Jacob Neisser, of Sehlen, Moravia, with their house- holds, ten persons in all, who had quietly left their homes at night, suddenly arrived in Upper Lusatia under Christian David's leadership and after securing reluctant permission to locate — Zinzendorf being in Dresden at the time — they commenced, on June 17, 1722, to fell timber for a house at a site selected by the Count's steward on the Berthelsdorf manor. Out of this beginning arose the village of Herrnhut, so intimately associated with the history of the Church. Many followed them from Moravia in the course of the next few years, some of them men of position and substance who sacrificed property and comfort for religion's sake. Others came from Bohemia and finally unsettled and seeking souls from various German neigh- borhoods began to join the colony, so that representatives of the sev^ eral Protestant confessions, individuals who had forsaken Romish connection, enthusiasts and separatists with various special tenets en- tered into the population and took advantage of the generous indul- gence and the comprehensive but as yet immature plans of the young lord of the manor, to assert themselves rather aggressively. When the corner-stone of the building in which the first of the proposed establishments in pursuance of the Count's projects was to be opened, and which became the first place of worship, was laid on May 12, 1724, five Moravians who more distinctly represented traditions and family associations of the Brethren's Church and had a more definite purpose in view in connection with the thought of its possible reor- ganization than previous refugees, arrived at Herrnhut. Zinzendorf later called them by way of pre-eminence "the five Moravian Church- men." Three of them bore the name David Nitschmann. The other two were John Toeltschig and Melchior Zeisberger. It was after his interview with these men that Zinzendorf began to recognize a problem in the desire of the Moravians. Grave questions were involved in the further reception of refugees from those neigh- borhoods, for drastic measures in the spirit of the old persecution were being adopted to check the movement, but were rather increasing it. To permit them to organize on the basis of church principles and regulations which were associated with another nationality ; which no longer had ofificial recognition anywhere beyond the fact that they were personally represented by two ecclesiastics who were perpetuat- THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735. 23 ing the episcopate of the old Church while laboring under the author- ity of the Reformed Church of Prussia and Poland; which further- more were historically quite distinct from those of the established Church of Saxony, which was Lutheran, would produce very serious complications. Personally Zinzendorf was a Lutheran, not only nom- inally but by decided preference, while those of the Moravians whose theological conceptions — somewhat undefined at the time — revealed any bias on the points of difference, seemed to lean rather towards the Reformed standards. Others who found their way to Herrnhut disclaimed adhesion to either of the leading confessions, and con- fused the situation the more by obtruding sectarian or separatistic specialties. In the consideration of this problem, with his disposition to combine rather than differentiate divergent elements, to seek a principle and method of holding different persuasions to the central points of agreement, with a safe measure of liberty in points of divergence so long as nothing essential was compromised, the rudi- ments of a scheme began to take form in his mind which in subse- quent years he sought to develop systematically; viz., that of accom- modating the several confessional affiliations and church cults under a plan which would admit of their being conserved and allowed to predominate in certain main elements according to the traditions of different localities or bodies of people brought into the general connection, while all constituted one household of brethren bound by those articles of doctrine, constitution, discipline and ritual which were central and accepted by all. This scheme eventually found shape in what he called Tropi Paedias, resting on conceptions which the prevailing spirit of his age could not appreciate or sympathize with, but which would command more intelligent respect at the present time. These conceptions entered into his plans and methods to such an extent that herein the key must be sought to interpret much that has been misapprehended as confused and inconsistent in his efforts among rigid confessionists of different schools and among all manner of sectarians. They must be kept in mind in order to intelligently follow his course among the variety of religionists in Pennsylvania some years later. They even account for some char- acteristics of the modern Moravian Church in its doctrinal position, its polity, discipline and ritual, and its attitude towards other religious bodies; for rudiments in all of these particulars lay in this scheme as well as in the ancient system of the Church, while others are to be found in the process of adaptation to its pecuHar situation within 24 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA the pale of a state church with a doctrinal confession and other requirements established by law. Various considerations directed Zinzendorf's efforts to regulate the crude situation at Herrnhut. Paramount was the spiritual good of the individuals and essential to this was agreement to simple evangelical fundamentals in theory and practice to overcome both sectarian vagaries and confessional disputations. Then also the civil and ecclesiastical limitations had to be regarded in the work of foun- dation-laying, and a proper understanding of their relations to him as lord of the manor and to his parish minister at Berthelsdorf had to be established among the people, while dissension and dissatisfaction threatened the dissolution of the colony. The occurrences of the year 1727 constituted an epoch. After much earnest, personal work, in which he was aided by a few of the most steadfast and godly men, the Count succeeded in bringing about harmony of spirit and agreement to principles in so far that on May 12 of that year unanimous written assent was given to a body of articles called "Statuta Fraterna, or Brotherly Agreement of the Brethren from Bohemia and Moravia and sundry other Brethren at Herrnhut to walk according to Apostolic Rule." Twelve elders were chosen to have spiritual oversight and four of these were selected by lot as chief elders. A variety of other offices completed this first organization which in the main was notably simi- lar to that originally formed in 1457. A season of deep spiritual experience and fervent concord ensued, and at the first celebration of the Holy Communion after all this, in the parish church of Ber- thelsdorf on August 13 of that year, such an overpowering sense of the Divine presence sealed the whole that the day came to be spoken of as "the spiritual birthday of the Renewed Church." A strong impulse to evangelistic activity was awakened, the influence of which soon began to be felt in many neighborhoods. The itinerants were warmly encouraged by many pastors of the State Church, some the- ological professors and some pious noblemen, while nearly every- where the common people heard them gladly. But strong currents set in against Herrnhut from various quarters. The visits of the zealous Moravians to their native villages and other places where like conditions prevailed provoked more violent measures to suppress their activity. In 1729 two of the Nitschmanns — one of those "five churchmen" and one of the Herrnhut elders — who were on such a tour, died in prison. In Germany certain of the THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1/35. 25 unfriendly class among- the Protestant clergy who long before Herrn- hut was founded had been making Zinzendorf a target for censorious flings and were predisposed to find fault on general principles with anything he might say or do, opened a campaign of detraction from the pulpit, from the cathedra and through the press, which met the approval of some officials at the court of Dresden, and notwith- standing the failure of a royal commission in 1732 to find anything amiss in the new settlement, secured the banishment of the Count from Saxony four years later. Unfortunate tendencies which de- veloped at a subsequent period of the Church and gave some real occasion for censure will be referred to in another chapter. The beginning of these hostile agitations made the question how to dispose of the wishes of the Moravians quite perplexing. Their zeal and fearlessness as evangelists increased Zinzendorf's regard for them and his desire to utilize their services in pursuing his ever broadening plans of activity. Already in 1727 while pondering the thought of undertaking missionary work among the heathen which had been in his mind from his boyhood, the idea was broached of founding a settlement in Pennsylvania to which the Moravians might emigrate if not permitted to remain in Saxony, and from which they might go out into the wilderness and preach the gospel to the Indians. In the Summer of that same memorable year, 1727, a book npv^r yet examined by the Count came into his hands which moved him profoundly and had a distinct influence on his plans in reference to these people. It was the old Ratio Disciplinae of the Brethren re- vised and republished by Comenius in 1660, with a succinct history of his much-loved Church, then completely overthrown, and dedicated in sad and tender language to the Church of England, along with a lengthy exhortation to that Church — Paraenesis Ecclesiae Bohemicae ad Anglicanam de Bono Unitatis et Ordinis — in which he fondly sets forth and commends features which he deems of universal value in the ecclesiastical traditions of the Brethren. The impression this work made upon Zinzendorf can best be stated in the words of a letter which he wrote eleven years later. He says : 'T could not long read the pitiful lamentation of the aged Comenius, when he thought that the Church of the Brethren had come to an end and he was locking its door ; I could not look the second time at his sorrowful prayer, turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned, renew our days as of old, before the resolution was formed — I shall help 26 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, to do this SO far as lies in my power, even if my estate, my honor and my Hfe are sacrificed, and thus as long as I live, and, so far as I can provide for it, after my death, this little congregation of the Lord shall be preserved for Him until He comes." The following year, 1728, two of those "live Moravian Churchmen," the eldest of the three David Nitschmanns, subsequently the Bishop, and JohnToeltschig, together with another Moravian, Wenzel Neisser, were sent to England to give desired information about Herrnhut. Their visit opened the way to a series of steps which led to the estab- lishment of the Brethren's Church in that country also, and were of importance to subsequent undertakings in America. In like manner Zinzendorf gradually instituted far-reaching connections with princes, civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries and faculties of seats of learning in various other quarters through personal visits and correspondence and through such deputations as that to England. Thus a degree of attention was attracted to the new enterprise in high circles as well as among the masses which would not have been awakened without a leader so conspicuous in rank and position, of such versatile genius and impressive personality, so ardent and enthusiastic in the pursuit of his objects. The leading Moravians and several other men who had cast in their lot with them were moreover men of strong character, of uncommon natural ability and of dauntless spirit. These qualities on the part of the deputies from Herrnhut, together with the inter- esting traditions and aspirations which they represented, also did much to bring the place to the notice of men both great and lowly to an extent which would not have been the case if its people, with all their fervent piety, had been of quiescent and pliable character, disposed to simply settle down as an element of the Lutheran parish of Berthelsdorf, and nothing more, enjoying the privileges this gave them. After Zinzendorf's first determination to do what he could to further the attainment of their wishes — even interfering in their behalf, supported by an encouraging message from one hundred and two masters and students at Jena, when, in his absence, a strong efifort was made to induce them to abandon their purpose and become simply a Lutheran congregation — he, himself, counting all the possible costs of further steps in the face of the growing opposition, once more strongly presented to them the favorable arguments on this side, and the hazards to themselves and to the cause of evangelical peace which might be incurred in the further pursuit of their purpose. THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- 2J They remained firm however and declared that if the introduction of their ancient system and the estabUshment of a distinct Church of the Brethren was not possible at Herrnhut, they would turn their footsteps elsewhere to seek another location. They were willing to assent to the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, in which they had been instructed by Pastor Rothe of Berthelsdorf, and by the Count himself, for they had no reason or desire to be schismatics doctrinally, but the church-order of their fathers they insisted on hav- ing, so far as this was feasible.^ This point was settled at a general 3 This position — cardinal in the later structure of the Church and its adjustment to the German and English State Churches, and accounting for some features of its early attempts in Pennsylvania, much obscured and distorted by writers following misleading sources or biased in their own attitude — had been taken already in 1729 in a so-called Notariats Instrument, executed with the signatures of eighty-three men of Herrnhut before the proper civil officer, as the basis of regulations at that time, and became more articulate after 1731. It was simply conformity in doctrinal statement and singularity in church-order. No attempt was ever made to introduce a former doctrinal confession of the Brethren or a new one, for either effort would have been as futile as undesirable. The dominant Augsburg Confession was accepted and acknowledged as setting forth the fundamental doctrines held. In church- order a distinct system was built on the old Moravian foundation with the old Moravian episcopal ordination inherited. On this ground the Church acquired officially recognized and guaranteed standing in Saxony and in Prussian territory in spite of persistent efforts in hostile quarters to discredit both its confessional avowal and its historic descent. Its ulti- mate status was not that of a mere tolerated sect or a mere society within Lutheran lines, but that of an adopted and ingrafted distinct Church with its own constituted authorities, independent of all other ecclesiastical obligation or supervision, and its formal adhesion to that original, common Protestant confession of the realm and compliance with civil require- ment, being the on'y condition of its franchises. The favorable findings of the Royal Saxon Commission of 1732 and of two others in 1736 and 1737, notwithstanding the harsh measures of 1736 against Zinzendorf personally, issued in an edict August 7, 1737, conceding for the time being the position taken by the Brethren, " so long as they continued in the doctrine of the unaltered confession of Augsburg." Twelve years later, after another commission, their definite recognition as such adherents and the conclusive establishment by the State of their position of conformity in doctiinal statement and singularity in church-order took place in the publication of a royal mandate of September 20, 1749, which decreed that "the Protestant Moravian Brethren, avowing the unaltered Augsburg Confession should be received in all Saxony." The original Prussian concession on the same basis was dated December 25, 1742. It was confirmed in 1746, 1763 and 1789. The validity of these old concessions under greatly changed conditions was once more tested and settled on the old basis September 26, 1898, by Supreme Court decision in Prussia. In England the inadequacy of an act of Parliament of 1747 to protect Moravian settlements and missions in English territory, and misrepresentation of the results of the Saxon Commission of 1749 led to a request for a similar thorough investigation of the Church ; the Augustana being again presented as its doctrinal basis and its independent 28 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. meeting on January 7, 1731, when, after a full discussion of the ques- tion, it was permitted to turn on the drawing of selected texts of Scripture, one to be taken favorably, the other adversely. That which was to decide for the wishes of the Moravians was drawn: 11. Thess. 2:15 — "Brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught." Several months after this decision, which settled the question whether those Moravians would cling together with others at Herrn- hut under Zinzendorf's leadership and laid the general lines on which further ecclesiastical organization and development of activities should proceed, the attendance of the Count at the coronation of the King of Denmark brought them into initial touch with what was to be their pre-eminent sphere of labor and was to bring the first of them across the ocean to America — evangelization in foreign parts, the propagation of the gospel among the heathen — an undertaking which had appealed to the hearts of some in that notable year 1727; which had been the dream of Zinzendorf's boyhood ; which had en- tered into the great philanthropic plans of Comenius in the previous century and which Luther, two hundred years before, had intimated to the harassed and unsettled Brethren in Bohemia and Moravia they might as suitable men take up as their mission. In Copenhagen Zinzendorf and one of those "five churchmen" of 1724 who accompanied him, one of the three David Nitschmanns, heard a negro servant from the Island of St. Thomas describe the pitiful state of the slaves there. The impression they received from this tale of woe was shared by all the people of Herrnhut when the negro was later permitted to visit the place and tell his story. Through this incident the open door they had been waiting for was set before them and on August 21, 1732, Leonhard Dober and this same David Nitschmann set out from Herrnhut for St. Thomas to begin the first Moravian mission to the heathen. Again by way of Denmark came the second opening and January 19, 1733, Matthew Stach, Christian church-order on the old Moravian foundation with its old episcopate submitted for exami- nation. The result was the act of Parliament, May 12, 1749, which gave it recognition, with distinct privileges in all British dominions, as " an ancient Protestant Episcopal Church," and declared "their doctrine to differ in no essential article of faith from that of the Church of England, as set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles." This doctrinal position does not place the Moravian Church in any kind of organic connection with the Lutheran Church. The general statements of that old confession are accepted not because they are Lutheran but because they are Scriptural. THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735- 29 Stach and the veteran evangelist Christian David started for Green- land. November 12, 1733, fourteen men and four women sailed from Stettin and after a voyage of extraordinary hardship and duration reached the Island of St. Croix to found a missionary colony. Feb- ruary 24, 1734, Andrew Grassmann, Daniel Schneider and John Nitschmann left for Lapland and at the same time Frederick Boeh- nisch and John Beck set out for Greenland to reinforce that work. November 21, 1734, the first colony destined for missionary work among the North American Indians started for Georgia. During that year plans were also formed to begin work among the negro slaves in the Dutch possessions in South America, and the next year George Piesch, George Berwig and Christian von Larisch went to Surinam to examine the situation and prospects. Now the need of supervision and of ordained men in these fields had to be considered. Arrangements which had existed since 1727 might have sufficed yet longer for the six hundred people of Herrn- hut and their itinerant work in Germany and neighboring states, but the destiny now opening before the Brethren, with prospective activ- ity in many and distant lands, made clear the necessity of the next important step in the course of things. Their messengers in this wider field must represent, not an incomplete make-shift of organiza- tion or a mere society, but the historic Church which was there being resuscitated not only in spirit but also in a definite form and in full function. They must go forth with the ordination of its bishops, representing its rightful place and character as a branch of the Church of God, invested with its authority, so that all they do may be done decently and in order, and have validity in the eyes of men. This further element of legitimacy to constitute the men of Herrnhut fully the representatives of the ancient Brethren's Church of Bohemia and Moravia — its episcopate, was waiting in the hands of its two bishops yet surviving. They were Daniel Ernst Jablonsky, D.D., Court Preacher to the King of Prussia, Counselor of the Consistory of the realm and President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Ber- lin ; and Christian Sitkovius, Superintendent of the United Churches of Poland at Lissa. Dr. Jablonsky, who was a grandson of the illus- trious Comenius, had, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, taken a conspicuous part in the evangelical union efforts instituted by the King of Prussia, with the Sendomir union of 1570 between the Brethren, the Lutherans and the Reformed as a historic prece- dent and his own status as a bishop of the Brethren's Church, then 30 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. without organized form, laboring under Reformed Church auspices, and that of his episcopal colleague Sitkovius, superintending the con- gregations in which the last Polish parishes of the Brethren had been merged into those of the estabUshed Reformed Church, constituting a natural standpoint from which to make such efforts. He had under the King's commission conducted the negotiations with the Anglican Church for the establishment of an alliance in which the episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum, representing historic relations to the several parties, might be used to estabUsh an episcopal government with which that of England would fraternize and under which the two Protestant bodies of Prussia might unite. Nothing came of this, but now he was destined to use the historic trust he held in another way. He rejoiced to hear of what had taken place at Herrnhut and of what the men from Moravia were striving to accomplish, and he, as well as his aged colleague Sitkovius, were at once ready, when the proper occasion came, to transfer the ancient episcopate to the new organi- zation. So it came to pass that David Nitschmann, one of the "five Moravian churchmen" referred to above, one of the first elders at Herrnhut, one of the first deputies to England and one of the first two missionaries to the heathen, having returned from St. Thomas, was chosen as the best qualified and most worthy man among the Moravians and sent to Berlin where, after due examination. Bishop Jablonsky, with the written concurrence of Bishop Sitkovius, who was unable to attend in person, consecrated him a Bishop of the Brethren's Church on March 13, 1735. They subsequently furnished him with a certificate of consecration, conferring authority upon him to ordain presbyters and deacons after the manner of the Brethren, to make episcopal visits and to perform all of the functions which belong to the oflfice of a bishop. With this added to what had gone before, the resuscitated Church was fully equipped to go forward with its evangelistic work. This is the Church to which the first inhabitants of Bethlehem be- longed and this, its first bishop after its renewal and the first who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and performed episcopal acts in the American colonies, was the official founder of Bethlehem, a place remarkable in the fact that for the space of one hundred years its municipal and ecclesiastical government were identical, the town and the congregation being one. DAVID NITSCHMANN (Episc.) CHAPTER III. From Herrnhut to the Forks of the Delaware, 1 735- 1 740. As the hopes of Comenius and his brethren were fulfilled in an unexpected manner half a century after his death in the founding of Herrnhut, where their Church was revived, so its first permanent settlement in Pennsylvania came to pass in a manner quite as unex- pected almost a century after the Dutch West India Company first drew the attention of the exiles in Holland and elsewhere to the shores of the Delaware River. When in 1727 the people of Herrnhut began to think of sending men to America, the land of Penn, with its broad and liberal charter, to which so many thousands of Germans had emigrated, was the particular region they had in mind. They saw in imagination the hordes of savages roaming through its forests and the multitudes of home-seekers settling there, for the most part without preacher or teacher, and large opportunities for evangelistic activity rose before their vision. The uncertainty of their situation in Saxony led them also to consider that Protestant intolerance added to Papal intoler- ance might compel them to cross the ocean to find liberty and peace, and that such a settlement in Pennsylvania might then be not only a center of missionary operations but also a refuge for people leav- ing Bohemia and Moravia to seek freedom of conscience. The attention given to missions in other regions delayed the under- taking, and through unforeseen occurrences the founders of the first permanent Moravian settlement in North America were led from Herrnhut to their final destination by an indirect course, and after preliminary efforts elsewhere which had not been contemplated originally in the American plans. A colony of Schwenkfeldian exiles from Silesia sojourning under Count Zinzendorf's protection on the Berthelsdorf manor from 1725 were required by a royal edict of 1733 to leave Saxony. The first company of them came to Pennsylvania a few months later. The 31 32 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. second and larger colony left Herrnhut April 26, 1734, with the in- tention of locating on a tract of land secured for them by the Count in the new Province of Georgia created th^ previous year. When they reached Holland they were persuaded to follow the others to Pennsylvania. They had been furnished by Zinzendorf with three special conductors : George Boehnisch, one of the Moravian Breth- ren; Christopher Baus, a Hungarian of Goerlitz, who had joined the Brethren, and Christopher Wiegner, a Silesian co-religionist of the exiles who, like several others, had entered into close fellowship with the people of Herrnhut. They embarked at Rotterdam on the chartered ship St. Andrew, Captain John Stedman, and landed at Philadelphia September 22, 1734. This is therefore the date on which the first Moravian from Herrnhut arrived in Pennsylvania. Boehnisch remained until the Autumn of 1737, when he returned to Europe. During this sojourn of three years, while helping Wiegner to open his farm in the Skip- pack woods and to build his house in which later so many Moravians found hospitality on their journeys, he did what he could as a lay- evangelist among adults and children on the spiritually destitute fron- tier, and especially co-operated in bringing to pass the first meetings at Wiegner's of a circle of earnest men of various creeds and per- suasions to seek mutual edification and to take counsel together for the propagation of piety and fellowship regardless of sectarian lines, out of which arose the undenominational union known as "The Asso- ciated Brethren of Skippack." Henry Antes, one of the most influ- ential, respected and godly Germans of Pennsylvania, whose home- stead and mill in Frederick Township figured conspicuously in that region and who became so prominently identified with Moravian work in Pennsylvania, was the leading spirit in this modest Evangeli- cal Alliance which resulted from his contact with the first Moravian who came to the Province.^ I Others besides Christopher Wiegner were Henry Frey, John Kogen, George Merkel, Christian Weber, John Bonn, Jacob Wenz, Jost Schmidt, William Bosse, Jost Becker of Skippack; William Frey, George Stiefel, Henry Holstein, Andrew Frey of Fredericktown ; Matthias Gmelen, Abraham Wagner of Matetsche ; John Bartelot, Francis Ritter, William Pott of Oley ; John Bechtel, John Adam Gruher, Blasius Mackinet. George Benzel of Ger- mantown. A central committee consisting of Antes, Bechtel, Stiefel and Wiegner met every four weeks for exchange of reports and consultation. They were joined by Spangen- berg — of whom more anon — when he came to Pennsylvania. In 1738 they instituted a regular Sunday meeting at Wiegner's, where for a while his family, Boehnisch, Baus, the third conductor of the Schwenkfelders who also had his home there until 1742, and Span- PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO I74O. 33 -*„. '**'' '^^^"^^ ^iy/w^ ax>t^a/a^y^ /;3S ^ ^ /&. ^^md'drt.^cta /t^aJ CERTIFICATE OF OWNERSHIP OF LOTS IN GEORGIA. 24 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. When the Trustees of Georgia heard that the Schweiikfeldian emi- grants had turned their course to Pennsylvania, they proposed that a Moravian colony be sent to the new province. The suggestion was adopted because it opened a prospect for undertaking missionary work among the Indians. Twenty men volunteered to go and on November 27, 1734, nine of them set out for England.^ After a tedious and very trying journey they reached London, January 15, 1735. There they were met by the man who was to be their leader to Georgia and had preceded them to England to consult with the Trustees and make preparations for the voyage. This man, who will be mentioned frequently in these pages, was the Rev. Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg, M.A., a learned young Lutheran divine who in 1733 had cast in his lot with the Brethren at Herrnhut. He was a noble representative of the mild and liberal type of pietism then flourishing at the University of Jena, where he had studied and then lectured as a professor. From Jena he had gone to Halle as pro- fessor and superintendent of school-work in the famous orphanage. Disagreement with the authorities of that university in consequence of his zealous, and at times incautious efiforts, beyond the limits there approved, to cultivate fraternal relations and union in essentials among earnest men of dififerent theological views, even proscribed heretics and separatists, had led to his summary dismissal by a royal decree secured against him by those who antagonized his views and feared his influence. This indignity, sufifered in 1733, gave him to the Moravian Church. He became Count Zinzendorf's most valuable coadjutor and his successor in pre-eminent leadership. He, above all others, was influential in the establishment of Moravian work in America, and next to Zinzendorf is most prominently associated with the history of the Church in the eighteenth century both in Europe and America. He sailed with his little colony from Gravesend, February 6, 1735, on the ship TJic Tico Brothers, Captain Thompson, and landed at genberg constituted what they called a Hausgevicine. At least five religious persuasions were represented in this union. Some of these men later joined the Moravian Church. Several others, who withdrew from all fellowship as separatists, became its enemies and traducers. Wiegner's farm lay two miles south of the present Kulpsville. 2 They were Anton Seiffert, John Toeltschig, Gotthard Demuth, Michael Haberland, George Haberland, Frederick Riedel, Peter Rose, George Waschke and Gottfried Haberecht — all but the last from Moravia and near-by parts of Bohemia, and two, Seiffert and Ilabe- recht, later with the Pennsylvania corps. PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 35 Savannah, March 2.2. Two tracts of land had been granted them, one within the laid-out Hmits of the town, the other a short distance up the river. On the latter they built a rude hut, cleared several acres and planted corn. Then they proceeded to the erection of a sub- stantial house in the town. They suffered much from sickness and in September one of them, Frederick Riedel, died. Spangenberg supervised their operations, transacted their business with the local authorities and tradesmen, served them as pastor and physician and even did their cooking for a while so that none of them should have to leave their pressing work to perform this lighter duty. In the last week of July, 1735, Bishop David Nitschmann started from Herrnhut for England with the second American colony of six- teen men and eight women. ^ They sailed from Hamburg for England in September, embarked at London, October 12, in the ship Simonds, Captain Cornish ; after lying off the Isle of Wight until December 10, put out to sea from Cowes, arrived at the mouth of the Savannah River, February 16 and finally landed in the town, February 20, 1736. With them came to Savannah General James Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia ; the Rev. John Wesley and his brother Charles, the Rev. Benjamin Ingham, Charles Delamotte, about eighty English passen- gers, a company of Salzburg exiles and a few other German and Swiss emigrants. During the long voyage a warm friendship sprang up between the English clergymen and the Aloravian Brethren, particularly between John Wesley and Bishop Nitschmann, who were much together and used the opportunity to learn each other's language. At Savannah Mr. Wesley lived with the Moravians until the parsonage he was to occupy was vacated by his predecessor, and during those weeks the bond was strengthened. He was impressed by the evidence of an advanced religious experience which he felt that he had not yet at- 3 The following persons comprised this second colony ; John Boehner, Matthias Boehnisch, Gottlieb Demuth, Jacob Franck, Christian Adolph von Hermsdorf, David Jag, John Martin Mack, John Michael Meyer, Augustine Neisser, George Neisser, Henry Rascher, Matthias Seybold, David Tanneberger, his son John Tanneberger, Andrew Dober and Anna his wife, David Zeisberger and Rosina his wife, Regina wife of Gotthard Demuth, Rosina wife of Gottfried Haberecht, Catherine wife of Frederick Riedel who had died the previous Sep- tember, Judith wife of John Toeltschig, Anna Waschke mother of George Wsschke, Juliana Jaeschke later married to Waschke. Including the Bishop, fifteen of these colonists, nine men and six women were from Moravia and Bohemia. Twelve of them, nine men and three women, of which number ten were from Moravia and Bohemia, were subsequently among the early inhabitants of Bethlehem. 36 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. tained, and the secret on which he pondered did not become quite clear to him until after his return to England, as he declared, through his intercourse with another distinguished leader of the Brethren, the Rev. Peter Boehler, whose name is intimately associated with that of the Wesleys in the religious history of those times. February 28 O. S., March 10 N. S., 1736, was a notable day at that first Moravian settlement in America. On that day Bishop Nitsch- mann organized the colony as a regular congregation on the plan of that at Herrnhut, ordained Anton Seiffert to the ministry and installed him in charge of the congregation, and at the same time ordained Spangenberg — regarded by virtue of his Lutheran ordina- tion as in deacon's orders — a presbyter preparatory to his departure for Pennsylvania to engage in other duties.* At the same time Nitschmann, who in 1732 had gone to St. Thomas with Leonhard Dober and founded the first mission of the Moravian Church among the heathen, inaugurated its first missionary effort among the North American Indians. The original colonists under Spangenberg had won the good will of the celebrated Chief Tomo Tschatschi and prepared the way for this work. When the colony of 1736 arrived a school house was built on an island in the Savan- nah River, about five miles above the town, on which there was an Indian village, and to which they gave the name Irene. There on September 25, 1736, a school was opened in charge of Benjamin Ing- ham, who had offered his services for a season, assisted by Peter 4 The date of this first ordination service by a Moravian bishop in America — which so deeply impressed Wesley, as he relates in his celebrated Journal — as compared with the records of the Anglican and Roman Churches, is noteworthy. Until after the Revolution, the representatives of these communions in the English colonies remained under absentee episcopal charge, that of the Bishop of London and that of the Vicar Apostolic of London respectively, not being favored with the presence of a bishop to perform official acts in this country prior to 1784 and 1 790 respectively ; just as the Roman Catholics of the Spanish and French settlements were yet under the Suffragan of Santiago de Cuba and the Bishop of Quebec. The alleged secret consecration of the Pennsylvania clergymen Wehon and Talbot to the episcopacy in 1722 by the English Jacobite Bishop Ralph Taylor — the evidence of which is taken as convincing by many — is not treated as an established fact by the Protestant Episcopal Church. Dr. Talbot died at Burlington, N.J., in 1727. Dr. Wel- ton — in Philadelphia 1724-26 — died at Lisbon in 1726. Even if such consecration were un- questioned, no evidence of any exercise of their episcopate has been found. It would seem therefore that the earliest unquestionable record of a regular ordination performed by a bishop of the Christian Church in the English colonies of North America is that of the ordination of Seiffert at Savannah by David Nitschmann, and that Nitschmann was the first bishop who unquestionably both located and performed episcopal functions in these colonies. PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 3/ Rose and his wife.^ Their work flourished unexpectedly. In a few months many boys and girls learned to read and a few even learned to write. They committed many passages of Scripture to memory and delighted to sing hymns. The adult Indians observed all this with wonder and admiration and their interest in hearing "the great word" stimulated the efforts of the missionaries to acquire the lan- guage of these people in order to communicate with them without an interpreter. Spangenberg, having fulfilled his mission in Georgia, started for Pennsylvania, March 15, 1736, with credentials from Bishop Nitsch- mann and a letter of introduction from Governor Oglethorpe to Gov- ernor Thomas Penn. He was commissioned to look after the Schwenkfelders in whose welfare Zinzendorf was interested, to inves- tigate the spiritual condition of the German population generally and to gather information about the Indians. He made his home with George Boehnisch at the house of Christopher Wiegner and entered enthusiastically upon his new duties. Although Count Zinzendorf later said of him that at this time "he was yet too learned to be an apostle," he worked as a common laborer on Wiegner's farm in order to not be a burden to any one, to identify himself with the rustic popu- lation and to disarm the prejudice of those sects which disliked schoolmen and gentry and laid much stress on extreme plainness in wrote to the Trustees at once and boarded the first ship he found ready to sail for Savannah. He arrived there in mid-summer and tried to overcome the trouble. In response to his letter, the Trustees renewed the exemption of the Moravians from bearing arms, merely requiring that they provide two substitutes, one to represent each of their tracts of land, and the magistrates at Savannah were reprimanded for violating the agreement. Spangenberg returned to Pennsylvania in September, 1737, and was occupied as before until August, 1739, when he closed the first period of his activity in America and sailed for Europe. f3fe /tf'^^^^^^'.J^^- PETER BOEHLER PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 39 October 15, 1738, the Rev. Peter Boehler, already referred to, who became the leader of the Brethren in America for two years, landed at Savannah. He had been a student at Jena when Spangenberg was lecturing there and was himself a professor at that seat of learning when he was invited to join in the evangelistic work of the Brethren with whom he was in close sympathy. Having received the ordina- tion of the Moravian Church, he went to England early in 1738 and there, prior to saiUng for his new field of labor, that intercourse with the young men of Oxford, and particularly with the Wesleys, took place which formed such a conspicuous episode in the movements which gave rise to the Methodist Church. Like Spangenberg he be- came a leading bishop of the Church, was scarcely less closely iden- tified with its work in America during the first two decades and, as theologian, preacher, evangelist and administrator ranks near him in its history. He was accompanied to America by George Schulius, a Moravian emigrant who had been converted by the first sermon he preached at Herrnhut. Besides assuming the pastorate at Savan- nah, he was to found a mission among the negro slaves, for which Zinzendorf had promised the English originators of the project to find a man, and Schulius was to be his assistant. They soon discov- ered that they would not be able to carry out this intention on ac- count of obstacles put in their way. They also found the Moravian colony at Savannah in process of dissolution under the adverse con- ditions. A number had left and others had died. They located tem- porarily at Purysburg, about twenty miles from Savannah, in Beau- fort County, South Carolina, a village founded in 1733 by John Peter Pury, from Switzerland, and inhabited by Swiss and German fami- lies. While there ministering to these people, they both fell sick and on August 4, 1739, Schulius died. His remains were laid in their lonely grave by Boehler, himself almost too feeble to stand, assisted by Martin Mack, one of the Savannah colonists who had gone to their assistance with young David Zeisberger,*' who remained with Boehler until he left the place some weeks later and returned to Savannah. Only Anton Seififert, John Boehner, Martin Mack and 6 Young Zeisberger, a son of David and Rosina Zeisberger of the Georgia colony, a lad of sixteen years when he arrived at Savannah in August, 1737, to the great astonishment of his parents, was the future distinguished missionary to the Indians. He and a youthful com- panion, John Michael Schober, had fled from the Moravian school at Herrndylc, in Holland, on account of harsh and unjust treatment, made their way to London and from there across the ocean to Savannah. Young Schober died there not long after their arrival. 40 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. David Zeisberger with his wife and their son David remained, await- ing developments but utterly discouraged. Hostihties with the Spaniards had opened anew and the situation was rendered unbear- able for the non-combatant Moravians. Early in January, 1740, John Boehner was sent to Pennsylvania to ascertain how those of their number fared who had gone there, and to seek a temporary location for the rest of them. The same month the Rev. George Whitefield, the famous evangelist, arrived the second time at Savannah on his sloop, the Savannah, navigated by Captain Thomas Gladman. When he sailed again for Philadelphia, April 13, he took Boehler and the remaining Moravian colonists with him as passengers. Three other persons, whose names figure among the pioneers of Bethlehem, ac- companied them ; a young woman, Johanna Hummel, of Purysburg, and two indentured lads from Savannah, probably orphans, Benjamin Sommers and a certain James, mentioned in all of the records by this name only. They landed at Philadelphia, April 25, 1740. With their departure the Moravian enterprise in Georgia came to an end. Their land and improvements were taken in charge by an agent and White- field's adherents were given possession of their town house for hos- pital purposes. This collapse of their undertaking was much regret- ted by the Trustees of Georgia, who a few years later, when giving testimony about the Moravians in connection with the question of the formal recognition of their Church by the British government, bore evidence to their value as colonists and declared that in Georgia they "had done the government great service in labor and other mat- ters, equal and superior to the service they could have done as mili- tia." The situation was like that which later arose in Pennsylvania when a better understanding existed in their relations with the higher authorities than with subordinates. Meanwhile the leaders in Europe, encouraged by the reports of Nitschmann and Spangenberg and a letter from Whitefield urging that preachers be sent to the Germans of Pennsylvania, despatched three more men to America, all of whom arrived in 1740. The first was John Hagen, who reached Savannah, May 18, intending to labor among the Indians. The second was Christian Henry Ranch, the first Moravian missionary to the northern Indians, who landed at New York, July 21. The third was Andrew Eschenbach who arrived at Philadelphia in October to itinerate among the Germans. Ranch and Eschenbach had received ordination before leaving Europe. Another representative of the Moravian Church who passed a brief PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 4I season in Pennsylvania at this time was the successful West India missionary Frederick Martin, later Missionary Bishop, who in May took passage to New York with Captain Nicholas Garrison to seek rest and recuperation after much toil and hardship, hoping also to meet Count Zinzendorf who intended, after his visit to the Island of St. Thomas in 1739, to proceed to Pennsylvania, but had been compelled to change his plan. Martin was waiting in New York for a ship back to the West Indies when Ranch arrived and met him on the dock. Hagen finding the settlement at Savannah abandoned, associated with Whitefield's converts, worked at his orphanage "Bethesda" and tried to be of spiritual service to some German families, being brought meanwhile to the point of death by fever. A dispute arose between him and Whitefield on the doctrine of repro- bation which the latter held tenaciously and with singular uncharit- ableness towards those who disagreed with him. The German mis- sionary, who believed that all could be saved who would, was ordered ofif of the fiery preacher's premises, and his converts were warned to have nothing to do with the man. Some were disobedient, however, and continued to fraternize with Hagen to their mutual benefit until he left for Pennsylvania, in February, 1742. Besides Johanna Hummel and the two boys already mentioned, ten other persons who had become attached to the Brethren at Savannah and Purysburg followed them to Pennsylvania in the course of the next few years. They were Abraham Bueninger and Anna Catharine Kremper, of Purysburg, and John Brownfield, James Burnside, his daughter Rebecca, Henry Ferdinand Beck, his wife Barbara, their daughter Maria Christina and their sons Jonathan and David, all of Savannah. In the acquisition of these people, the most of whom became eminently useful at Bethlehem and in Moravian work else- where, the only tangible fruit of the Georgia undertaking proved to be serviceable in connection with the enterprises in Pennsylvania.'^ 1 Johanna Hummel was married to the missionary John Boehner and died at sea in 1742 on the way to St. Thomas. Benjamin Sommers and James were troublesome lads. The former, after various efforts with him, was eventually bound out to Christopher Naumann, a Schwenkfelder of Marburg in Old Goshenhoppen in 1748. James, about that time, was figuring in the quality of a boy preacher beyond the Blue Mountains, having strayed away to escape watchful oversight. There is no mention of either of them after 1750. Bueninger came to Pennsylvania with Hagen in 1742, was ordained, 1 756, labored among Indians and white settlers and in the West Indies, rendering valuable service. He was a 42 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Boehler and his company expected, on their arrival from Georgia, to find Nitschmann or Spangenberg in Pennsylvania with instructions about their further movements, but were disappointed and passed the first M^eeks in great perplexity. Those who had preceded them to the Province advised them to settle at Germantown as they had done and turn attention to their own interests, but they considered themselves under commission to make the propagation of the gospel their chief pursuit and deemed it their duty to await instructions. They passed the time mainly in Germantown, partly also at Christopher Wiegner's and with Henry Antes. There they were promised by Boehner and George Neisser that they would not forsake them, but would likewise remain faithful. The Demuths, Tanneberger and several others who had found tem- porary employment also signified their intention to remain in con- native of Buloch, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, and died in 1811 at Salem, Washington Co., N.Y., in his 91st year. His descendants of New York spelled the name Bininger. Bro7unfiel(i, a native of Greenwich, England, was raised in the family of Gen. Oglethorpe, accompanied him to Georgia as secretary, came to Bethlehem, 1745, was appointed general accountant, served for a time as head steward, was an original officer and a few years secre- tary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel organized, 1745, was ordained, 1749, itinerated somewhat among English settlers, died at Bethlehem, 1752. Burnside from County Meath, Leinster, Ireland, was shop-keeper and accountant for the Trustees at Satannah and then manager of Whitefield's orphanage. After the death of his wife at Savannah he visited Bethlehem, 1744, became a resident with his daughter Rebecca, 1745, married Mary Wendover, one of the first Moravian converts in New York City, ren- dered Bethlehem much service in business affairs and public relations, labored a short time as an itinerant evangelist, located on a farm just north of Bethlehem on the Monocacy, where he died, 1755. He was the first representative of Northampton Co. in the Pennsyl- vania Assembly in 1752. His widow contributed the first ;!^50 for the building of the Widows' House at Bethlehem. Beck,\i\iO hailed from Pfluellingen in Wiirtemberg, emigrated to Georgia, 1738, joined Whitefield's society at Savannah, came to Bethlehem, 1745, was ordained, 1754, labored in various country charges and in New York City and died at Bethlehem, 1783. His son David died while laboring as a missionary on the Island of St. Thomas. Anna Catherine Kremper (also Krump or Kremp) came to Bethlehem with Becks, mar- ried Samuel Man, served faithfully as a nurse in later years and died at Bethlehem, 1798. The following resume from records shows to what extent the personnel of the Georgia colony entered into that of Bethlehem and what became of the rest. It also clears up some confusion and error in sundry printed statements. Leaving out of the count Spangenberg, Nitschmann and Boehler — also John Francis Regnier who went from Pennsylvania, was there 1735-38, later missionary in Surinam, then after his return to Pennsylvania, an enemy of the Moravians— thirty-seven persons emigrated from Europe to Georgia. Eight died there: 1735, Frederick Riedel ; 1736, Matthias Boehnisch, Jacob Frank, Henry Rascher, Rosina Haberecht; 1737, George Haberland and the boy John Michael Schober, all at PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 43 nection with their brethren and to locate with them if they colonized in Pennsylvania. Before any word from Europe reached them they were, without suspecting it, led through the instrumentality of George Whitefield to the neighborhood in which their settlement would at last be founded. During the voyage from Savannah, Whitefield determined, as his financial agent William Seward states in his journal, to establish "a Negro school in Pennsylvania where he proposed to take up land in order to settle a town for the reception of such English friends whose heart God should incline to come and settle there." On board ship the evangelist wrote to the Secretary of the English Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel in Foreign Parts : "To me Pennsylvania seems to be the best Province in America for such an undertaking. The Negroes meet there with the best usage, and I believe many of my acquaintance will either give me or let me purchase their young slaves at a very easy rate. I intend taking up a tract of land far Savannah; 1739, George Schulius at Purysburg. Six returned to Europe: 1737, von Hermsdorf, Andrew and Anna Dober; 1738, John Toeltschig; 1739, Michael Haberland and his sister Judith, wife of Toeltschig. Twenty-three came to Pennsylvania: 1737, George Neisser ; 1738, Gotthard and Regina Demuth, Gottlieb Demuth, Gottfried Haberecht, David Jag, John Michael Meyer, Augustin Neisser, David Tanneberger, John Tanneberger, George and Juliana Waschke and his mother Anna Waschke ; 1739, Peter and Catherine Rose, their child Mary Magdalen and Matthias Seybold ; 1740, John Boehner, John Martin Mack, Anton Seiffert, David and Rosina Zeisberger and their son David; 1742, John Hagen. Ten located at Germantown : Gotthard and Regina Demuth, Augustin Neisser, Peter and Catherine Rose and child, George, Juliana and Anna Waschke. Gottlieb Demuth went to Matetsche, Jag to Goshenhoppen, Haberecht to Ephrata. Eight clung together with Boehler and were the nucleus of the first Moravian settlement in Pennsylvania, viz. : Boehner, Mack, George Neisser, Seiffert, Seybold and the Zeisbergers, having with them Johanna Hummel and the boys Sommers and James from Georgia. Five of those who settled at Germantown subsequently removed to Bethlehem : David and John Tanneberger, Catherine Rose (widow 1740) with her child, Regina Demuth (widowed, 1744, at Germantown, married, 1745, to David Tanneberger). Haberecht left Ephrata, 1 741, and rejoined his brethren at Bethlehem. Gottlieb Demuth lived in Frederick Township and the Saucon Valley, married Eva Gutsier, lived at intervals at Bethlehem, at Allemaengel or Lynn and settled finally at Schoeneck above Nazareth. Jag, Meyer, Aug- ustin Neisser and the Waschkes remained where they settled when they came from Georgia, never rejoining the Church. The missionary Hagen died at Shamokin in 1747- Thus all are accounted for. Eight died in Georgia, two, Rose and Gotthard Demuth, died at Germantown prior to 1745. Six returned to Europe. Seven who settled in Penn- sylvania forsook the Moravian Church. Fourteen with their seven converts from Georgia and their children, a company of thirty persons became identified with Bethlehem and Nazareth, and fifteen of these were employed in the service of the church. 44 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. back in the country." An agreement for the purchase of five thousand acres of land recommended to him by Scotch Irish settlers in "the Forks of the Delaware," was made with WilHam Allen, of Phila- delphia, on May 3, 1740. Two days later when Whitefield and Boehler jointly conducted services at the houses of Wiegner and Antes, Whitefield proposed to Boehler that he undertake to superintend the erection of the contemplated house on his land and employ the Moravians who were with him, several of them being carpenters and masons. The proposition was regarded favorably and on May 6 Boehler and SeifTert accompanied by Antes set out on horseback to inspect the locality. They passed a night at the place and the next day, after examining the timber, stone and springs of water, and discussing various eligible building sites, they returned to the home of Antes where on May 10 the contract with Whitefield was definitely concluded. May 29, Boehner, Mack, Seififert, the Zeisbergers, Johanna Hummel and the boys Benjamin and James, provided with tools, a meager stock of eatables and the barest necessaries for camping in the woods, started from Germantown for this tract which William Allen and wife had on May 11 deeded to Whitefield and which he with the intended school and village in mind had named Nazareth.^ / \ / 8 This tract of 5CX)0 acres — almost identical in its metes and bounds with the present Upper Nazareth Township — which the next year came into the possession of the Moravian Church, with title held by the Countess Zinzendorf, who provided the purchase-money, is occasionally called " The Barony of Nazareth" in records of colonial times, because its title carried with it certain old seignioral prerogatives of the Hundreds and Baronies of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the final parcel of a grant of 25,000 acres made in 1682 by William Penn to his daughter Laetitia Aubry and conveyed to her September 24-25, 1731, by John, Thomas and Richard Penn. The deed granted " the Franchise, Royalty, Right, Privilege Liberty and Immunity to erect the said 5000 acres of land, or any part or parts thereof, into a manor, and to have and to hold Court Baron therein with all things whatso- ever which to a Court Baron do belong ; and also to have and to hold Views of Frank- pledge for the conservation of the peace and better government by the said Laetitia Aubry, her heirs and assigns, or by her or their steward or stewards, and to use all things belonging to Frankpledge." It was to "be holden of the said John Penn and Thomas Penn (Pro- prietary Governors) in free and common socage as of the Seigniory of Windsor free and discharged of and from the debts and legacies of the said William Penn, Sr., yielding and paying therefor one Red Rose on the 24th day of June yearly, if the same shall be demanded, in full of all services, customs and rents." Its lines were run by Benjamin Eastburn, Surveyor General of Pennsylvania, ''on or about the 4th day of June, 173s,' for William Allen who purchased it with the franchises and obligations for ;^5oo sterling. These dignities and privileges of the manor passed with the title through the several con- veyances and nominally pertained to it until the termination of Proprietary government in Pennsylvania rendered them null and void. They were never exercised or claimed, but under Moravian ownership were referred to PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO I74O. 45 They reached their destination the next day towards evening. When the sun went down and night gathered around them this little band of homeless wanderers broke the silence of the dark, wild forest with an evening hymn of praise, committed themselves to the Keeper of Israel who never slumbers nor sleeps, and stretched their weary limbs to rest beneath the spreading branches of a giant oak under which, some weeks before, the three riders had lain down to sleep, and which for more than six decades after it first sheltered these pilgrims remained standing, a venerable landmark known as "Boehler's Oak." Thus began Moravian history in the Forks of the Delaware. So thoroughly are the institutions and activities which arose out of that humble beginning identified with this interesting region, with the fortunes of its tawny natives retreating before the white man's ad- vance, with the associations of its streams and hills and with memor- able events in the course of years involving relations to all the ele- ments of its population, that a few salient features of its general situ- ation and early opening up to settlement naturally come into view to be noted here as background and border to the sketch which these pages are designed to present. Narrowly understood, the term "Forks of the Delaware" meant the locality just within the confluence of the Delaware River and the Lehigh or "West Fork of the Delaware,"^ and a few miles up these on occasions as privileges in reserve in connection with questions of legal status, magisterial jurisdiction, militia duty, and the like. They were apparently in mind in 1742 in connection with the thought of founding the chief establishment on this manor as contemplated at one time ; and again in 1754 when it was confidently expected that Count Zinzendorf would take up his residence in Pennsylvania, and the building of his large manor house, later called Nazareth Hall, was finally commenced. The romantic quit-rent — a red rose in June — led to naming the Moravian hostelry on the northern border of the Barony "The Rose." In the archives at Bethlehem there remains, on an old list of Moravian taxables with memoranda, evidence of a little " War of the Roses," waged not with the sword, but with the pen, in that the scrivener who drew up the document, in alluding to this token, wrote by mistake ''a white rose," and another, objecting to this unauthorized transfer of fealty from Lancaster to York, ran his quill through the word " white " and wrote above it " red." 9 The principal names given the Delaware River by the Unami tribe of the Lenape or Delawares living in the Forks were Lenape-wihitttick, meaning river of the Lenape ; and Kit-kanne, or in the dialect of the Minsi tribe of the upland Minisinks beyond the Kitta- tinny hills, Gicht-hanne, meaning the principal stream. The Dutch in 1609 named it Zuydtj i.e. South River. They also spoke of it as Nassau River and Prince Bendrick's River. The Swedes, thirty years later, gave it the name Swenska Revier, i.e. Swedes? River, while they also referred to it as the South River. Meanwhile the English, who ultimately forced their claim and name, called it the Delaware after Lord de la Ware, sup- 46 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Streams — the picturesque gateway to the upper country, with Indian trails diverging towards several interior points ; but the name was more broadly applied to the whole range of country from this Place of the Forks to the Kittatinny or Blue Mountains, between the courses of the two rivers, with the Delaware Gap at the eastern and the Lehigh Gap at the western extremity — identical with the present area of Northampton County, except that its two south-most town- ships protrude beyond and one little township of Lehigh County en- croaches within these natural boundaries of the domain. This attractive and desirable region remained until 1737 nominally a part of the acknowledged Indian country, for under the terms of the deed of release given by the seven Indian chiefs in 1718 and con- firmed by treaty in 1728, the "Lechay Hills" continued to be the Hmit of the ceded territory open to settlement. But encroachments had taken place which made the Delawares uneasy. Besides the settle- ments on the upper Delaware opened prior to 1701, two had arisen in the Forks: one in 1728, called at first Craig's Settlement, from the name of its leading pioneer, Thomas Craig, and later popularly known as the Irish Settlement, in what is now East Allen Township ; another in 1732 along the slate slopes of the present Lower Mount Bethel Township under Alexander Hunter, and called for a time Hunter's Settlement. The population of both were Presbyterian Ulster Scots. These, with here and there a solitary pioneer who had built his cabin at some spot that struck his fancy when reconnoitering along the Delaware or the Lehigh, or roaming these rich hunting-grounds of the red men, were the first neighbors of the Moravians in the Forks. posed to have sailed up the stream soon after the Dutch, and the Lenape roaming along its course they then named Delaware Indians. The name of the West Branch was Lechauweeki, i.e. where there are forks — variations, Lechawiechbik, Lechauwekink. It was shortened into Lecha, the name yet used by the Germans of the region, and then corrupted into Lehigh. Reference to Lechay occurs in colonial records as early as 1 701. This name seems to have come into use not merely for the river, but also for the neighborhood where were the forks of streams and paths. Men spoke of Lechay in this sense as they later spoke of " the Forks." The most important trail to the Minisinks, followed by the Moravian pioneers, led from the terminus of the first King's Road from Philadelphia to these parts at the stone-quarry of Irish the miller, near the present Shimersville on the Saucon Creek, across the Lehigh at the " old Indian ford," a little distance below where the Menagassi or Menakessi [Alonakasy , Monocasy or Alono- racy) i.e. creek %vith bends, flows into the river. The Delawares called the site of Easton Lechauwitank, i.e. in the Forks, and that of Bethlehem Afenagachsink, i.e. at the bending creek. They later applied these names to the two towns. PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 47 But more ambitious schemes than any cherished by these humble settlers who, as a rule, lived on peaceful terms with the Indians, were closing grasping hands about this grand domain. In 1733 William Allen, ^° of Philadelphia, in addition to his other large acquisitions, had an unlocated holding of ten thousand acres which had been conveyed to him by William Penn, grandson of the original Proprietor, sur- veyed in the Minisinks and parts of the Forks and began to dispose of it in parcels. In 1734 the Proprietaries instituted a lottery of a hundred thousand acres of land, offering adventurers chances on tracts covered by pro- prietary patent and yet unconveyed by deed. The scheme collapsed and the drawing did not take place, but in 1735 it was arranged that holders of tickets who lived in the Forks could locate claims there 10 William Allen, already mentioned several times, whose name is associated with so much of the land acquired by the Moravians, was the second in a succession of three, father, son and grandson, who bore the name of William, and the best known of this prominent Pennsylvania family ; having, among other distinctions, filled the office of Chief Justice of the Commonwealth from 1751 to 1774. He was the father-in-law of John Penn, the last Proprietary Governor, and his son James was the founder of Northampton, now Allentown, which grew out of his summer residence Trout Hall on the Jordan Creek. A list of all the deeds for land executed by William Allen would be a long one, and if every conveyance netted a profit like that realized on the Barony of Nazareth — a rise from ^500 to ;^2200, as mere incrementum laiens, after five years' possession — the statement on record that he be- came the wealthiest man in Pennsylvania would follow very naturally. By force of training, official obligation and connections he was identified with the conservative party which urged the further effort by constitutional process to remedy evils in preference to revolutionary measures in 1776, fell under the odium of being a tory, lost his wealth and influence, went to England during the Revolution and after his return disappeared from public view in the turmoil of the times, ending his days in retirement. The last connection between Judge Allen and the Moravians, after many years of friendly official and personal intercourse, is given in the following extract from a letter written by the Rev. Daniel Sydrich, the Mora- vian pastor in Philadelphia to Bishop Nathanael Seidel of Bethlehem, September 12, 1780: " Wednesday the 6th inst., good old William Allen departed this life quite unexpectedly at his country seat Airy Hill (Mount Airy) and his body was buried here the next day. Two months ago I sounded him through Mr. Peter Miller, after learning that our church-lot is yet under his control after all, as to whether he would not be willing to make us a present of the ground, do a good deed thereby and establish a pleasing monument to his memory among us. He would not listen to this ho\yever and said (his own words in English quoted in the German letter) he was a ruined and poor man, met with too many and great losses and had hardly so much that he could send his servants to market." Pastor Sydrich then adds : " So it goes at last with the rich of this world, and from this very many find out in these times that it is not well to trust in uncertain riches. Next December the four years' ground rent will be due him which amounts to twenty guineas. This will also be a hard nut for our people.'' 48 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and thus some acquired title to land in these parts prior to settle- ment with the Indians, who were now proceeding from murmurs to threats. That same year the government, after vain attempts to quiet them, appealed to the deputies of the Six Nations composing the Iroquois Confederacy, who were in Philadelphia to complete a treaty opened in 1732, asking them to use their authority with the Indians of the Forks when it should be necessary. The Delawares acknowl- edged a certain vassalage to this powerful union and were called "women" by the Iroquois.^^ Measures were then taken to secure the extinction of Indian title to lands in the Forks under some semblance of agreement. A docu- ment was brought to light, the long oblivion of which, if it was genu- ine, none of the efforts to put a fair face on the proceedings which followed have quite satisfactorily explained. It purported to be a deed made, August 30, 1686, by certain chiefs to William Penn for the territory extending from the upper line of the last preceding purchase — the Neshaminy Purchase of 1682 — in a northerly direc- tion, continuing the north-northwest line of that purchase as far as a man could walk in a day and a half and thence eastward to the Delaware. The paper was marked "a copy" and was without signa- tures. The original instrument signed has never been seen or heard " This confederacy first consisted of " the Five Nations," viz., the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. In 1715 the Tuscaroras of kindred stock joined the league, and it was then called "the Six Nations." Decided differences of opinion have prevailed as to the meaning of the term " women," as applied by them to the Lenni-Lenape or Delawares, who had claimed the highest dignity of origin and standing among the branches and tribes of the race. It has most generally been taken to denote their utter sub- jugation and contemptuous humiliation as warriors, after being so completely worsted in protracted conflict that they submitted to any terms their vanquishers imposed. Delaware tradition made the term one of honor — the umpires between warring parties, holding the middle of the chain of friendship on their shoulders while the parties otherwise at variance held the ends. Thus the " women " covenanted to prevent decimating warfare while following peaceful pursuits. They tell, and herein compromise their reputation for sagacity, that after long wars the Iroquois, finding them invincible, beguiled them into this plausible scheme and then perverted the meaning of the name and assumed the role of masters. In 1742 when, at another Indian conference in Philadelphia, the head chief of the confederacy, in compliance with the request of the government and with a view to winning favor, peremptorily ordered the Delawares with words of withering scorn, to leave the Forks forthwith, there was no mistaking what the Six Nations understood the term "women" to mean. Not until 1795, after the defeat and downfall of the Iroquois in war with the government, did they, as a stroke of expediency, formally disassociate the figurative woman's dress, garniture and utensils from their " cousins," the Delawares, and acknowledge them again to be warriors. PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. 49 of. It was designed to cover the whole region embraced in the Forks of the Delaware and, as the sequel proved, a large portion of the best land in the Minisinks beyond the mountains besides ; the exact direction of the line from the end of the walk to the Delaware being significantly left blank. In April, 1735, the walk was experi- mentally made to ascertain what this conveyance, so unaccountably forgotten for fifty years and so strangely stultified by the acts of 1718 and 1728, would cover. The form of a treaty was gone through at Durham, August 25, 1737, when this document was produced and the chiefs were asked to ratify it. They were in doubt about it, but the alleged parties to the contract being dead, they were not in a position to disprove the writing. They therefore gave dubious assent and asked that the lines be run at once, if so it must be, and an end made of the matter. September 12, 1737, was set for the walk, but court being in session it was postponed to the 19th. At sunrise on that day three selected pedestrians and three Indians, accompanied by officials and attendants on horseback, started from the point agreed upon, and at noon the next day, when time was called, one walker who held out to the end struck his hatchet into a tree on the slope of the Pocono or Broad Mountain.^- The Indians resented the extension of the walk beyond the Kittatinny Mountains and when the line to the Delaware, instead of striking the shortest course, as they expected, was run north-eastward at right angles to the line of the walk, taking in a large section of the Minisinks, they were enraged, especially so the Minsis of that region who were not parties to the agreement and did not consider themselves bound by any contracts made by the Delawares of the south side ; and the scheme was con- summated amid sullen threats of vengeance. >2 One of the famous walkers was Solomon Jennings, a pioneer settler on the Lehigh above the site of Bethlehem, where the •' Geissinger farms" lie, a good neighbor and friend of the Moravians and a celebrated I^imrod of the region, whose son was later sheriff of Northampton County, and whose sonin-law was Nicholas Scull, Surveyor General of Penn- sylvania. Another was Edmund Yeates, who became blind and died prematurely from the strain. The third — he who finished the walk — was Edward Marshall, the hero of many wonderful tales, who lived to be nearly ninety years old. Jennings and the Indians, unable to keep up the pace, dropped out on reaching the Lehigh and deserted. The route was from near the present Wrightstown by the old Durham road to Durham Creek, then, veering westward, to the Lehigh which was crossed at the "old Indian ford" (see note 9), over the site of Bethlehem, through the present Hanover Township of Lehigh County and Allen Township of Northampton County to the Lehigh Gap, and thence on to the Pocono Moun- tain, the distance being about sixty-five miles. 5 50 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. This was the famous "Walking Purchase" by which all Indian claim and title to this large domain was held to be extinguished for- ever. Eighteen years later when other grievances had accumulated and the Indians were cunningly beguiled into alliance with the French and furnished their opportunity, they carried those threats into awful execution with tomahawk and torch, dealing out indiscriminate, sav- age retribution to old and young, weak and strong, good and bad alike, in a reign of terror which stands on record as the most dismal episode in the history of the Forks of the Delaware. Five years after the walk was made the last Indians reluctantly sur- rendered possession and removed from the Forks, and it so happened that the Moravian pioneers who most particularly had come to the region with peaceable and benevolent intentions toward the savages, were especially subjected to annoyance and even danger from some of this obstinate remnant loitering behind. They lived on the Naza- reth tract, quite near to where Whitefield's agents staked oflf the foundation lines of the proposed house soon after the arrival of the Moravians. Their village was called Welagameka, which meant rich soil. They applied this term also to the surrounding locality. They had a small space in cultivation ; had a peach orchard and a burial ground near their village, not far from which stood the historic oak already referred to, hard by the path to the Minisinks. Their chief w^as known as Captain John, one of the six doughty sons of the noted Delaware chieftain called old Captain Harris — high-spirited, sensitive men, cherishing grudges against the English and smarting under the indignities put upon them by the Six Nations ; the most famous of them being that subtle master of Indian finesse, Teedyuscung, half- iDrother of Captain John, who took the lead in subsequent manoeuvres to recover Delaware prestige, and to whom there will be occasion to refer again. The final departure of this last band from Welagameka did not take place until the close of 1742, after peremptory orders from their lords, the deputies of the Six Nations, at the request of the Governor at Philadelphia in July of that year, in return for the promise of the latter to interfere with the invasion of Indian territory by whites in other quarters. Even then it required a concession from the Moravians in the shape of an indemnity for improvements aban- doned to induce them to vacate peaceably; the government having previously objected to their being thus "bought oflf." Details of this settlement with Captain John's troop will be noticed in proper con- nection. They were therefore on the ground yet, calling it their own PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 74O. $t in defiance of the fate which hung over them since the walk of 1737 and in contempt of all the impressive muniments of parchment with which others defended their title to it, when operations in pursuance of Whitefield's plans were commenced ; keeping peace with the Mora- vians, however, partly in response to friendly assurances and partly in the hope of being paid to leave, in which hope they were encour- aged by some white neighbors. The pioneers who arrived there at the end of May, 1740, experi- enced trying times during the following months. Their first shelter under the great oak tree was a rude framework of poles roofed with bark and wattled with leafy branches of tree-tops, until they built a cabin of unhewn logs which was gotten under roof at the close of July. During those weeks it rained nearly every day. Boehler, who had meanwhile secured a force of lime-burners, quarrymen, masons, board-cutters and teamsters from Goshenhoppen, Whitemarsh, Maxa- tawny, Lower Saucon and elsewhere, rejoined them the last day of June. The work moved slowly on account of the frequent rain, diffi- culty with the lime and sand and the incompetence of some of the workmen. When September opened with another rainy season and the walls were laid up only to the doorsills, at an outlay of about £300, the hope of completing them to the roof before winter was abandoned. The workmen hired at other places were discharged and the Brethren, by permission of Whitefield's agents, set about the erec- tion of a better house of hewn timber in which to pass the winter. It was so far finished as to be habitable at the beginning of Novem- ber.^^ Boehler, hearing that Whitefield had again arrived in Pennsyl- vania from Georgia, went to Philadelphia in November to report the condition of things. He found the famous preacher changed in his manner and disposed to be unfriendly. The displeasure he had car- ried away with him from his doctrinal encounter with the missionary Hagen in Georgia in defense of the theory of the predestination of some to perdition as well as of others to salvation was increased by the report that Boehler also opposed this teaching. He moreover found certain ministers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 13 This house was subsequently used some years for school purposes and, 1755-68, as a home for Moravian widows. It is yet standing on the premises of the ^Vhitefield House which since 1 871 has been set apart as a home for superannuated or disabled missionaries and pastors, with the little log house as one of its adjuncts, furnishing a snug retreat for one and another retired minister content to accupy the humble, quaint and historic "gray cottage." 52 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. who also held this view, inveighing against the Moravians, with no acquaintance as yet with them personally or their doctrines, incited by a misleading "pastoral letter" of warning from the Classis of Am- sterdam issued three years before and at this time being circulated in America. Many people, among others the neighbors of the Moravian pioneers in the Forks, were led by these clerical onslaughts to imagine that the arrival of these persons from Herrnhut was the most serious menace to religion and the common welfare that had yet appeared. Whitefield's previous association with them now jeopardized his popularity among men of his theological persuasion, and he felt con- strained, as a champion on trial before admirers, to vindicate himself in the arena of controversy. Therefore, to Boehler's surprise, he at once opened the scholastic discussion for which many had been wait- ing eagerly. It was carried on in Latin in which language both of these young schoolmen could argue better than either could in the language of the other. The Oxford orator failed to convince the Magister of Jena that his conception of the Divine decrees was correct and quite lost his temper, imperiously declaring that the Moravians must leave his land forthwith and need not expect to get possession of a foot of it. Boehler retorted that they had no intention of locating per- manently on his tract, that he was surprised at his bigotry and pope- like bearing and that doubtless if he had the power of the Pope he would proceed against them with fire and sword. Thereupon White- field closed the interview with the curt ultimatum : ''sic volo, sic jubco^ stct pro ratione voluntas^ Although this was not a very creditable triumph in argument, it satisfied those who merely wished to see the leader of the Moravians put down, no matter how, and it led to the next important step towards the spot at which their settlement was to be founded. This summary expulsion of the Brethren from the Nazareth land was directly proclaimed with satisfaction in the neigh- borhood by some of the near-by settlers who were prejudiced against them. One of the gathering-places of the region at which the matter was naturally discussed was the mill of Nathanael Irish on the Saucon Creek.^* He was one of those who discarded church-connection and '4 Mr. Irish who appears in various important and interesting connections with the early Moravians in the Forks, had located some time prior to May, 1737, on 306 acres of land where the village of Shimersville is situated, near the mouth of the Saucon Creek. There he opened a farm, built a mill, established a land-office as agent of William Allen, and in 1741 was commissioned a Justice of the Peace. His place, the terminus in 1740 of the first highway from Philadelphia to the Lehigh (see note 9) was a general rendezvous. This mill remained standing until 1812 and his dwelling until l8l6; the former on the farm of the late John Knecht, the latter at the site of the William Shimer residence. He subse- quently removed from the neighborhood and died in 1748 at Union Furnace in New Jersey. PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1/40. 53 54 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. had little respect for religion, on account of the ceaseless sectarian bickerings and the rabid polemics of theologians in which religious activity mainly consisted in those days, but he acted a Christian part towards the little band of Moravian pioneers in that trying hour for which he was held in grateful remembrance. His comment on the occurrence was that he had his doubts about Whitefield's religion if he drove the Moravians away, for he had learned to know them as good people. Being one of the important and influential men of the vicinity, his representations through Whitefield's agents, persuaded the impetuous clergyman to waive his contention on subtleties of theological speculation in favor of humane sentiment, and to forbear turning these people out of the house they had built into the wilder- ness at the beginning of winter. He also offered to sell them, on easy terms, five hundred acres of William Allen's land lying on the north bank of the Lehigh River, at the mouth of the Monocacy Creek, a desirable tract which he intended to retain for himself. Boehler had during the summer frequently taken grain to his mill to be ground, and they had become well acquainted. His offer was the subject of several interviews between them, but no conclusion could be reached until word was received from Europe in reference to the contemplated settlement in Pennsylvania. After securing the refusal of this tract and arranging with Irish for a sufficient supply of meal to keep his little band of people from suffering hunger, Boehler settled down with them in their winter- quarters to wait. They occupied the next several weeks in completing their house, making the first rough building more comfortable for the use of part of their number, and gathering a store of firewood. The clouds of uncertainty in reference to further plans were suddenly dispelled to their inexpressible joy by the arrival on December i8 of Bishop David Nitschmann, who had reached Philadelphia three days before. With him came his uncle, David Nitschmann, senior. Christian Froelich, Anna Nitschmann, daughter of the elder Nitsch- mann, and Johanna Sophia Molth^r.^^ '5 This new contingent of pioneers increased to 31 the number of persons in the North American colonies at the close of 1740 who had been in connection with the Brethren in Europe, of whom 29 were at this time in Pennsylvania, viz.. 21 of the 23 who came to Penn- sylvania from Georgia — one. Rose, having died — Christopher Baus, who had come over in 1734, the three previous accesions of 1740, John Hagen, still in Georgia, Christian Henry Rauch, among the Indians in New York, Andrew Eschenbach. itinerating in Pennsylvania, together with Boehler, Bishop Nitschmann, and the four pereons who had come with the PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO I74O. 55 They had come to finally carry out plans of operation in Pennsyl- vania in pursuance of the original thought of 1727, which had been taking shape since the first General Synod of the resuscitated Church held in the old castle of Marienborn in 1736, after Zinzendorf's banish- ment from Saxony, when measures for the extension of missionary work and the planting of colonies in foreign lands were specially dis- cussed. At the second such gathering held at the seat of the Counts of Reuss-Ebersdorf in June, 1739, when Zinzendorf had returned from the Island of St. Thomas, Spangenberg reported his observations in Pennsylvania and outlined a scheme of activity there, embracing latter — together 31, There were, including the three wards from Georgia, 15 at Nazareth. The four newly arrived deserve special introduction. David Nitsclunann, Senior, usually called " Father Nitschmann," who stood in the third known generation of this notable Moravian family, a native of Zauchtenthal, Moravia, wheelwright and joiner by trade, for some years a substantial citizen and a village officer of Kunwald near his birthplace, had, like some of his ancestors, suffered imprisonment and even bodily torture for conscience sake. From 1725, when he emigrated to Herrnhut, to his arrival in Pennsylvania, he had been entrusted with various important duties and had shared the sufferings of the luckless colony sent in 1734 to the Island of St. Croix where he left his wife among the ten who died. He was sixty-four years old when he came to Pennsylvania, but took the lead in opening the settlement, was the master-builder for some years, and was one of the most reliable and influential men in official position. He was the first of the Brethren who became a naturalized citizen of Pennsylvania in order, as the first of the nominal "proprietors" of the estates of the Church, when it had no legal corporate existence, to hold the title in fee simple to its property. His character combined a rare blending of force and amiability with sterling honesty and childlike piety, and as the patri- arch of Bethlehem until his death in 1758 he was held in peculiar reverence and affection ; but the title " Founder of Bethlehem" given him on the stone which marks his grave in the old cemetery is a misnomer, for this designation belongs to his nephew, the Bishop, also buried there. In the archives at Bethlehem there is an oil portrait of Father Nitschmann. Anna Charity, his daughter, commonly only known by her first name, was the most note- worthy woman of her time who held official position in the Moravian Church. Although only twenty-five years old when she visited Pennsylvania, she was already invested with the dignity of an eldress. Under the system of that time she was raised to the position of a kind of sister superior of all the single women of the Moravian congregations and settle- ments. On May 4, 1730, she had instituted a special covenant of consecrated service among seventeen young women and girls out of which grew the so-called choir-system, i e. the special organization of classes called "choirs" among the membership, which will be treated of more fully elsewhere. She became Zinzendorf's second wife and died at Herrn- hut in 1760, having returned to Europe in 1743. Juliana Nitschmann, wife of Bishop John Nitschmann, also a distinguished woman, who died at Bethlehem and whose grave occupies a conspicuous place in one of the walks of the old cemetery, is sometimes mistaken for Anna Nitschmann. Johanna Sophia Molther, at this time only twenty-two years old, was the wife of the Rev. Philip Henry Molther, later bishop, who was to have accompanied the party to Penn- 56 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. itinerant preaching in the settlements, schools for the hosts of neg- lected children and missions among the Indians at several points, all to be carried on from a central settlement to be founded, and it was concluded that Bishop Nitschmann should proceed again to Pennsyl- vania and establish such a settlement. When the third General Synod met at Gotha in June, 1740, the persons were selected to accompany him in addition to Hagan, Rauch and Eschenbach already appointed to go to America, and steps were taken towards the formation of a considerable colony to consist in part of the personnel of the short- lived colony of Pilgerruh in Holstein which was to be abandoned in consequence of the opposition of jealous clergy influencing the author- ities. When therefore Nitschmann and his company arrived at the Barony of Nazareth, the choice of a location and arrangements for the purchase of land at once engaged attention, and the of¥er of Nathanael Irish was further considered. Boehler received a call to return to Europe and undertake important duties in England. He went to see the miller once more, introduced Bishop Nitschmann and commended him to the same courteous treatment that he had experienced. Mr. Irish assured them of his good will and renewed his ofifer of the tract on the Lehigh. Boehler left on December 27, visited Wiegner, Antes and friends in Philadelphia, and then, accompanied by Nitschmann, proceeded to New York where, after forming a little association of devout people similar to that of the Skippack Brethren in Pennsyl- vania, he sailed for England on January 29, 1741.^° sylvania, but missed the ship at London. She was by birth a baroness von Seidewitz, was one of the original pupils of the first school for girls at Herrnhut and was one of Anna Nitschmann's associates in the covenant of 1730. After more than a year devoted to arduous spiritual labors among her sex in Pennsylvania, like her young companion on this journey, she returned to Europe in 1742. She died at Herrnhut in iSoi. Christian Froehlick, formerly a baker and confectioner in the family of Zinzendorf, who recognized special capabilities in him, was called to accompany Bishop Nitschmann to Penn- sylvania. He figured in many ways during the first years at Bethlehem and elsewhere, and devoted some time to missionary work among the Indians and in the West Indies. Later he was engaged in secular employment some years in New York. He died at Bethlehem in 1776. 16 In connection with some of these and subsequent movements, until regular diaries were begun in 1742, there is occasional confusion of order and dates in some published narratives based on original and secondary manuscript sources ; owing to the use in some of old, in others of new style dates ; while yet others state time indefinitely, e.g. "end of December " (i.e. O. S.), " second week in January" (i.e. N. S), or even "middle of January," in refer- ring to the same occurrence — both approximately correct according to the calendar in mind. Double dating was commonly observed by the Brethren in Pennsylvania in their official PIONEER MOVEMENTS TO 1 740. 57 Prior to his departure he rendered the pioneers a little service, held in affectionate remembrance, which was more in his sphere than some of his duties had been. It was the preparation of choral liturgies, em- bodying verses of his own composition, for the lovefeast they held with a frugal meal of corncake and drink of roasted rye on Christmas Eve — undoubtedly the first Christmas service in the Forks of the Delaware — and for the first Moravian celebration of the Holy Com- munion in Pennsylvania which followed the Vigils. The manuscript copies of these liturgies were preserved as tender mementos of that time when the band of pilgrims, enduring hardness as good soldiers, renewed their covenant before the vision of the manger and the cross. Hope and courage w^ere revived before they said farewell to the man who had been their devoted leader, for at last there was a fair ■ prospect that they would soon set foot on a spot which they could call their own. Two days before that Christmas Eve, and after Bishop Nitschmann's interview with Nathanael Irish, three of them, Father Nitschmann, Martin Mack, and another, probably Anton Seiffert or young David Zeisberger, shouldered their axes and strolled down through the woods to the Lehigh to look about "the Allen Tract." Anticipating the purchase, they felled the first tree at the place selected by them as a desirable building-site, some distance from the river, aside of the "Indian path" that led up from the ford into the north-west trail to the mountains. It was on a wooded slope crowning a bluff that descended to the Monocacy, where the most copious spring of the region gushed out of the lime-stone bed at the foot of the declivity. Its flow could not be barred by the frost that browned its fringe of ferns, stripped its canopy of birch and maple and set the rippling surface of the near-by stream in a frigid glaze. Perhaps, as they noted the volume of its crystal jet forcing a passage upward records until 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted by England. This extended in some records to even following the cumbrous old practice of noting the double year in dating between January I and March 25 (Annunciation or "Lady Day") the old English legal New Year Day. Ordinarily when single dates occur in letters or journals of Brethren from Germany, where the new calendar was used in all of the states after 1700, it may be assumed, in the absence of parallel records for comparison, that new style is meant. Instead of December 27, as above, some old records give "middle of January" as the time of Boehler's departure from Nazareth, apparently taking December 27 for O.S. But this date is unquestionably correct according to N. S. It agrees with his autobiography in which he uses N. S. dates. He says he left "towards the end of December" and states that he spent his birthday (December 31) at Wiegner's. The dates taken in these pages are uniformly N. S. wherever the records make it possible to determine this point. 58 A HISTORV' OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, through the snow, marked where an easy path descended to the spot and inspected the banks of the creek with a view to constructing the first bridge at that point, they thought not only of a house but of a future town on the ridge above suppHed by this abundant fount where multitudes through generations to come, prizing this primitive boon of their goodly place, like the ancient king whose name four of those first settlers bore, would often crave "water to drink of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate." CHAPTER IV. The Settlemext Founded and Named. 1741. After one step had been taken towards the occupation of the Allen Tract, in felling the first tree just before Christmas, no further advance was made for more than a month. The snow lay deep in the forest and the storms of a rigorous winter beat fiercely about the little log houses in which the pioneers waited during January, 1741, for the return of Bishop Nitschmann from New York. Meanwhile the daily presence of Indians kept the chief object of their coming to America in their thoughts, and those weeks were not passed in merely hibernating. While Christian Henry Ranch, their heroic brother in service, wintering in his lonely hut far ofif among the pines of Sheko- meko, was trying to reach the hearts of the wild Mohicans, these Brethren in the Nazareth woods made the first Moravian missionary efforts among the Delawares ; notwithstanding the suspicious and sulky mood of this little band, doggedly clinging to Welagameka as their own, defying legal ejectment and looking upon every white man north of the Lehigh as an intruder. The most active in these first missionary attempts in the Forks was Christian Froelich, who had arrived in December. Having lived for a season in London, he had learned the English language, and as some of the Indians also spoke English, he could communicate with them directly. He succeeded so far in winning good will that the chief. Captain John, entrusted his ten year old son to him — "a clever lad," wrote Froehlich in his narrative — with the intention that the child should be his permanent ward if the council of the village gave its approval. The zealous missionary was also invited to one of their religious festivals at Welagameka, and at the close of the chants and ceremonies obtained permission "to also pray in his manner." He knelt among them and poured out his soul in fervent intercessions and then spoke to them of Christ the Saviour, 59 6o A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. THE FIRST HOUSE OF BETHLEHEM, 1741. I74I 1742. 6i to all of which they gave reverent attention. These experimental efforts were persevered in as opportunity was found until the Indians finally left the place. Froehlich also took occasion to urge the realities of Christian faith upon Nathanael Irish, and the pious lay- man was permitted, as he afterwards wrote, to witness the softening of this man's heart which theological strife had hardened. Bishop Nitschmann returned at the beginning of February. Various reasons led to a further consideration of inducements to settle else- where, and there was again temporary uncertainty. Other places in view were Skippack, Oley, Conestoga Manor and the so-called London lands in Lancaster County, even as far west as the banks of the Susquehanna, besides other points in the Forks of the Del- aware. Finally it was concluded to let the lot instead of their own judgment decide the question, and the result was in favor of closing with Mr. Irish for the five-hundred acre tract on the Lehigh. Then, on February 4, a number of them began to fell timber for a large house, and the erection of a small one at the spot selected in December was proceeded with as rapidly as possible, while the snow yet covered the ground to the depth of two feet. Father Nitschmann took the lead in this arduous toil and his biographer states that none could easily keep pace with him. After the work was properly started Bishop Nitschmann again visited Henry Antes to consult about the consummation of the land- purchase ; Mr. Antes having offered to render all assistance in his power. As there was neither a legal corporation nor, as yet, a naturalized citizen of the Province among the Brethren, it was arranged that Antes should make the purchase for them ; and accord- ingly on April 2, 1741, William Allen and wife deeded to him this first real estate acquired by the Moravian Church in Pennsylvania. This new ownership of the tract of land on which more has transpired of historic interest than at any place in Northampton County, was the fourth in succession after that of the original Proprietor of the Province — strictly speaking, only the second, for, as part of a grant of five thousand acres passing from William Penn to John Lowther and wife, of London, and from Lowther to Joseph Turner, of London, it remained an unlocated claim until William Allen, who purchased it of Turner in 1731, had it located and surveyed with other portions in the Forks of the Delaware in 1736, the year before the famous walk brought it within the limits thereafter held to have been surrendered by the Indians. 62 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Early in March — the published biography of Anton Seiffert gives May 9, which doubtless should be March g, as the date — the workmen finished laying up the square-hewn logs of the first house. It was twenty by forty feet in dimensions, one story high, with sleeping- quarters for a number of persons in the attic under the steep-pitched roof. The building was divided by a log partition into a larger and a smaller section, the latter used to house the first cattle owned by the settlement. Such a combination of dwelHng and stable under one roof, as a first make-shift, was not an unfamiliar thing to these settlers, for many an old cottage in the villages of their native land was so ar- ranged. Their common dwelHng in the larger section served also as their place of worship for one year.^ As soon as it was so far enclosed as to afford sufficient shelter for hardy men willing to make the best of the rudest accommodations, some took up their abode in it to save the time which had been con- sumed each day in going to and fro, even the little distance across to the home of their friend Isaac Martens Ysselstein on the south side of the river, where the pioneers had passed a night on their way to the Nazareth manor the previous year, and where hospitable doors were at all times open to those who wished to remain over night nearer to their work than the house on Whitefield's land. The re- moval of the household to the new quarters took place gradually when the severe winter had come to an end. After the opening of spring the little colony again came more into contact with the outside world. Frequent journeys — usually afoot — were made by one and another down through the Long Swamp where dwelt Joseph Mueller and other pious acquaintances ; to Skippack where the first Moravians in Pennsylvania had their temporary home with Christopher Wiegner ; to Fredericktown in Falkner's Swamp, the I A memorial-stone, placed in 1892, marks the site of this first house of Bethlehem, at the rear of the Eagle Hotel, on what is now " Rubel's Alley," but was previously called for some years simply " the old alley " — the first thoroughfare of the neighborhood and prob- ably identical with the old " Indian path." This quaint and historic domicile, which the people of Bethlehem should have been interested in preserving, was torn down in 1823 by a generation more utilitarian than sentimental, to make room for stabling when, in the march of improvement, the second village store was converted into the second hotel of the place, ^^ der Gasthof zum goldenen Adler" now less euphoniously called the Eagle Hotel. The numerous pictures of the house which are extant — some meritorious as to execution and many not — are evolved from one or the other of two pencil sketches made while it was yet standing ; one used for the well-known painting by Gustavus Grunewald, the other made and then reproduced in ink by the Rev. C. F. Seidel. I74I 1742. 63 home of Henry Antes, their most valued friend and counselor; to Germantown, where intercourse was maintained with those of the former Georgia colony who had located there, and many new friend- ships were formed; to Philadelphia, where men like John Stephen Benezet continued to be warmly interested in their designs and move- ments, where friend and foe were daily discussing them, the newest objects of attraction in the Province in the midst of the contagious religious excitement awakened by Whitefield, where indispensable commodities only to be had in the metropolis were purchased for their establishment and letters from Europe were eagerly awaited. The two young women, Anna Nitschmann and Johanna Molther, who had arrived in December, ventured forth at the beginning of April with an escort, on their first tour among the settlements in pursuance of the object which had brought them across the ocean, becoming acquainted with families of various sects and preparing the way for that extensive itinerant work in the homes, and particularly among the children of all classes, in which later so many consecrated women engaged. Bishop Nitschmann was a very busy man at this time, con- tinually traveling up and down the country on both spiritual and ex- ternal business, and during his brief intervals of sojourn at the new settlement, joining his brethren in hard manual labor; having in his young days learned the carpenter's trade and maintained himself by means of it. Naturally also numerous visitors were attracted to the place, some moved by friendly interest, others by curiosity which was not friendly in all cases ; and the sensational reports spread abroad in reference to the nature and purpose of the undertaking were a striking evidence of the wrought-up popular mind of the time, continually agog for the next new thing to fall in with or attack, as the case might be, and ready to give currency to the most fantastic canards. Among the early spring callers were several representatives of the mystic fra- ternity of Sabbatarian Tunkers at Ephrata who had made a temporary convert of one of the Georgia colonists in 1739 — Gottfried Haberecht — who forsook them again, however, and rejoined his brethren in the Forks in September, 1741. Some of the other Moravians from Georgia who had settled at Germantown and elsewhere, also came to see the new place and most of the Skippack Brethren made friendly calls in the course of the spring and summer. Before the end of June the last of the pioneers had finally removed 64 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. from the Barony of Nazareth to the Allen Tract.- The two log houses in which they had spent the winter were deserted and the foundation walls of the prospective stone-house left desolate, with the Indians of Welagameka once more in sole possession of the spot, at the very time when negotiations, of which these settlers knew nothing, were being concluded in England for the purchase of the Barony by representatives of the Moravian Church ; Whitefield having been left by the death of his loyal business manager, William Seward, in such financial embarrassment, that he was unable to proceed with his Nazareth plans or even to retain possession of the land. Announce- ment of the purchase of this property for £2500 on July 15 reached the Brethren in the Forks, September 15, when Bishop Nitschmann came from Philadelphia with letters from Europe. While elaborate plans for the Pennsylvania undertakings were maturing in Europe, the initial settlement in the Forks was a scene of stirring activity throughout the summer. The main tasks on which the strenuous efforts of the toilers were centered were the preparation of as much cleared land as possible for immediate cultivation, and the commencement of the large house for which they began on June 28 to 2 The complete personnel of the settlement, including those who were itinerating much of the time, was the following : David Nitschmann, Bishop, Anton Seiffert, House Chaplain, David Nitschmann, Sr., Master Workman, Andrew Eschenbach, Itinerant Preacher, John Martin Mack, Assistant Foreman, George Neisser, Messenger, John Boehner, Carpenter, Christian Froehlich, General Helper, David Zeisberger, Carpenter, David Zeisberger, Jr., General Helper, Matthias Seybold, Farmer, Rosina Zeisberger, Anna Nitschmann, Johanna Sophia Molther, Johanna Hummel, The boys, Benjamin Sommers and James. In addition to the personals to be found in Chapter III, the following notes may have a place here, as some of the names will not be mentioned again. Besides the two David Nitschmanns and Froelich only two of these first settlers ended their days at Bethle- hem, viz.: the elder Zeisberger and his wife Rosina in 1744 and 1746 respectively. Their son David, the great missionary, the last survivor of these seventeen persons — leaving out account the two boys, of whose end nothing is known — died after sixty-three years of mis- sionary service, in 1808, at Goshen, in the Tuscarawas Valley, Ohio, in the 88th year of his age. Seifert was recalled to Europe in 1745 and after serving the Church in England, Ire- land and Holland, died at Zeist, Holland, in 1785. Eschenbach left the Church in 1747 and settled on a farm at Oley, Pa., where he died in 1763. Neisser, who had been working in wood for Antes — mill and wagon work — under contract which expired in May, rejoined the DAVID NITSCHMANN, Sr. I74I 1742. 6$ square the timber cut in the winter. No serious sickness, as in Georgia, disabled any of them to retard the urgent work which taxed their strength to the utmost, while their situation, like that of all such pioneers at the beginning, was one of scant comfort. But, unHke many others thus engaged, their daily life was not merely one of grim drudgery unreHeved by anything bright or softening. Circumstances outwardly the same are rendered widely dissimilar through difference in the spirit of the people. These settlers were plain folk, not reared amid the superior refinements of life, like some who followed them later, but from the first a choicer tone prevailed than would commonly be found with such plainness, which rude environment and the hard struggle for bare subsistence could not impair. They were imbued with a certain lofty ideality, imparted by the master-spirit of Herrnhut, which kept their high calling in their minds, preserved their sense of the finer social amenities from becoming blunt through contact with rough conditions, qualified and disposed them to find even some aesthetic enjoyment in the novelty of their situation and the natural attractions of their surroundings. The unaffected bonhommie com- bined with innate dignity which distinguished a man like Father Nitschmann ; the gentle simplicity of David Zeisberger's mother — the Brethren in the Forks, June 28. He was a man of education, was the first school-master,, diarist, and general scrivener, post-master and law-expounder of the settlement, a musician of ability, an enthusiastic specialist in Moravian history and biography, leaving manuscripts of value purchased of his widow in 1807 for the archives of the Church, served in various pastorates, last in Philadelphia, where he died in 1784. When the Moravian grave-yard aft Franklin and Vine Streets in that city became a building-site and the work of exhumation took place in 1886, the few bones remaining in his grave were brought to Bethlehem and interred in the old cemetery. The George Neisser school-house in Bethlehem was named in his memory in 1893. Many details of early Moravian annals in Pennsylvania from 1734 are on record only in his historical notes. Mack, one of the leading missionaries among the Indians, 1742 to 1761, became Superintendent of Missions in the Danish West Indies in 1762, was consecrated bishop for that field in 1 770, while visiting in Bethlehem — the first Moravian bishop, and indeed the first bishop of the Christian Church consecrated in America — and died on the Island of St. Croix in 1784. Boehner, who entered missionary service in the West Indies in 1742 (Note 7, Chapter III), devoted the rest of his life to that work and died on the Island of St. Thomas in 1785. Seybold, after marrying in Penn- sylvania, returned to Europe in 1742, and died at Herrnhut in 1787. Of Bishop Nitsch- mann and the missionary Zeisberger, so much information in print is easily available that special personal notice, in addition to what will further appear in the regular text of these pages, seems unnecessary. The same may be ^aid of Spangenl erg, Boehler and Antes. The Moravian archives at Bethlehem contain portraits of the following among these first settlers: The Nitschmanns, the missionary Zeisberger, Mack (and wife), Neisser (and wife)^ also of Spangenberg and Boehler when vet young men, and their wives. 6 66 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. one matron of the company — were qualities which influenced their fel- lowship and were discerned by those who approached them. The intense piety cherished among them was not of that austere type which depressed or chilled those who came into contact with them. Their visitors not merely met the common readiness of people in newly-settled or sparsely populated regions to share their bread and shelter with any chance comer, whether acquaintance or stranger, but came into a genial atmosphere which suggested that genuine religion does not render persons stiffly sanctimonious or coldly reserved. Their cordial hospitality was inspired by a desire to cultivate confidence with men of all classes, creeds and persuasions. Even those callers who had to be met with caution were treated kindly to disarm prejudice. Heavy drains were made on their meagerly endowed commissariat by the numerous visitors, but the absence of grain-store, dairy and orchard was compensated for by the abundance of game in the surrounding woods and of fish in the waters of the Lehigh and the Monocacy to which the brief records of that summer refer, and they had enough to set before all who came. Morning, noon and night, when they joined in morning and evening prayer or combined religious devotions with their common meals — particularly when they made these meals special lovefeasts,^ usually on Saturday, 3 Moravian lovefeasts, which will be mentioned occasionally, may be here explained for readers who lack information on the subject. They originated impromptu at Herrnhut in 1727, and were then fostered after the well-known manner of the early Christians, whose lovefeasts or " ngt7/>ac-" — from a Greek word for love or "charity" — referred to in the epistle of Jude, verse 12, and more fully in the writings of some ancient Christian Fathers, expressed intimate fellowship on an ideal level ; all classes, patrician and plebeian, learned and illiterate, rich and poor, even master and slave, taking meals together from a common store, with singing of " psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," besides other manner of devotion and converse, recalling the last supper of Jesus with His disciples, and usually, as it seems, concluding with the Holy Communion. The first trace of the custom appears in Acts 2 : 42-46. Perversion of their purpose and degradation of their character among converts not weaned from heathen practices (i Cor. 11), caused the lovefeasts in a later century to be disassociated from Divine service, excluded from the sanctuaries, and finally abandoned. For some decades after the introduction of this primitive Christian usage among Moravians, the term lovefeast was somewhat freely applied to a wide range of occasions and observances with which a light collation or an elaborate meal or a mere ceremonial bread breaking without intention of actual bodily nourishment, was combined — informal gatherings of a few in a social way, fraternal welcomes or farewells to guests, wedding or funeral repasts, treats for the children, official conferences on spiritual or external matters, consultations with groups of persons engaged in any branch of activity, harvest-home feasts, commemorative occasions, repasts furnished by individuals to friends, official associates, fellow- workmen, etc. — all of these occasions being given more or less of a religious charac. I74I 1742. 6; which clay they generally devoted in part to bodily rest with religious and social cheer, in addition to the observance of the Lord's Day — they delighted to sing together the time-honored hymns of their forefathers and favorite verses from the rich song-treasures of Ger- many. The latter were more familiar to those of them who did not hail from Moravia, and to many a devout guest who joined with them on such occasions. In July they were visited by the missionary, Christian Henrv Ranch, who remained — making several calls meanwhile at other places — until August 9, when Bishop Nitschmann accompanied him to Shekomeko to inspect the mission, returning to the Forks, September 10. During Ranch's sojourn, the Holy Communion was celebrated the first time at the settlement on Saturday, July 8, and the next day he preached the first public sermon, taking as his text i Peter I: 18, 19. After that the sacrament was administered monthly, usually on Saturday. Furthermore, on July 22 they engaged the first time in an observance in vogue at Herrnhut since 1728, called in German Gemeintag,* and ter, besides the lovefeasts of a strictly religious nature, regular church festivals, anniversary meetings of the organized divisions of a congregation ("choirs") or solemn services of preparatory covenanting and fellovi^ship (communion lovefeasts) preceding the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Gradually the use of the term was limited to the more purely religious occasions, and the lovefeasts, held in more ceremonious and uniform fashion, became a dis- tinct feature of the established liturgical order. With this the thought of partaking of food to satisfy hunger was eliminated and the symbolical significance of breaking bread together came to be emphasized as the only object of the act. At the present time, where the custom is yet retained and most understandingly observed, this feature is a mere incident of a service which would, even without it, have character as a choral service or an occasion of fellow- ship. The nature or the quantity of the materials used is of no significance, and varies with local usage. Many modern Moravian churches have never introduced lovefeasts, and some old ones have abandoned them where they could not be maintained with decorum and dignity or in an appreciative spirit. 4 This term, applied by Zinzendorf to what was originally called the day of thanksgiving and prayer, has the general meaning of a popular diet, or common assembly or mass-meet- ing. It was instituted, February 10, 1728, and had variously the character of a concert of prayer, an open church-conference, a missionary survey and general intelligence day ; the most conspicuous feature of the occasion being generally the communication of the latest accounts from the churches and missions in all parts, even outside of Moravian fields in Christendom at large. Ordinations, marriage of missionaries, and other church-rites were often combined with these occasions. At the height of their popularity such assemblies were usually impressive and inspiring. To this custom of former times is due the accumu- lation of much of the manuscript matter in the shape of diaries, reports and letters from so many churches and missions preserved in the archives of old Moravian centers and now so valuable as sources of history. The time given to duplicating such matter for use at different places was profitably spent, for these occasions did much to keep the widely- scattered Brethren in sympathetic touch and intelligently interested in the common work in all lands. 68 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. in English usually, for want of an adequate equivalent, simply Prayer Day — for many years an important and popular occasion in Moravian congregations in Europe and America, commonly held once a month and as a rule on Saturday. Such days of converse in spirit with fellow- workers in many regions, when, each month, the latest reports and letters from abroad were read, quickened their consciousness of con- nection between the rough and severe manual labor, to which their time had mainly to be given, and the exalted ideals of missionary service set up as standards in the first enthusiasm and then maintained through continual correspondence between the laborers in all fields. Thus, with many pleasant experiences easing the trials and hardships of their situation, the summer passed. On September 23 they thankfully completed the sowing of their first winter grain and, September 27, the excavation of the cellar was finished, where heaps of stone from the quarry they had opened, and scores of hewn white oak logs lay ready to commence the substantial building which, during the first years of the settlement, was to serve as home and hospice, manse and church, administration office, academy, dispensary and town-hall ; the loved resting-place of many weary pilgrims ; the busiest center to be found far and wide ; sought out by the inquisitive and expatiated on by many a gossip with won- derful stories to tell about the Moravians — "The House on the Lehigh." It received the name Gemeinhaus^ in the German nomen- 5 Such a building for a combination of uses, and so named, as headquarters of the Gcmeine (community or parish) was formerly the main structure of a Moravian settlement or station, as was the Sbor or Dum (church-house) of earlier times in Bohemia and Moravia. The word "congregation" coming into use as English for Gemeine — correct of a worshiping assembly, but less correctly applied to the settlement, community, parish or corporation — the rather ill-sounding and, for persons unaccustomed to this traditional misuse of the words, meaningless term " Congregation- House " gained currency as rendering of Gcmciu- haus. Better, although lacking some associations of the German word, is Parish House, or for the Bethlehem Gemeinhatis^ when later for a long time exclusively the quarters of the local ministry and of missionaries coming and going — Clergy House, both being terms of understood meaning and authorized by good usage. Considering the real sense of Goiicine^ as applied to the organized community, and the more ample and varied uses of the Gcmcin- haus from the beginning than are commonly associated with Parish House or Clergy House, the term Community House is chosen as a more suitable and adequate rendering of the German. This antique structure standing at the corner of Church and Cedar Streets, with its massive logs hidden under its modern dress of painted weather-boarding — now the oldest house in Bethlehem — was originally 45 by 30 feet in dimensions, the same height as at present, with its roof-ridge truncated at the gables. Its east end was at the present eastern doorway. It was enlarged in 1743. Possibly it may some time be restored to uses in keeping with its historic character. 174^ 1742- 69 clature of the time and in these pages will be called the Community House. On Thursday, September 28, the first foundation-stone was laid, at the south-east corner, and consecrated with fervent prayer by Bishop Nitschmann and Andrew Eschenbach. A document engrossed on parchment by George Neisser, containing the names of fifteen per- sons*' present at the ceremony, was deposited in a pewter box and cemented into a cavity in the stone. Special significance was attached to the Scripture watch-word of the Church for that day in its collection of daily texts' — "This is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever." — Ezek. 43 7. The spirit which animated them when they proceeded to lay up the foundation walls of this house was very dilTerent from that in which a few of them had toiled at the trying task on the Nazareth land, the previous autumn. This building was their own, the beginning was auspicious and letters from Europe informing them of accessions to their number to be expected soon, of Count Zinzendorf's preparations to come to Pennsylvania in the winter and of the considerable colony to be sent over a few months later, stimulated their exertions. On October 26 they had the pleasure of welcoming the first three men whose coming was awaited : Gottlob Buettner, John Christopher 6 The list, in the order given by Neisser, is the following : David Nitschmann, episc, Anton Seiffert, elder, Andrew Eschenbach, preacher, David Nitschmann, Sr., David Zeis- berger, Rosina Zeisberger (Neisser writes "Anna" — perhaps her name was Anna Rosina. She is confused by some writers with Anna, wife of George Zeisberger, who came to Penn- sylvania later), David Zeisberger, Jr., Matthias Seybold, John Boehner, George Neisser, Augustine Neisser, Christian Froehlich, Martin Mack, Gottlieb Demuth, Johanna Hummel. Ten, viz. the Nitschmanns, Zeisbergers, Neissers, Seiffert, Boehner, Demuth, were from Moravia and adjacent parts of Bohemia. Neisser's list gives the region from which each hailed. Augustine Neisser was merely a visitor. Demuth was working at the settlement nearly all summer. 7 May 3, 1728, the custom began at Herrnhut of giving the people a Scripture text as a watch-word for each day {Losting). In 1731 the issue of a collection for the entire year began. Eventually there were two texts for each day, a watch-word drawn from an assort- ment of Old Testament texts, and a doctrinal text i^Lekrtext) selected from the New Testa- ment, each accompanied by a versicle from the hymn-book. The custom has continued uninterruptedly to the present time, when more than 120,000 copies are annually published in seven languages. This little manual, familiarly styled "The Text-Book" and ^^Das Losungsbuch" is widely used outside the Moravian Church. 70 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Pyrlaeus and John William Zander,^ who sailed from England as the first missionaries sent to America through the help of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, founded in London by Spangen- berg. The arrival of these men assured the pioneers that the plans of which letters from Europe had informed them from time to time, were progressing, and that their loyalty to the cause amid all dis- couragements was not in vain, as some of the Georgia colonists who had forsaken them declared. There is little on record, in addition to these leading features, to fill out the dim picture of daily life at the settlement during that summer and fall of 1741 — a picture which it would be interesting to scrutinize more closely. Besides the people of the place, numerous figures flit casually across the scene which appear also in the sketches of other settlements and organizations of that time ; for there was a continual coming and going of persons whose names are more or less prominent in the history of different neighborhoods from the frontier down to the sea-board, or associated with the particulars of social, industrial and reUgious Hfe in Philadelphia and Germantown in those days. Some of the restless and inconstant rehgionists who then abounded in Pennsylvania, ever ready to turn from one persuasion to another as fitful impulse or capricious fancy prompted, were also among those who came to see and hear. Occasionally flighty or erratic characters drifted to the spot to air eccentric notions, or challenge debate on 8 These three young men — all under thirty years of age — who had lately joined the Brethren's Church and become candidates for missionary service, were the first additions to the Pennsylvania nucleus since December, 1740, increasing to 34 the number now in the North American colonies who had been connected with the Church in Europe, of whom 32 were in Pennsylvania— Ranch being at Shekomeko, N.Y., and Hagen yet in Georgia. (See Chapter III, note 15.) These new missionaries were ordained and married in Pennsylvania in 1742. Buettner's wife was Margaret, daughter of John Bechtel of Germantown. Her second husband was the missionary John George Jungmann. Pyrlaeus married Susan Benezet, daughter of John Stephen Benezet of Philadelphia. Zander married Johanna Magdalena Miller, daughter of Peter Miller of Germantown. The brave and gentle Buettner died in 1745 at Shekomeko, after three years of missionary labor, in his twenty- ninth year. His grave near Pine Plains, Duchess County, N.Y., is marked by a monument erected in 1859. Pyrlaeus, the best known of the three, as missionary, schoolman and musician, was a theological candidate from the University of Leipsic. He is chiefly noted as a student and teacher of Indian language, particularly the Mohawk and Mohican dialects, and left some linguistic work of interest in manuscript, which is preserved in the Moravian archives at Bethlehem. He returned to Europe in 1751, served the Church in England until 1770, then went back to Germany and died at Herrnhut in 1785. Zander went as a missionary to Berbice, Guiana, South America, in 1742, returned to Europe in 1 761, and labored in Holland until his decease in 1782 at the Moravian settlement, Zeist. I74I 1742. 71 some hobby ; others to seek kinship in some particular fanaticism, or congenial rest for a troubled soul. Thus, among others, a demented, although harmless EngHshman, Thomas Hardie, who for more than a year occasioned much difficulty to the pioneers who tried to restrain and guard him during seasons of frenzy, wandered to the Forks from Ephrata. The famous Chronicon Ephratcnsc, describing his career, archly associates his dementia with his turning to the Moravians, and closes the account of his wanderings and his end with the pious wish, expressed in its obituaries of various other individuals, that God might give him a blessed resurrection. Henry Antes visited the settlement several times in the course of the summer to lend aid and counsel in the work and to consult about plans for an alliance of like-minded people of dififerent religious connections, on a larger scale than that of the Skippack Association, for the improvement of the general religious and moral condition — a scheme in reference to which he had apparently been in correspond- ence with Spangenberg, who was in England, and which he hoped to see successfully inaugurated under Zinzendorf's leadership. A slight change in the personnel of the place also occurred during autumn. Christian Froehlich undertook temporarily the manage- ment of the sugar-refinery of Captain \\^allace in Philadelphia — he had become skilled in this work in England — and was of service there to his Brethren, in circulating correct information about them and their purposes, and acting as a city agent in a variety of matters. George Neisser left the Forks in November and joined his brother Augustine at Germantown, where he passed through a serious illness. He did not return to the settlement until the following June. His absence accounts for the very meager records of the period from November to June,^ 9 Neisser's brief notes, the main source of information on numerous details of the year 1 741, contain a variety of minor items in addition to those which have been worked into the text, and although comparatively unimportant, they help to fill out the lines of the sketch, besides revealing somewhat of the person and employments of this interesting first Mora- vian chronicler in Pennsylvania. Thus on May 18 he mentions the receipt of a copy of Benzelius's Greek Testament from his brother and later records his pleasure in reading from the Acts and Epistles in the solitude of the woods on Sunday. Early in June he rigs up a wagon for conveyance between the home of Antes and the Forks, and works at carts for Frederick Antes and Valentine Geiger. In the latter part of July, while on one of his journeys, he attends a Tunker meeting at Henry Jacobi's in the Long Swamp. He notes that on August 2 they broke flax, and from him it is learned that turnips were the first crop raised from the new soil of the Allen Tract. They sowed turnip seed on August 4. On 72 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Early in December a flutter of glad expectation was occasioned at the Forks by the announcement that Count Zinzendorf had arrived in America. He reached New York, November 30, on the ship Lon- don, Captain William Bryant, from England, accompanied by his daughter Benigna, a maiden of sixteen years ; Rosina Nitschmann, wife of Bishop David Nitschmann ; John Jacob Mueller, his secretary and artist; three new missionaries, Abraham and Judith Meinung, from the German membership of the Church, and David Bruce, a Scotchman, who had joined the Brethren in England; and the printer John Henry Miller, who was merely a fellow-passenger.^" There was a stir in and about New York among people of widely different sen- Saturday, August 19, they finished a foot-bridge across the Monocacy and then had Gemein- tag. Sunday, August 20, was "Dies Amoenar The following week he made a plow for Nathanael Irish and one for the Brethren. August 28 a remarkable catch of rock-fish is recorded. September 3 he notes the autumnal flight southward of migratory pigeons with the line "Rediiiis coltimbarum ad partes australes.'''' On September 10 the splitting of rails began. On Sunday, October 29, stands in English the singular entry, " I was in critical circumstances with the Brethren." Did this, together with his brother's persuasions, of which there are indications, have something to do with his leaving for a season ? Novem- ber 7 he departed for Germantown where his brother, who was living in the house of the clock-maker Theobald Endt, a separatist, removed to his own dwelling a few days later. There shortly after this he received a fraternal letter from Buettner and " a sharp letter " from Eschenbach, and at the beginning of December was taken sick. 10 This interesting group increased to 42 the number of persons in the North American colonies who had been connected with the Brethren in Europe ; 40 of them being in Penn- sylvania at the close of the year. Zinzendorf's daughter, Henrietta Benigna Justina, was born at Berthelsdorf, Saxony, December 23, 1725, became in 1746 the wife of Baron John de Watteville, theological alumnus of Jena, Moravian minister and, 1747, bishop — his original name was John Michael Languth, the same as his father, a Lutheran clergyman, and he was adopted by the Count's intimate friend. Baron Frederick de Watteville, and by letters patent was endowed with his name, rank and title in 1745 — and with her husband came to Pennsylvania again in 1748 and 1784. There will be further mention of her in these pages. Rosina Nitschmann was a daughter of Thomas Schindler and was born at Zauchtenthal, Moravia. Being among the early emigrants to Herrnhut, she was one of the seventeen young women of that settlement when it was first organized as a colony. She was married to David Nitschmann, November 12, 1726. She had two daughters who died in childhood and a son. Christian David, born July 18, 1731. Like her husband, she was a most devoted worker in a variety of ways both in Europe and America. The particular duties that fell to their lot in those heroic days compelled them to be absent one from another very much, and she made many long and perilous journeys unaccompanied by her husband. One such was a journey to Greenland in 1745 to escort two young women who went as missionaries. Count Zinzendorf called her a Phoebe in the Church. She died of consumption August 10, I753> ^nd was buried, August 12, in the old Herrnhaag graveyard where all traces of her I74I 1742. 73 timents towards the Count when his arrival became known, for he had been extensively advertised in advance through both favorable and hostile public discussion of his expected visit. Some enthusiasts an- ticipated the advent of a new apostle to work spiritual wonders. Some, more sober-minded, who desired not only increased evangeHstic efforts, but improved relations between adherents of different creeds, hoped at least for better things in both respects than had been. Many others were merely curious to see and hear this remarkable man, so much lauded and so much mahgned; for it was a rare spectacle to see a nobleman of high rank, large fortune and honorable position at court, retire from the functions and connections of his station to engage in religious work and even take ecclesiastical orders. Yet more, influenced by those busy pulpiteers and pamphleteers who had been pubHshing the aspersions cast upon him by the manifesto of certain excited Amsterdam clerics, referred to in the preceding chap- ter, and other pasquinades yet more defamatory, and had been circu- grave, as of so many others, were eventually obliterated. She died at Marienbom. No biography was ever published. John Jacob Mueller, a portrait painter of Nuremberg, joined the Church in 1 740. Besides serving as Zinzendorf's private secretary, he wrote the journals of important synods held in Pennsylvania in 1742 and took down from delivery a number of the Count's public dis- courses while in America, which were published and are in some respects among the more valuable of his printed sermons, as specimens of his preaching at its best in matter and form, adapted to a general audience and to the conditions of the time. Mueller returned with him to Europe in 1743, continued with his corps of personal associates many years, was ordained in 1760 and died at Niskey, Prussia, in 1781. The young missionaries, Meinung and Bruce came to America unordained and itinerated some time as lay-evangelists among the settlements, helping meanwhile in manual labor at Bethlehem. Meinung and wife went as missionaries to the Danish West Indies in 1746. He died on the Island of St. Thomas in 1749. His wife Judith, m.n. Holleschke, from Moravia, widow of Melchior Kuntz, when married to Meinung, returned to Pennsylvania in 1751, to Europe in 1753, and died at Hermhut in 1790. Their son, Charles Lewis, went to North Carolina, 1 77 1, and died in 1817 at Salem, N. C. Bruce, from Edinburg, was the first native English-speaking missionary of the Moravian Church in America. In 1742 he married John Stephen Benezet's daughter Judith of Phila- delphia, subsequently the second wife of Doctor John Frederick Otto of Bethlehem. Bruce itinerated in different neighborhoods, was Elder of the temporary English organization at Nazareth in 1742, assisted in Philadelphia at intervals and was the first regularly appointed evangelist of the Church who labored in and about New York in 1742. He became mis- sionary to the Indians at Wechquadnach on the New York and Connecticut borders in February, 1749, and died there, July 9, 1749, greatly mourned by the converts who were warmly attached to him. A monument, jointly to his memory and that of Joseph Powell, sometime missionary in Jamaica, W. I., who died in 1774 while laboring as evangelist 74 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. lating the story that the Moravians were Crypto-Papists and emis- saries of the French, were firmly persuaded that he was an adven- turer dangerous both to the Protestant faith and to the State, and ought to be officially proceeded against. This absurd agitation would appear almost amusing at a distance, were it not for the serious re- sults it finally eiTected in the actual persecution of Moravian mission- aries and the ruin of their flourishing work among the Indians in the Province of New York which will be noticed more particularly farther on. Zinzendorf remained in New York a few days, enjoying the hospi- tality of Thomas Noble, merchant ; became acquainted with the friends of Spangenberg and the other leaders who had been there before, and with many more people ; reorganized the little society formed by Boehler at the beginning of the year, and then, on December 6, started for Pennsylvania. among white settlers of Duchess Co., N. Y., was erected in 1859 over the remains of Bruce at Wechquadnach Lake ("Indian Pond") in the town of Sharon, in Litchfield Co., Conn. fohn Henry Miller was the later widely-known printer and newspaper publisher of Phila- delphia who had been attracted by the work of the Brethren in Europe and became a mem- ber of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem in 1742. Restless and fond of change, his life was one of many wanderings prior to 1760, when he established his office in Philadelphia. He worked at his handicraft, which he had learned in the Brandmiiller office in Basle, in many European cities and between 1742 and 1760, during his several sojourns in America, in the offices of Franklin, Bradford, Saur, and other printers in Pennsylvania, besides putting into operation the first printing-press for the Church of his adoption in 1744 at Marien- born in the Wetterau in Germany. His first newspaper venture in America was in partner- ship with Samuel Holland at Lancaster, Pa., where they issued the first number of the bi- lingual (German-English) Lancastersche Zeitung ow January 13, 1752, as Miller records in his private note-book; but at the beginning of the following June he left Lancaster and severed his connection with that office. The first issue of his well-known Staatsbote appeared in Philadelphia, January 18, 1762. He published it, with minor variations of heading, until 1779, when he retired from business. It was continued by his successors. It was the first newspaper printed in Philadelphia after July 4, 1776, announcing the events of that day. Being in sympathy with the Revolution, he had to flee the city when the British got posses- sion in 1777, and besides his heavy losses, suff"ered the chagrin of having his press come — under protection of the British Commandant — temporarily into the hands of his business competitors and political antagonists, the younger Saurs, who were loyalists. The Staatsbote was, for a number of years, one of the several newspapers, German and English, regularly taken by the officials at Bethlehem, and from 1760 to 1779 most of the Bethlehem printing was done by Miller. In 1780 he retired to Bethlehem where his wife had been living apart from him, in accordance with a singular agreement between them, and had died in 1779. He died in 1782 at the age of eighty years. A probably well-nigh com- plete list of his imprints appears in The First Century of German Printing in America, 1728-1830, the work of the late Prof. Oswald Seidensticker, published in 1893 by the Pionier Verein of Philadelphia. I74I 1742. 75 He did not proceed directly to the Forks of the Delaware, but turned his course first towards Philadelphia, where, after brief stops at several places on the way, he arrived on December lo. He was met there by Bishop Nitschmann, welcomed as a guest to the home of Mr. Benezet and then installed in the apartments of a neighbor- ing house on Second Street, near Race, which had been rented for his use when in Philadelphia by Christian Froehlich. In accordance with the etiquette which he held to be incumbent upon him, he form- ally announced his arrival to the Governor of Pennsylvania, who courteously replied to his note ; and in order to forestall sinister re- ports which he knew would be carried to the Governor, he invited him to send representatives to attend his meetings and hear his dis- courses ; a precaution to which the executive of the Province agreed, while at the same time assuring him of the broad and generous tol- eration, in the matter of creed and church connection, extended by the laws of Pennsylvania. The sensation awakened by his coming, which had been eagerly awaited by so many persons of various stations, religions and dispositions, in Philadelphia and the sur- rounding region, was greater than at New York. While high expectations of religious benefit were cherished in some quar- ters, there was excited preparation for controversy in others. 'More than one veteran in theological warfare and sectarian strife got his arsenal in readiness, and there was even a temporary truce between some habitually contending parties in order to join forces, and com- bine their diversity of weapons against a new object of attack, with the added zest of novelty. A few days were passed in Philadelphia, forming acquaintances, consulting with men of dififerent stations and connections, and interviewing Eschenbach and the young women, Anna Nitschmann and Johanna Molther. in reference to their tours through the country districts. On Monday evening, December i8, the Count went out to Ger- mantown, where he lodged with John Bechtel, the faithful Hcensed lay-preacher and pastor of some of the spiritually awakened German Reformed people of that place. When Zinzendorf first appeared in Philadelphia Bechtel had been almost deterred by the outcry of some from entering into cordial relations with the Count ; but, as a leading member of the Skippack Association, he shared the hope of Henry Antes that a solution of the religious problem of Pennsylvania might be advanced by an alHance of devout men of all persuasions in practical efforts for the common good, on the ground of some ']6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. simple evangelical articles of agreement which would leave contro- verted points untouched and each party undisturbed in its views on such points. At Germantown Zinzendorf also met others of that little Association, besides several of the better sort of German Sepa- ratists whose manifest earnestness and strength of personality ren- dered them, with all their eccentricities and prejudices, men whom it would be desirable, if possible, to enlist in some kind of activity for the general welfare more profitable than mere criticism and protest over against every existing thing. The company that was to join him on his first journey into the country assembled at Germantown. On Tuesday morning they set out for Skippack. They spent the night at the house of Christopher Wiegner and on Wednesday proceeded to Falkner's Swamp and vis- ited Henry Antes. There the most important interview had by Zin- zendorf prior to the close of the year took place. No man to be found was more competent than Antes to give information about the general condition of the Germans of Pennsylvania, and about the numerous sects and parties that entered into the motley religious composition of the Province ; and no man was less likely to misrepre- sent any of them, for he was singularly free from prejudice and bigotry. He unfolded the plans he had been considering since his first discussion of the situation with Spangenberg in 1736, and his propo- sition that he would issue a circular letter, inviting the various per- suasions to send representatives to a general "conference of reh- gions," as a first step, was favorably regarded by Zinzendorf, who agreed to be present. Thursday morning, December 21, they started on the final stage of their journey to the Forks of the Delaware, taking the route to the mill of Nathanael Irish, which had become a familiar road to some of the party. It was a long, hard ride for those who were not used to such exertions, and the evening dusk of that shortest winter day had gathered when the cavalcade descended the last northern slope between the miller's stone-quarry and the Lehigh, and a cheering gleam from the cabin of the Ysselstein family near the river greeted them in the distance. They dismounted there and made a brief call at the home of these friendly Hollanders. Then torches were pro- vided, several members of the family led the way to the Indian ford, where the canoes were brought into requisition for some, while the horses were taken over by others, and, guided by the flickering lights thus improvised, they crossed the stream in the darkness. As they I74I 1742. 77 followed the winding way up the ascent on the north side, another light glimmering through the trees soon welcomed the pilgrims to the little log house on the Allen tract — to them the most interesting and important spot in America — and they were at their journey's end. In the unfinished Community House two rooms in the second story at the western end had been hurriedly prepared, as well as could be, for the use of the Count, and perhaps for his daughter, and there he passed the first night at the Forks. There is no record of what took place on the following two days. It may be assumed that manual labor was for the most part suspended and that the time was devoted to social converse, spiritual edification and official confer- ence, for this first visit which Zinzendorf made to the new settlement was a very short one ; and undoubtedly Saturday was spent in the customary manner with interest heightened by his liturgical leader- ship, discourses and narratives.^^ The first extant record after the mention of his arrival brings to view an interesting Christmas Eve scene.^' They were assembled in the Httle log house at the close of Sunday, December 24 N. S.,^^ to observe the Vigils of Christmas on the same day on which their brethren in the far-ofif Fatherland were similarly engaged. Besides " See notes 3 and 4 to this chapter on Saturday lovefeast and Gemeintag. Zinzendorf was both musically and poetically gifted, was a good singer, a very animated and impressive speaker, and possessed a rare liturgical faculty which rendered such services as these peculiarly attractive. He had brought both the lovefeast and the Gemeintag into vogue and took delight in them to the end of his days. 12 The number present and the names of all cannot be ascertained. There were more than is commonly supposed. Bishop Spangenberg, a reliable authority, in his Life of Zinzendorf, pp. 1373-74, intimates that all who came with the Count from Europe were there, and adds that sundry persons " who sought the fellowship of the Brethren and expected a blessing for their hearts had come from the country." These were probably from Skip- pack and Falkner's Swamp — perhaps Wiegner and Antes among them — and from the Long Swamp, men like Joseph Mueller and Abraham Dubois. All of the pioneers named in note 2 of this chapter were undoubtedly present excepting Neisser, recovering from sickness at Germantown, and Froehlich yet in Philadelphia. Buettner, Pyrlaeus, Zander (note 8), Eschenbach and Haberecht were probably there. Rauch evidently was not. "3 Not according to the antiquated calendar then yet retained in England, eleven days be- hind the time. Says one, " Wir feierten von Anfang die Christnacht s Vigilien nacli Stilo Nova in Gemeinschaft mit unsern Briidern in Ewopa." This was subsequently adduced by certain vigilant patriots of a neighboring settlement as one of the evidences that the Mora- vians were secretly Papists in league with the French against the government, for was not the correction of the calendar promulgated by a Pope in 1582, and was not the government yet using the old style time ? It was a clear case. yZ A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Other services of the day, they celebrated the Holy Communion, as befitted a Sunday so significant for all who participated. Then, with the Christmas theme uppermost, their devotions were protracted until after nine o'clock. It was a novel and unique occasion which awak- ened peculiar emotions. Their humble sanctuary, with beasts of the stall sharing its roof, brought the circumstances of the Saviour's birth vividly before their imagination. With the forest about them, stretching away to where heathen multitudes lived in ignorance of Immanuel, the relation between the subject of that holy night and their purpose towards those dwellers in the forest possessed their minds. It stirred the quick fancy of the Count, always keenly respon- sive to such impressions. Acting upon an impulse, he rose and led the way into the part of the building in which the cattle were kept, while he began to sing the quaintly pretty words of a German Epiphany hymn" which combined Christmas thoughts and missionary 14 A hymn by Adam Drese (d. 1718, aged 88 years), musical director at Weimar and Arnstadt, who also composed the tunes to his hymns. This hymn of nine verses stands as No. 937 in the original Herrnhut hymnal of 1735 under the heading ^^ Heidenfest" i e. Epiphany. In the edition of 1741, in which the tunes are also numbered, the hymn is 940 and the tune 52. In the Offices of Worship and Ifymns, published in 1891 at Bethlehem, hymn 511 is a free translation by S. C. Chitty, of six stanzas corresponding, as they there follow, to I, 2, 3, 8, 9, 7 of the original. Martin Macit mentions the lines "A-icht Jerusalem, sondern Bethlehem" of verse 2, and '■•Aiis dir konunel ivas mir frommetr of verse 3, as the particular words treasured in memory in connection with the naming of the settlement. This old hvmn associated in so interesting a way with the early history of Bethlehem, but so little known beyond these oft-quoted four lines, deserves insertion in part in this volume. The first five stanzas, its most characteristic portion, here follow, with an English rendering in the same measure which the writer has tried lo make as literal as possible, while preserving their original structure. Tesu rufe mich Jesus call Thou me Von der Welt, dass ich From the world to flee, Zu dir eile. To Thee hasting ; Nicht verweile ; Without resting ; Jesu rufe mich. Jesus call Thou me. Nicht Jerusalem, Not Jerusalem, Sondern Bethlehem Rather Bethlehem Hat bescheret Gave us that which Was uns naehret; Maketh life rich ; Nicht Jerusalem. Not Jerusalem. Werthes Bethlehem, Honored Bethlehem, Du bist angenehm ; Pleasant I esteem ; .^us dir kommet From thee springeth Was mir frommet, What gain bringeth ; Werthes Bethlehem. Honored Bethlehem. Du bist, wie man spricht. Thou no more of right Nun die kleinste nicht ; Art called least in might ; Allen Leuten, Unto all men, Auch den Heiden Yea the heathen, Bringst du Heil und Licht. Brings't thou health and light. Zeige mir den Stern Point me out the star Der mich, aus der Fern, Which my course, afar, Von den Heiden Guides from pagan Lehr abscheiden ; Ways forsaken ; Zeige mir den Stern. Point me out the star. I74I 1/42. 79 thoughts, as suggested by the homage of heathen sages before the infant Jesus, and made conspicuous in the character given the ob- servance of Epiphany among the Brethren in those days of first mis- sionary zeal. Its language expressed well the feeling of that hour, and the place in which it was sung made the vision of the manger seem very real. The little town of Bethlehem was hailed, its boon to mankind was lauded, the star that guided the magi to the spot and the light of the gentiles there beaming forth were sought, humble supplication at the Redeemer's feet was uttered in successive stanzas, and then the song ended. One who was present wrote long after- ward : "The impression I there received is yet fresh in my memory, and will remain until my end."^^ With this episode a thought came to one and another which gave rise to a perpetual memorial of the occasion, signalizing it as pecu- liarly historic and enhancing its romantic interest. No name had yet been given to the settlement. That vigil service and that hymn suggested one. By general consent the name of the ancient town of David was adopted and the place was called Bethlehem.^*' 15 Autobiography of Martin Mack, which describes this incident more fully than other original references to it. Spangenberg also alludes, in his Life of Zinzendorf, to the extra- ordinary feeling awakened, as described by sundry participants with whom he had con- versed about it. Some features of this occasion and of occurrences preceding it are derived from other autobiographies and subsequent allusions in diaries and journals. »6 The name Bethlehem was officially used already in the proceedings of the "Conferences of Religions" in January, 1742. It is found in several of Neisser's notes of occurrences in 1 741, but the existing copy of these notes was written later, when he used the name ex post facto, so that this does not, as might seem, lend support to another alleged origin of the name, antedating Christmas, 1741, as some have supposed, which was set forth later, as, e.g- in the first records of the Single Brethren's House, 174S. It associates the term " house on the Lehigh," applied occasionally at first to the Community House, with the Hebrew, " house of bread," — Beth-Lechem, i.e. Bethlehem, and out of Beth, i.e. house, and Lecke?n, so similar to Lecha, i.e. Lehigh — see Chapter III, note 9 — forms a Hebrew-Indian com- pound, Bethlehem. This was then given an additional significance in that the house on the Lehigh, headquarters of the settlement, was a material and spiritual house of bread for so many. Certain lists of the inhabitants compiled in the years 1746-49, and yet preserved in the archives of the Moravian Church, have the heading " The House Bethlehem " and this has been taken by some as pointing to such a prior designation of the Community House. But in those catalogues the word house is to be taken in the sense of household, as applying to the people and not to a building. The writer, after a thorough examination, finds no ground for regarding this other explanation of the origin of the name as anything more than a fanciful after-thought, playing with words in a manner characteristic of the time when it was the fashion for many to imitate Zinzendorf's excessive use of polyglot and fondness for all kinds of paronomasia in documents, addresses and rythmical effusions ; he moreover having been strongly persuaded of the Hebrew ancestry of the Indian tribes. The clear testimony of Mack, Neisser, Spangenberg and Boehler that the name originated simply as described in the text, should be conclusive. CHAPTER V. Connecting Events and the Sea Congregation. 1742. For the space of six months after that memorable Christmas of 1741, the records tell nothing about what took place in the Forks of the Delaware, but much about the movements and projects of Zin- zendorf and his associates elsewhere in Pennsylvania. These are so intimately related to the history of Bethlehem and lie at the root of so much that appears upon the scene later, that some of their details and results must be noted. On Christmas Day the Count started with his daughter and some other persons on a rapid tour through the Oley and Conestoga neigh- borhoods. He preached his first sermon in Pennsylvania that even- ing at the house of Jean Bertolet, a French Huguenot of Oley, who had been a member of the Skippack union. He intended to visit the Ephrata community, but changed his mind and merely paused at the place, without seeing Conrad Beissel, the Superintendent; but he seems to have spoken with members of the Zionitic Brotherhood connected with the settlement. Ephrata was at that time a more influential establishment than is commonly supposed, and, with all its oddities, this influence was not morally harmful, but good. The habitat of the eccentric "New Mooners" also lay in his path, and his attention was naturally drawn to this new rehgious freak, thought to have originated in earlier Jewish influences in the neighborhood. He also encountered representatives of the less picturesque but far more noxious fanatics of Oley, called the "New Born," whose dan- gerous tenets had been combated already by Spangenberg six years before. He furthermore came into contact with leaders of the regu- lar Tunkers, from whom the Ephrata fraternity had sprung, with Mennonite Brethren of both branches, and with many Lutheran and Reformed families. The almost complete destitution of Christian ministrations, worthy of the name, which he found among these latter, awakened his profound solicitude. 80 1742. 8 1 He got back to Gerniantown, December 30, and on the last day of the year, preached the first of a series of sermons in the German Reformed Church of that place, in which John Bechtel had been ministering. This was his first appearance in a public house of wor- ship in America. He took up his residence again in his rented house in Philadelphia, having decided to live there the first three months and then to locate the same length of time in Germantown. He now had regular daily services at his house. Those on Sunday and Wed- nesday evenings were open to any who wished to attend, and other men from his corps of assistants took turns with him in conducting them. Far-reaching, ideal plans for the spiritual improvement of Penn- sylvania, such as only a man of Zinzendorf's spirit would have conceived and attempted, were engaging his thoughts at this time. An outline of these plans, which have been so greatly misunderstood and so much misrepresented, may be here given somewhat fully, because they reveal the genesis of the whole system of religious activity which was subsequently developed with Bethlehem as its operating center. His primary purpose, as regards the essential matter of Christian teaching, amid the conflict of doctrines and confusion of tongues, while multitudes were abandoned by the ecclesi- astical authorities in Europe to spiritual starvation and moral decadence, may be stated in his own characteristic words. He says : 'T sought to enthrone the Lamb of God as real Creator, Preserver, Redeemer and Sanctifier of the whole world; and to introduce the catholicity of the doctrine of His passion as a universal theology for the Germans of Pennsylvania, in theory and practice." This sets forth the rationale of his scheme. Such a completely Christ-centered conception of religion, cherished with his intense ardor and profound conviction of its sufficiency for all classes and conditions of men ; urged upon the hearts of the people to meet their inmost needs and radically change their lives, he would substitute for the attenuated subtilties of scholastic theology, for the perfunctory routine of mere ecclesiasticism, for legalistic self-righteousness and superficial ethics, for sectarian controversy about rites and customs, for mystical reveries, theosophic speculations and all the rehgious vagaries that abounded. In his mind Christ-centered meant pre- eminently cross-centered in a sense then rarely recognized. Around the cross he would anew gather men of all creeds and persuasions, to find something essential and soul-satisfying in common, which would 7 82 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM. PENNSYLVANIA. divert them from the side-issues about which they wrangled and the comparatively trivial things for which they contended. He believed, not only that the way to the cross to find salvation was open in the Divine purpose to all men and might be found by all if they wished, but also that a way from the cross, with the simple and effectual message, could be found to all, whatever their belief or state might be. He would seek avenues of approach to every persuasion and points of touch with every form even of perverted and distorted Christianity. He would try to present the essential message to the different persuasions through the medium of their respective traditions, environment, habits of thought and modes of speech, and not in the rigid formulas of one or another school. In this way he hoped to draw all away from their extremes and lead them to grasp and repeat the essential living word in their several rehgious languages. Conceiving thus of unity in diversity, he cherished visions of the previous Babel producing a many-tongued pentecostal harmony around the cross. He fondly hoped to put this high-soaring idea to practical experi- ment in Pennsylvania with less difficulty than in Germany, because of the absence of a state church and even of any general denominational organization ; because of the crude and unsettled state of things, the woeful scarcity of gospel ministry and the supposed readiness of churchless thousands to welcome any provisions for their needs. He had no thought of trying to outwardly weld denominations. While his plan required a federal system of supervision and direction, it had in view emphatically the conservation of the general confessional distinctions. He classified the religious bodies represented in Penn- sylvania as the "Religions" and the "Sects." He sometimes appUed the first of these terms to all the bodies that had a historic origin in general ecclesiastical epochs and movements and had a distinct system with defined principles. In this sense not only the Anglican communion and the Presbyterian and Baptist bodies, but also the Quakers among English-speaking people ; and not only the Lutheran and Reformed divisions, but also the Mennonites and even the old Tunkers among the Germans, Swedes and Hollanders, were occa- sionally spoken of as religions. Generally, however, he used the word in a narrower and more sharply defined sense, as appHed only to national church-establishments and to the historic Protestant confessions. Thus, commonly, when speaking of the Germans of Pennsylvania, the masses who simply adhered to the traditions of 1742. 83 Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism of the several schools and branches, were had in mind b}- him as representatives of the religions — the German Protestant churchmen of the two main classes. All who repudiated these confessions, separated themselves and associated on the basis of any specialty were the sects. As regards the religions, he wished to see them maintained and fostered on their original foundations, where more stress would be laid on their common evangelical tenets than on the extreme divergencies of their later theological developments ; so that they might stand in closer touch on essentials and in better co-operation for the common good, while those distinctions which deserved to be mutually tolerated and respected were left unimpaired. As to the sects, he proposed to approach them in such special ways as would best appeal to their idiosyncrasies and, by winning them to a truer conception of essentials, draw them away from their extreme separatism, overestimation of non-essential specialties and occasional fundamental errors, to again recognize something in common with the general rehgions from which they had withdrawn and were alienated. He believed that the power of the newly "enthroned Lamb of God" would not only soften asperities and reduce friction, but gradually dissolve those sectarian formations that were radically pernicious more effectually than making war upon them would. His plan was that, wherever his good offices were accepted, he would supply the people of these various Protestant connections with preaching and pastoral care by men of their respective traditional affinities who had joined the corl%)osite organization which had grown out of the Moravian beginning at Herrnhut, with the different elements duly represented in conference and management under the general system of operation to be estabhshed. This system would thus embrace departments; a Lutheran, a Reformed, a general Baptist department ; one for free evangelization where none of these traditional lines needed to be followed; another for the missionary work among the Indians. To the minds of those who were unable or unwilling to find his peculiar stand-point ; who could not conceive of religious effort on any basis but that of doctrinal contrarieties or in any quality but that of denominational rivalry and propagandism, this elaborate, somewhat intricate and certainly novel scheme was incomprehensible. The few individuals who then assumed to represent the regular Protestant clergy among the multitudes of Pennsylvania, were by nature and training incapable of understanding the lofty idea, the disinterested 84 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. purpose and the benevolent motive back of it. Some had reason enough too for sensitive and jealous uneasiness about their dubious position among the people, even in such a field, large enough to fully engage twenty times their number; and, with hardly an exception, these were persons who could not be expected to know a better way of trying to maintain their standing than to coarsely attack the reputation and recklessly impugn the motives of every other man undertaking religious work in the Province, whom they regarded as a competitor. Preferring to think evil of the Count, they naturally adopted and circulated the easy conclusion which any ill-disposed mind would find suggested, that his plan was only a deceitful stratagem to make proselytes for his own particular association which they called Herrnhuters and Zinzendorfians, while those who spoke English included all of its members under the name Moravians. Some modern denominational writers, burdened with a supposed duty to make out an anti-Zinzendorf case, permit themselves to reproduce this shallow, unworthy imputation, and follow the mere libeler's short course to an explanation of his complicated experiment ; intimating that his real purpose was to proselyte and "make Moravians" of the people. Some treat the situation in this particular, not as it was, but as it would have been if modern conditions had existed — the country full of well-organized churches, ministers enough to adequately serve all places and complete systems of administration existing among all denominations. Broadly evangelical efforts to meet crying need among the great mixed multitude of a new couiflfry, in a condition of deplorable ecclesiastical neglect, with fewer than a dozen very crudely organized and for the most part yet more crudely served congregations among more than a hundred thousand German Protestants scattered over an area of more than two thousand square miles, were a legitimate undertaking on the part of any evangelists more concerned with trying to benefit the people than with contending for one scholastic system against another. Even if Zinzendorf had proposed to operate in such a field on a distinctly Moravian Church basis, modern charges of proselyting, under that kind of circumstances, would be captious and frivolous. But everyone who is properly acquainted with the history of the Moravian Church in Pennsylvania knows that his strong opposition to organizing congregations in this character and under this name, even where the services of the Brethren were most acceptable, accounts for the fact that so little. 1/42. 85 ill a denominational form, resulted from theirextensive and influential early activity. It might indeed be said that the Moravian Church eventually became established as a distinct denomination in Pennsylvania in spite of, rather than in consequence of Zinzendorf's policy and method. The most indistinct feature of the Count's Pennsylvania plan — next to his individual status, that perpetual crux criticorum — was just the part to be borne in it by the Moravian Church. The name Moravians, loosely applied, then and now, to the whole composite association of that time which he had formed out of the Herrnhut beginning, is inaccurate and misleading. Clearness can only be found by taking the terms Moravians and Moravian Church at that time as he used them and in his point of view. Such clearness is necessary in order, not only to rightly discern this feature of his plan, but to understand many of the movements which emanated from Bethlehem during the first years. The association, composed of various ecclesiastical elements, which had arisen at Herrnhut and was extending elsewhere, was the Bruder- gemeim — Community of Brethren, or Association of Brethren. Their common appellation was simply the Brethren. Its pre-eminent purpose was, to be a missionary or evangelistic body. Bethlehem was to be its American center. There, as at Herrnhut, there would be persons of different general confessional, and ecclesiastical con- nections. Their services were to be utilized, as far as possible, among their ecclesiastical kindred respectively, for their general spiritual improvement and their organization into well-ordered congregations with reliable ministers. The people thus served were not to be gathered to the membership even of the composite Association of Brethren, much less of the Moravian Church as a distinct ecclesi- astical body, but in the lines of their several "religions." In accordance with this idea, the desire of large numbers of people later to be received at Bethlehem, or even to enter into full connection with the Association — Gemchie — was not encouraged, whatever to the contrary has been declared by the assailants of the Brethren. The number of persons who were thus received, either to be utilized in the general working force or for special reasons existing in individual cases, was really very small compared to the number that sought admission. The Moravians were specifically the refugees from Moravia whom the Count had received at Herrnhut, who composed the main body 86 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of the first missionaries and, with a few exceptions, the pioneer band in Pennsylvania. Some refugees not strictly from Moravia, but from adjacent parts of Bohemia, were classed with them. The Moravian Church, as Zinzendorf then used the term, meant, not the whole composite Association or Community of the Brethren then existing, but specifically the historic Unitas Fratrum of Bohemia, Moravia and Poland, in its suppressed Moravian survival, with its episcopate passed on, "in spcni contra spent," from Comenius, its last Moravian bishop, through a succession of conservers, to Jablonsky, his grandson. It was represented in that Association of Brethren in the persons of those refugees of its Moravian "hidden seed," who desired its resuscitation ; in certain rudiments of organization and principles of discipline and order introduced by him in the spirit of its ancient Ratio Disciplinac which they wished to see restored ; in some features of ritual and general cult concordant with the inner genius of the old Church ; in the traditions those Moravians yet cherished of its simple, essential evangelicalism, which easily assimilated with both of the general Protestant "religions" on their more approachable sides ; and in its preserved episcopate which, in the matter* of ecclesiastical continuity, was the most tangible link, and which had been transferred by its last two depositaries to the Brethren at Herrnhut.^ Zinzendorf looked upon what thus survived of the existence of the Brethren's Church of Moravia as a venerable ecclesiastical remnant, worthy and capable of being rehabilitated and also of being utilized in the promotion of his wider plans. Therefore, it was, for the time being, built in, as a piece in his structure ; or rather incorporated as an element of the Association in such a quality that there was a possibility of its emerging eventually in a more distinct and dominant character, where this would seem easier and more desirable than in Saxony. But the impress of Zinzendorf's ideas and an overmastering German influence averse to such development, not only in Germany and England but also in America, where it could have been effected most easily and would have been, not only in accordance with the desires of the pioneer Moravians, but the most readily understood and practical course, kept the Church imbedded in the Association. It asserted itself, however, sufficiently to establish an ecclesiastical individuality, preserve a defined frame-work and perpetuate the historic orders inherited. After many years, this individuality became I See on the above points, Chapter IL note i, also Zinzendorfs words on reading the Ratio Disciplinac and history with dedication by Comenius, and passage on Jablonsky. 1742. . 8/ sufificiently fixed that in modern times the Association of the Brethren — or Unity of the Brethren — and the Moravian Church may be spoken of as identical, and the term Moravians appHed to its members as a general denomination name equivalent to the term the Brethren. In Zinzendorf's Pennsylvania plan, the function of the Moravian Church, in the strict sense of that time, was then a three-fold one. First, it would constitute the proper ecclesiastical footing for his department of free evangelization, which was not to be directed into either Lutheran or Reformed lines, when prosecuted among English- speaking churchless people, or among miscellaneous German sectarians, so that on this basis the evangelists would not seem to be merely gathering the people out of one sect into another ; the proper footing also for the missionary work among the Indians who were heathen, standing in no kind of relation to any existing Christian body, so that not even the most captious railer could call Moravian work among them proselyting, even if men who had been members of one of the "religions," and joined the Brethren, engaged in it with them. In the second place, it was to stand among the religions and sects as a living witness for an evangelical harmony above those points of difference at which creeds diverged and denominations drew apart. Merged in an association which enveloped its identity, its ardently loyal sons would count themselves as but one of the tribes of that general family. As such, they would seek touch with the two great Protestant religions, even doctrinally, at the point of closest approach ; a Christ-centered point which Zinzendorf conceived to lie back of all divergent scholastic systems in the primitive genius of Protestantism, as promulgated, 1530-1533; the Augsburg Confession, 1530, the articles, doctrinal and pastoral, of the Reformed Synod of Berne, 1532, the German reissue of the confession of the Brethren of Bohemia and Moravia, pubHshed under the direction of Luther and with his preface in 1533. In the third place the Moravian Church was to be the special handmaiden of the two great religions — Lutheran and Reformed — in gathering, organizing and nurturing their scattered and demoralized hosts in Pennsylvania ; among other things, in serving them for the time-being through its episcopate, by conferring a proper ordination upon the men found and called, under the Count's general plan, as suitable and worthy to labor among them in the ministry, in default of ministers sent by their authorities in Europe. Handlangcr dienst he also called this service, like that of men carrying stone and 88 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. mortar to the builders. In one of his utterances on this subject, anticipating a well-ordered situation finally resulting, he said: "If these two religions will go hand in hand and use the treasures of their respective churches for the common good, they can constitute a complete apostolic church and bring all the small sects back into accord with them ; and then the Moravian Church would see her two beloved brothers in one house, and would be their faithful sister." He contemplated an ideal reproduction in Pennsylvania of what had in theory been attained in the Sendomir Consensus of 1570. Further obscurities in the peculiar individual status of Zinzendorf, when he came to Pennsylvania, have occasioned confusion and error in sundry publications, commonly taken as authoritative sources, and even disposed some writers, who have treated the subject without sufficient information, or with a hostile bias, to indulge in disrespectful and injurious comments. Therefore some statements, with a view to rendering this matter clearer, may be added to the foregoing elucidations. He was not only "the banished Count," and the promoter of the Association of the Brethren with its growing evangelistic work, but was a bona Me evangelical minister of the Augsburg Confession and the Lutheran order, prior to and apart from the relations he bore to the Moravian Church, strictly speaking. Naturally, historians of the Lutheran Church do not usually regard him as such at any period of his career, because his views and methods are not held to have been conformable to Lutheran standards ; because his work never bore a distinctly denominational character under consistorial direction ; and because — particularly from the denominational standpoint in America, where there is nowhere a general Lutheran state church admitting the existence of special bodies with distinct systems and names within its pale — his connection with the Moravian Brethren, and even with the general Association of the Brethren, is viewed as connection with another church and therefore necessarily a severance of all Lutheran connection. Some writers have made shorter work in disposing of his claim, by discrediting or ignoring the facts on which he based it, and calling it all a pretense. This, however, is the method of the mere combatant, not of the candid investigator and honorable historian. Some of the steps by which he made his way into the ministry would appear needlessly indirect ; would even seem shifty and eccentric, when the complications and peculiar impediments with which his rank and station and the active opposition of his family 1742. 89 embarrassed his course, are not duly considered — circumstances which are not easily understood and appreciated now. His deter- mination to attain this desire ; his undiminished attachment, under later circumstances, to that "religion" in which he was reared — the original genius and system of which he esteemed above every other, as appears repeatedly in his recorded utterances ; his unremitting efforts to make himself understood in it and to keep in adjustment to it with his unique institutions, which he was profoundly convinced were not inconsistent with its genuine spirit, were pathetic, in view of the attitude then so generally taken towards him by its eminent clergy of both the orthodox and pietist schools, and the indefensible assaults of many of the lesser and baser sort. The chief points of his course into the Lutheran ministry were the following: In 1732, measures to transfer his Berthelsdorf domain to the Countess, in anticipation of the approaching troubles, by which he extricated himself from the trammels of his position as lord of the manor ; and the relinquishment of his seat at the court of Dresden cleared his way somewhat. In 1733, a favorable ex cathedra opinion from Tuebingen, in response to his inquiry, settled in his mind the question whether he could, as a Lutheran and within general Lutheran lines, foster the Herrnhut association on the proposed basis, and indulge the wishes of the Moravians to the extent had in view. From the standpoint of this opinion, he considered his entire subsequent work a special one in which he engaged as primarily a Lutheran and remaining such. In April, 1734, after some particular theological study, in addition to that of his university years, he went to Stralsund to seek a theological examination. To avoid the embarrassments of con- ventional etiquette and prevent the name Zinzendorf from figuring in the position into which he there stepped as a candidate, that of a private tutor, he used as an incognito one of his minor titles. Von Freydeck — a common practice among the nobility under peculiar circumstances — but did not, of course, expect that his identity would really remain concealed, any more than any other conspicuous noble- man traveling incognito would expect this. The result was a testi- monial to his Lutheran orthodoxy as a theologian, issued by the Stralsund divines, dated April 26, 1734. He placed the small sword worn on occasions according to custom by men of his rank at court, in the hands of the Lutheran Super- intendent at Stralsund, in token of his renunciation of civil for 90 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ecclesiastical station and his first step into the ministry. Upon his return to Herrnhut he notified the Queen of Denmark of this, in view of the Danebrog order he had received from the Danish King, which was mentioned among his dignities in the Stralsund testimonial. This distinguished order he eventually returned. At the same time he informed the Lutheran Superintendent at Dresden, Dr. Valentine Ernst Loescher, of his intentions, citing the case of Prince George ot Anhalt, in the days of the Reformation, as a precedent for such a step on the part of one of his rank and connections. Then, feeling the increasing weight of disapproval on the part of relatives and associate noblemen, he planned a course which he thought would bear some similarity to that of the Anhalt prince, and would be tolerated by royalty and nobility, under the rigid ideas of that time, as consistent with his station. Deciding to pass into the ministry under the church of Wuertemberg, where the way seemed to open more readily than elsewhere, he proposed to restore, at his own cost, the ruined abbey of St. George which, with its ancient benefits, had passed under the control of the Lutheran Church ; to fit it up as a theological seminary to furnish the settlements and missions of the Brethren with a trained ministry ; and himself assume the direction under the old prerogatives of the seat. The Duke of Wuer- temberg, fearing diiHculties to himself by reviving that obsolete prelacy, declined to favor the proposition, and nothing came of it. A few weeks after the Duke's reply, November 8, 1734, the Count formally notified the Lutheran Directory at Stuttgart of his purpose to enter the ministry in that realm, and received, in response, their cordial approval ; Chancellor, Dr. Christopher Matthew Pfaiif, of Tuebingen University having, shortly before, delivered an elaborate favorable opinion on the question of the tokens of an inner call and of qualification, submitted in a document by Zinzendorf through Spangenberg, who had also conducted the negotiations in reference to St. George. December 19, 1734, the theological faculty of Tuebingen passed upon his final, formal declaration submitted in print. The Stralsund testimonial was confirmed and, notwithstanding some misgivings on the part of one or two, he was regularly received into holy orders after the manner in vogue, his official position in view being that of assistant to his Berthelsdorf minister. December 19 and 21, he preached at Tuebingen in the quality of an accredited theologian and minister of the Lutheran Church. 1742. 91 Two years later, and after his banishment from Saxony, he was strongly persuaded by Frederick William I, King of Prussia, who was interested in his work and favored the development of the Moravian Church on a more distinct basis, to not remain simply a Lutheran minister, but to receive consecration as a bishop of that Church. Zinzendorf, after carefully considering the matter and taking counsel with the aged Bishop Jablonsky at Berlin and with the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, concluded to follow this suggestion, and was so consecrated by Jablonsky and David Nitschmann with the written concurrence of Sitkovius, on May 20, 1737, with the understanding that he assumed this episcopate of an ancient suppressed church as a Lutheran divine, just as Jablonsky had borne it, holding position as a clergyman of the Reformed Church ; David Nitschmann, the missionary bishop, representing the actual Moravian Brethren. Thus his scheme of having the several general religions figure as tropes in his Association of Brethren would be represented in the episcopate which had been introduced to furnish ordination to all departments ; and the manifest demands of the situation that he — then at the head of the whole work — should be a bearer of this digity before all civil and ecclesiastical authorities, would be met. He intended how- ever that his active representation and exercise of it before the public should be an ad interim function under the exigencies of the time ; for, as he said, he did not consider himself the proper person to be a bishop. Therefore, when he formed his plans for Pennsylvania, where he wished to appear ecclesiastically as simply a Tuebin- gen theologian and minister of the Lutheran order as pre- viously, he, in July, 1741, before starting for America, retired from this episcopacy. He then called himself, so far as his relation specifically to the Moravian Church was concerned, Ancien Evcquc dcs Frcrcs — a retired senior, or bishop of the Brethren. After his return to Europe, he never used the title of a bishop in any communications or negotiations, but used that of Ordiuarius. He did not, however, regard this as debarring or disqualifying him in the matter of pariticipating in ordinations. Therefore, first and last, he considered himself a Lutheran divine, so far as general ecclesiastical status in connection with one of the religions was concerned, and looked upon his other offices and duties in connection with the Brethren, to whom he devoted himself, as special. But the embarrassments of his troublesome rank pursued him to Pennsylvania, and he soon perceived that this was in his way yet Q2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. more than the Moravian episcopate would have been. When he arrived in America he took another of his lesser titles, that of von Thiirnstein, and so announced himself to the Governor of Penn- sylvania, who being both a well-informed and well-bred gentleman, respected his incognito and made use of it in addressing communi- cations to him. But he found that the ignorant misunderstood and the mahcious misrepresented his course ; and the rude liberties taken with him by ill-bred assailants, subjected his ancestral name to indignities under which he felt his kindred falling with him, on account of the course he had taken in a conviction of his calling, but against their protest. This so oppressed his mind that he resolved to take an extraordinary step which he had thought of before as a last resort. This was to formally renounce his rank and title^ with a view to escaping from its embarrassments and delivering his family from annoyance through the detraction he suffered in the craze of the time. 2 The Count's full array of titles, as given by Spangenberg in his Li/e of Zinzendorf, is the following: Nicholas Lewis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf; Lord of the Baronies of Freydeck, Schoeneck, Thiirnstein and the Vale of Wachovia ; Lord of the Manor of Upper, Middle and Lower Berthelsdorf; Hereditary Warden of the Chase to his Imperial Roman Majesty, in the Duchy of Austria, below the Ems; late Aulic and Justicial Counsellor to his Majesty, Augustus II, King of Poland, for the Electorate of Saxony. It is not surprising that such men as those several ministers of the religions, sectarian leaders and separatists in Pennsylvania — who agreed on nothing but to attack Zinzendorf and incite the populace against him — did not know that noblemen with several titles sometimes, for particular reasons, temporarily took a different one from that by which they were mainly known; that under the ramified and punctilious etiquette of those days, in titled circles, this was at times decidedly important to them ; that this was known as traveling or sojourning incognito, which meant, not an attempt to pass for somebody else, but merely that, for some reason, their prominent rank was not to be associated with the quality in which they were then figuring ; or that they wished to be exempt, for the time being, from official and cere- monious constraints inseparable from the station represented by their chief title. That kind of men could not be expected therefore to know that Count Zinzendorf really was also Von Thiirnstein and had a right to the name, as in Europe, on other occasions, he had used the names Von Freydeck and Von der Wachau when he did not wish to be formally recognized and dealt with as the Count of Zinzendorf ; and men who understood such matters, as at the court of Berlin and among the conservative and decorous classes in London, not only addressed him but referred to him under his incognito, even though they well knew that he was Zinzendorf Neither is it surprising that some better- informed but ill-disposed persons in Pennsylvania, the same as in Europe, pretended not to know these things, when alluding to this matter in aspersing him. But when respectable and presumably well-informed modern writers betray that same lack of knowledge, or follow the course of those in his day who affected to ignore it, and call Von Thurnstein a "pseudonym," or "a fictitious title," or "an assumed name," or 1742. 93 At a meeting of the leading men of Philadelphia, held at his request on his birthday, May 26, 1742, at the house of Governor Thomas, he published such a renunciation in a Latin address, of which printed copies had been distributed to the persons present, in order that they might follow more understandingly, because of the difference between the Continental pronunciation of Latin, which he used, and theEnghsh pronunciation to which these gentlemen were accustomed. These copies were then collected and deposited under seal with Charles Brockden, Deputy Master of the Rolls of the Province and Recorder of Deeds for the city, who was present.^ They were to remain in his charge pending further necessary steps in Europe. This act, which created quite a sensation and was variously commented upon, was thus in the nature rather of a public notice of his purpose. It was never really consummated ; for after his return to Europe, he was urgently dissuaded from the step, not only by his family, but by the civil authorities, and the reasons presented were so cogent that he yielded. It seemed an eccentric notion, but the animating spirit was heroic. Believing that the choice was before him between his noble rank and title, with everything honorable before men that went with it ; and devoting himself to the work of the gospel and the spiritual good of his fellowmen, in the way he had chosen and believed to be the right speak of his "failure to conceal his identity," as if they thought this was what he intended and expected to do, this cannot be called not surprising, and it is hardly excusable. What his detractors in Pennsylvania at that time said about him in their ignorance or animosity would not be worth referring to in connection with this kind of a matter. The modified modem reproductions by writers who should not do this, warrant the use of some space to set the subject right before the readers of these pages. Zinzendorf 's singular resort to an antiquated prerogative in creating an adoptive relation to the Moravian Father Nitschmann associated, as he once intimated, with his assumption, "ad interim" of the Moravian epis- copate, occasioned his freak of using this name several times in a half playful manner in certain letters while in Pennsylvania — a thing also given publicity by eager censors. That requires no justification. It belonged to those odd fancies which unnecessarily gave occa- sion to carpers, often rendered his words and movements inscrutable to plain, matter-of-fact people and offended those who had no sympathy with anything beyond the limits of sturdy soberness. He genially acknowledged "a disposition to extravagances." Among the Quakers of Pennsylvania he passed as plain " Friend Lewis" and among the Brethren, with like plainness, as "Bruder Ludwig." 3 Brockden's attested copy of the memorandum of the formality, with the names of those present, printed in the Buedingsche Sammlungen, III, p. 330, is to be found on page 95 of The Early History of the Church of the United Brethren, etc., by Levin T. Reich el — a manuscript printed in 1888 by the Moravian Historical Society. 94 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. way for him, he determined to pursue the latter and let the former go. His only reward was to be yet more calumniated, to have his family name yet more ruthlessly dragged into the gutter, and to have later historians, in sympathy with the coarse revilement of that time, report the whole procedure as merely gotten up "for stage effect." These various elucidations, given thus fully in connection, to set the persons and plans at the foundation of the Bethlehem activities in a correct light, will serve in advance, instead of explanations which would otherwise have to be added specially to some movements and arrangements farther on. They will also forestall some details in connection with important occurrences of the months from January to June, 1742, which would be necessary in so far as these have a bearing on the subject of these pages. Zinzendorf's most conspicuous local activity during those months lay in his connection with the neglected and demoraUzed German Lutheran congregation of Philadelphia, long without a minister, dis- couraged through fruitless efiforts to procure one from Europe, but continuing to worship as best they could in an old building belonging to William Allen, which had, as it seems, done duty as a barn, a car- penter's shop and a butcher's shop, and then been fitted up as a make-shift place of worship. Around that rude meeting-house are clustered some of the most disagreeable sensations of his activity in Pennsylvania ; and with his efiforts to there be of service to his neglected co-religionists are associated the most persistently adverse and derogatory representations of his work in America that have been perpetuated in print. The beginning of his connection with that congregation was his preaching there, January 21 N. S., on invi- tation of the church wardens. This led through a series of negotia- tions to his public formal acceptance of a call to be their minister, which occurred on the second Sunday after Easter, May 13 N. S. ; the re-organization of the congregation and election of new wardens on the basis of some general articles of constitution ; and the appoint- ment of John Christopher Pyrlaeus, who was a Lutheran candidate of the University of Leipsic, to be his assistant. He spoke of this call as unanimous. This must doubtless be taken merely in the sense of neminc contradicente ; for while the preponderating sentiment unquestionably favored this solution of their preplexities about secur- ing a pastor, there was suppressed dissatisfaction in some quarters which was worked upon by agitators outside, and some unstable ele- ments, at first much taken with the plan, were won to the opposition 1742. 95 when the active crusade against Zinzendorf was opened. This did not start with the Lutherans. The German Reformed people used the meeting-house on the last Sunday of each month, when they were ministered to by the Rev. John PhiUp Boehm, of Whitpain, whose itinerary embraced this charge. He was "a man of war from his youth," skilled in the tactics of the church militant, immovable in what he conceived to be his duty as well as in any prejudice that possessed him, and, in keeping with a rugged nature and rough environment, was not over-choice about the weapons he used. He represented in Pennsylvania the extreme Calvinism and the austere rule of the Classis of Amsterdam under which he was laboring to gather and organize the Reformed elements of the region. He was the chief promulgator in the Province, of the so-called pastoral letter of that doughty body, issued five years before, which was the text- book of those ministers of New York and New Jersey who were lift- ing up their voices so vehemently to save the country from the Mora- vians. From a perusal of its misleading contents, he had conceived an intense aversion to the Count in advance, and upon the appear- ance of the latter on the scene he proceeded to reproduce its stric- tures and calumnies, with additions, in a pastoral letter of his own, which he had printed and circulated ; besides continuing to cry aloud and spare not wherever he went. Some of its absurd statements and accusations seemed to Zinzendorf sufficiently injurious in their influ- ence among the uninformed and credulous masses, that, contrary to his usual course with such pasquinades, he wrote a reply which, later in the summer, was, on consultation, put into the hands of George Neisser, to responsibly issue. He gave it in charge of the printer, Henry Miller, then employed in Franklin's office, where it was printed. Mr. Boehm's crusade had a climax in Philadelphia, after it had progressed far enough to enlist the active co-operation of the rabble, that was possibly more heroic than even he had anticipated. On a Sunday in July, five ruffians, avowing themselves to be Reformed, with a promiscuous gang behind them, entered the meeting house while Pyrlaeus was preaching, interrupted him with the statement that some one outside wished to speak to him, and when this ruse failed, seized him, dragged him from the pulpit and out of the build- ing, kicked and trampled upon him. It became clear later that some persons in the Lutheran party who had joined the crusade, were impli- cated in this act, as well as in the previous carrying out of Mr. 96 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM. PENNSYLVANIA. Boehm's suggestion to surreptitiously put a special padlock on the door "to keep the cattle out;" and in the next step, to have the man with the key absent himself when "the Count's party" would assemble for service, so that if they forced an entrance — as they did — into their place of worship, an accusation of trespass, and even a pretext for forcible ejectment, although it was their rightful Sunday, might be trumped up. This incident ended the connection of Zinzendorf and of those who adhered to him with that meeting-house. During the months in which he was officiating there he continued also to preach in the German Reformed church of Germantown. That congrega- tion was "composed of a different element of the Reformed Church which had declined to adopt Boehm's church constitution and the Amsterdam ideas. He had no official connection with it, and his crusade, supplemented by that of the coterie of Germantown Sepa- ratists, failed to produce much effect there until at a later time. The people under Bechtel's leadership were more disposed to fall in with the teaching and spirit of the Berne Synod of 1532, which Zinzen- dorf presented to their attention. Bechtel was ordained there on April 22 N. S., by Bishop Nitschmann, to be Reformed minister and superintend the work that would be organized among people of Reformed connection elsewhere, under Zinzendorf's plan, on the basis of the Berne Synod ; which he thought — in the absence of any authority in the Province decreeing what standards should be adopted denominationally, or of even a general denominational organization on the basis of any of these varying standards — had as much right on the English soil and under the tolerant government of Pennsylvania, as the canons of the Synod of Dort, imported from Holland, had. The Count had meanwhile compiled a unique catechism for popular use in the particular work of the time, based on the principal twelve of the forty-four articles of the Synod of Berne, selected in the line of his general object "to enthrone the Lamb of God" in Pennsyl- vania, and introduced by a rhymed paraphrase of the captions of those selected chapters. The work was turned over in the rough to Bech- tel, who gave it, together with the Berne articles, thorough study, within the limits of his ability and education, and then, after it was gotten into final shape, with some practical suggestions on his part utilized, it was adopted by him as a medium of instruction. In his capacity as a Reformed minister, on that ancient broad evangelical platform, he adopted and edited the work, in accordance with the understanding reached, and had it printed under his name, as publicly 1742. 97 responsible for its issue and promulgation. This catechism and a collection of hymns for general use at that time, compiled by Zinzen- dorf at the beginning of the year and printed with the title Hirten- Lieder von Bethlehem — Pastoral Hymns of Bethlehem — are now rari- ties among the Pennsylvania imprints of that period.'* It remains yet to introduce the most prominent events of those months from January to June — the general assemblies which resulted from the efforts of Henry Antes. They may be treated with com- parative brevity, because some of their details lie outside the scope of these pages, and others having an important bearing upon what subsequently developed with Bethlehem as its operating center, in so far as Zinzendorf's ideas influenced action and results, appear with sufificient clearness in the exposition of his scheme already given. In accordance with the understanding reached December 20, Antes, on December 26 N. S., issued his circular,^ inviting the leaders of the various persuasions to participate in a general "Conference of 4 Of the Hirien Lieder, only two copies are known by the writer to exist. The edition was probably distributed, for the most part at least, in paper covers merely, as special collections of hymns for religious gatherings frequently now are — hence its extreme scarcity. The collection was printed by Saur of Germantown, who is reported to have con- descendingly said he did so because he "judged it to be harmless.'' Doubtless he regarded it as rather a matter of business when it came to making out the bill and collecting the cash. A second edition ''^Nack der Germantowner Edition''^ was incorporated as part first in the small German hymn-book of the Moravian Church published, 1754, in London. More copies of the Bechtel catechism are extant, but the existence of an exact reprint — imprint, date and all — issued in Europe in 1743, but with German type, often leads to confusion with the original. Saur, as self-appointed censor of all religions, sects and ministers, refused to print the catechism because it had Bechtel's name to it. Franklin, less disposed to such censorship, took the contract and printed it with Latin type. An English and a Swedish edition of 1742 and 1743 respectively are extremely rare. 5 In view of the interpretation put upon this move and the light in which the proceedings are presented by writers of biased attitude, using adverse and often quite erroneous accounts as sources, the circular of Antes deserves a place here, to reveal the real purpose of the gatherings and the spirit in which they were called. It reads in translation as follows : In the Name of Jesus : Amen, Beloved Friend and Brother : Inasmuch as frightful evil is wrought in the Church of Christ, among the souls that have been called to the Lamb (to follow Christ) mainly through mistrust and sus- picion towards each other — and that often without reason — whereby every purpose of good is continually thwarted — although we have been commanded to love; it has been under consideration for two years or more, whether it would not be possible to appoint a general assembly, not to wrangle about opinions, but to treat with each other in love on the most 98 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Religions" at Germantown on New Year Day O. S., January 12 N. S." Seven such general conferences took place : the first, January 12-13, at Germantown, in a vacant house of the clock-maker, Theobald Endt; the second, January 21-23, in Falkner's Swamp, at the house of George Huebner; the third, February 21-23, i'^ Oley, at the house of John de Turck; the fourth, March 21-23, at Germantown, in the house of John Ashmead, where Zinzendorf had his headquarters several months ; the fifth, April 18-20, in the Germantown Reformed church ; the sixth, May 16-18, at Germantown, in the house of Lawrence Schweitzer; the seventh, June 13-15, in Philadelphia, in a house of Edward Evans on Race Street above Second. Upwards of a hundred persons generally attended the regular sessions, in which, on several occasions, as many as fifty participated officially as accredited deputies of various persuasions. A great many more were present at some public meetings. At the beginning no fewer than thirteen varieties of creed and sect could be counted in the motley assemblage. Seven such were represented by accredited deputies, and several separatists, representing only themselves, took important articles of faith, in order to ascertain how closely we can approach each other fundamentally, and, as for the rest, bear with one another in love on opinions which do not subvert the ground of salvation ; and whether, in this way, all judging and criticising might not be diminished and done away with among the aforesaid souls, by which they expose themselves before the world and give occasion to say : those who preach peace and conversion are themselves at variance. Therefore this matter, so important, has now been under advisement again with many brethren and God-seeking souls, and been weighed before the Lord ; and it has been decided to meet on the coming New Year's Day at Ger- mantown. Hence you are cordially invited to attend, together with several more of your brethren who have a foundation for their faith and can state it, if the Lord permits. It has been announced to nearly all of the others (persuasions) through letters like this. There will probably be a large gathering, but do not let this deter you ; for all will be arranged without great commotion. May the Lord Jesus grant us His blessing. From your poor and unworthy, but cordial friend and brother, Frederick Township, HENRY ANTES, in Philadelphia Co., December 15 (26 N.S.), 1 741. 6 The old style dates then yet officially used in Pennsylvania, and therefore attached to the circular and the reports of the meetings, are usually retained in history. The new style dates are here taken, to agree with those adopted by the Brethren and now associated with occurrences just before, during and right after these gatherings ; especially the important events that directly followed at Bethlehem, with which only new style dates have been con- nected and made historic. Otherwise, a sudden skip of eleven days would appear between the close of the last conference and the organization at Bethlehem, making an interval of ten days seem twenty-one days. 1742. 99 part in the proceedings. The Moravian Brethren from Bethlehem who attended, were there only as individuals and unofficially. They brought no credentials as deputies, for they had no organization yet in Pennsylvania, and took the position that they did not represent one of the existing religions and sects of the Province. Others who belonged to the general Association of the Brethren in Europe and regularly participated in the conferences were associated in this capacity with the several religions — Lutheran or Reformed — in which they had been brought up, and among the adherents of which they were to labor in Pennsylvania. This was consistent with Zinzendorf's general plan, and if the explanation of this plan already given is kept in mind, this idea can be understood. Not until in the seventh con- ference did the Moravian Brethren figure as representing a recognized distinct body in Pennsylvania. That the names of some of them were among the signatures witnessing the journal of one and another con- ference, signified nothing in the matter of their relation to it; for, as was explicitly stated, these witnesses were purposely chosen at random from among reputable men present at the sessions without regard to their being deputed members or not. In the nature of things, it could not be expected that all of these incongruous elements — some of them fanatical in the extreme, others, like the group of Germantown separatists, hopelessly irreconcilable and contumacious — could be led to any kind of agreement, even under the simple plan of Henry Antes, which, at first, sought nothing more than a cessation of sectarian hostilities ; agreement to disagree peaceably on settled differences ; mutual recognition of whatever good there might be in each system ; a covenatU to labor more earnestly for the common welfare, each party in its own way. Some came only to propagate their specialties. Some were intent on sowing discord and defeating the object from the beginning. Such, when they found themselves headed off and were unable to put their way through, resorted to misrepresentation and revilement ; and their screeds finding their way into print, have chiefly furnished the materials on which those writers who have wished to present adverse accounts of the whole movement, have based their versions. Therefore, by the time the fourth conference was reached, only Lutheran and Reformed elements that were in accord with Zinzen- dorf's plan ; certain of the Mennonites, Tunkers and "Hermits" attending as individuals not deputed by their respective bodies, and the Moravian Brethren, also on this footing, remained in it. But 100 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. with this sifting, a gradual development into a more tangible organ- ization took place. The convention assumed the character of a standing body, and what at first was only a "Conference of Religions" became "the Pennsylvania General Synod." In the report of its proceedings as finally shaped and printed, the several conferences are called synods. Thus the common term, the "Seven Pennsylvania Synods" came into vogue. This General Synod was supposed to represent what Zinzendorf styled "the Church of God in the Spirit," with its membership of sincere and genuine Christians found among the various religions and sects. It is a misapprehension to suppose that under this term he had in mind merely the constituency repre- sented in that Synod. The second article adopted in the very first conference was an answer to the question : "What is embraced in the Communion of Saints?" and was the following declaration: "The Church of God in the Spirit throughout the world, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all, is one which cannot be num- bered, and members of it are to be found in places where they would never be sought." The term meant simply what is understood by "the Invisible Church" within the external pale of the Church Univer- sal, That Pennsylvania General Synod was had in mind as instituted to represent the Pennsylvania contingent of this Invisible Church, and to foster fellowship and co-operation among such true children of God in all denominations. The step which constituted this standing Synod was taken at the close of the third conference, when Trustees of the Synod were chosen. Fifty names were written on pieces of paper. A civil oflficer, present as usual by request, drew thirty of these names. Then another appointed person drew from this number, twenty. Of these twenty, ten were drawn, and of the ten finally five. After that three of the five were elected. These three were empowered to select two other men to serve with them, whose names were not to be known by any but the Trustees, unless it should be thought advisable to communicate their names to the government of Pennsylvania. It was furthermore decreed that if it should become commonly known who they were, their appointment should lapse and others should be chosen in their places. These two were to labor unobtrusively, with- out being known as having an official appointment; to oversee and foster the union of the Church of God in the Spirit among the people connected with the Synod ; to prevent, as well as they could, its dis- solution on the one hand, and every tendency towards the formation of a new sect out of it, distinct from the existing denominations, on 1742. lOi the other hand. Subsequently it was decided to have stated meetings of the Synod and to hold quarterly conferences of the ministers con- nected with it, at Philadelphia, Bethlehem, Conestoga or elsewhere in the country. Zinzendorf's personal connection with these conferences began with undergoing a general inquisition at the first one, on the part of the different sectarians assembled, who had come prepared to make him a target. He had gone down among them as one of them, on their level, and had to submit to the decidedly democratic and, in some cases, insolent liberties they took with him. He proved himself equal to the situation, however. Some left full of spleen, and took refuge in shooting at him from a comfortable distance through Saur's print- ing-press and furnishing new ammunition to his enemies in Europe. Others were won, or learned regard, and at the second conference he was unanimously chosen Syndic or Moderator. He presided in this capacity at the remaining sessions, relieved occasionally by Antes, who had opened the first conference and presided at it, or by some one '^Ise. When the indistinctness of his position to the minds of so many was distorted to his prejudice, he insisted upon the basis he claimed when he came to Pennsylvania, and plainly declared that he assumed the moderatorship at those conferences, "not in the char- acter of a special, free servant of God as Mr. Whitefield had labored," but in the capacity of a Lutheran minister. He declared his convic- tion that his own religion, in which he was reared, was the best ground on which to stand in appealing to sects and schismatics in those assembhes, and stated that he "needed no theology for that position other than that to be found in Luther's smaller catechism." In conducting the proceedings he secured agreement at the outset to an extraordinary measure which was subsequently more reviled than any other feature by those who first acquiesced in it and then, when they found it restraining their fanatical turbulence or aggressive contentiousness, "forsook the conference to go out and write pas- quils." This measure was to regularly submit to the lot the ques- tion of introducing any new matter that any one might wish to bring forward, orally or in writing. This, it was thought, could more grace- fully be accepted, if it should rule out anything, than a general regu- lation limiting subjects, or a vote on each special case, or a decision from the chair ; and in this way no previous inquiry into the nature or purpose of the communication or proposition in question was needed, in order to decide whether to admit or reject it. It was 102 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. intended, under the peculiar circumstances, to control the propensity to thrust in irrelevant, unprofitable or controversial themes, and to do. this in a manner that might be taken as Providential overruling, without the risk or restricting liberty or quenching the spirit by an exercise of human will or judgment. Zinzendorf set the example of rigidly applying this method to whatever he thought of introducing or proposing, and, as he afterwards stated, usually had some person inimical to him draw the lot in his case.'' A beginning was made with organizing congregations for the sev- eral religions under this Pennsylvania Synod ; for the Lutherans, that in Philadelphia, as reconstructed by Zinzendorf, and several in the country; for the Reformed, who would adopt the Synod of Berne in preference to Boehm's Amsterdam cult, that in Germantown, as reconstructed after Bechtel's ordination, and one in the country. Zinzendorf became inspector of the Lutheran department and Bech- tel of the Reformed department of the Synod's work. The state- ment that Zinzendorf came to Pennsylvania claiming the 7 This arrangement, which Zinzendorf himself later referred to as adopted for an extraor- dinary situation, and not advisable under normal conditions, has been mentioned by some historians as introduced in accordance with Moravian custom. No such method has ever been in vogue in conducting Moravian synods or conferences. Apart from this extreme application of it, the use of the lot was not an entirely new and strange thing among the people who were there assembled, and all agreed to the plan at first. Zinzendorf even inti- mated in one of his later references to it, that the original proposition to pursue this course did not emanate from him. It was far more common in former times than now, among Germans and some others, to use the lot in various ways, in making selections, decid- ing questions or seeking guidance in perplexity ; or to employ methods akin to it, such as drawing names, numbers or questions, yes or no, drawing, in connection with many a matter, from an assortment of Scripture texts, opening the Bible at random for a suggestive passage, etc. Those who think of the employment of the lot as an exclusively Moravian practice in times past, lack proper information. Moravians became conspicuous before the world in this particular be- because all their doings were so much advertised in print — books were not written about other people who used the lot privately or collectively— and because what gradually became, among them an uncommonly prevalent practice, through example of Zinzendorf, who from his youth privately followed this custom to an inordinate degree, was, after his death, officially estab- lished and reduced to system, as a process of governmental machinery ; applied, from the control of the whole down to congregations and individuals, in a variety of ways which, even in those times, many in the Church did not favor. In this only, and not in the optional use of the lot by people privately or officially, individually or jointly, did the Moravian Church stand unique, so long as this was maintained, and present a singular ecclesiastical experiment. Less than twenty years after the establishment of this official lot regime, oppo- sition was so strong that the General Synod (1782) was constrained to begin modifying it. Successive further modifications followed at intervals, gradually reducing the range of things to which it was applied, until at last for many years these were very limited, and finally the use 1742. I03 position of General Inspector of all the Lutheran congrega- tions in the Province is erroneous and misleading; as is also the representation that he thus broadly installed Bechtel in similar charge of all the Reformed congregations and called upon Boehm to subordinate himself to Bechtel. All that was done in this respect must be understood to apply merely to those that were willing to come under the Synod and adopt its principles. These organizations were of course ephemeral. The subsequent collapse of the scheme in consequence of the increasing assaults from without and elements of weakness and impracticability within; and the final waking up of the respective European authorities of these religions to the neces- sity of doing something substantial for their people in Pennsylvania, caused the permanent ecclesiastical development to take strictly denominational form. Thus, in its defeat, Zinzendorf's plan indirectly expedited the performance of the important duty they had neglected. He later said : "All the priests and levites in Europe were deaf to of the lot disappeared entirely from the system of government. Its application for many years to marriages in the Exclusive Church Settlements and in the case of persons officially serving as ministers and missionaries, arose under an overwrought system devised to carry out lofty ideals of a completely consecrated associate and individual life, under Christ the Head ; and of complete subjection to Divine guidance, believed to be given in every matter in response to simple faith and to be ascertained in this manner. This particu- lar application of the lot, after many years of growling dissent, was relaxed in 1818. After that, it was unknown in the American Church Settlements, and, in the course of the follow- ing years, ceased elsewhere. It was retained longest in connection with persons called to serve in the foreign mission field. Much popular misconception has prevailed in reference to this whole lot system, through lack of acquaintance with the principles and methods. Space cannot be taken here to explain these, beyond mentioning the extremely important fundamental principle of the system, that no official use of the lot by a board, involving a call, or proposition to any persons, ever bound the persons in question without their previous knowledge and consent. It bound the board, if affirmative, to extend the call or make the proposition, but not the person to acquiesce, except by previous understanding. The force of this principle in the matter of appointments to service and in the yet more important matter of marriages, is obvious. That persons were mated together for marriage by a board using the lot in connecting one's name with that of another, without their concurrence, in a kind of lottery, is a preposterous supposition. In view of the absurd representations and the fictions that have been circulated and believed about these matters, these explanations, which would be necessary somewhere in these pages, are here inserted once for all. It may be added, that in 1889, after the official use of the lot had for many years been restricted simply to the confirmation of certain particular elections and appointments, the General Synod of the Moravian Church abolished this remaining vestige and expunged all reference to the lot from its digest of principles and enactments, so that it was then obsolete in eveiy particular. I04 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the cry of the Pennsylvania sufferer until their grudge against the Samaritan [himself] unstopped their ears." The Synod also came into touch with the work among the heathen which had been started by the Brethren in the West Indies, in Ber- bice, South America, and among the North American Indians. All of this work was to be fostered and supplied from Pennsylvania, as one of the departments o-f activity in which all elements of the Synod co-operated. This was the particular, but not exclusive, sphere of labor had in view for the Moravian Brethren. The West India work was personally represented at the last three general conferences by the missionaries George and Maria Elizabeth Weber and Gottlieb Israel, who arrived in Pennsylvania from St. Thomas just before Bishop Nitschmann sailed to visit that mission, and they remained until after his return. At the third conference — that in Oley — two of three deacons ordained "priests" (presbyters), Gottlob Buettner and Christian Henry Ranch — the third was Pyrlaeus — were had in view especially for missionary service among the Indians, in which Rauch had made a noble beginning in the Province of New York ; and on that occasion his first three Indian converts, Shabash, Seim or Otabawane- men, and Kiop or Kiak, were baptized in John de Turck's barn, and named Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as patriarchs of the Indian church, and in token of beUef in the descent of the aborigines of America from the lost tribes of Israel. Another department of activity instituted was school work for the hosts of neglected children. At the fourth conference it was decided to invite parents in the different townships, concerned for the wel- fare of their children, to meet for consultation, April 17, at the house of John Bechtel, in Germantown. Zinzendorf published this in the Manatawny neighborhood when he preached there, April i, and Bech- tel issued a printed circular, April 3. The appointed day was that just before the opening of the fifth conference. A few came from town, but none from the country, except such as were members of the Synod. In some quarters, poverty too great to provide suitable clothing for the children ; in other quarters, callousness and general apathy in such matters ; in yet others, the warnings sounded by those who would save the children from the peril of falling into the hands of the "Herrnhuters," worked together among the country folk as impediments to this well-meant and greatly needed efifort. A school was opened, however, on May 4 in the Ashmead house in German- 1742. 105 town, with twenty-five girls in attendance, as a beginning. It com- bined instruction in reading and writing, manual employment in various ways, and religious instruction; with, of course, the spiritual / good of the children as the chief object. Thus Moravian school work in Pennsylvania had its beginning. This first attempt was made by Zinzendorf's daughter, the Countess Benigna, with Magdalena Miller — later married to the missionary John William Zander — and Anna Desmond — later the wife of the missionary John Hagen — as her assistants. Three men, Anton Seiffert, Zander and George Neisser were also connected with the enterprise in one way or another. This school was transferred to Bethlehem on June 28 and became the nucleus of the first school for girls there. At the sixth conference it was decided that another circular should be issued. This was done by Bechtel on June 5, inviting parents to another conference on the subject to be held at Bethlehem, June 24-25. It was accompanied by an official request from Zinzendorf to the justices in all the town- ships, to bring the invitation to the notice of all the most sensible Germans known to them in their respective jurisdictions. When the seventh conference opened in the house of Edward Evans in Philadelphia, an unusually large number of persons appeared, not only because it was the last such gathering for a sea- son, but because something out of the ordinary was expected. In the opening session Zinzendorf formally announced the arrival, on June 7 at Philadelphia, of the Bethlehem colonists who were anxiously awaited. This large accession to the settlement in the Forks of the Delaware, to the preparation for which allusion has been made sev- eral times in these pages, and which figured so prominently in con- nection with the regular organization of Bethlehem and the develop- ment of its first religious and industrial activities, calls for more notice at this juncture than an abrupt introduction upon its arrival in Philadelphia. It was the fifth and largest of successive companies, up to that time sent to other countries from Germany by the Breth- ren, in pursuance of the colonization policy inaugurated by Zinzen- dorf in 1734. The general purpose was, in view of their uncertain situation in Saxony, as stated in a previous chapter, to provide for the Moravian immigrants — for they preferred colonization to disper- sion ; and to further his evangelistic plans by a method that would establish new centers to work out from, where there seemed to be a field, and where favorable terms were offered by governments, or could be secured. There is an interesting connection between these I06 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. successive colonies in that they all contributed eventually to the per- sonnel of Bethlehem at its regular organization. The first was that to the Island of St. Croix in 1734. The second was one to the Duchy of Holstein, the same year — abandoned in 1736, on account of ecclesiastical and political difficulties, and trans- ferred in 1737 to the royal division of Holstein, where conditions seemed more favorable, and some of the first colonists, with others, founded Pilgerruh. The third was that to Georgia in 1735. The fourth was one to Holland, where, in the Barony of Ysselstein, the short-lived settlement of Heerendyk was established in 1736; some of the first company sent to Holstein furnishing part of the nucleus. Pilgerruh did not flourish, for some of the colonists were unsuitable persons, and complications in the matter of terms and conditions again appeared. An attempt to get the work properly established by recruits of reliable people on new terms in 1740 came to naught, and Pilgerruh was abandoned. Some of the new colonists destined for that place, with certain of the previous Holstein settlers, were then chosen for the Pennsylvania colony which was to join the rem- nant from Georgia, and the others who had followed them to Penn- sylvania, in establishing the first American center. Their number was to be augmented by selected persons from Germany and Switzer- land, and finally by a few from England, Thus the company was gradually formed. It was to consist mainly of young married couples and of single men ; and various professions, handicrafts and lines of experience in practical life were to be represented. Especially were they to be people of well-tested Christian character and of spiritual enthusiasm, who would be not only a salt among the people where they located, but all available, in some way, in the propagation of the gospel — dis- tinctly understood to be the main purpose for which the settlement was founded. The final selection of these colonists was completed in December, 1741. The rallying-place from which they started — at that time the most notable center of the Brethren in Europe — was Herrnhaag, a settlement in the Wetterau, in south-western Germany, founded in 1738 and abandoned at a perilous internal and external crisis in 1750. The name recalls a noble beginning, inspiring but then melancholy associations and a tragic end, opening and closing an epoch of unhealthy exuberance, when the Church let extravagant tendencies run to excess and gave its detractors a perpetual theme. They left Herrnhaag, December 19, 1741, and proceeded to Marien- 1742- 107 born, a neighboring old castle — originally a convent — in possession of the Church under lease, and for a number of years an important seat of activity. There they were joined by another contingent ant', had final interviews with the responsible heads, with the Countess Zinzendorf and with Spangenberg, who had been making arrange- ments in England for their voyage and had hastened over to Ger- many to give them important directions. He returned to England in advance of them. The whole company set out from Marienborn, December 20, for Holland. There were twenty-two married people — twelve men and ten women — and nineteen single men. Two of the latter only accom- panied them to the sea-board. They traveled in seven bands, each having its leader and constituting a mess in fare and quarters. Their first considerable halt was at the settlement Heerendyk, in Holland, where the last squad arrived, January 4, and the future Superintendent of the single men, who had come another way, joined them. From there they started two days later for Rotterdam, where on February 9 they boarded the Enghsh sloop, the Samuel and James, which, after a tedious and uncomfortable sail, landed them at London on Satur- day morning, February 24. English friends escorted them to their lodgings in Little Wild Street, where they were quartered in groups of six and seven, in several adjacent houses. On February 26, at a memorable meeting in the Moravian chapel in Fetter Lane, presided over by Spangenberg, at which about three hundred persons were assembled, the colony was temporarily organ- ized for the voyage under the name Seegemeine — Sea Congregation, or Ship Congregation or Ocean Church. Peter Boehler, who had been doing important work in England since he left America a year before, and had shortly before this been married and appointed with his wife, an English woman, Elizabeth Hopson, to accompany this colony to Pennsylvania, now joined them, with six married couples and four single men from England. George Piesch, a son-in-law of Father Nitschmann of Bethlehem, and one of the three men sent to Suri- nam in 1735, who had latterly been one of Spangenberg's chief assist- ants in England, was called to be their general conductor on the voyage. The colony, thus completed, consisted of fifty-six persons, besides Piesch — sixteen married couples, two married men without their wives, and twenty-two single men. Under the special organi- zation, as an ocean church, Boehler was chaplain, with two assistants in spiritual oversight among the married people, and one for the I08 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM. PENNSYLVANIA. single men; while his wife was the general spiritual counselor for the women. His chief assistant was the Rev. Paul Daniel Bryzelius, a Swede, and a theological graduate of the University of Upsala, who had entered into connection with the Brethren, and was selected to labor in the Lutheran department of their American work. He was an unstable man who later forsook them, when the Lutheran Church was regularly organized in Pennsylvania, and eventually went over to the Anglican Church. Other offices to which various persons were appointed for the voyage were those of general monitor, to watch over the observance of regulations, both among the married people and the single men ; steward and general dispenser ; nurses and cook. Prayer-bands were also formed to maintain the custom of "hourly intercession" day and night, which was instituted at Herrn- hut in 1727, after the manner of the Acocmctae — the praying watchers of the fifth century, mentioned in the letters of Theodoret. At the conclusion of that memorable meeting of February 26^ Spangenberg drew attention to the watchword for that day, in the collection of daily texts, and based an impressive closing address on it. The passage was from Esther 4:16, "If I perish, I perish." In addition to the common hazards of ocean travel, which were then greater than in modern times, pecuhar perils awaited them, because the Atlantic was infested with privateers, by which Spain and France were harrassing England in those times of war. Many of these crews were made up of pirates, hardened in all cruelties and vil- lainies. The colony, moreover, was going to sail, not un,der convoy, but alone and without any defenses on board. Their ship was an English vessel of the build and rig known as a "snow" or "snaw," and was called the Catlierine.^ She had been pur- chased for i6oo and specially fitted up to transport this colony. Cap- 8 Some writers give February 27 as the date of this organization of the Sea Congregation. This is an error. 9 The Catherine was registered in the name of George Stonehouse of Buttermeer, in the County of Wilts, formerly Vicar of Islington, for a time in association with the Brethren, and an officer of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, founded by them in 1 741. He was a man of property, and his wife, who became a regular member of the Moravian Church, and rendered it valuable service, was possessed of large means. She furnished the money to purchase the vessel At Philadelphia the Catherine was sold by Samuel Powell, agent, under power of attorney from Stonehouse to Boehler. The subsequent fate of this snow is not known. Out of the proceeds of the sale, the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, organized in Pennsylvania by Spangenberg in 1745, received ;,C300, in accordance with provision in the letter of instruction sent to Boehler by Stonehouse. 1742. I09 tain Thomas Gladman, a man of much experience and adventure on the sea, who had been in the employ of George Whitefield and had navigated his sloop which conveyed Boehler and the last Georgia colonists from Savannah to Pennsylvania in 1740, and at this time was intimately associated with the Brethren in England, took com- mand of the vessel, with a mate, a boatswain and six sailors. On Friday, March 16, the vessel left the dock and slowly moved down the Thames. She lay at Gravesend over Sunday. Spangen- berg and his wife, who had accompanied the colonists that far, took final leave of them on Monday morning, March 19, and then the Catherine, with her ocean church and its conductor — fifty-seven breth- ren and sisters — together with the captain and crew, sixty-six souls, on board, sailed off into the channel. Passing out of sight of land finally on March 23, she was headed nearly southward, as it was deemed advisable to take a far southerly course. April 7, they reached the Island of Madeira and put into the harbor of Funchal. The novel sight of tropical verdure was enjoyed; a cloister, contain- ing a shrine constructed of skulls and bones, was visited by some who went ashore, and the state of the ignorant people under the rule of the Padres was deplored; various articles of provision were taken aboard; empty water casks were filled; and on April 10, in the midst of great excitement and tumult in the harbor, caused by the approach of two suspicious looking large vessels which at first refused to be interrogated from the English men-of-war there lying, the little Catherine, unobserved by any, in the hubbub, lifted anchor, set sail and quietly proceeded on her way. Several severe storms were weathered and imminent peril from privateers was more than once encountered, but the hand that rules the wind and waves, and foils the designs of men, when those in question have a further destiny to fulfill, was held over the light and defenseless bark, and no evil befell her. With all possible regularity the discipline and round of services required under the organization that had been instituted were main- tained, as if they were settled ashore. Good health; good habits; cheerful, contented hearts; wholesome and abundant food and good cooking; a Christian captain and orderly respectful sailors; were conditions which, under the Divine blessing, combined to render the voyage vastly different from the common experience of emigrant ships in those times. During the days on the ocean, Boehler took occa- sion to give the colonists much valuable information on the topogra- phy, history, population and the political and ecclesiastical peculiarities I lO A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of the country for which they were bound ; about the experiences and situation of those who had preceded them to Pennsylvania ; the beginnings in the Forks of the Delaware ; the varying attitude of different classes in the Provinces towards the Brethren and their undertakings ; and other instructions that would serve to prepare them for their new life, surroundings and duties. The German members of the colony endeavored to learn all the English they could from their English brethren, and many leisure hours were occupied in adding to their stock of information from books with which they were supplied. With a single exception, they were all people who had enjoyed at least some slight school advantages, and besides Boehler and Bryzelius, who were university men, there were a few of considerable general education. Some also made use of their handicrafts during the voyage to enable all to land, well supplied with clothing and shoes in good condition ; and others took turns at various duties about the ship, in view of the small crew she carried. After occasional soundings for several days, in the midst of almost continuous fog, they had their first glimpse of land — the Long Island coast — on May i8. After much precarious effort in waters unfamiliar to the captain, and piloted part of the remaining way by another vessel, the captain of which proved to have been a Sabbatarian of Pennsylvania, quite familiar with the neighborhood of Herrnhaag and Marienborn, they put in at New London, Conn., on May 23. There, at sunrise the next morning, several of the men placed a shrouded infant form into a rude coffin, lowered it into a boat, rowed ashore with it and laid it in a grave in the sand which they marked with a stone ; while sisters on board tenderly nursed and comforted the mother. This death of the child of Michael and Johanna Maria Miksch, born May 19, was the only sad incident of the voyage. At New London some repairs had to be made to the Catherine, and on May 26, eighteen single men and six married men of the colony, in accordance with arrangements made, boarded the sloop of the Sabbatarian captain, to proceed in advance to New York. John Philip Meurer who has left an interesting diary of the journey from Herrnhaag to Philadelphia, was one of these. Therefore the incidents of the remaining journey to New York which are on record, relate to the company on board this sloop. At New Haven their arrival created consternation at first, for the people were in constant dread of Spanish privateers prowling along the coast, and were, just then, excited by the 1742. Ill report of the capture of fifteen English vessels not far away. Their fears were soon allayed. Students of Yale College escorted these "Moravians" to their buildings, where they produced one of the controversial publications issued by those clerics who were so zealous to save the world from the hand of Zinzendorf. At New Greenwich another panic was caused by the appearance of this foreign vessel with so many men on board ; and even when they explained who they were, some people were afraid to sell them bread and milk. On May 30, seven of the party who were Englishmen went ashore near New Greenwich and traveled the remaining distance to New York afoot, to escape the danger of being impressed by a British war ship, in the high-handed fashion followed under stress of the times. The Germans were not subject to this. Later that day, the sloop anchored at New York, and, to the astonishment of those on board, the Catherine was there ahead of them. The repairs at New London were finished sooner than had been expected and the snow made a quicker run to New York than the sloop, arriving there on the morning of May 30. Before the close of that day, the entire colony ; those who remained on the Catherine, the seventeen who reached New York on the sloop, and the seven who had gone ashore, were reunited on board their own vessel. While they lay at New York, some members of Boehler's former association there, with many other friends, went aboard to greet him and welcome the colony ; and not a little sensation was created in other quarters by their arrival, as all manner of wild rumors circulated about this new lot of alleged conspirators against the King and the Protestant religion, in regard to whom their vigilant pastors had so solemnly warned the people. Sundry Germans of the city went aboard to scrutinize the members of this ocean church, and expressed their surprise at the difference between them, in the matter of bodily condition and spirits, and their poor countrymen who landed from common crowded emigrant ships, after a voyage of privation, sickness and cruelty at the hands of brutal sea captains, whose main purpose was to make all the money they could by selling off their pauper cargoes as "redemptioners" for their passage money. Once more the sails were unfurled on May 31, for the final stage of the journey to Philadelphia. This last stage was a trying and critical one. The captain took the inside course close to shore, preferring the peril of reefs and sand banks to that of privateers outside. Fog 112 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and adverse wind prevailed nearly all the way, and they crept along, continually casting the lead, in order not to run upon unex- pected shoals. The coast was unfamiliar to the captain and they had no pilot. Therefore they lay to of nights. On June 4, they rounded Cape May and sailed up into the mouth of the Delaware River. Then the captain took on a pilot. At night a terrific storm burst upon them. An accident broke the cable and they lost their anchor. That night, when so near their journey's end, they were in greater peril than at any time on the voyage. One diarist says that "the prince of the power of the air once more tried what he might yet do to them." The next day, after fishing many hours for the lost cable and anchor, they found them more than a mile from where the vessel lay. Boehler, meanwhile, was set ashore and proceeded afoot to Philadelphia to announce their arrival. The following day they proceeded up the channel of the river, the width of which one journal compares to that of the Rhine. Thursday, June 7, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, they reached the city. Pyrlaeus, Buettner and Ranch rowed out to the Catharine to welcome them. "Many people came aboard, thinking that we were for sale," says Meurer in his journal, and then notes what he had learned about the trafBc in "redemptioners" — 50 to yo£ paid the captains as a release for one and another, then bound three to five years to work it out; "some being treated well and others ill." He adds : "A ship from England lay alongside of us with young Irish people, men and women, for sale." Those who were on the look-out for profitable "servants" were disappointed when they boarded the Catherine and inspected the likely men and women on her deck, for they were not "for sale." It can be assumed as certain that not a man or woman who belonged to the Brethren's Church in Europe ever landed in America as a redemptioner. On the other hand, there were cases in which the Brethren furnished money to release other persons who were under such indenture, to deliver them from bonds that were inflicting spiritual or bodily injury upon them. Some such became faithful members of the Church, as well as worthy citizens, and were the ancestors of highly-respected families who could honor their character and energy rather than regard their poverty and dis- advantage as a stigma. Generally speaking, it merits admiration that so many, even when deceived and imposed upon by avaricious men who by misrepresentation led them into the toils of that bad system, were neither crushed in spirit nor brutalized by it ; but had the manhood and womanhood to rise superior to the draw-backs of 1742. 113 their beginning in Pennsylvania, and prove themselves worthy of a place among its substantial and respectable Christian yeomanry. It was Ascension Day, according to the old calendar, when the "Sea Congregation" reached Philadelphia, and Zinzendorf was preach- ing in the Lutheran meeting-house. After the service he went aboard to greet them. The next day the German members of the colony went with their captain to the State House to go through the form of cjualification under the laws of the Province. The Governor and Council were in session and the matter was soon disposed of. When the preliminary explanations had been made and the oath of allegi- ance read to them, Boehler stated their scruples about taking an oath and their readiness, nevertheless, to be held fully amenable and subject to the same penalty as violators of an oath, if found trans- gressing in any particular. They were then required to repeat a form of afifirmation, and sign the customary two documents, one for the crown and the other for the proprietary government. There- upon they were dismissed. A few busily occupied days followed. Their arrival attracted much attention. They came into contact with warm-hearted friends, with inquisitive gossips and with men of preju- diced and sinister mind. Their interest was awakened by the sight of Indians, soon after they landed. Zinzendorf took one particular Indian aboard the Catherhie to see them before they had transferred their quarters from the ship. Meurer tells of him in his journal as one who "had-been thoroughly converted," whose name wa.s Johannes. This was none other than that most distinguished of all the Indian con- verts of the Moravian Church, whom Ranch had baptized the pre- vious April, and named John — Wasaniapah, who had been called Job by the traders ; which name, found in some early reports phonetically spelled as pronounced by the German tongue untrained to English,, was mistaken for an Indian name, was so put into print, and gave rise to the absurdity, since perpetuated, of calling him Tschoop. The married people of the colony left the ship on June 8. The single men continued to have their quarters on board until Whitsunday, June I/, when, having gotten all of their effects into a ware-house, they also took final leave of the Catherine. Meanwhile, on Sunday, June lo, at a meeting of the whole company in Zinzendorf's house, they were given many new instructions and directions, in view of important steps soon to follow. On that day the whole company attended services in the Lutheran meeting-house in Philadelphia, and in the Reformed church in Germantown. At the former place, Zin- 9 114 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. zendorf preached the last sermon to the Lutherans before leaving Philadelphia to engage in other activities; at the latter, they took communion with the congregation. At the interview had with them on that day Zinzendorf asked them each to write a personal state- ment of faith and spiritual experience, to be presented with their application for admission to the Pennsylvania Synod. These were in readiness for consideration and action, together with a complete register of the members of this colony and of all others counted as connected with the Brethren in Pennsylvania prior to their arrival, when they were formally announced by Zinzendorf, as already stated, in the opening session of the Synod on June 13. When the question of their admission in a body, as representatives of a Church now seek- ing recognition as having a formal existence in Pennsylvania, came up, these personal communications were, for the most part, read to the Synod. The conductor of the colony, George Piesch, appeared and vouched for the good character of all of them, and for their com- mendable conduct during the voyage. This terminated his official responsibility in connection with them, and he returned to Europe soon after. Boehler, as spiritual overseer on the voyage, with two men who had been his assistants under their temporary organi- zation as an ocean church, were also present and confirmed the tes- timony of Piesch. The names of all who were regarded at that time as composing the whole body of people in Pennsylvania belonging to the Association of the Brethren and to be connected with its first ■organized center at Bethlehem — where the Moravian Church within the Association, as explained in the preceding pages, was now to ■have a recognized footing among the religions of Pennsylvania — were then read in the Synod. The record states that the number was a hundred and twenty.^" 10 No copy of the list is extant, but at least 107 of the names can be verified beyond ques- tion. Besides the Sea Congregation of 56 and the 40 in Pennsylvania, December 1741, (Chap. IV, note 10) the missionaries Rauch and Hagen, now with them, Abraham Buenin- ger who came with Hagen from Georgia in February, the West India missionaries Weber and wife and Israel, the printer Henry Miller and Rauch's four baptized Indians were un- doubtedly included. The remaining 13 were from among the following accessions of Penn- sylvania people, some of whom were at this time only candidates and were formally admitted to the communion after organization at Bethlehem : four baptized by Zinzendorf at German- town — Herman and Anna Maria Bonn, March 19 ; Elizabeth and Johanna Leinbach, May 17; Daniel Oesterlein, the first single man admitted at Germantown ; Jacob Detweiler {Dudweiler) who went as a missionary to the West Indies ; Magdalena Miller and Margaret Disman (Desmond) already mentioned; Elizabeth Braun of Tulpehocken ; Magdalena 1742. 115 Their admission to membership in the Synod was decided by a formal vote, and then all who were awaiting the result were escorted into the hall. After prayer by a trustee of the Synod, Henry Antes addressed them in the name of this body. The ofHcial record reads : "Henry Antes testified in the name of all, that the undenominational (wipartheyische) Synod of Pennsylvania recognized, in general, the arriving old Moravian Church as a true Church of the Lamb ; in par- ticular, its ministers as brethren and fellow-laborers; but, in accord- ance with the fundamental rules of the Synod, on the other hand, the Church, in itself, as independent, and, within its own limits and regu- lations, with which the Synod never meddled, as inviolate ; and wished that the grace of the Lamb might rule over them."^^ Wend of Germantown; Esther Robins, a Quakeress, married at Bethlehem to Froehlich and baptized with the additional name Mary ; Judith, Mary and Susan Benezet who, with their father, were formally admitted as communicants at Bethlehem in September. Thomas Hardie, mentioned in a preceding chapter, was also in fellowship with the Brethren at Beth- lehem at this time. A certain Valentine, one Buerger and Adam Hinter, "servants" {Knechte) among the Bethlehem population in June, were, like Detweiler, redemptioners released by the Brethren. Some others, whose formal reception to communicant membership occurred later in the year, may possibly have been enrolled as such prospective members. In the absence of a list, it cannot therefore be ascertained with certainty which 13 out of this group of persons were counted in the 120 on June 13. The mistake of giving 120 as the membership of the Sea Congregation has often appeared in print, and is even made in several historical sketches of Bethlehem prepared for anniversary occasions and preserved in the archives. This was evidently caused, in the first instance, by inexact language in the original printed report of this seventh Synod. It is stated that after the arrival of the Sea Congregation had been announced, "the names of the brethren and sisters who were to begin the Church settlement at Bethlehem were again read, 120 in number." Then the report adds : " When, after ascertaining the opinion of all the members present, the Trustees and Bro. Henry Antes granted them admission, they all entered the room together, and presented themselves before the Trustees." Thus the words "they all" could be taken as referring at the same time to the 120 just mentioned and to the newly arrived colonists who did enter in a body. Some of the others may have joined them in this formality, but it is certain that not all of the 120 were there. It may be added that some former Georgia colonists included became alienated separatists and did not resume connection with the Church. Cranz, Bruder Historie, § loi, states the matter correctly — "they (the Sea Congregation) together with the brethren and sisters previously there, 120 in all." 'I This translation of the exact words is given because of the persistent distortion to which they have been subjected by unfriendly writers. A recent historian, referring to the arrival of "a shipload of 120 Moravian emigrants destined for Bethlehem," and to their joining the Synod as " completing the supremacy of the Moravians in the movement," has this : " Antes too was now quite carried away, and declared in this conference that the Synod acknowledged the Moravians as the true church, thus committing the Congregation of God in the Spirit to the Moravians." Such a perversion of meaning is not surprising Il6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Zinzendorf, as Moderator of the Synod, made an address to them, in keeping with the occasion, and, in the absence of Bishop Nitsch- mann, Anton Seififert, the first Moravian ordained in America, responded to the welcome in behalf of the Moravian Church, and then offered prayer. After these formaUties the Synod had a less public session in Zinzendorf's dwelling, at which an account of the organization and voyage of the Sea Congregation was given, and various reports of evangelistic activity in Europe were read. In the afternoon the Synod assembled to a lovefeast provided by the Sea Congregation on board the Catherine. There were a hundred and twenty persons present — a singular coincidence with the number amiounced in the morning as composing the Brethren's Church in Pennsylvania. The closing session of June 14 was held in the Luth- eran meeting-house in the evening. Zinzendorf set forth, in an elab- orate discourse, the distinction between three church-conceptions : the Church of God in the Spirit, consisting of the true children of God among all bodies, in a fellowship independent of their bounds and differences ; the religions or general confessional divisions, with the kind of unity in faith and fellowship to be fostered on this basis ; and special organized smaller churches of genuine Christians within the religions, to represent the invisible spiritual body in a visible model. This latter conception is that which he subsequently sought to unfold and exemplify in exclusive church settlements — Ortsge- mcincn. At the conclusion of this session, announcement was made that the Synod would resolve itself into a quarterly conference of ministers, to assemble at different places, as has been noted in another connection. A syllabus of communications from represen- tatives of the several rehgions in the Synod, relating to their general state and attitude towards each other and towards the whole, had been formulated. Their leading thoughts were blended in a general letter to the Christian pubHc of Pennsylvania. This was adopted, and Henrv Antes, who had issued the circular calling the first con- when found in pasquils issuing from the heat and dust of the anti-Zinzendorf campaign, but is hardly to be expected in the pages of sober history row. "77^d' true church" means a very different thing from "«true church." One may recognize a church other tiian his own as a true church, without admitting it to be i/ie true church, wliich would exclude his own. The statement meant that in origin, evangelical faith and spirit, and external requi- sites, the Moravian Church was now formally recognized as a true church among churches, not a schismatic faction, or heretical sect, or incoherent conflux. It is not necessary to mis- represent in order to emphasize disapproval. 1742. 117 ference, was appointed to sign this closing address to the people at large. This he did in the presence of the deputies the next morning, June 15. This act, and the signing of the journal by appointed witnesses concluded the proceedings, and the members dispersed. This final document was issued as "the letter of the ministers of the Church of Jesus Christ in Pennsylvania to the whole country." Its opening salutation was : "Beloved Pennsylvania." It closed with this sentence : "These are the words of the Church of the Lord to all its members, hidden and known, and all whom the Lord our God will yet call to it. Lord have mercy upon Zion, for the time is come." (Ps. 102:13.) In the body of the letter occur three passages that have been even more misinterpreted and distorted than the words of Antes in welcoming the Moravian Church to representation in the Synod. The first is the following: "Today at last a visible church of the Lord has been seen and recognized in Philadelphia. Every member of the same has accredited it as such before us. Its seat for the time-being is Bethlehem. The little groups in Phila- delphia, Germantown, Oley, Frederick Township, who wait for the redemption of Israel, have entered into the most cordial union with them." This refers to the Sea Congregation. It is called a visible church of the Lord in the sense of the third church-conception presented by Zinzendorf in his discourse referred to above, and the intimation that it was the first such in Philadelphia means that it was the first that embodied those characteristics that were had in mind by the Synod as marking such a congregation. The second passage so much misinterpreted is this: "We, all together, make up the body of Jesus, in Pennsylvania." Some writers have treated of this as if it were a claim made by the Moravian Church. The statement emanated from the Synod, as representing the Church of God in the Spirit, in the sense of the first church-conception set forth in Zin- zendorf's address. Its members belonged to the various reHgions and the Synod had before spoken of it as "His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." The third of these much perverted passages is that which closes the following paragraph : "We will, according to the wisdom that the Lord will vouchsafe, continue this church conference every quarter year in all quietness. Our members, all outwardly called and inwardly known in the Spirit, will render assistance. Whoso is on the Lord's side, let him come unto us." (Ex. 32 :26.) Only by the most willful distortion of these words, can thev be taken as an utterance of the Moravian Church, or a Il8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. call to follow the new colony to Bethlehem. It was simply the closing appeal of the Synod to sincere and earnest people throughout Pennsylvania to join the alliance, support the Synod and co-operate in the furtherance of its objects. Noble ideals were advanced in these attempts, but the time was not ripe for their successful propagation at large, even in generally affecting the tone and manner of denominational relations. What was intended to be an ircnicon, intensified bitterness and contention in many quarters. The combination of disadvantages was too strong to be overcome, even if the prevaiHng spirit of the time had not been so utterly at variance with any such movement. The personal adversaries of Zinzendorf left no means untried to thwart his efforts. Many persons were unable to comprehend what he was aiming at. Others were unwilling to believe in the sincerity of his motives. Certain oddities of disposition, manner and speech on his part, made the whole undertaking seem a mere oddity to many matter- of-fact men who looked on from the outside, so that it did not appeal to them. Some looked upon him as a kind of knight-errant, even calling him a Don Quixote, in reUgious adventure. There were also defects of far-fetched plan and over-wrought method, with an almost kaleidoscopic presentation of ideas and views precipitated from his teeming store. The finesse of the astute diplomate — for this was among his qualities by nature and training — withdrawn from the service of an earthly king and consecrated to that of his heavenly King, presumed too much in expecting that every subtile Hne of thought and action, clear to him, would be equally clear to crude, unschooled commoners ; especially with designing persons on the alert to set everything he said or did in a sinister Hght before the unsophisticated. But the effort stands as a grand testimony against that unholy strife of schools and parties which had become the mania of the doctors, as well as of wild sectarians and perverse separatists, to the disgrace of Protestantism and the injury of religion. It stands also as a prophecy of better conditions slowly developing in these times, when those who fondly cherish the old feuds can no longer make the war of creeds and sects popular. Before further movements at Bethlehem are followed, a list of the members of the Sea Congregation, now conspicuous in the foreground, given in alphabetical order, with a few brief personal notes, may bring this chapter to a close. 1742. 119 MARRIED PEOPLE. Almers, Henry and Anna Rosina, m.n. Schuepge. They served at Beth- lehem until January, 1743, then located as evangelists and teachers on Staten Island and Long Island, laboring there mainly until April, 1745, when they returned to Europe w-ith Boehler. BiscHOFF (Bishop), John David and Catherine, m.n. Pech. They were among the important early evangelists, serving in the Indian mission and in country charges, besides performing various duties at Bethlehem. Bischoff was ordained in 1749, was transferred to North Carolina in 1756 and died there, at Bethania, in 1763. His wife died at Bethlehem in 1778. Boehler, Peter and Elizabeth, m.n. Hopson. From 1737 to 1764, when he returned finally to Europe to become a member of the general executive board of the Church, Boehler gave four terms of service to the work in America, and, next to Spangenberg, was the most eminent leader. He became a bishop in 1748. He died at London, April 27, 1775. His grave is in the old Moravian cemetery in Chelsea. His son, Lewis Frederick, was also a mmister of the Church in America, and died at Bethlehem in 181 5. His grand-daughter, Fredericka Boehler, who died at Beth- lehem in 1859, was his last descendant. Rev. Francis Boehler, in Pennsylvania- 1752 to his death at Lititz, Pa., in 1806, was his brother. An extended sketch of the career of Bishop Peter Boehler is given in Volume II, Transactions, Moravian Historical Society, and a. Life 0/ Peter Boehler, by Rev. J. P. Lock wood, (Wes- leyan,) was published in London in 1868. Brandmiller, John. From Basle, commonly designated "bookkeeper" in early records, was also a printer, like others of the name at Basle. He made the first attempts at printing in the Forks of the Delaware in 1763-67 at Friedensthal, near Nazareth. Several of his imprints yet extant are great rarities. (See Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biogr.,\\, 249.) He was ordained, 1745, and did faithful service at various stations. His wife, Anna Maria, came to Pennsylvania in 1743 and died at Bethlehem in 1776. He met an accidental death at Bethlehem in 1777. Brucker, John and Mary Barbara. He was ordained at New York, 1743, by Zinzendorf just before his return to Europe. He entered missionary service. May 1743, in the Danish West Indies, where this, his first wife died, November follow- ing, and where, with intervals of furlough, he figured as one of the chief mission- aries until his death there in 1765. Bryzelius, Paul Daniel and Regina Dorothea, m.n. Schilling. Gen- eral facts concerning him have appeared in the text. He was considered in deacon's orders as a Lutheran candidate and was ordained a presbyter in 1743. To 1745 he was an assistant minister at Bethlehem at intervals and itinerated. His chief field was among the Swedes in New Jersey. He left the Church in 1760. Their daughter, Anna Regina, was the first child born at Bethlehem — July 16, 1742 — and was baptized the same day by Zinzendorf. Harten, George and Elizabeth, m.n. Eichmann. They were employed in various capacities at Bethlehem and, for a season, in charge of externals in con- nection with school work at Tulpehocken and elsewhere. Records of their later career are not at hand. I20 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. DIE Taglichen LOOSUNGEN DER Bruder -Gemeine FUR DAS JAHR 116 1, # Gedrukt bey Bethlehem in der Fork Dellawai. Bey Johann BrandmiilUr, MJDCCI.XYI1. 1742. 121 HussEY, Robert and Martha, m.n. Wilkes. An English farmer who did faithful service in the common interests. He accompanied the evangelist Schnell on a tour afoot to Georgia in 1743, and in 1749 vi^as appointed to the charge of the agricultural affairs of the school at Oley. He also served as a lay-evangelist. He died, 1775, at Bethlehem. His wife died there, 1790. Meyer, John Adolph. He was physician of the colony and the first regular, accredited physician in the Lehigh Valley. His father, under whom he studied, had been a physician, a university graduate. He served Bethlehem and surrounding region the first years in his profession, as well as in spiritual labor, being in deacon's orders. He was ordained a presbyter in 1748. He was the first warden at Naza- reth, 1744-46. Then he was stationed at the school and home mission on the farm of Antes at Fredericktown till 1749. Leaving church service for a while, he lived in Philadelphia. He located eventually at Lititz, where he practiced his profession during the Revolution, and where he died. His wife, Mary Dorothea, sailed from London with Neubert and others who followed the Sea Congregation and reached Philadelphia in September. She died on the voyage and was buried at sea. MiKSCH, Michael and Johanna Maria, m.n. Kuehn. He was a Moravian from Kunwald, was with Grassman and Schneider in the missionary attempt among the Samoyedes on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, 1737. He rendered efficient service in the external work at Bethlehem, Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoni, Nazareth and Gnadenthal, and accompanied itinerants on many journeys. His wife and he died at Gnadenthal, she in 1786 and he in 1792. They were the parents of the child born on the voyage, died and buried at New London, May 24. Powell, Samuel and Martha. He was a brazier and bell-founder from Whitechurch, Shropshire, England. He rendered varied and valuable service to the Church in Philadelphia, at Bethlehem and at the Indian Mission, Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoni, in external matters. He cast the bell for the mission chapel at Gnaden- huetten in 1747. He was landlord of the Crown Inn south of the Lehigh at Beth- lehem, October 1745 — May 1746, and there had charge of a general book depository opened by the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel. After this term of ser- vice he returned to Philadelphia, where he died 1762. Powell, Joseph and Martha, m.n. Pritchett. He was a brother of Samuel and hailed from the same place. He itinerated some years as a lay-evange- list in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland and was ordained, 1756. In 1759 he and his wife with John Levering and wife, went to Jamaica, W. I., as missionaries. Returning after six years they served in Maryland until 1772. His wife died at Bethlehem, 1774. Finally, after a few months of home missionary work in New York and Connecticut, he died, 1774, at the station Sichem, in Duchess Co., N. Y. The monument to his memory and that of Bruce, the missionary, has been mentioned in Chap. III. Rice, Owen and Elizabeth. He was from Haverfordwest, Wales. He did conspicuous service as an itinerant in English parts of Pennsylvania, in New Jersey, New York, the New England colonies, and as English preacher in Philadelphia and at Bethlehem. During intervals of residence there, as well as elsewhere, he com- bined the practice of medicine and minor surgery, as assistant to the regular physi- 122 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. cian, with his labor in the gospel, having acquired considerable experience and skill in this respect. He was ordained in 1748 and was the first settled Moravian pastor in New York City, 1750-54. In 1754 he returned to Europe and served numerous congregations in England and Ireland, until his death, at Gomersal in Yorkshire, in 1785. Sensemann, Henry Joachim and Anna Catherine, m.n. Ludwig. A baker by trade, he first served the settlement in this and various other capacities, and was the first time-keeper and bell ringer. 1743, he and his wife entered missionary service among the Indians, and in 1755 were serving as stewards at Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoni, when savages destroyed the mission and she was one of those who perished. In 1766 he and his second wife, Christina, m.n. Rubel, entered the mis- sion service on the Island of Jamaica, W. I. He was ordained in 1749. He died in consequence of a fall from the piazza of the mission-house at Carmel, Jamaica in 1774. Gottlob Senseman the missionary to the Indians who died at Fairfield, Canada, in 1800, was his son. Tanneberger, Michael and Anna Rosina. They were among the Mora- vians of the colony. He was a shoemaker and served the Bethlehem community at his trade, and in other secular employments, until his death, in 1 744. His widow was married to John George Endter and went with him as missionary to the Arawacks of Guiana, South America. Her third husband was Jonas Nilsen. Turner, John and Elizabeth. He hailed from London. She was a native of Wales. They were employed in connection with the second school opened by the Brethren in Germantown in 1746 in the house of John Bechtel. There they both died in 1749, he in April and she in May. Wahnert, David and Mary Elizabeth. He was cook for the Sea Con- gregation, and was famous as the faithful attendant of a number of subsequent colonists on the voyage across the ocean. His wife died in 175 1 and he was mar- ried in 1753 to the widow Rosina Pfahl, m.n. Hiickel. He died at Herrnhut in 1765. Yarrell, Thomas and Ann, m.n. Hopson. They were English members of the colony and returned to England in 1766. He was ordained in 1755 after serving some years as a lay-evangelist. He was stationed as minister in Newport, R. I.r and New York City. Later he served various congregations in England and Scot- land. single men. Andrew. One of the first converts in St. Thomas, commonly spoken of as "Andrew the Negro," {Andreas der Mohr). He accompanied Zinzendorf from St. Thomas to Europe in 1739, and was brought to Pennsylvania to labor among negroes as a witness of the power of the gospel. At Bethlehem he was married to Mary Magdalene, vice-eldress of the negro congregation in St. Thomas, brought to Pennsylvania by the missionary Loehans in November, 1742. He and his wile went to Europe with Zinzendorf in 1743. In 1744 he died at Marienborn. He figures among the 18 "first fruits" of Moravian missions from various nations who had entered into rest in 1747, depicted in a painting executed that year by order of Zinzendorf and known as "the picture of the first fruits" {das Erstlingsbild). It 1742. 123 is preserved at Herrnhut, and reduced copies in oil are at Zeist, Holland, and in the archives at Bethlehem. Another negro, Andrew, also spoken of as "Andreas der Mohr " is sometimes confused with him. This Andrew, No. 2, was presented by Thomas Noble, of New York, to Spangenberg, was baptized at Bethlehem in 1746, was married to Magdalena, a/z'as Beula, formerly belonging to Charles Brock- den of Philadelphia. They died at Bethlehem; he, 1779, she, 1820. Endter, John George. In 1745, married the widow of Michael Tanneberger and went as missionary to the Arawacks of Berbice, Guiana, South America. Gambold, Hector. Later called Ernest, from Wales, was married, 1743, to Eleanor Gregg, of New York, was ordained in 1755, labored in the ministry in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, was the first settled Moravian pastor on Staten Island in 1763, and died at Bethlehem in 1788. His son John Gambold was one of the pioneers in the Cherokee mission. Heydecker, John George. Entered the itinerant service in Pennsylvania and died in Falkner's Swamp in September, 1742. He was the first one of the colony who died. His remains were interred at Bethlehem. Hevne, John Christopher. Was employed in school work at several places in Pennsylvania. He married Margaret Schaeffer, of Tulpehocken. He also served as an .assistant minister under license at intervals. He and his wife severed con- nection with Bethlehem in November, 1750, and removed to Tulpehocken. Huber, John Michael. Was appointed an assistant elder at Bethlehem under the primitive organization, married the widow Catherine Rose (Chapter III, note 5), started alone to St. Thomas as assistant missionary in 1747, and perished at sea. Kaske, George. Married Elizabeth Funckof Pennsylvania, went as missionary to Berbice, South America, in 1745, was ordained while back in Bethlehem in 1747, left the mission under political oppression in 1752 and returned to Pennsyl- vania. He died at Nazareth in 1795. LisCHY, John Jacob. Of Swiss Reformed connection, married Mary Benezet of Philadelphia, itinerated over a large area among the German Reformed population, having been ordained in 1743 by Bishop Nitschmann. He broke with the Brethren in 1747, became their bitter enemy, issued two publications against them abound- ing in slanderous misrepresentations, was admitted to the ministry of the Reformed Church from which he was eventually deposed for irregularities, and died on his farm in York County, Pa., in 1781. Meurer, John Philip. The diarist of the Sea Congregation, entered evange- listic service, w^as ordained in December, 1742, served at different country stations, married (1744) Christina Krafft who died in 1757 and was buried in the church-yard used by the Brethren in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, where the inscription on her gravestone was one of the last of that period legible. Meurer died at Bethlehem in 1760. Moeller, Joseph. A gardener, at which occupation he served many years at Bethlehem and at Nazareth and Gnadenthal. He married Catherine Koch in 1745. They both died at Bethlehem, he in 1778 and she in 1798. 124 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Okely, John. From Bedford, England. He married Johanna Robins of Phila- delphia in 1743, and, as his second wife, Elizabeth Home of New York in 1745. He engaged in itinerant ministry in parts of Pennsylvania and was ordained in 1751. He is best known as scrivener and conveyancer at Bethlehem, figuring for a num- ber of years in much public business. He was commissioned a Justice of the Peace in 1774, and, for a while, was an Assistant Commissary in the service of the Continental Army in the Revolution. Estrangement with the authorities at Beth- lehem, on account of ofificial procedures on his part detrimental to the interests of the Church, led to his withdrawal with his third wife, Margaret, widow of Matthew Graeff, of Lancaster, to whom he was married in 1780. He died in Lancaster County in 1792. Okely, William. Ship carpenter and sailor, a brother of John, remained in Pennsylvania until 1748, when, under Capt. Garrison, he was one of the crew of the church ship, Irene, on her first voyage to Europe. After six years in this service — doing duty in the line of his trade at Bethlehem, during sojourns here at intervals — he returned to Europe in 1754- Post, Christian Frederick. A Prussian and originally a joiner by trade, was the well known, indefatigable, somewhat eccentric missionary to the Indians, whose peculiarly important services to the government of Pennsylvania in treating with the western Indians, at a most critical juncture in 1758, made his name celebrated in the history of the Province. He was also with the company that made the luckless first attempt to start a mission in Labrador in 1752, when those not mur- dered had to leave to help man the vessel. In 1761 he undertook the first mission in the Tuscarawas Valley, Ohio, and the following year initiated John Heckewelder into that work. In 1764 he went to the Moskito Coast to start an independent mission, and, after two protracted sojourns there — visiting Bethlehem in 1767 — he located in Germantown, Pa., in 1784. His final labors were under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal clergy. He died at Germantown in 1785, and was there buried m the "Lower Graveyard," where, about 1840, a marble slab with an in- scription reciting his career was placed upon his grave. He was thrice married. His first two wives were Indian women ; his idea being that this would facilitate his efforts. He was never ordained in the Moravian Church. Pezold, John Gottlieb. Was one of the most devoted and valuable men of his time, both in evangelistic activity and in official counsel. From 1 742-1 753 he was general superintendent of the work of the single men in America. He was ordained in 1748. Returning to Europe in 1753, he brought over a colony of single men in 1754. After that he was chaplain and spiritual overseer of the Single Brethren's House at Bethlehem. His principal evangelistic efforts in the Ma- guntsche neighborhood laid the foundation of the Moravian Church at Emmaus. While on an official visit to Lititz, he died there in 1762. RONNER, John Reinhold. Was ordained in 1743, married Elizabeth Fissler, of Philadelphia, labored in many places in Pennsylvania up to 1750, when he went with his wife to St. Thomas, W. I., as missionary. In 1755 they returned to Beth- lehem where he died in 1756. His wife, after further years of service as a deacon- ess, mainly in New York, died at Bethlehem in 1771. 1742. 125 Schneider, George. One of the native Moravians of the colony, was employed for a while in itinerant service and particularly in the external affairs of several schools. He married Gertrude Peterson, of Long Island, in 1746. In subsequent years he was connected with the agricultural interests at Nazareth and Bethlehem. He died in 1774 and his wife in 1803, both at Bethlehem. Schnell, Leonard. Labored as an itinerant lay-evangelist in various neighbor- hoods, besides engaging in various duties at Bethlehem from time to time, until 1748, when he was ordained to the regular ministry. In 175 1 he severed his connection with the Brethren and then ministered some time to the Lutherans in the Maguntsche and Saucon neighborhoods. One of his notable exploits was an evangelistic tour afoot to Georgia in 1743. Seidel, Nathanael. The most important man among these Single Brethren. He was the son of a Bohemian emigrant in Silesia and therefore in close afifinity with the native Moravians. During the early years of his career in Pennsylvania he was one of the most zealous and untiring itinerants among whites and Indians, and the many long journeys he made afoot were remarkable. He later made perilous and exhausting journeys to the West Indies and Surinam. He was ordained a deacon before he came to Pennsylvania, a presbyter in 1748 and a bishop in 1758. He was the successor of Bishop Spangenberg in general superintendence of Moravian work in America in which position he stood until his death. He was also one of the succession of nominal proprietors of all the estates of the Church under the authorities at Bethlehem. His wife, whom he married in 1760, was a daughter of George Piesch, conductor of the Sea Congregation — Anna Johanna Piesch, a grand- daughter of Father Nitschmann. Bishop Seidel died at Bethlehem in 1782. A full sketch of his career is given in Vol. II, Transactions of the Moravian Histor- ical Society. His widow died at Nazareth. Shaw, Joseph. One of the English members, who was to have studied for the Church but was obliged by ill-health to abandon it. He served as teacher first among the Indians, and then at Walpack and Dansbury in the Minisinks among white settlers, doing evangelistic work there also, 1745-47. There his first wife, Mary Jones, of Philadelphia, died. Having been ordained in August, 1747, Shaw, with his second wife, Mary Heap, of Philadelphia, started with Huber for St. Thomas to enter missionary service, and with him they were lost at sea in October. Werner, Christian. Was employed as sick-nurse in schools, at farm-work, and as a care-taker and watchman about the church premises at Bethlehem. He married Anna Maria Brandner who with Neubert and others followed the Sea Con- gregation to Pennsylvania in September, 1742. He died at Bethlehem in 1783. His wife preceded him in 1760. Wiesner, George. Returned with Zinzendorf to Europe in 1743 as an atten- dant on the voyage. WiTTKE, Matthew. Was employed mainly m agricultural work at the stations on the Barony of Nazareth and at Friedensthal. He and Wiesner seem to have been the only two members of the colony who figured as "illiterate" to the extent of having to " make their mark " in lieu of writing their names, in the State House at Philadelphia, when they arrived. 126 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. It may be added that, under the system of the time, all of those who served as itinerants, or were stationed for brief periods at different places, were employed at Bethlehem during intervals, at various duties, some in laboring at their trades others at whatever work was most pressing, from time to time, and that they were able to do. Adolph Meyer, Joachim Sensemann and Daniel Neubert, who was to come with them, but first arrived in September, were among the people connected with the Holstein attempts and with Heerendyk in Holland. Of the following members of this colony, descendants of the name are known, living at Bethlehem or elsewhere : David Bishop, Michael Miksch, Owen Rice, Joachim Sensemann, Joseph Moeller. CHAPTER VI. From the Organization to thp: Return of Spangenberg. 1742—1744- On June 15, after the adjournment of the Pennsylvania Synod, Anton Seififert, with several of the new-comers who were carpenters, hurried of¥ to Bethlehem to help Father Nitschmann and his few assistants complete the necessary work at the Community House. On Whit-Sunday, June 17, the colony assembled in Germantown at a lovefeast in the house of the clock-maker Endt, where the first "Conference of ReHgions" had been held. It was occupied at this time by Gotthard Demuth and Augustine Neisser who had worked at his trade with Endt. \ /On Whit-Monday, thirty-five of them started together for the Forks. Boehler and his wife, with all of the English members of the colony, and Bryzelius and his wife, remained temporarily in Phil- adelphia, where Boehler took the place of Pyrlaeus who went along to Bethlehem. That company reached Skippack in the evening and remained there over night. At four o'clock the next morning they were again on the way to Falkner's Swamp. When they reached the home of Henry Antes they were greatly fatigued, especially the women, being unused to such exertion after so many weeks on ship- board, and the weather being very warm. Antes provided wagons to convey the women and several of the less able-bodied men over the next stage of the journey to Joseph Mueller's in the Great Swamp, where they arrived in the course of the day on the 20th, and were overtaken by the wagon from Philadelphia with their heavy luggage. They made an early start from Mueller's on the 21st and at half-past ten o'clock the first detachment, the single men with one of the wagons, reached Bethlehem. The wife of Bishop Nitschmann was given a place on the wagon with the luggage. Hymns of thanksgiving were sung while they crossed the Lehigh, and Count Zinzendorf, who 127 128 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. with several other persons had preceded them on horseback, welcomed them on the other side of the stream. The rest of the colony arrived at noon. A bountiful meal was in readiness, and with grateful hearts, almost forgetting their weariness under the exhilaration of the hour, they enjoyed the first hospitality of the House of Bread. The next day was devoted simply to bodily rest. The proceedings connected with their establishment at the place, the opening of the new epoch and the first organization of the people for communal life and for religious and secular activity, began on the 23d. It was Saturday, and was observed as a Gcmcintag} The day must have been fully occupied with the various meetings, of which there were seven. Count Zinzendorf presided at all of them. The first was the consecration of their place of worship in the Com- munity House. In his dedicatory prayer the Count prayed "that the congregation there gathered might be a blessing to the country and that their place of prayer might be the Saviour's dwelling-place where His devoted people would go in and out." For nine years that unpretentious chapel on the second floor of the Community House was the place of worship and general assembly-room of the settle- ment. There, not only numerous hours of earnest prayer, by people whose lives were devoted to great efforts in the cause of Christ, and precious occasions of spiritual fellowship, refreshment and edification were passed, but many important deliberations on enterprises that extended to many regions of the country and even across the seas were held ; councils with deputations of Indians from various quarters took place, and one after another red man and woman of the forest rescued from heathenism and won by the love of Jesus, was baptized into His death. Its hallowed associations deserve to be perpetuated by some fit use of the place. At the second service a sermon was preached by Zinzendorf. At the third, Gottheb Haberecht, who had repented of his defection to the Ephrata brotherhood, and Matthias Seybold, who had likewise repented of his temporary indifference to covenant obligations, were formally restored to full fellowship. At the fourth gathering of the day, Zinzendorf addressed the people in reference to the object of founding Bethlehem as a missionary center; explaining that it was not to be a place for persons to locate in at ease, as some inhabitants of Herrnhut erroneously thought of that place. He also gave them I On Gemeintag, see note under Chapter IV. 1742 1/44. 129 an exposition of the various chuixh-types presented in the Seven Churches of Asia, (Rev. 2, 3). The fifth session was devoted to a general review of the work of the Brethren in all places, up to that time, a retrospect of the seven Pennsylvania Synods, and an eluci- dation of all the varied general and special offices in the Church, as then instituted. At the sixth session, correspondence and reports from missionaries in many places were read, and one of the women who had been taken into church fellowship from Pennsylvania, was confirmed. The seventh service was evening prayer which closed the day. The next day, June 24, was Trinity Sunday, according to the old English calendar. There was preaching at ten o'clock by Andrew Eschenbach, to which, as on all occasions of public preaching from the beginning, any people from near or far who chose to come were welcomed. Later in the day, a general council of all the people was held, at which the first steps were taken in a definite organization. A primary division of the hundred and twenty persons announced on June 13, was made into two large companies. One was called the pilgrim or itinerant congregation ; the other the home or local con- gregation — Pilgcrgcmcinc and Hausgcmeinc. Eighty persons were actually present, according to lists preserved. The selection of persons for one or the other division was made, in some cases in accordance with their expressed preference, in other cases by lot, at their request. Those in the first division were to devote themselves to evan- gelistic work among Indians and white people, adults and children, according to arrangements to be made from time to time. The others were to "tarry by the stuff" (I Sam. 30:24). They were to develop the material resources, erect buildings, provide sustenance for the "pilgrims," care for their necessities as they went and came; and, at the same time, spiritually keep the fire burning on the home altar. Subsequently, transfers were often made from one division to the other, as circumstances required. Many would be among the pil- grims for a season and then a while with the home congregation. All were expected, during their sojourn at Bethlehem, to lend a hand at any necessary work they could do. The pilgrims were classified under designations in which Zinzendorf revealed a fondness for striking novelties, like those which appear in some quite modern svstems of religious activitv. Thus, in the further organization of 130 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. their work, one corps were the "Fishers" (Matt. 4:19), a kind of "look-out committee" traversing different neighborhoods to seek places in need of attention, note open doors and get into personal touch with people. Another corps making periodical tours together, visiting from house to house in circuits, received the name, "the Pennsylvania Wheel," in allusion to Ezekiel i :i5.20, — also "the Penn- sylvania Chariot," (Acts 8:26-39). Special itineraries were mapped out for these corps which they were to complete in a fixed time, after which they were to return and report. When places opened for more localized work, permanently or for protracted seasons, two further classes of laborers were organ- ized among those who were regular ministers, or at least were best qualified for public speaking. Those of one class had an assigned circuit. The others settled at one place, concentrating their effort. They were spoken of as the "traveling preachers" and the "stationed preachers" — Landprcdiger and die auf Posten. Those who were to do missionary work among the Indians were selected from time to time, with a view to their fitness in various respects for this particular work. Those who were to devote their special attention to the children were likewise carefully selected. As arrangements were perfected, a superintendent of each of these departments was appointed and he was called the Elder of that corps of workers. Thus, in connection with the work among the Indians, the office of Hcidcnacltcstcr was instituted, Elder of the Work among the Heathen. Over the children's department stood two Kindcreltcrn — parents. This developed system was only germinal in the arrange- ments made at first, on June 24. At that general meeting on Trinity Sunday there was a thorough discussion of the question what course to pursue, both as a principle and as a matter of expediency, in reference to the observance of the First Day and the Seventh Day. The Sabbath question, in this sense, was a more conspicuous one among the religionists of the country, both German and English, at that time, than is now commonly known. Some Sabbatarians merely maintained that the Divine command in reference to the seventh day could not properly be ignored or transferred to the first day, and therefore kept Saturday holy, but did not obtrude their disregard of the first day. Others, more fanatical, like the extreme wing of the Ephrata fraternity, took pains to desecrate Sunday, and even reviled its observance, as having a heathen origin, and applied 1/42 1744 131 opprobrious epithets to it. The terms used for the two days, in connection with these deliberations were Sabbath (seventh day) and the Lord's Day (first day). There was no discussion in reference to observing the Lord's Day or not. This was taken for granted, in accordance with general Christian tradition and the law of the Province. The question was whether to observe also Saturday as Sabbath, and in what manner, and what distinction to make between the character and significance of the two. Saturday, as the Sabbath, was distinguished as a day of rest and spiritual communion — RnJic iind Bettag. Sunday, as the Lord's Day, was to be the day for preaching, public worship and instruction — Lchrtag. As a matter of principle, two general considerations weighed in favor of such an observance of Saturday. One was that rest of body and mind on the seventh day kept the Divine example and ordinance sacred, which were older than the Mosaic law. It was argued therefore that they could thus be applied to man and beast without any thought of Old Testament legalism. It should be observed by them therefore, not as Jews or Judaizers, but as human beings ; not obeying a command, but using a benefit conferred. When the objection was raised that sacrifices were also older than the Mosaic law% the answer was that there was a wide difference between sacrifices and the Sabbath. Sacrifices had been done away with in the sacrifice of Jesus, the supreme anti-type, whereas the anti-type of the Sabbath is the future sabbatical state, the rest that remaineth to the people of God, yet to be consummated and yet looked forward to by Christians. The other general consideration, commending Saturday as a day of communion and prayer, was the fact that the body of Christ rested in the tomb over the Sabbath, and that all who are buried with Him by baptism into death may on that day suitably cherish the com- munion of saints in the church that waiteth for Him and in that which is around Him ; keeping fellowship in spirit at the tomb where his flesh rested in hope. Therefore on this day of rest and prayer, the observance of Gcincintag, and the celebration of the Holy Com- munion had been established before in Europe. Viewed from the stand-point of expediency, two special consider- ations were advanced in favor of such an observance of the seventh day. One was the position of the Sabbatarian sects. They would be deprived of "the monopoly of a certain righteousness in which they boasted," and would be conciliated by this degree of respect 132 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. for their ideas. The other was the fanciful notion that, if it appeared that the Indians really were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, it might be necessary to lead them back to their ancestral religion, in its main features, and out of that to the gospel. Therefore, it would be suitable to restore the Sabbath. The distinctive Old Testa- ment covenant rite corresponding to the New Testament baptism was al§o alluded to. These far-fetched ideas were, however, not applied in the method of evangelizing the Indians. - The lingering regard for the ancient Sabbath, in the consciousness of Christendom, was held to be evident in the half holiday observed in schools, and the common disposition to stop working earlier on Saturday than on other days ; as well as in the strict Puritan practice of transferring Mosaic ideas to Sunday, but making their observance begin at sunset, Saturday. It was remarked that the Sabbath was gradually discarded in Christendom, in breaking with the externals of Judaism, and became obsolete through the difficulty found in sparing two days each week from common employment. In this connection, the practical question was raised whether the material interests of the settlement would permit such a Saturday rest. Seiffert, the Eldei", was asked for an opinion, and it was decided that matters could be so adjusted and regulated. It was therefore concluded to observe Saturday, as proposed, not instead of, but together with Sunday. Communion was to be celebrated on Saturday, but, for various reasons, Gemeintag sessions would be held on Sunday. Later, Communion was, however, also transfered to Sunday, as a rule. As to the idea to be attached to Sunday, as the Lord's Day, it was pointed out that the primitive Christians observed it, while they yet kept the seventh as the Sabbath — in honor of the Resurrection of Christ. Therefore Sunday was to be regarded primarily as a festival in commemoration of the Resurrection, by having the various meetings for indoctrination, and the public services with general preaching of the gospel on that day ; but without insisting on trans- ferring the Sabbath-conception to Sunday. Two general reasons for keeping the Lord's Day holy were set forth. One was due honor to Him who rose the third day and due recognition of the resurrection 2 A scheme of a method to approach the Indians, sketched by Zinzendorf in twenty-five brief paragraphs in a logical order of progress, was adopted as the general plan, and is an interesting study. It is found in the Buedingsche Sammlungen, Volume III, pp. 90-91, and bears the title Alethodiis der Wilden Bekehrung — Method of converting the savages. 1742 1744- 133 as the triumphant completion of the atonement, with which all the articles of Christian faith stand or fall. The other was due obedience to the civil law which commands cessation of work, and regard for common Christian sentiment which venerates the Lord's Day as the holy day of the week. In putting these discriminating ideas into practice in the religious and social life of Bethlehem, difficulty was experienced later in two respects. Some, not clear on the rationale of the plan, were disposed to follow the Sabbatarians in substituting Saturday for Sunday as the one holy day. Others, less devout and conscientious, used the liberty the law permitted on Saturday, but then, abusing the principle laid down that Sunday was not to be viewed as the Mosaic Sabbath, violated the civil law, gave ofifence to puritanical neighbors, and caused the impression that the Brethren were Sabbatarians. Such infractions were peremptorily dealt with by the village authorities. It may be added that after a few years this double holy day became impracticable and entire cessation of labor on Saturday was not main- tained. At the meeting on June 24 the idea was broached of building cabins at half-mile intervals along the road to Nazareth, to be occupied for a season by persons who were to go out into the Indian country as missionaries. This was to induct them into the isolated life they would have to lead. It would, at the same time, increase the number of domiciles for the temporary use of resting itinerants, and would be a step towards the close connection between Bethlehem and Naza- reth that was in contemplation. Some such cabins were subsequently built at different spots for make-shift use, but not on the road to Nazareth. On Monday, June 25, Count Zinzendorf and his daughter, with several other persons, visited the spot where the settlement had been commenced on the Barony of Nazareth, remaining most of the day. On that occasion, as it seems, he had an interview with Captain John and the Indians of Welagameka who were yet there, demon- strating how possession was nine points of the law. Subsequent pro- ceedings showed that, whatever efiforts he may have made with the redoubtable captain, they were fruitless. Meanwhile George Neisser, Secretary, with his assistants, was getting the written work of those days, classified lists of names and the like, into shape for the final meeting of that evening. 134 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Ouf^ ^^^o^-rj^-^y^^w^ '^^W^^^V***-?****-*^ ^W" ^/^ 24-. ^^^ =il^S^f 6£jeis:^^^!z,^^^i^^^^^^ A PAGE OF THE BETHLEHEM DIARY. 1742 1744- "35 •rn t-i>> n - 1^*^ ^f^^t^*^^^*1 A PAGE OF THE BETHLEHEM DIARY. 136 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. All the eighty persons^ present at these important proceedings assembled in the evening, and engaged in one of those services of song — Singstwiden — which Zinzendorf had made so popular. On this occasion the first organization was completed and the arrangements, so far as they were perfected, put into operation. Certain local 3 Mention of persons at Bethlehem, June 25, 1742, found at different places in the records show slight discrepancies. In some cases names are included of individuals who did not arrive until several days later. In others, persons are mentioned who certainly were not there. Very careful examination leads to the conclusion that the following list is probably accurate : MARRIED PEOPLE. Aimers, Henry and Rosina. Bischoff, John David and Anna Catherine. Brandmiller, John. Brucker, John and Mary Barbara Demuth, Gotthard and Regina. Harten, George and Elizabeth. Meinung, Abraham and Judith. Meyer, John Adolph. Miksch, Michael and Johanna Maria. Nitschmanti, Rosina. Senseman, Henry and Anna Catherine. Seybold, Matthias and Anna Maria. Tanneberger, Michael and Anna Rosina. Wahnert, David and Mary Elizabeth. Weber, George and Mary Elizabeth. Zeisberger, David and Rosina. Zinzendorf, Nicholas Lewis. SINGLE MEN. Andrew, the Negro. Boehner, John. Bruce, David. Bueninger, Abraham. Detweiler, Jacob. Endter, John George. Eschenbach, Andrew. Haberecht, Gottlieb. Hagen, John. Hardie, Thomas. Heydecker, George. Heyne, John Christopher. Huber, John Michael. Israel, Christian Gottlieb. John, Wasamapa (Indian). Lischy, John Jacob. Meurer, John Philip. Moeller, Joseph. Mueller, John. Neisser, George. Oesterlein, Daniel. Pezold, John Gottlieb. Post, Christian Frederick, Pyrlaeus, John Christopher. Rauch, Christian Henry. Ronner, John Reinhold. Schnell, Leonard. Seidel, Nathanael. Seiffert, Anton. Werner, Christian. Wiesner, George. Wittke, Matthew. Zander, John William. Zeisberger, David, Jr. j Somer«, Benjamin. I James, Valentine, , Guerge, SINGLE WOMEN. Braun, Elizabeth. Benezet, Judith. Benezet, Mary. Benezet, Susan. Disman, Anna Margaret. Hummel, Johanna. Magdalena, Negio girl. Miller, Johanna Magdalena Nitschmann, Anna. Robins, Esther. Wend, Mary Magdalena. Zinzendorf, Benigna. 1742 1744- 137 officials were announced and the various bands, or classes into which the population was divided — each with a leader — for the cultivation of intimate fellowship and for mutual, spiritual helpfulness, were read. There were eight such classes for the home congregation and eleven for the itinerants. Among the eight, were two of married couples, one of widowers and married men whose wives were not with them, one of women thus alone and four of single men. Among the itinerants there were one of married couples, one of married men alone, five of single men and four of single women. Zinzendorf — his wife not being present — placed himself in a class with Brandmiller, Adolph Meyer and the Indian John Wasamapah ("Tschoop") who were similarly situated, together with Father Nitschmann who was a widower. In connection with that evening service Zinzendorf ■ preached a sermon on the watchword for that day — the anniversary of the presentation of the confession of Augsburg, June 25, 1530 — "Strong is thy dwelling place and thou puttest they nest in a rock," Numbers 24:21. It was rich in suggestive meaning for the new settlement in connection with the day on which its organization was consummated, and which eventually became fixed as the anniversary day of Bethlehem. The first distinct section of the period now under review is that from the organization of the settlement to the departure of Count Zinzendorf for Europe. Those were months of enthusiastic and, in some features, confused activity. All was at a formative stage. Many arrangements were temporary and subject to change, as circumstances required, from week to week. Much in the organization of govern- ment and work, was only tentative. No fixed model was being followed, for the situation was unique and required the origination of plans and methods. With all this, Zinzendorf's independence of ecclesiastical conventionality, propensity to experiment with novelties in method, and his adaptation of many local plans to the frequent changes he made in general plans, helped to keep things in flux. Much was wanting, in external appointments, to carry out the ideas in mind for the place. In the communal arrangements, fine ideals of religious, social and industrial order struggled for the mastery with the difficulties of a large company of people massed in two rough unfinished buildings which would seem hardly adequate for one fourth the number, in the actual dwelling-room they afforded. Around them were primitive back-woods conditions, quite new to by far the most of them, to which they needed first to be trained. 138 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Under these circumstances, a discipline almost military had to prevail in many respects, in order to meet the practical difficulties of the case and preserve the standard of general morals that had been set. The ideas and purposes of the enterprise made it a different task from that of ordinary beginnings of the kind. All the diversified operations carried on at many points, moreover, were so inseparable from the life and order of Bethlehem, that it is impossible to treat the latter apart from them. Hardly anything in the scenes of those months was without relation to what was going on at many another place. The main matters to be noticed in sketching that time can be best presented, not by following the course of things chronologically as they occurred, for this would require a substantial reproduction of diaries and official minutes, which would be only a jumble of facts, but by classifying these matters somewhat and thus reviewing them. The general organization and offices embodied a few rudimental ideas which, with all the changes of form and name in subsequent years, lay at the roots of the elaborate system that was eventually established. The patriarchal idea of the Eldership was attached to the control of things. The name Elder was used for both the executive and pastoral head. There was an Elder of the whole congre- gation and one for each of its several divisions. Women were chosen as general and special Eldresses of the female membership. But, at the same time, the principle of conferential government and collegiate administration, with both ordained and unordained men and also women participating, was established. The various deliberative and administrative bodies were called conferences. The word Helper was associated with Elder in connection with such bodies, and the term Helpers' Conference came into vogue. Along with these terms the German words Vorstchcr and Dicncr were brought into use from the beginning. They corresponded, in the application made them, to the English terms Warden and Steward. The boards in charge of this class of duties were composed of men and women jointly. Thus arose, in the course of that summer a Dicncr-CoUcgiiun — a board of stewards with a Vorstchcr or Warden at the head, along with the Helper's-Conference, having the Elder of the congregation at the head. These rudiments of organization have survived to modern times both in the general government of the Brethren's Church and in the organization of its single settlements and congregations. Herein 174^ 1744- 139 the precedent of Herrnhut was followed. A peculiar office, which existed in Europe, in connection with the whole and with each congre- gation, was that to which Zinzendorf gave the name Charnicr. This was introduced at Bethlehem, in elaborating the original organization. It consisted in a quiet, general watching and direction of all arrange- ments and activities, both spiritual and external, by persons who made themselves specially familiar with all principles and regulations. They were subordinate officially to the Elder, but were at liberty to admonish every board, functionary and private person. Zinzendorf called it "the most necessary and indispensable office" under the con- ditions then existing; "the key to keep the clock running." David Bishop and his wife were the first who were entrusted with this office at Bethlehem, and all, from Anton SeifYert, the Elder of the congregation, and Father Nitschmann, the General Superintendent of external work, down to the stable boys and sculUons were supposed to take it kindly, if reminded of a defect by them. A later office, then spoken of as desirable, but not at once insti- tuted, was that called Gcmeinrichter. It was to compensate for the absence of a local civil magistrate and police. Henry Antes, after he located at Bethlehem several years later, became the first Gcmein- richter. A Richtcr Collegium was developed, out of which finally arose the Anfschcr Collegium — Board of Supervisors — which existed until the middle of the nineteenth century at Bethlehem, as in European church settlements. Although the appointment of such an official was deferred, the great desirabiUty of a proper acquaintance with the civil law, and with their rights and duties under it, was realized; especially as some confusion existed from the start about the juris- diction of the several nearest Justices of the Peace — Nathaniel Irish, on the Saucon Creek, was the nearest Justice — and conflicting orders which they seem to have received about matters from several quarters. Therefore it was decided in September to procure a copy of the laws of the Province which George Neisser, secretary and scrivener, was to study carefully, in order to be their counsellor-at-law. On the fourth of July a Sacristan was appointed. The first such functionary was John Brandmiller. With him was associated a corps of men and women to perform various duties about the place of worship. They were called Saaldicner instead of Kirchmdiener — Sac- ristan — as commonly in German ; because, in those days, the place of worship among the Brethren was spoken of as the Saal — hall, and in English, chapel, instead of KircJw — church. This gave rise later to 140 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the custom among English Moravians, when the absurdly literal ren- dering of German terms into English was in vogue, of calling the Sacristans "chapel-servants ;" while at Bethlehem, in the days of Ger- man and English amalgamation, the barbarism "Dieners" came into use. This department of service was elaborated by adding a corps of persons to do duty in the common refectory — the Tischdiener, and another to act as cicerones — the Fremdendiener. These latter were made very necessary by the ill-mannered freedom with which all kinds of persons entered and strolled about the apartments, prying into everything. Eight men and seven women were appointed in July as nurses, under the direction of the physician of the settlement. Dr. Adolph Meyer, who organized them for systematic duty. He employed cer- tain of them as assistants in the dispensary and at collecting medicinal herbs and roots for his primitive pharmacy in the Community House. July 15, the first systematic postal arrangements were organized, with George Neisser as first postmaster ; Pyrlaeus in Philadelphia and Antes in Frederick Township, having charge at the other ends. The first four postilions were Abraham Bueninger, John Philip Meurer, George Schneider and Andrew the Negro. Their stopping-places were to be Benezet's in Philadelphia, Henry Holstein's in Falkner's Swamp and Bechtel's in Germantown ; and weekly tours were arranged. Later in the year another class of messengers called Landbotcn were appointed, to visit the districts and stations where evangelists labored, and bring stated reports to Bethlehem. In con- nection with the oversight of this branch of service and keeping lists and records of the personnel in all local and itinerant departments, along with the diary of current events, Neisser was also authorized to prepare and keep in order a complete catalogue of the congre- gation, local and itinerant. Supervisors and foremen were appointed over the different sets of hands employed at the various industries, and there were responsible custodians of the different classes of materials, supplies, implements and tools. The herding of the cattle, carrying water from the spring for household use and other such lighter duties were committed to infirm men and to boys, with some one in charge of each such department. The established daily routine left nobody unemployed at any time, unless sick, except during the hours of necessary sleep ; and the esprit dc corps assiduously cultivated, proceeded from the central idea of doing everything as a service to the Lord. It is significant that 1742 1744- HI one of the first features of the daily order estabUshed — only two days after the organization — was the division of the entire congregation into prayer-bands, to maintain the "hourly intercession" that had been introduced in Herrnhut in 1727, referred to in the preceding chapter, in connection with the regulations of the Sea Congregation. These were the nineteen classes of June 25, thus specially organized for prayer-turns. The hours extended from five o'clock in the morn- ing to midnight, and all took their assigned turns, from Count Zin- zendorf to Andrew the Negro. From midnight to five o'clock, the night-watch — a man in the chapel, a woman in the women's dormi- tory and another man outside, patrolling the premises — did duty, watching and praying. They called out the hours until the bell, procured July i and hung July 6 to a tree near the house, was used for this purpose. Joachim Senseman was the first time-keeper and bell-ringer. Saturday nights the watch was kept by one of the bands organized on June 25. This was called Bandemvache. They closed the watch on Sunday morning by going out to the newly-opened graveyard and singing a hymn in commemoration of the Resurrec- tion. Returning, they sang morning hymns at the dormitory doors, and finally engaged in prayer together in the chapel, opening thus the day's round of devotions. This, and other such highly-wrought religious arrangements, characteristic of the first fervor of the new organization, were only temporary. The first thing each day was general morning prayer after rising, and the last thing before retiring at night was evening prayer. This usually took the form of a song-service. The hours for devotions, meals and labor were announced by the time-keeper. The labor to be performed each day was determined the preceding day, and the work apportioned. Announcements of all kinds for the succeeding day were made at each evening meal, so far as they concerned all in common. Naturally, the eating and sleeping arrangements, the management of the culinary department, and other such features of the domestic economy, were subjected to minute and rigid regula- tions, to maintain, in such crowded quarters, that order and decorum which the high tone of the settlement demanded. The method of entrance and sitting in the chapel was also carefully regulated from the beginning, and no little difftculty was experienced in the effort to train the uncouth throngs that gathered from far and near to public services. As to the services, as held at the beginning — in this matter there were many subsequent changes — one Sunday's 142 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA order may be given : Morning prayer, breakfast — all, old and young, partaking together — House Conference, to arrange daily routine, German preaching, dinner for residents and guests, English preach- ing, catechization, an address by the Indian, John Wasamapah ("Tschoop"), a sermon for afternoon callers, Bible exposition, quar- ter hour meetings by the dififerent divisions known as "choirs," singly, vesper service, usually consisting of singing exclusively, the evening meal, evening prayer for the single men, and then the customary prayer hours until midnight. Formidable as this appears, the nice system applied, the extreme brevity of most of these services and the fervent devotion which prevailed caused such a program to be less burdensome to the flesh than might be supposed. During the several months that followed the organization, first occasions occurred for every kind of special religious service and rite in the ritual of the Church, and these have interest also as notable incidents of those weeks. The first funeral took place on June 27. It was that of John Mueller, a young man of Rhinebeck, N. Y., who had accompanied the missionary Ranch to Bethlehem, and had died on June 26. Count Zinzendorf, with Christian Froehlich, strolled into the woods north-east of the Community House and selected a spot at which Froehlich dug the grave. In conducting the funeral, Zinzendorf consecrated the ground as the "God's acre" of the settlement — the present historic old cemetery. It was at first often called Bethlehem's "Hutberg," after the hill of that name on which the cemetery of Herrnhut is situated. The first funeral of a neighbor, outside of Bethlehem, held by the Brethren was that, on July 28, of their friend, Isaac Martens Ysselstein, who died July 26. Boehler conducted the service in English at the house of the family, on the south side of the river, and his body was interred on his farm. The site of his grave is unknown, but the dust of this good Hollander probably reposes beneath the rumble of massive machinery, or the heat of glowing furnaces, or the thunder of passing trains. The first member of the Sea Congregation who died was John George Heydecker, on September 10, in Falkner's Swamp, while on an evangelistic tour. The funeral was conducted by Zinzendorf, Sep- tember 12. This was the second interment at Bethlehem. The first marriage ceremony was performed — also by Zinzen- dorf — on July 8. It was that of the missionary John William Zander and Johanna Magdalene IMueller. The first birth and baptism occurred July 16, a daughter of Brvzelius and his 1742 1744- H3 wife. The name Anna Regina was given the child in baptism by Zinzendorf on the evening of the same day. The first adult baptized at Bethlehem was a Quakeress of Philadelphia who had been married to Froehlich on July lo. Her name was Esther Robins, and, in baptizing her on July 17, Zinzendorf gave her the additional name Mary. The first ordination w'as that of Zander on August 9, performed by Bishop Nitschmann and Zinzendorf. Five presbyters present joined in the imposition of hands, and the certificate Zander took with him to Berbice was endorsed by twenty-seven witnesses. The first baptism of Indians at Bethlehem took place on September 15. There were two of them. The first was Wanab, also called Gabriel, who was baptized by Zinzendorf and given the name David. The second, Tassawachamen, was baptized by Buettner and named Joshua. At the same time a white man of Oley, Joseph Bull, was baptized by Eschenbach and given the additional name John. This man figured later very conspicuously in connection with the missions among the Indians. He married an Indian wife and was called by the Indians Shebosh, the name by which he became most generally known. The following details of this interesting ceremony are on record. The candidates were seated in the center of the chapel on three chairs. Three men stood back of them and those who were to perform the baptism took their places on either side of SeifTert the Elder who sat at the table and led the singing. In front of the can- didates w-as placed a tub of water covered with a large white cloth. Just before the baptism the men who stood behind them removed the blankets of the Indians and the blouse worn by the white man, and they all knelt on the edge of the white cloth at the tub of water. Zinzendorf, Buettner and Eschenbach at the same time drew near, each with a bowl in his hand, and dipped water out of the tub. At the moment when the appropriate words of the appointed verse were being sung, Zinzendorf repeated the names of the three and said: "We baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost." Thereupon the w-ater was poured on the heads of the three. During the continuance of the singing, Seif^ert and the helpers approached and joined in the imposition of hands; after which the baptized men took their seats again, the blankets and blouse were replaced and the service was concluded with benisons sung by the congregation. A special, informal service worthy of note was held on July 7, in the uncleared woods a short distance to the east of the Communitv 144 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. House. It marked the first step towards the erection of the next large building of the settlement, which however was not proceeded with until two years later, on account of other building operations meanwhile deemed more urgent. It was decided tO' build a large house as a common home for the single men of the settlement. Count Zinzendorf, planning the location of the different classes of buildings had in view, selected the site for this house. On that day the founda- tion lines were staked ofif and in the afternoon the single men pro- ceeded to clear the spot. The work was gone at in a cere- monious manner. All who were then at Bethlehem assembled on the ground. Zinzendorf delivered a brief discourse, a prayer was offered and the young men sang a hymn that had been written for the laying of the corner-stone of the Single Breth- ren's House at Herrnhaag in 1739. Then they went at their task with enthusiasm. The building which eventually arose there is the oldest part of the present Sisters' House, the south-west corner. The most urgent task, so far as the erection of buildings was con- cerned, was the enlargement of the Community House. Even the original building was not finished when the colony arrived in June. During the first five months of the year 1742, almost every man and woman who could be used by Zinzendorf in the spiritual labor he was inaugurating at many points, was called away from Bethlehem, and hardly any were left to go on with the external work. When Bishop Nitschmann was commissioned to visit St. Thomas, and Father Nitschmann was left almost without assistance, he sent an appeal for more help, which was considered at the fifth Conference of Religions in April. The colony was expected soon from Europe, quarters had to be provided and the time for spring sowing had come. Father Nitschmann knew that they must not only have shelter, but also a prospect of bread for the coming winter. The answer returned him was that the spiritual sowing took precedence, and rather than with- draw people from this work, things might lie fallow at Bethlehem and Nazareth another year, and bread be bought. Thus Zinzendorf's evangelistic enthusiasm, with an almost reckless disregard of the material necessities of the hour, overruled the master builder's prac- tical sense — but then, if the hour of need came, Zinzendorf would buy the bread. On August 12 it was decided to commence this addition at the east end of the Community House at once. On September 19 the corner-stone was laid with suitable solemnities. This addi- tion was completed on August 22, 1743, when it was taken posses- 1742 1744- 145 sion of, and an entire rearrangement of apartments and domestic order was effected. During the first months passed in the original part of the building, many necessary features yet wanting were grad- ually added, such as setting in windows, building partitions, laying permanent floors and building chimneys ; and during the first weeks even the carpenters' shop had to remain in the building until a little log house was erected for this purpose. Already at this crude stage the first specimen of decorative art at Bethlehem was put in place in the chapel of the Com- munity House on July 3. It was evidently the wo^k of Zin- zendorf's secretary, John Jacob Mueller, who was also an artist, as stated in a preceding chapter. He arrived at Bethlehem, June 28, with some other persons, in a wagon from Philadel- phia. He probably then brought this piece of ecclesiastical orna- mentation with him — no doubt hastily painted before he left the city. It was a picture of Christ bearing His cross. It was placed against the south wall of the chapel, in the center, behind the table and chair of the officiating minister. Connected with it, to the right and left, and extending to the four sides of the room as a border under the rough ceiling, were running inscriptions in German in three sections, elaborating variations of the first two lines of the well-known hymn of the Church which begins, in English, "The Saviour's blood and righteousness my beauty is, my glorious dress ;" together with the first two lines of another German hymn of the time, addressed to the Lamb slain. Thus the first attempt at any kind of decoration fast- ened attention upon the central theme of speech and song and was utilized as an object-lesson for visiting Indians. In that chapel, moreover, the first tile stove of the settlement was set up in October. It had been brought from the kiln of Ludwig Huebner, the potter "in the Swamp." He came to Bethlehem to put it in place and then later became a resident. In the latter part of July a large force of men commenced work at a commodious barn which had become a necessity. It was raised, October 15. The needs of the settlement now required the enlargement of facilities for transportation and agricultural work. Seybold was sent out, the lat- ter part of July, to purchase additional horses. He returned on August 20 with four from Esopus, in New York. At the same time, a threshing-floor was constructed by another set of men. for now their first harvest was to be gathered. July 16, they began to cut grain at Bethlehem and Nazareth. The ingathering of this first rye II 146 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and wheat grown on their land was the occasion of special thanks- giving. While the men were mowing oats, a few days later, some of the women, the record states, pulled flax "at the Schweitzer's." This is the first written history of the locality now called Fountain Hill, for that Schweitzer was Conrad Ruetschi the squatter, whose peaceable withdrawal from the "Simpson tract," a little later, when it became the property of the Brethren, was brought about with some difficulty, as in the case of the Indians on the Nazareth land. In the latter part of the summer and during the autumn of 1742 several other small log houses were erected to serve pressing needs. In one of them a room was fitted up for the care of men taken sick ; women being accommodated, when ill, in the Community House. Very primitive was that first hospital of Bethlehem presided over by Dr. Meyer. Another, built in September, contained a room in which to serve meals and, when necessary, lodging to strangers who could not be admitted to the guest-room of the Community House. This first approach to a hotel at Bethlehem was of importance. The question of building a regular tavern somewhere near was dis- cussed already at a meeting on July 11. It was thought of not only as a general public convenience, but also as a measure of self-defense, over against the intrusion and imposition to which the settlers were constantly subjected, often by very undesirable visitors, and some- times even by persons bent on evil purpose. Zinzendorf did not favor the idea of the Brethren doing this officially, and thought it should be left to the private enterprise of some neighbor. It may be added, in this connection, that the first attempt at such a public tavern was made in the summer of 1743, on the Ysselstein farm south of the Lehigh, by John Adam Schaus, at this time miller on Cedar Creek in the Maguntsche neighborhood, at whose house Zinzendorf passed the last two days of July, 1742, while on his first tour in the Indian country. Gottlieb Demuth, one of the Georgia colonists, already men- tioned several times, who had been living a few miles away in the Saucon Valley, removed to Bethlehem at this time, and one of the small houses built in September was for his accom- modation. He was wanted for important work in connection with building and agriculture at Bethlehem and Nazareth ; for now developments were to proceed on the Barony. Building operations had not yet been resumed there, but some land had been put under cultivation, there was hope of a peaceable settlement with the Indians, 1/42 1744- 147 and now a project had come into Zinzendorf's mind in connection with that domain which essentially affected plans for Bethlehem. On July 17 the entire English contingent of the Sea Congregation arrived at Bethlehem from Philadelphia, and, July 31 to August 2, they removed to Nazareth and took up their quarters in the log house built by the pioneers in the Autumn of 1740. Before leaving Beth- lehem they were organized — July 24 — with David Bruce as their Elder, John Hagen as Warden and Elizabeth Wahnert as Eldress, temporarily, with assistants. Zinzendorf had been pondering a variety of complications that might arise under the personal liberties and rights people were given by the laws of the Province, in connection with the attempt to organize a regular church settlement at Bethlehem, after the model of those in Europe. The reception of people from the population of Pennsylvania as members of such a settle- ment was a matter that, to his mind, threatened such complications especially. The settlement, to be what was contemplated, would have to claim authority under law to enforce its own peculiar regulations within its own limits. One of these would necessarily be the right to expel persons from the place, who could no longer be tolerated. In cases of resistance, if persons should be disposed to test their rights under the civil law, it seemed probable that no special concessions that could be secured under the constitution of the Province, would give the authorities of the village power that the Courts would sustain, if conviction of offenses of which the law took cognizance did not stand against the individuals. Even in this case, everything, beyond mere exclusion from church membership, would have to be left to the law to be dealt with, and its penalties would not include compulsion to quit the place — the one thing that in the local regulations of the settlement would be considered the most desirable disposition to be made of persons inimical, in principle and conduct, to its institutions. This reasoning led him to the thought that on the Barony of Nazareth, with the right of Court Baron and views of frankpledge — if these were made use of and rendered operative by the necessary legal process — the kind of local control had in mind could be maintained under the laws of the Province. Such supposable complications, and such jeopardy to the character and purpose of the settlement would not then arise. Therefore he conceived the idea that, after all, it might be better to have the Nazareth manor in view for the church villasfe — Oris- 148 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. gcmcinc — and let Bethlehem be utilized in a special way as a school center and headquarters of the extensive work among the children of Pennsylvania which he thought of developing. With this idea was connected the transfer of these English colonists to Nazareth, as a nucleus. It seemed more expedient to have that settlement assume an English character at the beginning, under the English laws bearing upon the case. When they located at Nazareth, the regular English preaching that had been commenced at Bethlehem, July 8, ceased temporarily, for now people from the neighborhood who came to English services could attend there. But very soon this entire scheme was abandoned. On September 16-17, important revisions were made in the organ- ization of Bethlehem. Six different plans were worked out and considered, and one of these, which would open the way for the establishment of such a church village there, like Herrnhut, in process of time, was adopted. It was drawn by lot from among the six. From that day the destiny of Bethlehem to become the chief settle- ment and the administrative center of all Moravian work in America was fixed. This was adhered to, although eventually Nazareth became such a church village also. The first week in October, the ephemeral Nazareth English settlement came to an end, and on October 8, all who made up its personnel — excepting a few to be employed in the English itineracy — returned to Philadelphia, where, on the I2th, they organized as a little house church, to prosecute city mission work, and await further developments. The Nazareth post being again vacant, Matthias Seybold and his wife, on October 16, removed to the place to temporarily guard the property. When they went to Philadelphia a few weeks later to sail for Europe, they were succeeded in the solitary duty at Nazareth by Michael Miksch and his wife, who remained until January 30, 1743, when they were relieved by Gottlieb Demuth and wife. Miksch returned to Bethlehem and occupied the historic original log house, the place in which Demuth had lived for a while, and, before him, the Zeisbergers, from the beginning to the middle of August, 1742. In the midst of these shifting plans, the work among the children, which had been in view as one of the most important departments of activity, remained irt a chaotic state and made but little progress during 1742. No parents "from the Townships" responded to the second circular sent out by John Bechtel on June 6, inviting them to meet at Bethlehem, June 24-25, for consultation on the subject. It 1742 1744- 149 was thought that the urgent farm work of the season kept some from connng who would otherwise have been there. It was decided therefore on July ly, to adopt a different course, and send persons about the country to talk with the people on the matter. Meanwhile, on June 28, the children of the Germantown school, opened May 4, were brought to Bethlehem, in care of Gotthard Demuth and wife, Johanna Hummel and Elizabeth Braun, who had been sent tO' Germantown for the purpose. They were quartered somewhere in the crowded Community House, and put in the care of several appointed persons. The Countess Benigna and other young women seem to have then continued to devote attention to the instruction of the girls. The boys, under temporary care of several men by turns, were reorganized on July 19 and taken charge of by the Elder, Anton Seiffert, assisted by Dr. Adolph Meyer, when not engaged in professional duties, with George Neisser, who had been in connection with the school when it was founded in May, and now was entrusted with so many kindred functions, serving as their special instructor; which duty he had, as it seems, performed before this reorganization, from the time of their arrival. He may, therefore, quite properly, be given the distinction of having been the first school-master of Bethlehem. This, indeed, is the designation he gave himself when he assumed the publication, on August 10, of the reply, sketched by Zinzendorf — discussed and officially adopted by the Bethlehem authorities — to the outrageous utterances of Dominie Boehm's letter of warning to the people, already referred to. That reply was endorsed: "Published by George Neisser of Sehlen in Moravia, school-master at Bethlehem, cum approbationc SiipcrioniDi," with the imprimatur of John Brandmiller, giving authority. Local circumstances made it difficult to continue that little board- ing-school for girls during the ensuing autumn and winter, and on August 20, the three girls who lived in Germantown were returned to their homes. The boys' school was continued. On September 28, some other children of parents in Philadelphia and elsewhere, who were not members of the Church, were also taken home, and only a few belonging to Moravian families were left. The general subject of school work was discussed again at a session of the Pennsylvania Synod held in Fredericktown, October 15, where the scheme to establish a general boarding-school for boys in Philadelphia and one for girls at Germantown was adopted. But this plan was not then carried out on account of 150 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. practical difficulties. As a result of canvassing and proper explan- ations in various neighborhoods, many parents would at that time have availed themselves of such opportunities, in spite of the absurd calumnies that continued to be circulated, in order to foster prejudice. Evidences, sometimes distressing and sometimes ludicrous, of such suspicion and ill-will on the part of Bethlehem's neighbors in the "Irish settlement" appear from time to time. While these neighbors were not, so far as can be ascertained, among those who circulated the grosser slanders current in some quarters, their opposition to "the Moravians" was significant to the minds of people at a distance, for, being near neighbors, they were supposed to know them. This opposition shown by these sturdy pioneers of the Forks seems to have arisen mainly from exaggerated fears of local aggression and of plans for supremacy on the part of the Brethren, and from the prejudice that had been awakened by the utter incompatibility of theological conception and general religious cult. The genius of a Zinzendorf, and that of a Knox or a Calvin fostered among these settlers, were, doctrinally and socially, as well as racially considered, at opposite poles of the Christian circuit, and it is not surprising that time was needed to bring the representatives of the two into any kind of sympathetic touch. While the Brethren, under their system cultivated a certain kind of exclusiveness, especially in reference to their affairs — and people are usually suspicious of social or religious organizations about which they cannot find out much — these neighbors, as well as those in other directions, had evidences enough of the good-will of the Bethlehem people and of their desire to be correctly understood in all matters of which people had a right to expect infcyrmation. This desire led to the introduction of English preaching directly after the organization of Bethlehem. People who might be served in that way were given the benefit of it, and opportunity was afiforded for all to hear what the doctrines of the Brethren really were. This also induced them to set Sunday dinners, at first, before all who gathered from a distance, whether well or ill-disposed, out of resources far from abundant. Not the least of the services rendered by Bethlehem to its surroundings, from the time of its organization on, consisted in the stated tours made by its physician over an extensive region, from the Minisinks, even beyond the Delaware^ down to Durham. 1742 1.744- 15 « One of the causes some of the men at Bethlehem unwit- tingly gave their Calvinistic neighbors to say harsh things about them, had an aspect almost comical. While the word Sabbath, according to old German usage, meant — and quite correctly — the seventh day, to the minds of the Bethlehem people, these neighbors, like all, then and now, who follow Puritan tradition in this matter, called Sunday the Sabbath. The German and the Scotch idea about the manner of Sunday observance differed. Those neigh- bors, ever vigilant and seeking an occasion for censure, accused certain Brethren of "Sabbath breaking." These, when they heard it, supposed that the degree of honor they were paying, for reasons already explained, to the seventh day, or Sabbath, in addition to the first day, was not giving satisfaction to their exacting neighbors. Therefore, at first, in trying to conciliate them and remove the stumbling-block, they rested yet more carefully on Saturday, while it did not occur to them that they must take more pains to conform to Puritanical views of the Lord's Day. Hence their well-meant efforts only made matters worse. At last it became clear to them that the Sabbath breaking of which they were accused had reference to Sunday, and they were admonished by the Elder to give more heed to their ways on that day. In all particulars, they were com- pelled to be very circumspect, for they were under the close scrutiny of critics, from every standpoint, among the throngs who visited Bethlehem, inspecting everything and holding inquisition. The naive and the less prudent among them had to be cautioned often about being over-communicative, entering into discussions and trying to explain everything about which questions were asked. Some canards afloat were traced to the gossip of certain unprincipled and ungrateful redemptioners employed at Bethlehem, who wished to entertain the curious with embellished accounts of things, and even circulated malicious falsehoods, out of revenge, when they were discharged for unseemly conduct. It was then insisted upon by Zinzendorf that this class of employes be dispensed with, and that, in future, if the Brethren released any more such persons from a hard bondage, they be simply set free to go their own way. He broached the idea of rather, in order to procure the needed "servants," purchasing slaves among whom missionaries were laboring in St. Thomas, and then freeing and regularly hiring them. He added : "We may thus also show a certain author who has written a work against slavery, our manner of dealing with the negroes." 152 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Occasional strolling bands of Indians were, during the first weeks after the organization of the place, the most interesting of all the visitors. About the middle of July, some such were escorted into the chapel, where some of the Brethren entertained them with instru- mental music, and then tried to speak to them about the Saviour — probably showing them the picture that had been placed against the wall — and sang hymns for them. On that occasion the thought of sending some one to live among the savages to learn their language was discussed. This was shortly before Count Zinzendorf's first journey into the Indian country, on which he started with a selected company on July 24. Two days before that, he made the proposition to Henry Aimers that he devote himself to this under- taking, and he was at once ready to do so, but for some reason this plan was not carried out. That first tour of the Count was chiefly important in the covenant he made with the representatives of the Six Nations whom he met at Conrad Weiser's in Tulpehocken on August 3. There he received from them the famous belt of Wampum, which he took to England, and in 1743, passed over to Spangenberg. who brought it back to Pennsylvania and made important use of it. On that occasion the Count, in turn, .gave those chiefs a token by which they might iden- tify any of his brethren who came among them, for they would have a duplicate to authenticate themselves. It was a seal inscribed with the words Jesus Jehovah, to be stamped in wax. He returned to Bethlehem, August 7 and, three days later, set out on his second tour, from which he returned, August 30. This journey was through parts of New York and extended to Ranch's mission at Shekomeko. He had his daughter and Anna Nitschmann with him, besides Anton Seififert and several attendants. On this journey he was arrested by a constable on the charge of "breaking the Sabbath," because some spies found him writing in his tent on Sunday evening. He was taken before a village "squire" and fined six shillings. Constable and justice got their fees and certain preachers had a new text to use against the Moravians, and so all were made happy. The accounts given of these tours at Bethlehem awakened the greatest enthusiasm for the extensive plans of missionary work among the red men of the forest that were now being discussed. His final Indian tour on which he started, September 21 — by far the longest and most perilous — was that to the upper 1742 1744- 153 Susquehanna and into the Wyoming Valley which was then a terra incog)iita to white men, excepting perhaps an occasional venturesome trapper or trader. On that journey he encountered heathenism and savagery in their darkest colors, endured not only very great privation and hardship but imminent peril of his life, for the fierce tribes of those regions, among whom he there ventured, were a different kind of men from the Indians of the lowlands. Conrad Weiser joined his party at Tulpehocken and was with them on part of the tour. They visited the large Indian town of Shamokin, met the famous Madame Montour at Ostonwakin, and passed twenty days among the treacherous, blood-thirsty Shawanese of Wajomik, where no white man had before set foot. There occurred the incident recorded by Martin Mack, who was with Zinzendorf — and so often repeated with variations — in which the Shawanese were said to have been impressed by the thought that the Great Spirit was protecting him and that he had a charmed life. Be this as it may, the hand of God was held over him in protection against them — far more dang- erous than the serpents. Mack's unembellished narrative is the following:* "The tent was pitched on an eminence, one fine sunny day, as the Disciple sat on the ground within, looking over his papers that lay scattered about him, and as the rest of us were outside, I observed two blowing adders basking at the edge of the tent. Fearing that they might crawl in, I moved toward them, intending to dispatch them. They were, however, too quick for me, slipped into the tent, 4 The translation of Mack's statement given by W. C. Reichel, Memoi-iah of the Moravian Church, p. io6, has been followed. The Disciple — der Jixuger — was the name given in later years to Zinzendorf. In a collection of verses written by the Count at that period are some treating of American experiences — among them two relating to this famous journey. One verse alludes to this incident — to the serpents and to the fiction of the Indians about the silver ore: Des Zeltes erster Ruheplatz Das waren Dorn und Disteln, Der dritte ein verborg'ner Schatz, Wo Blaseschlangen nisten. Two others yet more graphically depict the situation : Dort in der Fiache Wajomick, Auf einem wiisten Ackerstuck, Wo Blaseschlangen nisteten, Und ihre Balge briisteten ; Auf einem silbererznen Grund, Wo's Leibes Leben missHch stund, Da dachten wir : wir sahen gem, Da.s wurde eine Stadt des Herrn. 154 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and, gliding over the Disciple's thigh, disappeared among his papers. On examination we ascertained that he had been seated near the mouth of their den. Subsequently the Indians informed me that our tent was pitched on the site of an old burying-ground in which hundreds of Indians lay buried. They also told us that there was a deposit of silver ore in the hill and that we were charged by the Shawanese with having come for silver and for nothing else." Zinzendorf and some of his party got back to Bethlehem on November 8, at eleven o'clock at night, much exhausted but filled with more fervent zeal than before for the conversion of the savages. On November 12, a long awaited missionary conference was held at Bethlehem, at which the Count unfolded the extensive and systematic scheme for carrying on this work that he had matured. His vivid account of the experiences made among the Shawanese, instead of deterring men and women, had the effect of increasing the number of volunteers for this service to fifteen. This interest had been heightened by the baptism of the two Indians from Sheko- meko on September 15, already described. Another kind of relation to representatives of this race, which has been referred to several times, was the cause of perplexity and annoyance rather than of enthusiasm at this time. Captain John and his band were yet lingering at Nazareth. The missionary Ranch and the Indian Elder John Wasamapah, on July 2, and Joseph Powell with David Zeisberger, on July 5, had interviewed them, to effect their voluntary withdrawal, but to no purpose ; although the latter were armed with an order from Governor Thomas for their ejectment sent to the authorities at Bethlehem by Justice Irish on July 3. Zinzendorf, in com- municating with the Governor about it, had been disposed to pay their demands in order to bring matters to a peaceable conclusion and hold the good will of the Indians, but the strong objection of the Government prevented him from doing this. It was insisted upon that the law must be enforced, and that such a precedent would be injurious. The objection was the more firm because, as was plainly intimated, white neighbors, inimical both to the Governor and to the Moravians, were encouraging Captain John in his stand. In July came the peremptory command to the Delawares to leave the Forks, issued, with supercilious contempt, by the chiefs of the Six Nations at Philadelphia — those chiefs whom Zinzendorf met and treated with on August 3. Tatemy and Captain John, on December i, secured permission from the Government, on the 1742 1744- 155 ground of being avowed Christians, to individually remain in the neighborhood, but it was insisted upon that the others must leave. Zinzendorf also secured tacit consent to pay them something for the rude improvements they had made, having been led, in an interview he had with Captain John when he started on his first journey into the Indian country in July, to beHeve that this would secure their peaceable departure, after the ultimatum they had from the Iroquois chiefs, and would prevent revengeful feelings on their part towards the Brethren as owners of the land. December 26, 1742, Zinzendorf once more went to Nazareth, just before he finally left Bethlehem, and succeeded in bringing the negotiations to an amicable conclusion. He agreed to pay the Indians for their huts, a peach orchard and a Uttle field of wheat, the maximum sum demanded by them when they were yet most obdurate. It was to be paid in several installments — one-third down on the closing of the agreement, and they were given permission to return and take away their little crop of Indian corn gathered into a sod- covered crib, when they wanted it. They promised, on these conditions, to depart into the Indian country, which they did before the close of the year. The written agreement, a German version of which is extant, was put into the hands of the respected Chief Tatemy, who became its custodian. Thus the Brethren at Bethlehem, remaining consistent in their respect for the Government on the one hand, and their benevolent intentions towards the Indians on the other, retained the good will of both, and effected what neither the order of the Governor nor the commands of the Iroquois chiefs — the lords of the Delawares — could have brought about amicably ; while those neighbors who hoped to see the Moravians discomfited in the situation were disappointed. But the end was not yet, for when the complications of the following years raised up the Nemesis to affiict the region, there was no discrimination exer- cised by the blind fury that swung the scourge. Plans as elaborate and comprehensive as those for the Indian missions were matured for the general evangelistic work throughout the country during that summer and autumn of 1742, and the connection of Bethlehem with many points was established. Two general conferences in reference to this work were held at Bethlehem ; one, July 11-12, and the other on November 15, which were attended by Antes and some other leading members of the Pennsylvania Synod; besides the regular session of this Synod at the house of 156 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Antes on October 15, already referred to. At the July conference it was more definitely settled than had been the case before on what basis the personnel of this executive body should be made up. It was followed by the formal starting out of the largest force of itinerants that had yet been organized. A result of the November conference was a clearer classification of its functions than had yet gone on record. These were, in addition to the Indian missions which constituted a distinct department, in general, five for the coming year: i, to superintend itinerant preaching; 2, to foster the work at Fredericktown, Germantown, Oley, Philadelphia and Tulpehocken ; 3, to develop a model Christian congregation at Bethlehem and later at Nazareth ; 4, to oversee the Church of God in the Spirit and cultivate the union of its members among all religions ; 5, to get the special work for the children established. The active connection with so many points increased the personal intercourse of people from all quarters with Bethlehem, so that the number of visitors from September to the end of the year was very large. At the end of October a company of Mennonite Brethren made a formal call. On November 3, came Brother Elimalech (Emanuel Eckerlin) of Ephrata and remained until the 5th. It is stated in the diary that the people of Bethlehem were in perplexity about the object of his visit. Other Ephrata men came in December. Conrad Weiser visited the place November 21. The name of John Adam Luckenbach, school-master in Goshenhoppen, appears among the visitors on December 21. Large companies came from Philadelphia and Germantown, and from many places about the country towards the end of December. On the 22nd, thirteen persons were received as members of the Brethren's Church, and on the 29th, seventeen more were thus received. They were not to become residents of Bethlehem, but to be members where they lived. During the first years it was cus- tomary for all such receptions to take place formally at Bethlehem, after which the persons returned to their homes. Among those who were received on the 29th were five men from Maguntsche and Sau- con who formed the nucleus of what later became the congregation of Emmaus. They have sometimes been styled "the Fathers of Emmaus." The time of Zinzendorf's last sojourn at Bethlehem had now come. From December 2 to 12, he had made one more tour among the settlements, preaching seventeen times at Maguntsche, Heidel- berg, Oley, Tulpehocken and Lancaster, and had visited Ephrata. 1742 1744 157 After his return to pjethlehem his time was closely occupied in official interviews with Bethlehem boards, itinerants, foreign missionaries, of whom several from the West Indies were there, and with persons stationed at various places in Pennsylvania. After the first evening service on December 24, there was a missionary conference, at which many new appointments, not only among the Indians but in the West Indies, were made. Five districts for work among the Indians were arranged, with as many sets of men associated with each. He called each such district set a Hcidcn Collegium. Christian Henry Ranch, with an Indian helper, was to make a general tour of these districts. The vigils of Christmas Eve began at eleven o'clock. At this service, held in the chapel of the Community House, reference was made to the service of the previous year in the little log house, "when the settlement received the name Bethlehem." Special attention was drawn to the watchword of the Church for the day : ''The name of the city from that day shall be Jehovah Shammah — the Lord is there." (Ezek. 48:35). Application of it was made to Beth- lehem, with the hope that the meaning of the words might there be realized. At this service the Count extemporized a chain of thirty- seven stanzas on the theme of the hour which were sung with a fervor and emotion like that of the memorable Christmas Eve service of the previous year. They were put into print with the title, ''In dcr Christnacht cu Bethlehem, 1742," and were called "the Bethlehem Christmas hymn," also "the Pennsylvania Christmas hymn."^ The remaining days of the year were similarly occupied. On the morning of December 31, Zinzendorf officiated at morning prayer, had all who were then in Bethlehem together at a lovefeast, when general announcements in reference to the order of things at the place for the ensuing months, were made, and then had special interviews with the itinerant and local ministers, the missionaries to the heathen, the company made up to go with him to Europe, numbering thus far twenty-one persons, and with the people who constituted the settled, local congregation at Bethlehem, after which he celebrated the Holy Communion with its elders, wardens and other officials. 5 The first stanza begins with the lines : " Gluckseliger ist uns doch keine Nacht Als die uns das Wunderkind hat gebracht." A few of these stanzas may be found in somewhat altered form in the modern German hymnals of the Church. 158 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Thereupon, all being in readiness for the journey, he took final leave of Bethlehem, and started for Philadelphia. He was escorted across the river by nearly all the people of the place. On the south side he paused and addressed a farewell greeting m song to the spot, went into the house of the Ysselstein family to bid adieu to them, as cherished friends, and then proceeded on his way accompanied by a number of persons. His daughter, with some of the persons who were to accompany him to Europe, left Bethlehem on New Year's Day, and the most of them went directly to New York. On January 2, the last contingent started for New York with some who were bound for St. Thomas, W. I., to engage in missionary service. This company, with the luggage, was conveyed to New York on two wagons. One of them was in charge of young David Zeisberger who was listed to accompany the Count to Europe and be employed in church service there. This incident proved to be a crisis in his life. At New York, when all were on board, and the ship was on the point of leaving the dock, young Zeisberger was observed by Bishop David Nitschmann leaning over the rail and looking wistfully and sadly ashore. Inquiring of the young man whether he did not wish to go to Europe, Zeisberger declared plainly that he did not, but much preferred to remain in America and labor for the Lord here. Without further ado Nitschmann suggested that, if such was his feeling, he should come ashore and remain. Acting upon this suggestion he at once left the ship which sailed without him. Thus his course was led into paths on which he became the most distin- guished of all missionaries among the Indians. Zinzendorf did not reach New York until January 13. He had a final meeting with the Executive Board of the Pennsylvania Synod, January 8, at the locality near Philadelphia known as "the Ridge." The next day he had important conferences with fellow workers in the city, and on the evening of that day, delivered a parting address to a large gathering of them in the house of John Stephen Benezet. This address which treated at length of principles and methods of work in Pennsylvania, was called by him his "Pennsylvania Testa- ment," and as such was put into print. During the next two days he effected an organization, on a new basis, under the changed conditions, of those Lutheran families who preferred to retain the ministrations of the Brethren in connection with the Pennsylvania Synod. He closed his labors there by preaching a farewell sermon on the evening of January 11, in the 1742 1744- 159 new church built at his expense on Race Street for these people and dedicated in November. In the process of further developments this church with the congre- gation there organized, came into full connection with the Moravian Church. On that evening, in the midst of intense emotion, he left the church during the singing of the closing hymn, to avoid the ordeal of personal leave-takings, and went out to Frankford where he spent the night. The next day he proceeded on his way to New York. Reaching there on the 13th, he first visited Captain Nicholas Garrison on Staten Island, with whom he had become acquainted already in 1739 in the West Indies. He was not only an experienced and able seaman, but a noble. Christian man. This interview brought him not only into the Moravian Church, but into its service in capacities highly important and conspicuous. The Count wanted this eminently trustworthy sea captain for a special purpose. A second colony, much larger than the Sea Congregation of 1742, was to be transported to Pennsylvania from Europe on a ship to be purchased for the use of the church. Garrison was asked to accompany Zinzen- dorf to Europe and take command of this enterprise. He looked upon it as a duty that had come to him, and he got ready and went along a week later. During that week spent by Zinzendorf in New York, another important conference was held with a number of Brethren who were to take charge of affairs at Bethlehem and in Pennsylvania generally, and with missionaries there waiting for a ship to St. Thomas. In connection with this occasion there was sorrow in consequence of the unexpected death, on Staten Island, January 8, of the faithful missionary Valentine Loehans of St. Thomas, who had been occupying the few weeks before his return to the West Indies in doing evangelistic work among the negroes about New York. John Brucker, a member of the Sea Congregation, who was appointed to accompany the West India missionaries as a lay assistant, was ordained at New York by Zinzendorf, because the death of Loehans deprived them of an ordained man in that field. The arrangement then made, in accordance with the plan of the November conference, for Bethlehem and the work in Pennsylvania was an ad interim one, for the intention was that, after the new American colony had been formed and gotten on the way, Spangenberg should return to this country, locate at Bethlehem and assume charge as general superin- tendent of the whole. Boehler, who was with the Count in New l6o A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSVLVANIA. York, having been given the appointment at that November conference, was now installed to fill this position during the interval, together with Bishop Nitschmann who was to devote himself to developing the Indian missions. Zinzendorf retained the nominal inspectorship of the Lutheran department of the Pennsylvania Synod's work, but Boehler, while entrusted with the local oversight at Bethlehem, was made Vice-Inspector of that Lutheran work, Syndic, or Moderator of the Synod, and one of the four directors of the whole. On Sunday, January 20, Zinzendorf and his company with Captain Garrison and his daughter sailed from New York on the ship James, Captain Ketteltas, for London. They reached England in safety on February 17.^ Boehler, in accordance with arrangements, remained a few weeks in New York to preach. In consequence of the persistent agitation of those ministers who were carrying on the crusade against "the Moravians," he was subjected to gross indignity in being ordered out of the city as "a vagabond" by the authorities ; and almost to personal violence like that which Pyrlaeus suffered in Philadelphia as the outcome of the Rev. J. P. Boehm's similar crusade. A few years later these demonstrations of narrow bigotry and fanatical intolerance reacted against those clerics, and made friends for the Brethren among the authorities and the people generally. The ad interim arrangements for the conduct of affairs at Bethle- hem lasted longer than had been expected, for Spangenberg's return to America was delayed, and he did not come until the end of Octo- ber 1744. During this interval fewer stirring scenes were enacted than while Zinzendorf was in Pennsylvania. There was less planning 6 Besides those just mentioned, this company to Europe consisted of the following per- sons : The Countess Benigna; Anna Nitschmann; Rosina Nitschmann, wife of Bishop David Nitschmann; Magdalene Wend, who in Germany was married to Jonas Paulus Weiss; Anna Margaret Antes, daughter of Henry Antes, who in England became the wife of the Rev. Benjamin La Trobe; Joseph Mueller from the Great Swamp, who in Germany studied medi- cine somewhat and after his return filled a useful position in this service, particularly at Nazareth; Veronica Frey, daughter of William Frey of Frederick Township, who in Europe was married to Mueller; George Neisser, appointed to help form and prepare the next colony for Pennsylvania; John Jacob Mueller, the Count's secretary; David Wahnert and wife — he having been cook of the Sea Congregation, and serving numerous later colonies in this capa- city; Gottlieb Haberecht, George Wiesner, a member of the Sea Congregation returning to Europe; Andrew Frey, later an enemy and traducer of the Brethren; Andrew the Negro and his wife Maria, and three who were not members, viz.: James Benezet. a son of Stephen Benezet of Philadelphia; Jesse Leslie of Ephrata and William Hall of Brunswick, N. J. There were two others whose names are not given. 1/42 1744- i6i and organizing and both material and spiritual activities proceeded with less turmoil and sensation. But some things of importance were achieved at Bethlehem and on the Nazareth land in externals. The most notable of these, during the first six months of 1743, was the building of a grist mill at the foot of the declivity above which the original house of the settlement stood. On January 25, the site was selected and Henry Antes, whose principal business was that of a millwright, offered to superintend its construction. He was assisted by the miller John Adam Schaus, already mentioned, who was now keeping the primitive tavern on the south side of the river, and by Gotthard Demuth, who came from Germantown for the purpose, together with a force of workmen from Bethlehem. The first grist was ground on June 28, and devout thanksgiving was rendered for this valuable acquisition. It was soon recognized as a boon also by the settlers to the north and west of Bethlehem and in the Upper Saucon Valley, for before this the only place within reasonable dis- tance at which they could have grain ground seems to have been the mill of Nathaniel Irish on the Saucon Creek and that on Cedar Creek which Schaus had lately been operating. Thus began the his- tory of Bethlehem's famous mill-seat near the spring, where now in the third mill on the spot — the second was built in 175 1 — while all the other early industries which there arose about it have long ago passed away, the golden grain is yet ground for bread by machinery and processes of which those first builders and grinders did not dream. The miller Schaus was installed to run the stones for a while and instruct an assistant. He was also associated with another con- spicuous improvement at the place made early in 1743. Ford and canoes were no longer adequate means of crossing the river, especi- ally now that a mill was to be built, and on the same day on which the site of the mill was fixed, a place for a ferry was selected at the river. A "fiat" to be propelled by poHng was built and, on March II, was dragged into the river by eight horses and launched. Schaus was the first of the line of regularly appointed ferrymen who did Charon-service with this rude craft and its successor, after it was car- ried away by a flood in 1746, followed in 1758, by the rope ferry, until 1794, when the first bridge across the Lehigh at Bethlehem was finished and opened for travel. In August letters from Europe informed the executives at Bethle- hem that the large second colony that was awaited would probably arrive several months later. This occasioned new activity in prepa- l62 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ration for further building enterprises. The time had now come to turn attention to the Barony of Nazareth, where a considerable num- ber of these colonists were to locate. Neither hammer nor trowel had been lifted upon the foundations of the large stone house, laid there three years before, since the suspension of the work in that dreary November of 1740. This matter was the subject of a confer- ence on August 2^. Four stone masons arrived from Germantown on September 28, and went to Nazareth, with Jacob Vetter, who in May had removed to Bethlehem from Oley, to start and direct the work. The Elder, Anton Seififert, who had formerly been a carpen- ter, assumed the oversight of the woodwork. October 14, the car- penters of Bethlehem went in a body to Nazareth to raise the frame- work of the roof and begin to shingle it. But with all the energy now centered upon the completion of the Whitefield House, fears were expressed that it would not be ready to be occupied before the colony arrived. In addition to getting that building finished, other plans that had been mapped out were now coming to light in steps that were taken. Henry Antes suggested to Zinzendorf the idea of opening six separate plantations on the Nazareth land, each with its own complete group of buildings and its own personnel of six families conducting a joint house-keeping and working the fields, stockyards, dairy and orchard in the interest of the whole. Thus this fine domain would be developed and become the most important source of support for the establishment at Bethlehem, and for the extensive missionary work. This general idea found acceptance, and the selection of the people to make up the colony of 1743 was based on this plan. Those for Nazareth were to be mainly people adapted for agricultural pursuits. Those for Bethlehem, which, so far as externals were concerned, was to be the center of manufacturing industry and the place of trade, were to be for the most part men skilled in various handicrafts and quaHfied to engage in business. Some were to be competent as accountants, secretaries and scriv- eners, a few men of classical education were to accompany them, and of the whole number, as many as possible were at the same time to be persons available for religious work when required. On October 8, Bishop Nitschmann, Boehler and SeifTert made a tour of inspec- tion over the Nazareth land, to select such places for opening farms, and a site for the further central buildings of the Barony. It is recorded that they found six suitable spots with copious springs — the 1742 1744- 1 63 statement being added that springs which did not flow all the year were dry at that time and those then found running could be relied upon. The location of what after the lapse of years came to be called "Old Nazareth," as well as of the other points afterwards opened on the Nazareth land may be traced to the reconnoissance of that day. During those months of 1743, while further minor improvements were being added in the village of Bethlehem itself, the cleared and cultivated area on the original Allen tract was being extended, and a first orchard was planted with young apple trees brought from Oley on March 27, further activities were prosecuted on the south side of the Lehigh. It early became clear to the men of Bethlehem that the land lying along the south bank of the river and rising to the south-west, where they traveled the path to Maguntsche, was too near and prospectively too valuable to not be added to their posses- sions, if this could be done. Negotiations were opened with Wil- liam Allen in February, 1743, which resulted in the first purchase across the river, that of the so-called Simpson tract of 274 acres. When the preliminary agreement was settled, Mr. Allen insisted on the removal of the Swiss squatter Ruetschi, the first resident of Fountain Hill, already referred to. The matter was broached to him and he became much incensed and called the Brethren hard names He also appealed to Justice Irish to sustain his right of preemption and option on the land ; but Henry Antes, being in Bethlehem just then, took part in the complications, with the result that a writ of ejectment from Mr. Irish was served upon the squatter. Dr. Adolph Meyer was sent over to face his wrath and to tell him that the Brethren were compelled, in accordance with Mr. Allen's stipu lations, to let the law take its course ; but that they would give him ample time in which to move and would make him a present of the crop from two bushels of oats that they had sown on the land. Thereupon he was mollified and agreed to depart in peace. After that the name of Ruetschi appears no more in the local chronicles. In June following, another man comes into view on the south side who was associated with its primitive population and with various trans- actions, until in June, 1745, he yielded to the demand of the authorities at Bethlehem and vacated the house they permitted him to build in June, 1743, on their land on the south side, "near the tavern" — Schaus's. This was Anton Albrecht who removed to Bethlehem with his family from "near Philadelphia" at that time and was admitted to church membership, but became for some reason persona non grata 164 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. at Bethlehem. In October, 1747, he arose to importance in the neighborhood as the first constable of Bethlehem Township. Three useful men whose names became conspicuous, in addition to Vetter, came to Bethlehem at this time and were admitted to regular church membership. They were Frederick Hartman from Philadelphia, Franz Blum from the Saucon Valley, both of whom were directly employed at Nazareth, and the potter Ludwig Huebner, already mentioned. Notwithstanding the hard toil and the extremely plain living in the matter of food and clothing, the course of things at Bethlehem during that time is referred to in records as a peculiarly peaceful and pleasant one. One mournful figure, however, haunted the place. They had a poor, mentally deranged man on their hands whose pres- ence disturbed the peace at times, tried the nerves of the weak and awakened dread among the superstitious. It was the eccentric Englishman Hardie, referred to in a previous chapter. There was no institution to which they might take him, and they lacked proper facilities for his care. In February, 1743, they tried the plan of placing him in one of the Indian cabins at Nazareth under a special guard, but he escaped and wandered down to Justice Irish who sent him back to Bethlehem with a curt request in writing — the paper yet exists — that the Brethren take better care of him. One plan after another was tried, and many references to the trouble experi- enced with him during fits of madness occur until after 1745, when he left Bethlehem. He later appeared in the Ephrata community as "Brother Theodorus." He once more visited Bethlehem in August, 1754, attired in his brotherhood garb. His strange career is described in the Chronicle of that place. Like dissolving views, the fading vision, of Thomas Hardie melts into that which then appears of the demented brother, Conrad Harding. He was, like the Englishman Hardie, a man of some refinement by birth and associations and withal of edu- cation and piety. He came with the colony of 1743, became mentally deranged, and when attempting to ford the Lehigh to go to a Synod at Philadelphia — having escaped from those who tried to restrain him — was drowned, March 29, 1746. The perplexing confusion in the references to these two unfortunate men is increased by the fact that both names are mis-spelled in some of the German diaries, and made more similar ; and the fact that one with the name Theodorus — the cloister name given Hardie at Ephrata — came to Bethlehem from Europe in 1750, and died very soon after. Doubtless some 1742 1744- i65 would think it quite a proper feature that Bethlehem, at that early day, should have its mystery among the characters associated with it. The connection of Bethlehem with the Indians during the year 1743 presents nothing that calls for mention in these pages except that the project to have some one go into the Indian country to learn the language of the people, for which, at first, Henry Aimers was had in view, was carried out in the case of Pyrlaeus, after he closed his labors as preacher for those Lutherans of Philadelphia whom Zinzendorf had organized. He went to Tulpehocken in Jan- uary, 1743, and, while conducting the school there with his wife, studied the Mohawk language under the guidance of Con- rad Weiser, who was thoroughly conversant with it. They had their home at Weiser's house. They returned to Beth- lehem early in May, and after Ranch had gotten back in June from a protracted sojourn in the Mohawk country, they went there, took up their abode at Canajoharie, the middle of July, and remained there, enduring much hardship and privation until in September. On February 4, 1744, he opened a school at Bethlehem for candidates who proposed to enter the mission service, and under- took to teach them the language, the attempt to procure an Indian from Freehold for this purpose having failed. As to the ordinary school work, it is to be noted that on July 18, 1743, John Christopher Francke'^ took ten boys to Nazareth and there, in the log house built by the pioneers in 1740, organized a little home school. It was the forerunner of the school in Nazareth Hall, and was the first school on the Baronv of Nazareth. 7 Francke, who subsequently figured mainly in connection with school work and was or- dained in 1749, had, with his wife Christina, arrived at Bethlehem from Europe in September, 1742, with a little company that was to have come with the Sea Congregation but for some cause were left to follow later. The others were Daniel and Rosina Neubert with an adopted child, Jacob and Anna Margaret Kohn, Martin and Anna Liebisch, Anna Maria Liebisch, Anna Maria Brandner and Michael Schnall. The invalid wife of Dr. Adolph Meyer, Maria Dorothea Meyer, sailed with them, but died on the voyage and was buried at sea, off the banks of New Foundland. Several of this company, particularly Neubert and Schnall who both became very useful men in Pennsylvania, had been actively connected with the attempt at Pilgerruh in Holstein and Heerendyk in Holland. Schnall was the father of the missionary John Schnall. They both ended their days at Bethlehem. Anna Liebisch was married at Bethlehem to Anton Seiffert and died in June, 1744. Kohn and his wife also engaged in spiritual service for a season but returned to Europe in 1745. The others were likewise conspicuously active people in various capacities. l66 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The institution for girls at Bethlehem was reorganized on October 19 following, when a room was provided for its use in the new eastern part of the Community House then completed. At the very time when work was resumed on the large stone house at Nazareth, with a view to its use by the new colony that was expected, the main body of that colony sailed from Rotterdam to begin the voyage across the Atlantic. Those who were to constitute the Nazareth contingent were recruited with a few exceptions, at Herrnhaag and Marienborn — thirty-three young couples, of whom thirty couples were just married, twenty-four together at the latter place on May 2^. For some years they commemorated this event by a lovefeast at Nazareth. It was spoken of as "the great wedding." They proceeded in six divisions to Holland and at Rotter- dam, on September 12, they met the party from Herrnhut, ten married couples, one of them having an infant son — the only child in the colony — four single men and one single woman. The men of this party were mainly artisans, while a few of them were men of good education. A few also were native Bohemians and Moravians. Some of these colonists became regularly ordained ministers. At Rotterdam they found Captain Garrison waiting with the vessel he had purchased in England and, with the valuable aid of James Hutton of London, had fitted out to transport them. It was called the Little Strength. It was sometimes spoken of as the Irene, the name which at one time it was proposed to give it, as it seems, and which was bestowed upon the third transport owned by the Church. Its ensign is described as "a lamb passant with a flag on a blood covered field" — the device that has always figured with variations of detail, on the episcopal seal of the Church, and as its general ofificial emblem. They lifted anchor at Rotterdam, September 16, got fairly on the way next day, and after a very trying and tedious sail, reached Cowes, September 25. There they found the English colonists awaiting their coming. There were six married couples, with the widowed mother of one of the men, from England. These were also people of various pursuits, but all of them persons who could be utilized in positions requiring natural capability and some education. One was an apothecary, another was later general steward of the establishment at Bethlehem, several were employed for some years in school work. Two were eventually ordained to the ministry. Captain Garrison, who had now identified himself fully with the Brethren, took command, not only as master of the vessel, but as 1742 1744- 1 67 Elder of the colony during the voyage. With him was associated, as sailing-master, Captain Thomas Gladman, who had safely brought over the Catherine with the first colony; he being at this time also in regular connection with the Brethren in England. With Gladman, as mate, was John Christian Ehrhardt, who had been attracted to the Brethren in 1742, when mate on a vessel which took the West India missionary Frederick Martin from Holland to the West Indies ; who later served under Captain Garrison on the Irene, and was with the company that made the ill-fated first attempt to found a mission in Labrador in 1752. John Cook, a native of Leg- horn, Italy, and now a member of the Church in England — not only a sailor but a man of quaint poetic and artistic talent — served as sec- ond mate. Eight other sailors, one of whom was Nicholas Garrison, Jr., son of the captain, together with three boys, made up the rest of the crew. All but one of the sailors and two of the boys seem to have been counted as belonging to the Association of the Brethren. Organized for the voyage in much the same manner as the first col- ony, they have been called "the Second Sea Congregation."* They 8 Space cannot be taken to insert even very brief personal notes of the members of this colony, as in the case of the first, for the number is too large. Such notes of some of them, who later figured in special ways, will be found in other connections elsewhere in this volume. Brandmiller and Wahnert had come with the first colony and returned. The several lists extant in print are not complete nor accurate. The complete roll is as follows : I. FROM HERRNHAAG AND MARIENBORN. Anders, Gottlieb and Johanna Christina. Michler, John Wolfgang and Rosina. Biefel, John Henry and Rosina. Michler, John and Barbara. Boehmer, Martin and Margaret. Moeller, John Henry and Rosina. Boehringer, John David and Gertrude. Mozer, John and Mary Philippina. Brandmiller, John and Anna Mary. Muecke, John Michael and Catherine. Christ, George and Anna Mary. Nilsen, Jonas and Margaret. Fischer, Thomas and Agnes. Ohneberg, George and Susan. Fritsche, John Christian and Anna Margaret. Opitz, Leopold and Elizabeth. Goetge, Peter and Anna Barbara. Otto, John Frederick and Mary. Grabs, John Godfrey and Anna Mary. Partsch, John George and Susanna Louisa. Hancke, Matthew and Elizabeth. Reichard, David and Elizabeth. Hessler, Abraham and Anna Mary. Reuz, Matthew and Magdalene. Hirte, John Tobias and Mary. Schaaf, John and Anna Catherine. Hoepfner, John Christopher and Schaub, John and Divert Mary. Mary Magdalene. Schober, Andrew and Hedwig Regina. Jorde, John and Anna Margaret. Schropp, Matthew and Anna Margaret. Krause, Matthew and Christina. Wagner, Anton and Elizabeth. Kremser, Andrew and Rosina. Wahnert, David and Mary Elizabeth. Kremser, George and Anna Maria. Weinert, John Christopher and Dorothea. Kunckler, Daniel and Anna Mary. Weiss, Matthias and Margaret Catharine. l68 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. sailed from Cowes, September 17, and anchored off Staten Island "in front of Captain Garrison's house," November 26. The next morning Henry Aimers, who was then engaged in evan- gelistic work on Staten Island, went aboard with his wife to greet them, and then took the mass of letters that had been entrusted to Captain Garrison by Spangenberg and George Neisser, when the ship left Plymouth, and hastened off to Bethlehem to announce the arrival of the colony. Hector Gambold was awaiting them in New York with various instructions to be communicated. Thomas Noble, of New York, also went aboard to welcome them and at his house a consultation was held, after the vessel reached her dock on the 27th, in reference to the conveyance of the great quantity of luggage to Bethlehem. Dr. Meyer was at once dispatched to New York, after it was known that they had arrived, to assist in conducting them to Bethlehem and to render any professional service that might be needed. Captain Garrison as Elder of the colony was responsible for getting them properly started on the journey to Bethlehem, and accompanied one detachment all the way. They were divided into bands, each with a leader, as the best method of traveUng, The journey from New Brunswick to Bethlehem was made afoot. This was a serious undertaking for people just landed after a long sea voyage, many of them, particularly of the women, being rather feeble, even though 2. FROM HERRNHUT. Broksch, Andrew and Anna Elizabeth. Zeisberger, George and Anna Dorothea. Demuth, Christopher and Anna Mary. (single.) Hantsch, John George, Sr., and Regina. Doehhng, John Jacob. Hencke, Christopher and Elizabeth. Hantsch, John George, Jr. Hertzer, John Henry and Barbara Elizabeth. Harding, Conrad. Muenster, John and Rosina. Oerter, Christian Frederick. Nieke, George and Johanna Elizabeth. Hantsch, Anna Regina (d. of J. G., Sr.). Nixdorf, John George and Susanna. (infant.) Schuetze, Christian and Anna Dorothea. Nixdorf, John Gottlob. • 3. FROM ENGLAND. Banister, Elizabeth (widow), mother of Payne. Ostrum, Andrew and Jane. Digeon, David and Mary. Payne, Jasper and Elizabeth. Greening, James and Elizabeth. Utley, Richard and Sarah. Leighton, John and Sarah. 4. OFFICERS AND CREW. Nicholas Garrison. Ole Bugge. Notley Togood. John Nelson (boy). Thomas Gladman. Jarvis Roebuck. Owen Daly. John Leathes (boy). John Christian Ehrhardt. Benjamin Davis. Nicholas Garrison, Jr. John Newton (boy). John Cook. James Moore. Samuel Wennel. 1742 1744- 169 there had been no serious sickness on board. The first one to reach Bethlehem was Hantsch, Jr., December 5. After his party had trav- eled a day and a half he was not able to proceed farther, and procured a horse and rode on ahead of the rest. December 6, two more single men arrived by way of Nazareth during the evening service. Then later on the same evening came Wahnert and his wife, with about thirty. They were followed by Captain Garrison, who stated that he had left his company in the care of Captain Gladman, about six miles from Bethlehem, because they were too much fatigued to travel far- ther. He also announced that another band conducted by Dr. Meyer might be expected that night yet. They came very late, almost exhausted. Boehler, then in charge at Bethlehem, records that they sat up and waited until this last detachment arrived and then had a lovefeast in the chapel. He also says : "The chapel was quite filled, and all rejoiced like children at this new influx to our little manger.^ The Bethlehem brethren served the newcomers and bathed their galled and weary pilgrim feet,^^ for they Tiad bad weather, roads and lodging, and often scarcity of food on their journey." 9 " Kripplein " — an allusion to the associations of the name Bethlehem, like Zinzendorf, in certain verses sent to Bethlehem by him the previous summer as a greeting from the home •of the miller Schaus in Maguntsche, beginning : ' • Christi Krippschaft, Suender Sippschaft — Wie's Lttiherus ausgedrtieckt.'^ 10 Such a service to a footsore traveler, spontaneously rendered by a warm-hearted brother some years before, and then followed by others with increasing frequency, gradually led to the thought of making it a token, in imitation of Christ taking the servant's place in this well-known act of oriental hospitality ; after the manner of certain medieval reli- gious orders, and of certain German sects which have continued the practice to modern times. The over-wrought cultus developed at the middle of the i8th century then made it general as a church-ceremony in connection with certain occasions, especially Maundy- Thursday (John 13). Although conducted with all possible decorum — the several divisions (choirs) of a congregation by themselves, the sexes of course apart, at different hours, and never in a general public service with a mixed assembly present — the practice began to wane before 1800. In America, when last in vogue, the act, confined to the several exclusive church settlements, was restricted to Maundy-Thursday for many years and, even then, liad become such a distasteful requirement that it was frequently omitted, because no edification attended it. The General Synod of 1 81 8 released the congregations from obligation to observe it, and it has been obsolete since then. Comparatively few members of the Moravian Church in America even know that such a custom ever existed in it. This note is deemed desirable because not only antiquated works of reference on such matters giving misleading information, but even a dictionary of knowledge on churches and church customs published as recently as 1890, claiming special accuracy and "up-to-date" information, tells the public that this is one of the practices of the Moravian Church. 170 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The next morning Captain Gladman reached Bethlehem with his- company. "They walked very lame and feeble, but were all cheerful and happy." Shortly after them came two young men, one of them Cook the Italian sailor, who had passed the night at Nazareth. In. the afternoon the two Bethlehem wagons came with eleven of the women and several men who had quite given out. Then friends from Saucon, Maguntsche and the Great Swamp began to come in to wel- come them to Pennsylvania. In the evening the whole company assembled and listened with great interest to the reading of Buettner's diary of the Shekomeko mission, lately received at Bethlehem, The next day, December 8, the last of them, sixteen persons, arrived; among them the one mother who had a little child with her to care for. On Monday, December 9, twenty carpenters went to Nazareth ta finish the work on "the stone house" as rapidly as possible. Antes was now in Bethlehem giving the benefit of his judgment and experi- ence in connection with various new questions occasioned by the coming of this colony, and the undertakings that were being delayed until this time. Captain Garrison having accomplished his mission, returned to his home. That same day another man, subsequently of prominence and importance, arrived at Bethlehem. This was James Burnside, of Savannah, Georgia, referred to in chapter III. The house at Nazareth having been gotten ready for occupancy,, thirty-two young married couples, ^^ on January 2, 1744, started together for Nazareth to locate there and organize. They all went afoot, the men in advance with axes, making a better road through the woods than had existed before — the first public road between the two places was not laid out by order of Court until March, 1745 — the women following with provision for a meal on the way. It was evening when they reached their destination. Bishop Nitschmann,. Boehler, Seififert and Nathanael Seidel were there to usher them into their new quarters. With their first evening prayer at the close of that day was combined the consecration of the chapel in that large building, which for many years, was the place of worship, ordinarily, for the entire population of the Barony of Nazareth. It was long the practice to go to Bethlehem on all communion occasions and special festival days. The next day, January 3, the first organiza- tion took place. In accordance with the express wish of Count Zin- " This company consisted of all enumerated in note 8 under the first section, excepting Brandmiller, Hoepfner, J. W. Michler, Opitz, ( Jtto, Wagner, Wahnert, and their wives. 1742 1744- 171 zendorf, Dr. Adolph Meyer was installed as Warden, with also his professional headquarters at Nazareth ; for another physician, a son of a physician and surgeon, and bringing a doctor's degree in medi- cine from Halle, had arrived with the new colony and was now to locate at Bethlehem. This was John Frederick Otto, M.D.^- The heavy luggage of the colonists and sundry other articles brought over on the Little Strength had been transported by water from the hold of the vessel to a warehouse at New Brunswick. Numerous trips were made by the Bethlehem wagons during Janu- ary and February, until this considerable quantity of freight was con- veyed to Bethlehem. With one of the loads, on January 25, came a spinet presented by an English member of the Church, William Peter Knolton, fanmaker, of London, and later, for a few years, of Phila- delphia. This first musical instrument of the kind in Bethlehem was the forerunner of its ultimate abundant piano-forte equipment, as well as of the small, portable organ (Or gel positiv) of just two years later — made for the place, brought from Philadelphia and set up by the Moravian organ-builder, John Gottlob Klemm, then of Philadel- phia, formerly a teacher of boys at Herrnhut, who had become estranged from Zinzendorf and emigrated alone to Pennsylvania- The spinet — so the record states — looked very dilapidated, but skilled hands were busy at once to put it together, and the next day they could use it in worship. With this episode may be associated mention of the first hints found, during the months following, of par- ticular attention given to music at Bethlehem. Stringed instruments of music were evidently brought to the settlement by some members of the first Sea Congregation, for Indians who visited the place were entertained with such music before the second colony arrived. Early in 1744, there are traces of organized vocal music and of occurrences in connection therewith which some persons imagine are associated only with modern church choirs, for already, in the month of Feb- ruary, a misunderstanding among the singers called forth a sharp reproof from the Elder. In the following April occurs the first men- tion of the single men singing hymns outside the buildings, at dif- ferent points, on Saturday evening — a custom maintained with con- i» This second regular physician in the Forks was the elder of two brothers of that name who figure in the history of Bethlehem. The other, whose medical degree was from Stras- burg, was Dr. John Matthew Otto who arrived from Europe in 1750. He was the more eminent and widely known as physician and surgeon. The first died at Nazareth in 1779, the second at Bethlehem in 1786. lyi A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. siderable regularity for a number of years. Later on, these twi- light serenades at the close of the week often consisted of instru- mental performances. This occurred, in connection with the vocal music, already in June following the introduction of the practice. In that same month of April, the Easter matins, at four o'clock, were accompanied with instrumental music, in the procession to the new God's acre, with its three or four graves. On December 13, 1744, after Spangenberg had come to Bethlehem and commenced to apply FRENCH HORN OF THE XVIII. CENTURY. his brains and heart and hands to the development of every depart- ment and the regulation of every feature of the establishment, the first formal meeting of a Collegium Musicum, then organized, took place. The musical leader at that period — before this George Neis- ser, now in Europe, and Anton SeifTert, the Elder — was Pyrlaeus, who, besides being a good singer, played the spinet and then the chamber organ, and drilled both vocalists and instrumentalists. These duties he combined with the direction of the linguistic studies of can- didates for missionary service among the Indians, already mentioned. His music-room and class-room were now in the new house of the 1742 1744- 173 single men, the dedication of the site of which has been referred to. At that spot — the south-west corner of the present Sisters' House — the foundation was again staked ofif, after long delay on account of other building operations, on July 30, 1744. It was 30 by 50 feet. On August 9 the corner-stone was laid with solemn ceremonies, and on December 6, after the arrival of Spangenberg, it was dedicated amid great rejoicings. The work had proceeded more rapidly than that on previous buildings, for now there were more mechanics, and all the timber did not have to be hewn and spHt. The much-needed sawmill of the settlement was in operation. On the massive stone foundation, yet to be seen, it was raised on May 26 and on June 26 the first sawing was done. Timber cut in February and March by squads of Bethlehem axe-men far up in the forest of Pochkapochka — the Lehigh Gap and along the so-named creek, now Big Creek — was being floated down the river ; and in converting it into beams and posts, rafters, joists and boards, the measured rasp and crunch of the long saw and the rumble of the water wheel driving it, succeeded, to a great extent, the ring of the broad axe on the white oak logs. The completion of that important building, increasing accommo- dations so materially, led to some new shifting and re-arrangement. More ample quarters were secured in the women's part of the Com- munity House. Such good health had prevailed during the spring that the house, utilized since the end of February as the hospital for men, was standing vacant. This seems to have been the Demuth house built the previous autumn. The hospital had, before that, been transferred from its first quarters to a house across the river — prob- ably the vacated cabin of "the Schweitzer" Ruetschi — and then in Feb- ruary back to the north side. At the end of May the single women had taken temporary possession of the vacant hospital, and now, when the new arrangements afforded them quarters in the Commu- nity House, the school for girls was, on Christmas Day, 1744, trans- ferred to this vacant house ; the new house of the single men con- taining a room for the sick. More general and important movements were held in suspense during 1744, pending the opening of a new administration at the close of the year. Bishop Nitschmann, after making several tours of the missionary circuits among the Indians, sailed with Captain Garrison on the Little Strength for Europe from New York, March 24. With him went Wahnert, the useful "ship diacanus" on so many voyages, Harten, of the first Sea Congregation, returning to Europe, and 174 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Weber, the West India missionary, with their wives, besides two other men from Pennsylvania. He also took with him an Indian couple, Samuel and Mary, Wampanoags, who had been married by Boehler, February i6 — the first Indian wedding at Bethlehem. On May i the Little Strength was captured by a Spanish privateer and, with a prize crew on board, sent to St. Sebastian, where, on May 7, the men were all thrust into a filthy prison, but the women, through Captain Garri- son's efforts, were given quarters in the town. They were released the next day and eventually reached their destination, but the Little Strength was lost. The perils now threatening the prosperous work among the Indians, through excited prejudice and ignorance, under the apprehensive unrest of the time, especially in New York, made it desirable to take measures, through negotiations with the British Government, to secure protection for the missions if possible. The presence of Bishop Nitschmann, as representative of the Indian mis- sions, was therefore needed in Europe. The popular mind was the more aflame after the formal declaration of war between England and France, in March. Although at a conference between the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania and the deputies of the Iroquois confederacy at Lancaster in June, the latter covenanted to stand against the plans of the French for enlisting Indian allies to harass the settlements, little confidence was put in this by the people ; least of all in New York. Under these circumstances the frequent journeys of men from Bethlehem to the Indian villages in that Province were regarded with keen suspicion ; for the representations of those clerical guardians •of religion and protectors of the state who had brought about Boeh- ler's expulsion from New York in January, 1743, had thoroughly con- vinced many men in authority and the people generally that the Moravians were Papists. This meant, of course, under the circum- stances of the time, that they were partisans of the French, and their emissaries among the Indians. Governor Thomas had issued his proclamation to the citizens of Pennsylvania in June, announcing England's declaration of war and calling upon them to show loyalty and support measures of defense. Therefore in Pennsylvania also the connection of men from Bethlehem with the Indians began to call forth sinister comment to a greater extent than before, particularly among the co-religionists of the New Yoik agitators. In that Province the excited feeling at last broke out in actual per- secution, and a series of measures on the part of, first the petty local functionaries, and then the higher provincial authorities, was provoked 1742 1744- 175 by the popular clamor, in which, as the sequel proved, the doom of the Indian missions in those parts was sealed. In the crusade against the Moravians, the assaults of those who stood for doctrine and the efforts of those who feared for the safety of the state were supplemented by those of unscrupulous traders who preferred to see the Indians remain sunken in ignorance and vice, and considered their business endang- ered by the presence of the missionaries. Successive mandates sum- moned them before magistrates in one and the other village to give an account of themselves, but no hold could rightly be found. A like examination before the Governor and Council took place in New York City early in July, but the result was merely an order to return home and peaceably await further decisions. What awakened the most suspicion was the unwillingness of the missionaries to take an oath, for in New York the authorities were not familiar with the presence of a quiet and respectable body of people who took this position, like the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania. So the agitation continued imtil finally, in December, a sheriff and three justices went to Sheko- meko with an order to the missionaries, in the name of the Governor and Council, to appear before Court a few days later, and officially closed the mission chapel. An act against the Jesuits in 1700, which expired by limitation in 1745, was conveniently found available, and the outcome was that the Moravians were ordered out of the Prov- ince, under the charge of being in league with the French, and were forbidden, under severe penalty, to further visit the Indians. Many right-minded men were filled with indignation at this outrage, but, in the main, it met popular approval. The General Assembly of New York had, on September 13, 1744, passed a new act to cover the case, which received the endorsement of Governor Clinton on September 21. It was entitled, "An Act for securing his Majesty's Government of New York." When the ques- tion was discussed, what to call it, one member who did not favor it proposed that it be called "the persecuting act." It provided for restrictions and permits that would bar out the Moravian mission- aries, and then, among other things, enacted that "every vagrant preacher, Moravian or disguised Papist, that shall preach without taking such oaths or obtaining such license, as aforesaid, shall forfeit the sum of £40, with six months imprisonment without bail or main- prize, and for the second offense shall be obliged to leave the colony; and if they do not leave this colony or shall return, they shall suffer such punishment as shall be inflicted by the Justices of the Supreme Court, not extending to Hfe or limb." Furthermore, it was enacted 176 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. that "every vagrant preacher, Moravian, disguised Papist or any- other person presuming to reside among and teach the Indians under the pretense of bringing them over to the Christian Faith, * * * without such license as aforesaid, shall be taken up and treated as a person taking upon him to seduce the Indians from his Majesty's interest, and shall sulifer such punishment as shall be inflicted by the Justices of the Supreme Court, not extending to life or limb." For- tunate was it that Bethlehem was in Pennsylvania and not in New York, and that the men in Pennsylvania of like views could not get control of the government. It is surprising, too, that in the space of such a few years after that, the government and leading men in New York were oiifering inducements to the Brethren at Bethlehem to send people to settle in that Province. In the meantime, however, the following year, Moravian missionaries did actually suffer, not only fine, but imprisonment, and their work among the Indians in New York was ruined. If it be doubted by any that the animosity engendered specifically against the Moravian Brethren and issuing primarily from the men who inveighed against them from the pulpits in sympathy with the Amsterdam manifesto produced this measure, the following final clause of the act makes this clear: "Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that nothing in this act contained shall be construed to oblige the ministers of the Dutch and French Protestant Reformed Churches, the Presbyterian ministers, minis- ters of the Kirk of Scotland, the Lutherans, the Congregational ministers, the Quakers and the Anabaptists to obtain certifi- cates for their several places of public worship already erected or that shall be hereafter erected within this colony, anything in this act to the contrary notwithstanding." Spangenberg reached New York, October 25, 1744, on the James, which had taken Zinzendorf and his party to Europe. The announce- ment of his arrival was received at Bethlehem, October 30. George Neisser and Christian Froehlich returned with him and reached Beth- lehem, November 6. With him came also Abraham Reincke and wife and Andrew Horn and wife to reinforce the ministry. They got to Bethlehem, November 9. Captain Nicholas Garrison also returned to New York with him. Spangenberg, upon learning the state of affairs with the Indian mission in the colony of New York, started with Captain Garrison at once for Shekomeko, where he arrived on November 6. He did what he could to comfort and encourage the converts, but all his efforts to stay the tide that had set in were 1/42 1744- 1/7 unavailing. The civil authorities were deaf to all entreaties and expostulations. It was clear that in the face of such bigotry and intolerance, nothing was left but to face all dangers and put the foolish and outrageous menace to the utmost test, in following the higher duty. This was unhesitatingly done early in the following year by men who went to the region again to take all risks in the name of the Lord and for the sake of souls. Thus, on February 23, 1745, the Missionary Post, and the most promising student under Pyrlaeus, young Zeisberger, who went to the Mohawk Valley to perfect him- self in the Alohawk language, wxre actually committed to prison in the city of New York and were not released until April 10. Spangenberg reached Bethlehem November 30. There was great rejoicing at his arrival. He had been married, March 5, 1740, to the young widow Eva Mary Immig,m. n. Ziegelbauer, who became a most zealous and efficient help-meet in the responsible and onerous labors now before him. On July 26, 1744, shortly before he left Germany, he was consecrated a bishop. He came to Pennsylvania as General Superintendent of all the work in America, incltiding everything that lay in the broad scheme of the Pennsylvania Synod, wath its Mora- vian, Lutheran and Reformed departments — "Tropes." As a kind of ecclesiastical plenipotentiary, with all this in view, he bore the ponderous title of "Jlcarius Gcncralis Episcoporum et per Ameri- cam in Prcsbytcrio Vicariiis," with power to personally appoint a successor in an emergency. The first part of this title — Vicar General of the Bishops — had, as its basis, the idea conceived by Zinzendorf, as stated in a previous chapter, of the representation and combination of the three "religions," as tropes, in the episcopacy; as its purpose, the consecration, by authority, of bishops, w^hen necessary, from among men associated with any or all of the three. The second part of the title — \'icar of the Eldership for America — had reference to that idealizing of the eldership, distinct from the episcopacy, then in vogue ; a kind of purely spiritual headship, from that of single con- gregations, and their several divisions called choirs, up to that of the whole. For a few years prior to 1741 there had been such a Gen- eral Elder of the whole. Then the conception of the supreme invis- ible headship of Christ was laid hold of and applied to that ideal func- tion. The general eldership was abolished as an office, and Christ the Head of the Church was spoken of as Chief or Supreme Elder. Accord- ing to the view propagated by Zinzendorf, this conception, as applied to actual organization and office, was not regarded as, at this time and under existing conditions, established in America. Therefore Spangenberg was entrusted with such a general eldership here. 13 1 ''S>iSii^ AUGUSTUS GOTTLIEB SPANGENBERG 1745 1748. 179 ren. 8. The Brethren in America should not call themselves Protes- tant or Lutheran or Moravian, but simply Evangelical Brethren and a Brethren's Church. 9. It shall not be the purpose to make things "Moravian" (in carrying on the general evangelistic work); but if a church settlement — Ortsgemeine, see item i — comes into existence at Nazareth, it could be formed as a Moravian congregation/ ceteris paribus. 10. The work among the Indians is to be prosecuted on apostolic principles (without regard to denominationalism), but Indians who have been baptized under other religions (denomina- tions) are to be associated with these, unless first spiritually awak- ened through the ministrations of the Brethren. (This latter clause had in view Indians baptized in a mere perfunctory way by Romish priests, with no instruction in matters of faith and no eiifort at their conversion.) 11. Wyoming must not be lost sight of, for the Ordi- narius (Zinzendorf) had the firm conviction that a congregation from among the heathen would arise there. 12. The Synod shall remain a general one, open to all servants of Christ who desire benefit from it for their denominations, or the salvation of their fellowmen. It shall be regarded as a Church of God in the Spirit with a general direction extending among people of all denominations. 13. The fundamental principles adopted in the first seven Conferences of Reli- gions are to be undeviatingly adhered to. 14. The Testament of the Ordinarius (at the house of Benezet) made before his departure from Pennsylvania elucidates those conferences and is not to be left out of sight. 15. In money matters, drafts are to be avoided, and if the issue of a draft becomes necessary (1. c. on Europe) notice must be given long in advance, in order not to embarrass the treasury. 16. The appointment of general overseers and matrons of the child- ren — Kinder Eltcrn — is to be had in mind and suitable persons are to be sought. Some of these points were worked out in more detail, in so far as they involved co-operation in Europe. In other respects, Spangen- berg was given complete control, to develop and apply the principles at his discretion. Thus arose under his administration an elaborate and interesting establishment called the General Economy, with its central management at Bethlehem and its personnel and operations embracing the settlements on the Nazareth land, as well as the itiner- I In order to comprehend these points, the elucidation of ZinzendorPs conception of the status of the Moravian Church, as such, and of his Pennsylvania scheme, as given in Chapter V, must be had in mind. I So A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. acy, school enterprises and Indian missions at many places conducted from this center. There has been much popular misapprehension in reference to the nature of this General Economy, as well as to its dur- ation. It existed, strictly speaking, seventeen years, from the beginning of Spangenberg's first term at Bethlehem until 1762, when it was dis- solved. Prior to 1745 the arrangements were devised for the tem- porary situation. They rested on the simple practical exigencies of the case, as with any new colony similarly situated in those days or now, where a large number of people with insufficient accommoda- tions at a pioneer stage, making common cause, institute special arrangements, as a large household or camp, for common subsist- ence, the preservation of such ideas of order as they may have and the systematic prosecution of their first undertakings. The only two features that were not common were the degree of religious character given to everything in accordance with the spirit of the people and the central purpose of the settlement ; and the nature of some regu- lations appHed both to internal discipline and order and to external activity. In these points observers, of course, found a measure of strictness and minuteness, as well as a kind of arrangement, not met with elsewhere. Now, however, the system developed by Spangenberg was no mere emergency plan, but was carefully constructed, with a view to deal- ing with all the conditions to be considered and to prosecuting all the operations, both spiritual and material, to be undertaken, in what was believed to be, and upon trial proved to be, the best way. Things were accomplished during those years which, without large pecuniary resources — and these they did not have — would otherwise have been impossible. When this system is spoken of as the General Economy — General economic, also Genicinschaftliche Oeconomie, i. c, an economy in common, the emphasis is to be laid not upon "Economy," a word understood and used in the ordinary sense by them, but upon the word "General," in seeking the special significance of the term. They spoke of many an organization or establishment, religious, social or industrial, as an economy ; e. g., they referred to Whitefield's Econ- omy, Wiegner's Economy and Antes's Economy — his mill seat, plan- tation and large workshop combined and employing a number of persons. That it was a General Economy, embracing Bethlehem and the affiliated stations on the Nazareth land under one management, and including the entire personnel, and not any peculiar ideas or prin- 1/45 1748- itSi ciples suggested by the word Economy, must be taken as the prominent thought. What there was unique in the system lay in certain details of organization and management, and these rested not on any general ideas experimented with for their own sake, but on purely practical grounds. Spangenberg and the men with him who elaborated the system, were no mere doctrinaires, seeking to apply and test some kind of academic theories of religious, social or industrial life, but were sober-minded men of affairs, with all their exalted religious ideals and fervid enthusiasm. The details of the system and the various features of the organization usually had practical reasons back of them, and in the combination of great practical wisdom with intense piety, holding questions the most matter-of-fact in close connection with the finest ideas of spiritual devotion and social sentiment, the genius of the man in control and the force of his personality appear. It has been the custom of some writers to apply the word com- munistic to the system. This is a misleading term, on account of some ideas popularly associated with it. The arrangement was not communistic in any sense beyond that in which a number of persons who agree, for a definite or indefinite period, to give their time and labor to an institution or common cause, are furnished subsistence from that source. No personal liberty was surrendered, even to the extent to which a man under a written contract is bound for the stipulated time. No papers, so far as can be ascertained, were signed by any, thus brought to Pennsylvania without expense to them, and taken care of in every particular while connected with the organization. "Any dissatisfied person is at liberty to leave at any time," was the plain declaration, "for there is no wall around Bethlehem." The corresponding right to expel persons for cause was, of course, claimed, and the reasonable demand that, so long as one remained a member of the Economy he must conform to all regulations, was insisted on. There was never the slighest inter- ference with private property rights, although many who were possessed of means voluntarily contributed to the cause, or loaned money without interest, or gave the Church the benefit of their estates on condition that they be cared for. Without attempting to describe the minutiae of the intricate organization, or to reproduce the designations given the numerous administrative and deliberative bodies, or the various special func- tionaries, a few salient features may be noted. Besides the small l82 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. board which stood with Bishop Spangenberg at the head of a general administration, there was a larger body representing different depart- ments, that met in stated conference. It planned minor organization in the several departments and the execution of plans was committed to the respective heads, subject to the approval of the highest cen- tral board. When, with the expansion of the work, a general super- intendent of agriculture, building operations and other externals became necessary, Henry Antes had so fully identified himself with the interests of the Economy that he was willing to assume this office, and removed to Bethlehem with his family in June, 1745, to take charge. Then everybody and everything in connection with those activities became subject to his ultimate supervision. A number of special boards and stated or occasional conferences were gradually instituted in connection with minor divisions of the several departments. There were, besides those that had to do with more strictly spiritual matters, and with educational concerns, a building committee, committees on domestic supplies, food, clothing and the like ; a committee associated with the physician in charge of the medical department, sanitary arrangements and the dispensary, and a corps of secretaries. Conferences were held on matters of the farms, dairies and stock-yards, on the different classes of manu- facturing industries, as these increased, and on commercial affairs. There was also a police committee — the Richter Collegium referred to in the previous chapter — which maintained law and order. Under the management of Spangenberg's wife, who revealed a high order of administrative ability, and, although of frail constitution, devoted herself to the tasks that came to her with untiring zeal, all the classes of female industry were in like manner thoroughly organized. Much of her time was given to meetings, not only of mothers, nurses and teachers, but also of the spinners, weavers, knitters, seamstresses, dairy-women, laundresses, and other classes. There was a general steward of the Economy, who had the oversight of all purchased supplies, for the sustenance of the colony, and of all that went to the culinary department from field and orchard, abattoir and dairy. With the relation of their respective functions nicely arranged, there stood with this important official, a general accountant, after it appeared that the duties of the steward were too onerous for him to also do all the book-keeping. During the years of which this chapter treats, Jasper Payne filled the position of steward most of the time. The first general accountant, as a separate official, was Christian Fred- 1745 1748. i83 erick Oerter. John Brownfield also performed both duties for a time. The strict and systematic manner in which accoltnts were kept is revealed by the mass of account books preserved in the Bethlehem archives. There remains also in manuscript a complete exposition of the entire system of accounts, worked out gradually and finally perfected by Oerter, which shows what exact business methods were applied throughout, down to the minutest details. Careful accounts, according to a prescribed method, had to be kept in every department, by every particular industry, farm and line of service. Statedly all of these had to be turned in to the general accountant who examined them, along with all orders and receipts, hundreds of which yet remain, and posted up everything in his general books. Those books reveal how it was possible to watch every detail of that elaborate Economy and keep control of the situa- tion on every side continually in order to prevent serious loss through mismanagement, carelessness or possible unfaithfulness in any quar- ter ; to enable those in responsible control of all to so direct, that business attention was centered, as occasion demanded, on those points where it was most needed in order that nothing might be undertaken that would dangerously drain resources and that no sud- den crisis might bring financial disaster. Not the least interesting evidence of Bishop Spangenberg's intelHgent efforts to keep all classes of the people imbued with the religious spirit to be put into everything, however material or menial, to preserve sympathetic touch, foster a cheerful esprit de corps and awaken enthusiasm for new and difficult undertakings, from time to time, is to be found in the way in which the numerous gatherings of all classes of workers, on all kinds of occasions and for all kinds of purposes were managed. They usually combined a devotional, social and business character. With them were commonly associated a meal, more or less substantial, for all assembled. These were, according to the custom of the time, always spoken of as lovefeasts. Some, in reading the records of those days, have been disposed to make merry over the many lovefeasts, having in mind what is now known by that name. These occasions, utilized as they were, served an important purpose, in connection with many special objects, and in the matter of maintaining the general morale of the Economy. They were appreciated, too, especially by men and women employed at hard manual labor, with the very plain fare and almost Spartan- like regime that had to be habitually the order ; for besides the relaxa- tion they afforded, the special, social meal was a welcome thing. 184 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. From one point of view, those many lovefeasts were what would now be regarded as a wise stroke of business policy, while, in connection with the end of the sowing or the harvest, with the sheep- shearing or the completed spinning of the season, with the finishing of a heavy task in clearing land or erecting buildings they helped to invest the laborious life with an idyllic charm. Where a spirit was maintained that prompted men to sing hymns or discourse melody on instruments of music when they went to the harvest field and when they returned from it after the burden and heat of the day; when they set out for the site of a barn or a mill that was to be erected on some distant part of the domain ; when they proceeded with pick and shovel to where the cellar of a new building was to be excavated ; or when they set out with axes, cross-cut saws, and equipment for a week's camping in the forest, to fell timber and float it down the Lehigh, cheerful and rapid work was done. It would, however, be far beyond the truth to represent every man in that Economy, especially after the lapse of some years when the num- ber of people had greatly increased and the novelty of the situation had departed, as a Christian hero, ever ready to do and dare, and performing everything with cheerful self-denial as to the Lord. There were many weak ones to be borne with, many unsteady ones to be admonished; there were discontented and ungrateful ones and peevish whiners from the beginning; and now and then cases of gross misdemeanor and flagrant unfaithfulness occurred. Yet they were heroic days and, in the main, the people nobly lived up to the thought given them by Bishop Spangenberg, when he adopted the motto which Dr. Paul Anton had before applied to the establishments of Halle : In commune oramus, In commune lahoramus, in commune patimur, In com- mune gaudeamus. The responsibility assumed by Spangenberg and the range and variety of matters to which he had to give personal attention made his position extremely difficult, especially at the beginning when everything at Bethlehem and Nazareth had to be newly organized, careful inspection had to be given to the work at many other places, and the cloud that hung over the Indian missions in New York weighed heavily upon him. His devoted wife came near breaking down under the strain of her arduous duties during the first year. On one occasion, while her husband was absent in the Indian country, her tasks were so overwhelming that, when speaking to the officials about some matters in which she could no longer go on without JOHN CHRISTOPHER PYRLAEUS NATHANAEL SEIDEL JOHN CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK CAMMERHOF GEORGE NEISSER JOHN NITSCHMANN 1745 1748- i85 assistance, she burst into tears. The chivalrous response to this pathetic appeal afforded her every relief possible, but two critical attacks of illness which prostrated her proved that she was taxed beyond her strength. It soon became clear to Spangenberg that the labor was too great for them. Correspondence with Zinzendorf was opened on the subject, with the result that, early in January, 1747, an assistant arrived in Bethlehem in the person of the young Bishop John Christopher Frederick Cammerhoff, whose wife, a gifted and pious young Livonian baroness, Anna von Pahlen, became the assist- ant overseer of the women. They reached Lewes with their company^ bound for Philadelphia, December 28, 1746, on the snow John Galley, Captain Crosswaite. The ice preventing their progress up the Delaware, they went ashore there, made their way by land to Phila- delphia and reached Bethlehem, January 12. Cammerhoff was an extraordinary young man in natural gifts, learning and eloquence, as well as in piety, zeal and energy. Although only twenty-five years old, he had been consecrated to the episcopacy shortly before he started for Pennsylvania as coadjutor to Bishop Spangenberg. Knowing his superior qualities and his enthusiasm, Spangenberg welcomed him with joy. With surprising rapidity he learned the English language, became familiar with public affairs in Pennsylvania, and with American conditions generally, and mastered every feature of the situation and work at Bethlehem and elsewhere. He devoted himself with almost reckless energy to those duties particularly which called him into the Indian country. He undertook the most arduous and perilous journeys at all seasons and in any kind of weather, although never inured to hardships, and of physique far from robust. His career of inordinate activity was brief. Already in 1751, he succumbed to the strain and died at Bethlehem. Were there 2 The entire party consisted of thirteen persons, viz. besides Bishop Cammerhoff and his wife, Sven Roseen, a Swede who had studied at Upsala and Jena and then joined the Brethren, and his wife, Anna Margaret ; John and Johanna Wade, Enghsh members; Mat- thias GottHeb Gottschalk, a theological student of the Moravian Seminary at Lindheim ; John Eric Westmann, later a missionary in the West Indies, at Sarepta, Russia, and in Guiana; Vitus and Mary Handrup; Judith Hickel, a widow; Esther Mary Froehlich, wife of Christian Froehlich, now following her husband back to Pennsylvania, and another person not named. Four other members of the Church had arrived at Philadelphia from Europe since the colony of 1743, viz. in September, I745» the fan-maker of London who presented the spinet brought to Bethlehem on the Little Strength, William Peter Knolton, and his wife Hannah ; Jarvis Roebuck, one of the sailors of the ill-fated Little Strength, and Eva Mary Meyer, a widow. l86 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. no Other element of his personaHty and influence to be recalled, his short service would merit only great admiration. But a blemish must be referred to on account of what it represented and introduced. With his coming-, the spirit of the Herrnhaag extravagances, alluded to in a previous chapter, was brought to Bethlehem, and, for a season, it threatened to inoculate the settlement, as it had those in the Wetterau and, to a lesser degree, others in Europe. That phenom- enon in the history of the Moravian Church has been aptly compared by one writer to the diseased condition of the heart called fatty degeneration. It is associated particularly with the years from 1746 to 1750 — a period afterwards spoken of as "the time of sifting" (Luke 22:31) — but it had its roots in preceding tendencies for which, primarily, Zinzendorf himself was responsible. This applies more particularly to his course after he returned from America in 1743. He infused a leaven that finally wrought things not expected, for he over-estimated the general quality and capacity of the human material worked with. This is to be recognized in various particulars. In his absorbing purpose — deemed so important — to propagate a more emphatically Christ-centered teaching, he neglected for a time the proportions of essential doctrine. In concentrating attention so exclusively on the atoning sacrifice of Christ, he over-developed the ideas of the people at one point and left them dwarfed at others. His disposition to discard hackneyed terms and indulge in novel expressions, in order to lend freshness and force to thought, produced a penchant for eccentric phraseology. A certain audacity with which he advanced ideas, dealt with subjects and experimented with measures outside of conventional limits, sometimes set the meat for strong men before persons who were intellectually and spiritually babes, needing milk. Beyond the bounds of prudence, he trusted the ability of lesser minds to follow, grasp and apply bold thoughts. The intensity which he put into everything maintained a strain among the people under which the merely emotional prevailed unduly. His exuberant fancy, running easily into oddities, introduced a fashion in lighter kinds of religious versification and liturgical embellishment that was far removed from sober, dignified simplicity and fed a taste for the fantastic. In his desire to foster a genial conception of spiritual life over against the austere type of pietism, and, at the same time, to encourage a child- like constant clinging to the Saviour of sinners, as opposed to both legalism and perfectionism, he unwittingly occasioned a peculiar spe- cies of careless self-complacency in the direction of antinomianism. 1745 1748. 18/ These items make up the whole indictment against Zinzendorf in connection with the craze that broke out at Herrnhaag, where, as in many a headlong tendency, followers ran away with what leaders would have kept within restrictions. The Wetterau had been a con- gregating-place of religious enthusiasts and erratics, and a hot-bed of every sort of extravagance before the Brethren settled there. Therefore, not only over-fervid, genuinely good people, but crack- brained adventurers and even imposters gravitated towards Herrn- haag, where far less restraint was applied to admission than at Herrnhut. For a season Zinzendorf's discerning eye was withdrawn from this rapid and promiscuous influx. Much was left to the control of per- sons lacking wisdom, some of them very young and inexperienced. Among these was his own son, Christian Renatus, whose mind and temperament had all the ardor without the virility characteristic of his father, and whose intense adoration of the suffering Saviour was expressed in his well-known lines : "One passion only do I have ; 'Tis He and none but He." This, as propagated there, ran into mawkish sentimentality and puerile language. A mania for coining extravagant phrases broke out, each rhymster trying to outdo the other in grotesque jargon; and, even in ordinary conversation, a style of expression came into use that degenerated into inane drivel. A rage for the spectacular was fostered in connection with all kinds of festivities. Pictorial representations of the sufferings of Christ in their various features were produced, so outre that at times they became almost sacrilegious caricatures. Transparencies and illumin- ations of every description abounded. The daily life of the place became a constant round of partly social and partly religious celebra- tions, with a fanatical idealizing of the congregation, as a whole, and of its several divisions, as organized, especially its various officials, under the exaggerated conceit of being the special, selected favorites of Jesus. This relation to Him was paraded, now under the fancy of being spiritual children playing about the cross, and anon under the imagery of the Canticles. In the midst of this luxuriating, which involved expense, a heedless improvidence was indulged in for a season that brought after it a day of reckoning. Many sensible men in the Church eschewed and deplored these follies and protested against them, but in vain. For a while Zinzendorf paid no proper attention to the intimations they ventured to give him of these excesses, which in their more l88 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA extreme features were hidden from him ; but at last his eyes were opened to the peril and promptly he turned upon the perpetrators with a force and severity that soon restored sanity. His indignation was mingled with humble self-reproach, for he discerned wherein he had unwittingly opened the way to it all. Various traces of this fanaticism lingered long, but vigorous efforts put a stop to the ten- dencies that were perilous, some of the more culpable were weeded out of the membership, and the Church was saved. External tribula- tions followed which also had a sobering effect. The assailants of Zinzendorf and his work now had so much mate- rial to use for defamatory writing that on their side, in turn, the denunciation of the Count and his brethren became a kind of craze. That the wildest stories of gross reUgious aberrations and even of social disorders grew out of what had prevailed at Herrnhaag and elsewhere in the Wetterau, is not to be wondered at ; especially as one after another knave who had gone there and lived awhile for sin- ister purposes, or had been detected there as a black sheep and expelled, circulated the most outrageous slanders which found credence easily because they came from professed eye-witnesses. Yet more serious was the blow that came when, upon the accession of a new, young prince to the rule of the Httle domain in which Herrn- haag lay, a series of machinations by the attorney of that prince, a bit- ter enemy of Zinzendorf, brought on the ruin of the flourishing settle- ment, because new terms and conditions were imposed, under which the Brethren would not remain. A succession of voluntary emigra- tions from the place began in 1750 and, within three years, Herrnhaag was left empty and desolate. Many of its people came to Penn- sylvania as will appear in the further narrative. In the train of these disasters came the most formidable financial crisis in the history of the Church. There will be occasion to refer to this again. Thus out of the "time of sifting" came trial, purging and refining. The results of the ordeal proved the difference between the Brethren's Church, in its essential character, and the various extravagant sects with which its enemies classed it. "The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock."^ 3 This unfortunate episode is thus sketched in some detail because frequent allusions to it, or extended accounts are met with in the works of ecclesiastical historians which convey incorrect impressions. Some fail to treat the matter understandingly, some represent the extravagance of those years as the prevailing condition of the entire Zinzendorfian era, which 1745 1748. i89 When Spangenberg discovered that his talented and enthusiastic young coadjutor was so thoroughly imbued with the extravagant spirit of the Wetterau and was introducing its language and manner at Bethlehem, he was at first surprised at the extent to which the mania had developed since he left Europe, and then alarmed, knowing what this new freak would entail upon the settlement and its work which, with all soberness and circumspection, had to proceed against a strong tide of prejudice and hostility in many quarters. When he, furthermore, made the discovery that Cammerhoff had, before he left Europe, even been instructed on some points at variance with his ideas and policies — for at this time Zinzendorf was yet blind to the injurious follies of the tendency he was fostering — grief was added to alarm. But Spangenberg was too noble and loyal in heart to let this dampen his zeal or weaken his sense of duty, and too strong a man to be over-ridden or to let the work suffer vital harm. ^ He depended somewhat upon Boehler, now again in Europe, to properly represent the practical situation and needs. Boehler, after relinquishing gradually his various ad interim duties, had left Beth- lehem, February i6, 1745, and, with Anton Seififert, Henry Aimers and wife, Paul Daniel Bryzelius and wife and Captain Garrison, had sailed from New York, April 8, on the Queen of Hungary, which before reaching England was captured by a French privateer, early in May, causing the passengers considerable delay and danger before they arrived in Europe. Boehler's knowledge of the circumstances and requirements at Bethlehem was of much service in counsel at that time over against the view Zinzendorf was then disposed to take of things. Meanwhile material developments proceeded under the co-operative union that had been organized, at a rate that is surprising when surveyed in all particulars. In this line of operations the services of Henry Antes, after June, 1745, when, as stated, he removed to Beth- lehem, were of immense value. What was achieved in the erection of buildings and the opening of farms and industries during the three vears, 1745-1748. can be best appreciated if these enterprises, great and small, are grouped together for mention. During the first months is greatly at variance with the truth, and some even use the exaggerated accounts of maligners of that time as sources, and reproduce fictions. In the nature of things, historians who are fair-minded and possessed of a proper critical sense, will take the stories of the kind of " eye- witnesses" referred to in the text with much suspicion because of their manifest intention to do the Brethren harm, out of revenge. ANNA MACK ELIZABETH BOEHLER ANNA ROSINA ANDERS MARY ELIZABETH SPANGENBERG ANNA JOHANNA SEIDEL ANNA NITSCHMANN ANNA MARIA LAWATSCH 1745 '748. igi in March, 1745, but delayed on account of other pressing under- takings, and completed in October of that year — the first building erected in the Lehigh Valley as a public house of entertainment. On October 30, Samuel Powell, mentioned in the catalogue of the Sea Congregation given in Chapter V, arrived from Philadelphia to take charge as the first inn-keeper. There, in the following month, the first public book-store in the Lehigh Valley was opened by the Bethlehem authorities under the care of landlord Powell. His successor, May 31, 1746, was Frederick Hartmann, whose wife died at the Inn, January 13, 1747, and on the 15th was interred on the near-by hill on the south side. A special burial ground^ was then opened for the accommodation of the vicinage and for emergency use in connection with the public house, and, with that first interment, was consecrated by Bishop Cammerhoff. The next prominent building erected in Bethlehem was the middle section of the stone house now officially known among Moravian properties as "the old Seminary" because the boarding school for girls occupied it from 1749 to 1790, and called, in common local parlance, the "bell house." It was built originally to contain the refectory of the single men with a general dining-room connected with the Community House, and dwellings for married men and women, to relieve the congested quarters in the larger building and make several of the small log houses available for other uses. The foundation lines for this second stone structure in Bethlehem were staked off, August 24, 1745, but it was not completed and occupied until October of the following year. The bell turret was erected in June, 1746, and there the first town clock was placed. It was con- structed by the clock-maker Augustine Neisser, of Germantown, who had commenced the task the previous April, but did not complete it until February 15, 1747. The bells, a larger and two smaller ones, were cast by Samuel Powell — the same who was the first inn-keeper 5 The site of that little cemetery can no longer be ascertained with accuracy. The oldest draft of lands on the south side marking it, places it on the crown of the bluff, just up from the well-remembered large spring at the south bank of the river, long ago buried under the cinders of the railway filling. From measurements on the draft it has been judged to have lain about thirty rods back, hence about the intersection of Second and Ottawa Streets. It was in use until 1763. Of the seventeen recorded interments, ten were the bodies of Indians. The last, October, 1763, was Captain Jacob Wetherold, who died at the Crown Inn of wounds received in a surprise by Indians at the house of John Stenson. It is believed, however, that during the Revolutionary War the remains of some soldiers were also buried there. 192 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. on the south side. The weather vane, yet surmounting the httle turret, with the historic emblem of the Church, a lamb with a banner, was made from a drawing by Cammerhoff. In front of the second story a balcony was constructed, which remained until 1766. There, it was long the custom for the musicians to discourse melodies, morning and evening on holy-days, and in connection with harvest- home festivals and other gatherings in the square in front of the house. During that time other structures had gradually been added to the equipment of the place. A mill for pressing linseed oil — for much flax was raised to supply the important linen-weaving industry — commenced in January, was finished early in February, 1745. There, on February 12, the first oil was pressed. Immediately upon its completion the carpenters proceeded to build a larger wagon-making shop, for of such work — wagons and carts, plows, harrows and the like, the Economy required much. The arrival of the first emigrat- ing Indians from the Shekomeko mission in New York, and the prospect that many of the converts would follow, in consequence of the continued hostility manifested towards the missions in that Prov- ince, led also, late in the summer of 1745, to the commencement of the group of Indian houses at Bethlehem. One such was laid up the latter part of August and finished the first week in September, 1745, as a kind of hotel for such Indians sojourning temporarily. More were added later at the foot of the hill to the south-east of the present Seminary for Young Ladies, when the exodus from the missions in New York and Connecticut increased ; and the cluster of log cabins which there housed the refugees for a season received the name Friedcnshncttcn — Habitations of Peace. In April, 1746, a building in connection with the linen-bleachery was added to those already standing on the Sand Island — the saw- mill and the laundry of the settlement. At that time, steps were also taken to build several more small log houses on the south side of the river for transient occupants, and particularly for occasional use by itinerant evangelists, when quarters could not be provided in the village. Not far from where the cabins of Friedenshuetten were built, another small structure arose in May, 1746, which, although of no great importance, is, in the retrospect, of some topographic interest. This was the summer-house on the "Wimden Eiland." This island was in the Monocacy Creek, at the foot of the present grounds in the rear of the Young Ladies' Seminary. It is marked 1745 1748. 193 on the oldest map of the locaht}-, and a depression in the grounds reveals where the inside channel of the stream then was. ' A rustic foot-bridge was constructed across it to the island, and there mam- interesting social meetings, official conferences and important inter- views with Indians took place. Its name, "the Island of the Wounds," meant that it was dedicated to the remembrance of the wounds of Jesus, as then dwelt upon in certain special liturgies and hymns. Closely connected with the building of Friedenshuetten, the Indian adjunct to Bethlehem, is to be mentioned the founding of the important settlement for these fugitive converts, up the Lehigh, at the mouth of the Mahoning Creek, which received the name Gnadcn- Jmcttcii — Habitations of Grace. Their residence at Bethlehem was only regarded as a temporary arrangement. The first plan was to settle them in the Wyoming Valley, but they objected for fear of trouble with the savages of that region. They agreed to the pro- posed location just beyond the Blue Mountains. A beginning was made with the new settlement in May, 1746, and on June 13, after a love-feast on the "IVundcn Eiland," the first detachment of fifteen set out for the place ; some in canoes and some afoot. Martin Mack settled there as the first man in charge of the station, with various assistants from time to time. Other bands followed at intervals, until, at the close of the year, nearly all who had tarried at Bethle- hem had transferred their abode to the new place. They left a number of their companions behind, to be laid to rest in the cemetery of Bethlehem. An epidemic of small-pox broke out during the summer and carried off many, among the rest, that most noble triumph of the power of the Gospel and most valuable Indian assistant to the missionaries, John Wasamapah ("Tschoop"). It was a trying time, for the contagion spread from the cabins of these poor Indians to the dwellings of their friends and protectors, not only at Bethlehem, but even at Nazareth ; and many, both of adults and children, were attacked, several being taken off by it. This dis- arranged plans and delayed undertakings at Gnadenhuetten some- what, but when this circumstance is considered, the rapidity with which buildings were there erected and aflfairs were gotten into shape is astonishing. The locality was well-chosen and the settlement soon developed into a most flourishing and interesting one, much to the annoyance of certain white neighbors to the west and north of Beth- lehem, who could not be reconciled to anything the Moravians did and, in their prejudice and excited fear, insisted on believing it all 14 / 194 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to be only another move in the interests of the French, to the jeopardy of the Province. This unjust and absurd suspicion was intensified when, in the following year (1747), a beginning was made farther up at the important Indian town of Shamokin. That point was selected as, not only a populous place and a stronghold of heathenish superstition and wickedness, but, on account of its loca- tion and connections, a strategic point for a missionary center. A smithery and trading-station were there established because these enterprises, so important to the Indians, secured their consent to have missionaries locate there. Those vigilant detectives who, the previous winter, when lumbermen from Bethlehem built a cabin in the forest for shelter while felling timber, circulated the story that the Moravians were constructing forts up in the Mountains for the French and Indians, preparatory to an attack on the English settle- ments, now asserted that at Shamokin they had established an arsenal to equip the savages for the pending conflict ; and that quantities of French powder and lead, stored at Bethlehem, were being quietly conveyed to that stronghold. This enlargement of operations in the Indian country would have been quite beyond the ability of the co-operative union at Bethlehem and Nazareth, with its other burdens, if substantial aid had not been given by numerous friends at other places, through an organization that Bishop Spangenberg had founded for this purpose, and that was now in its most flourishing state. This was "the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel," which had its beginning, August 19, 1745, at a session of the Pennsylvania Synod held at Bethlehem. Its organization, modeled after that of a society with the same name, alluded to in a previous chapter, which Spangenberg had founded in England in 1741, was completed, November 28, 1745, in the last session of another Synod held at Lancaster. That was a gath- ering notable, not only for its size and representative char- acter, but also by reason of the fact that there the wild agitation against the Moravians culminated in a riotous attack upon Spangen- berg when he undertook, at the suggestion of Justice Edward Smouth, to preach to the crowd from the court-house steps. This was the climax of what had been started in Philadelphia in 1742, and although the parsons who had brought on that first outbreak of mob violence continued their denunciations, those elements of the populace were not moved to any further open demonstrations, and a reaction began to set in after this climax. The Society, which 1745 1748. 195 originally consisted of thirty members, increased, in four years, to more than four times that number, representing about thirty locaU- ties. i\bout one-third of the members in 1748 were people not regu- larly connected with the Moravian Church. Inside of ten years it collected and disbursed more than £1900 in Pennsylvania currency, besides numerous gifts of wares of various kinds and books sent from Europe.*^ Building operations at Bethlehem and on the Nazareth land had now become so extensive that increased facilities for the preparation of material were necessary, and two saw-mills were added to that at Bethlehem, The first was that at Gnadenhuetten, at which work was commenced, May 17, 1747. Under the wise planning of Henry Antes, a grist-mill was combined with it, so that only one structure and one water-wheel were required for both. In spite of a delay with the iron furnished by the Union Furnace at Durham, the mill was sawing lumber to float down the Lehigh, and, with stones quarried by Schaus at North Wales, was grinding grain to make bread for the Indian congregation and the missionary household at the place, before the close of July. Then Antes, having arranged for Schaus to run the mill for a season and instruct a new miller, returned to Bethlehem and immediately began preparations for the erection of another such little saw and grist-mill combined. This was up the Monocacy at Albrechtsbrunn, later called Christiansbrunn, as already stated, near the new Gnadenthal plantation. The stones for this mill were also gotten from North Wales by Schaus. While the carpenters were at work on this mill, the second week in August, 1747, an incident occurred which required them to turn from their task, to make a coffin, and which brought the history of the Indian village Welagomeka on the Barony of Nazareth to a pathetic end. When Captain John received permission from the Government, in 1742, to remain, like Tatemy, in the Forks of the Delaware as a land-owner 6 That Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, organized in 1745, is the earliest mission- ary society in America of which any record has been produced. After 1764, when the introduction of new methods of collecting money for missionary work followed other causes of decline, such as the death of its first leaders at various places, the gradual withdrawal of outside support, with the more definite organization of strictly denominational work and the gradual disappearance of Indians from Eastern Pennsylvania, it sank into decadence. It had a nominal existence, however, until 1771, when the organization of its successor on a different basis was under consideration. After recovery from the disturbance of work, inci- dent to the Revolution, this new organization arose in 1787 — the present "Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen." 196 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and professed Christian, he built a cabin at the "deep hole" up the Bushkill — then called Leheitan and Lefevre's Creek — where he passed his remaining days, occasionally bringing game and furs to Bethlehem for sale. August 9 of the year 1747, he sent to Bethlehem for medicine, being very ill. He died a few days later, requesting that his body be buried, with Christian rites, on the little Indian grave-yard of Welagameka, which the residents of the place had enclosed with a fence and kept in repair as a lesson to the Indians. Reposing in the coffin made at Gnadenthal, Captain John was there laid to rest. This was doubtless the last interment in that burial- ground near the Whitelield house, all traces of which — as in the case of the grave-yard south of the Lehigh at Bethlehem — were obliterated by the plow-shares of matter-of-fact Moravian farmers of the middle period, when the sentiment of former times had been lost and the historical interest of modern times was not yet cultivated. Some Indians, moreover, helped at the work about Gnadenthal at that time, among tham, GottUeb, the first of the Delawares baptized by the Brethren, who, with some others, was permitted to tempor- arily sojourn there. The little Christiansbrunn mill was started — both saw and stones — on November 24, 1747. Its useful existence came to an untimely end on December 6, 1749, when it burned to the ground while the miller was away to his dinner at Gnadenthal. It was rebuilt and started again, April 17, 1750, as a saw-mill, and many more thousand feet of building material were turned out of it ; but the grinding of grist was not there resumed, for soon after- wards a much larger mill was built on the Bushkill to which reference will again be made. The mill at Gnadenhuetten did uninterrupted, excellent service until the melancholy autumn of 1755 which brought ghastly ruin to the place and martyrdom to the men and women stationed there. During the year after it was started, it produced many rafts of timber and boards that were floated down the Lehigh to Bethlehem for the next important building to be erected, more pretentious, and in the sequel, more historic than those just before it. This was the struc- ture which, with its extension of 1762, constitutes the antique central portion of the present Seminary for Young Ladies, now known in the institution as Colonial Hall, and marked with a bronze tablet that records a national distinction, in its use twice during the Revo- lutionary War, as a general hospital by the Continental Army. It was built as the second "choir-house" of the single men, who needed 1/45 1748. 197 more room, in view of large accessions expected from Europe in the course of the following few years, not only for dwelling, dormitory and chapel, but also for plying the various handicrafts associated with their establishment. In pursuance of the fourth item of Spang- enberg's "general plan" of 1744, as given at the opening of this chapter, it was concluded in 1746, to take this step, and then put their former house at the disposal of the single women, to get both choirs properly domiciled and organized^ The discussion of drafted plans for the new building began in the autumn of 1747, first in the central executive board and then with the single men themselves, for it was important to arouse that kind of interest among them which they would take if permitted to participate in these consultations. One such conference between 7 At this point a note on this system, already alluded to several times, may be inserted for the information of readers who are not acquainted with it. A division of the membership, on the basis of differing age, sex and station in life, for the purpose of specializing religious culture, had been gradually developed. The word chor was applied in German to each such division, and this was then rendered into English by the word choir. The origin is to be traced to the covenant of special devotion and service by eighteen young women and girls May 4, 1730, (Chapter III, note 15). A code of choir-principles was eventually established ; a system of organization and leadership for each choir was elaborated ; regular choir-meet- ings, choir-liturgies and anniversary choir-festivals were introduced. Partly from practical necessity and partly in pursuance of the institutional conception applied at the time to all social and religious life, the establishment of choir-houses for the several divisions became a leading feature of every regular settlement. It is not surprising that something of a monastic character should become erroneously associated in the popular mind, with these houses. But such was never the case. No bonds or vows of any kind ever obligated any occupant, although a very careful discipline and punctilious order prevailed. Such a term as "Moravian nuns" is simply nonsense, and even the word "sisterhood" never had any meaning in the Moravian Church, except in so far as it could be applied to all women, married, single or widowed who were members, for all were called " sisters," as all the men were called " brethren." It is true that Zinzendorf's disposition to follow out every idea to the uttermo.st, when he started with it, and to experimentally apply it to the extreme of particularity, led to much that was over-wrought in this system, and produced an artificial and, in some features, unnatural ecclesiastico-social structure, in place of normal family relations and home-life; yet, for many years, the choir-houses served an excellent purpose. Then decadence, especially in the case of those of the men, began in the American settle- ments of the Church before the close of the eighteenth century, and gradually, in the course of the next half-century, they all became obsolete, although, in most cases, the old names remained connected with the buildings. In Europe a few are yet maintained in a modified character. The choir-divisions of the membership, with the observance of the annual choir- festivals, are yet retained in some of the old congregations in America. The choir- houses of the single men and the single women will, for the sake of brevity, be usually mentioned in these pages, after this, by the common name, " Brethren's House," and " Sisters' House." 198 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. them and Bishop Spangeiiberg, early in November, lasted until two o'clock in the morning. On November 7, the building-site was selected^ "where a new road was to be opened to the river" — the present Main Street, from Church Street south — and the proposed building was to be "the corner house next to the Monocacy." Now offers of contri- butions for the purpose came, to encourage the young men in the undertaking. Sister Spangenberg headed the list with £100. Other early contributors were Sister Cammerhofif, Antes, Dr. Meyer, Martin Mack, John Bonn, formerly of Skippack, John Hopson, later promin- ent at Lancaster, giving sums ranging from iioo to £25. Bonn also offered to give the shingles. Thus they were inspired to begin their efforts, while, at the same time, they were impressed with the necessity of doing as much of the work themselves as possible, because of the high wages that had to be paid mechanics at that time, and the general expensiveness of building operations in Pennsylvania. On December 19, the fourth of successive plans for the building was discussed with them and adopted. January 10, 1748, the site was staked off, fifty by eighty-three feet. The single men gathered and marched in procession to the spot after working-hours in the evening, accompanied by music, and, after a prayer and the singing of a hymn, they commenced to excavate the cellar. This task was continued on successive evenings by moonlight. During the following weeks the timber was cut in the neighborhood of Gnadenhuetten, and in the spring was sawed at that place. The first raft came down the river at the end of March. Others followed at intervals, until, on July 17, twenty small rafts reached Bethlehem, containing the last of it. "Now there is enough," writes the diarist. In Frederick Township other men had been busy with frow and mallet, shaving- horse and drawing-knife, converting the straight-grained blocks into the kind of shingles that endured, to make up John Bonn's donation, and on July 10, the last lot of sixteen hundred came to Bethlehem. At the same time, others were busy at the Bethlehem stone-quarry ; for more stone were needed for this than any previous build- ing. The corner-stone was laid at the north-west corner of the foundation on April 7, with elaborate services. A document was deposited in it containing a lengthy inscription, the names of all the officials of the Economy and a complete list of the Single Brethren. April 23, four masons hired elsewhere, joined a few days later by four Bethlehem masons, began to lay up the walls. The last week in Mav, two fine stones from the bed of Potsdam 1745 1748- 199 sand-stone, in the bluff across the river, were secured, to be squared for Hntels over the main door-ways, front and rear. They were placed in position, June 24, ornamented with inscriptions which be- trayed the influence of Cammerhoff. That on the north side read : Vater, Mutter, Licber Mann — Habt Ehr vom Jiingling's Plan. The stone on the south side contained the words, Gloria Pleura,^ and had a sun- dial in the center, while above this was a star, and beneath it the figures 1748. The framework of the roof having been raised on August i, a love- feast was held the next day on the floor of the house, to which "all who could come, both old and young, were invited, for all had helped in some way." A harvest festival was combined with it, the people being ranged in semi-circular rows, with the little children in the center. On November 14, the building was so nearly com- pleted that it could be occupied. That day, after partaking of the Communion in their former house, the single men marched in procession with music, to the new building and took formal pos- session of it. The next day they transferred the furniture and, November 16, the edifice was regularly dedicated with impressive ceremonies. That night seventy-two young men, after the( con- clusion of these services with an evening hymn in the large dormitory, lay down to rest the first time in those commodious quarters. The previous day the single women and girls — twenty- one of the former and twenty-nine of the latter — who had come down in a body on the 13th, from Nazareth, where they had been domiciled since June i, 1745, took possession of the former house of the single men, and on that day, November 15, 1748, it became the Sisters' House^. 8 These enigmatical phrases have been quoted incorrectly, and without elucidation, by several writers describing this building. The first is simply an ascription of praise to the Holy Trinity, in the thought and language of the Hermhaag extravagance, which has been explained. It means the Father, the Holy Spirit, " the Comforter " as a mother, and the Son, the "supreme man." Jiingling's Flan — young men's plan— meant the organized body of young men, with their whole system and round of activity. The word Flan, as used in German, was a favorite term of Zinzendorf, and was variously applied to a scheme, system, sphere or field of labor, or even an organization. The other inscription, Gloria Fleura, a phrase much in vogue at that period, was in adoration of the vicarious sufferings of Christ, as most specifically contemplated in His pierced side, when they reveled, with exaggerated imagery, in the thought more soberly expressed in the lines : " Rock of ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee, Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed," etc. 9 One book on the history of Bethlehem, much read and quoted, contains the absurd state- ment that half of the new house was intended for the young women. 200 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. At this time, the number of single men at Bethlehem had already increased by fifteen. On June 25, the Rev. Bernhard Adam Grube, who subsequently filled a conspicuous place among the missionaries to the Indians, in connection with the founding of the first Moravian settlement in North Carolina and in the ministry of the Church generally ; an alnmnits of the University of Jena and a man of eminent gifts, arrived at Bethlehem with fourteen other young men^'-. They had landed at New York, with five others brought from Europe by Captain Garrison to make up part of the crew of the new church-ship, then being fitted out at New York for her first voyage. The building of this vessel deserves more than a brief notice, because her fourteen voyages, from 1748 to 1757, have such an important relation to people and things at Bethlehem. In 1744, not long after the loss of the Little Strength, it was decided to have such a ship built and put in command of Captain Garrison, to transport colonists to Pennsylvania. The contract was given to a ship-builder of Staten Island, John Van Deventer, whose yard was near the present Port Richmond and whose family name is kept in remem- brance in Van Deventer's Point. It was evidently commenced early in 1745, for on February 7, Captain Garrison reported "good progress." On account of changeable instructions from Zinzendorf and delay in the receipt of money from abroad, the work proceeded very slowly during the next two years. In January, 1747, it was decided to procure the rigging, cables and anchors from England, on account of the high price of such materials in New York. It was the intention to have the figure of a lamb beak the prow, but in the following April it is recorded that the carver "could not make a lamb in shape to suit the purpose," and thereupon it was decided to have a lion as figure-head. Thomas Noble, of New York, who had acted as financial agent of the enterprise, had died in 1746, and Timothy 10 The others who arrived at Bethlehem with Grube were : John George Bitterlich, Christian Pfeiffer, Andrew Broksch, Gottfried Roemelt, John George Geitner, Jeremiah Schaaf, Josepli Hobsch, Christian Schmidt, Gottfried Hoffmann, Paul Schneider, Matthew Kunz, John Seiffert, Paul Paulsen, Samuel Wuetke. 1745 I74S- 20I Horsfield, of Long Island — later of Bethlehem — now had charge. Beyond caulking the vessel, no progress was made -during the sum- mer of 1747, but early in 1748, the work was gone at vigorously, with a view to getting her ready for service as soon as possible. On April 25, it was reported at Bethlehem she would be ready for launching in May, and that the ship-builder had kindly consented to have the customary riotous demonstrations of sailors, ship-carpenters and others, dispensed with at the launch. This took place on May 29, when the vessel was "christened" the Irene. She was towed to the "old slip" on the East River front and docked there, May 31, to be finished, rigged and gotten ready for the first voyage, under Captain Garrison's personal supervision. The total cost was about iiSoo. The vessel was launched free of debt, through the help of a gift by Bishop Spangenberg, of the larger part of a legacy of £1082 which he had received from the estate of Thomas Noble. The Irene was of the class called a snow; was larger than the Catherine or the Little Strength and was very solidly built. Her keel was 85 feet and her depth of hold 9 feet 9 inches. Spangenberg reported at Beth- lehem that a person could walk upright between her decks and that she was "as strong as a tower." She was registered at New York in July, in the name of Henry Antes, as a naturalized free- holder of Pennsylvania ; he having executed a declaration of trust to the Brethren. Her registry describes her as "plantation-built," i. e., at a colonial ship-yard, and "of eighty tons burthen, mounted with two guns and navigated by nine men." Captain Garrison advertised her, in the last week of June, to sail, August i, "for Amsterdam direct," and took on a general cargo. She was detained, however, until the end of August. She was gotten out of the dock on August 31, but on account of adverse wind, the next three days were con- sumed in the passage down the bay. On September 4, Bishop Cammerhoff and Westmann of Bethlehem, with some friends from New York, joined with the Captain and crew in a parting lovefeast on board, after which they left her and she put out to sea on her maiden voyage. There were twenty-nine persons on board. Nicholas Garrison, master; Christian Jacobsen and John Christian Ehrhardt, mates ; Andrew Schoute, Jarvis Roebuck, William Okely, Gottlieb Robbins, Martin Christiansen, William Edmonds, Thomas Kemper, Jean and Jacobus Van der Bilt, sons of Jacobus Van der Bilt of Staten Island — the first a sailor and the second cabin boy — consti- tuting the crew. With them sailed also Vitus Elandrup and wife who 202 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. had come over with Cammerhoff, but now returned dissatisfied to Europe. The rest were passengers whose names do not appear. They reached the Texel, November i. Then Captain Garrison began to make preparations for the return voyage, on which he was to bring over a larger colony than any that had yet come to Pennsyl- vania. In addition to these more important operations, a variety of minor improvements, new equipments, and extensions of room and facilities for growing local needs are mentioned in the records of those years. Some of these may be noted. Early in 1747, an evidence of concern for the purity of Bethlehem's highly-prized water supply, which was the first chief attraction of the spot in 1740, appears. It was thought desirable by the village board to better guard the spring, and, in March, Matthew Weiss, by their order, enclosed it with a fence to keep away domestic animals and barn-yard fowls ; and he and Joseph Powell were appointed to clean it "in the Hght of the moon;" this having been declared the best time by men who possessed "Penn- sylvania knowledge," like WilHam Frey, a neighbor of Antes in Frederick Township, who had followed the example of the latter in temporarily placing his farm at the disposal of the Brethren to help support their important school there opened, and who was at this time living at Bethlehem — a valuable man in the work of developing the extensive agricultural industry. In May of that year, a large addition to the grain-storing quarters was built, and in June a new foot-bridge took the place of the primitive one constructed across the Monocacy near the spring, in 1741. The history of "freshets" at Bethlehem also began in 1747. On February 28, the ferry was torn from its moorings by the raging waters, because Bishop Spangen- berg's suggestion to fasten it more securely was not heeded by the men in charge; and it was carried down to the Delaware, where their friend, David Martin of Delaware ferry fame, recovered and purchased it. It was replaced by a new one at Bethlehem on June 8, a few days after Mr. Martin opened negotiations with the Beth- lehem boat-builders to construct a new flat for him. At the close of the year 1747, when the howling winds of winter were making the numerous large wood fires seem dangerous, sundry new regulations and precautions were adopted in this matter, and certain men were selected and instructed as a kind of "bucket brigade" to be ready at a moment's notice, according to a system of turns arranged, to come to the rescue, if, perchance, something else than the logs on 1745 1748. 203 the hearth should begin to burn. This is the earliest trace of steps towards a fire department. Orchards and gardens received diligent attention at this period, and, in planting fruit trees, ornamentation as well as utility was had in view. Some years later the results at the blossoming and the bearing season evoked much admiration from visitors. In March, 1747, the extensive garden of the single men's estab- lishment was laid out "back of their house," with the understanding that a portion of it should be devoted to growing medicinal herbs for the laboratory and pharmacy ; it having been agreed at a medical conference, shortly before, that special attention should be given to studying the flora of the region. Men were appointed to collect such herbs as had become known. The first one entrusted with this duty was Joachim Sensemann. The minutes of that same conference record that the virtues and various uses of different plants and shrubs were discussed, snake root and sassafrass berries being particularly mentioned. The remark is made, in the next session, that Doctor Otto was over-worked and had not a sufficient supply of medicines ; and it was decided, that when they were in Bethlehem, James Greening, who had served his time as an apothecary's apprentice in England, and Owen Rice, who possessed considerable knowledge of medicines, should assist him in the laboratory. Dr. Meyer had at this time removed from the neighborhood to the establishment opened on the farm of Antes. It is mentioned in those minutes that a certain balsam prepared at Bethlehem had become so celebrated that an imitation of it was sold in New York, as "Doctor Schmidt's Balsam," It was sagely concluded that the prices in the apothecary shop and the charges for bleeding persons should not be fixed too low, for this suggested the bungler or the quack. It was furthermore decreed that Doctor Otto should also perform the somewhat unprofessional task of compiling a collection of the most valuable household recipes in use among people, for general reference, and the physician did not seem to manifest any contempt, when certain salves and plasters among "home remedies" prepared by experienced Pennsylvania women, that had become known to members of Bethlehem's Board of Health, were mentioned as desirable items of this repertory. The heavy mortality during the epidemic of small-pox had led to more thorough measures to prevent disease, as well as to better equipment for treatment. While gardens were being laid out, and the general surroundings of the houses gotten into more sightly shape, the cemetery also 204 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. received special attention. On August 14, 1748, the first complete plan of this sacred spot, and of its proposed extension and embellish- ment, was finished, to be sent to Europe. The record states that up to that time, 109 interments had been made in this "labora- torium"^^ — 64 males and 45 females, or according to choirs, 9 married men, 10 married women, 12 single men, i single woman and JJ children. This included the Indians buried there. Those graves of Indians, side by side in the rows with missionaries and teachers, artisans and farmers, all marked and cared for alike, with no distinction — a characteristic subsequently perpetuated in that interesting place of burial — were not only significant of the spirit and principle fostered by the Brethren, but, when considered in connection with the nationaUties represented by the various stones which then already marked the resting places of departed members, added to the striking evidence it furnished of the cosmopolitan population of the place. The like of it could not have been found in any other settlement in America, no larger nor older than Beth- lehem. This characteristic of the place was set forth in a novel way, already in 1745, in a fanciful diversion that came into vogue, and was customary for a few years at Bethlehem, as well as at centers of the Church in Europe, particularly on special missionary occasions. This was polyglot singing, when companies were gathered in which persons of various nationalities and languages, or at least persons acquainted with such languages, were present. One such occasion was on August 21, 1745, the thirteenth anniversary of the departure from Herrnhut of Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann to begin the first missionary work of the Moravian Church among the heathen. Then the same verses, as rendered in English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Jewish-German, were sung simultaneously to the same tune, by persons whose native tongue belonged to this list. It was observed on that occasion that eighteen languages were spoken among converts of Moravian evangelists in different countries. Another such object-lesson in song was given on September 4, following. Three days before that, Pyrlaeus, master of the school " In this term, as applied to the cemetery, another interesting specimen of the odd phrase- ology introduced by Cammerhoff appears. Elsewhere occurs, for interment, the expression " in das Laboratoriwn auf den Test bringen'''' — to put into the cupel in the laboratory — and '■^ zitr verzvandehi7ig des /y^?V'man, either in Europe or America, who held it. 23 A singular departure from this principal in the direction of strictness — but in accordance with the wish of the candidate, as it seems — occurred in 1752, in the case of the Rev. Laurentius Thorstansen Nyberg, who had been ordained to the Lutheran ministry in Sweden, where the episcopacy is retained by that Church, by Archbishop Benzelius, but joined the Moravian Church in Pennsylvania in 1748. He went to England in 1752 to labor there and was ordained a deacon by a Moravian bishop in London. It is the only instance of the kind on record. He was ordained a presbyter in 1754. This strange and indefensible procedure created much sensation in Sweden. Eventually the Moravian Church, with unnessary generosity, departed from that fair and sensible principle in tiie other direction by admitting men ordained in non-episcopal churches at once as presbyters, on the score of their having served as regular pastors, in the word and sacraments, in those churches. The decision of 1748 is consistent with the general position of the Moravian Church and makes all reasonable concession to ecclesiastical systems which recognize and have only one grade of the ministry. 228 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and maternal oversight of this department of activity committed to appointees called Kindereltern, was explained by Bishop de Watteville, preparatory to a re-organization of this work, which will be treated of in the next chapter. The principle of tropes, already referred to several times, was also more fully elucidated, with a view to carrying out Zinzendorf's favorite idea of elasticity within the Church, fostering the several historic cults, as a concession to the dilTering ecclesiastical traditions of people received into its pale on the new basis now established. In connection with this, the idea of gathering in only genuinely awakened Christians whose religion was a matter of the heart, was pressed to a degree, in setting it forth, that betrayed symptoms of an unwarranted assumption of superiority which, at that time, found utterance in treating of the headship of Christ in the Church. Carried away by the enthusiastic aspiration to present an example of a body of people in real living union with Christ, and by the exalted experiences made; giving way somewhat also to the disposition — of which there have been many other examples — to believe themselves, in a peculiar sense, the Lord's people, because they were so much assailed and reviled from many quarters, men indulged in a kind of speech which gave the impression that they considered themselves the Church. On November 5, 1748, Bishop Spangenberg, acquiescing in the plans that had been communicated to him and desiring to clear the way for the proposed reconstruction in all particulars, placed his resignation in the hands of the Conference of Elders, as then constituted. His position was peculiar and embarrassing. If this step asked of him had been the result simply of the drawing of the lot, on the whole question, in December, 1747, it would have had a different aspect. But the shaping of the matter in the preceding plans so that this became necessarily involved in the final issue, was a matter of deliberate arrangement, and revealed a desire to have him disconnected from the new departure, notwithstanding that no man in the Moravian Church was as competent as he would have been to inaugurate the new regime. That his coadjutor, or assistant, Cammerhofif was not likewise asked to retire from his position, to open the way for the change of system, was significant of what appears from other indications. Spangenberg had, with fearless honesty, raised his voice and used his pen against the trend of things prior to this. The men who in their soaring enthusiasm had cast prudence and common sense to the winds for the time being, found 1745- ■1748. 229 him in their way; for their type of rehgious intensity and exaUed spirituality, as Httle as other types of it, rendered men proof against being piqued by objections to their notions; and they put a severe trial upon Spangenberg's faith in the ingenious sincerity of their purposes, by thus constraining him to vacate a position in which he had labored so arduously and accomplished what none of them would have been able to do. On November 13 — the day on which, seven years before, the conception of the immediate headship of Christ in the Church which displaced the ideal human General Eldership was formally promulgated — the solemn declaration of the extension of this central principle of organization, administration and fellowship to the Church in America, was made at Bethlehem, in connection with high festivities, in which Spangenberg was a quiet, unofficial participant. In its substantial quality, the act of that day consum- mated the establishment of a distinct American branch of the Mora- vian Church. After several busy days, the ceremonious dedication of the new Brethren's House, already referred to, took place on the i6th, de Watteville officiating. While he was absent, December 4-31, visiting the Indian converts remaining in New York and Con- necticut, Spangenberg went to Philadelphia to pay his respects to the new Governor, James Hamilton, while his wife, relieved of official duties, opened a writing school for young working women at Beth- lehem. RELICS OF THE CROWN INN. CHAPTER VIII. The Course of Things to the Indian Raid. 1749—1755- The period of three years after Bishop Spangenberg's temporary retirement brought developments that more severely tested the institutions at Bethlehem than any experiences previously made. Abnormal tendencies, referred to in the preceding chapter, found entrance, for a brief season, to a sufficient extent, that the time of their invasion may be regarded as an internal crisis — passed how- ever without disaster, and before the time of outward tribulation which followed. The nature of this crisis will appear more clearly when the administration of the man sent over to be Spangenberg's successor opens. Until the autumn of 1749, Bishop John de Watte- ville remained in control. In February of that year Spangenberg and his wife left Bethlehem and located temporarily in Philadelphia, where they devoted themselves to such evangehstic and pastoral duties as they found to do in that city. The understanding was that they would accompany de Watteville to Europe before the close of the year. The latter was very busily engaged during the inter- vening months. The broad scope of his commission required him to not only effect the changes in view at Bethlehem, but also to visit all the other Moravian fields of labor in America, to organize the work at all of these places, and to thoroughly inspect the condition and prospects of the missionary work among the Indians, which involved extensive and arduous journeys in the Indian country. He also visited the stations in the West Indies, sailing from New York, April 8, and returning to Bethlehem, July 4. On some of these tours he was accompanied by Spangenberg. His wife, the Countess Benigna^ remained in Bethlehem during most of this time. Conspicuous among the changes made in the process of re-organ- ization, are those which went into effect early in 1749, in connection with the work among the children. On January 6, the sixteen girls of the boarding-school which was yet conducted at Nazareth, where, in 1746, Whitefield had found satisfaction in associating it with his 230 1749 1755- 231 original plans, were transferred to Bethlehem and "welcomed, with agreeable music," to their new quarters in "the house before that occupied by married people as dwelling apartments," and later called the "children's house." This was the stone building now spoken of officially as "the Old Seminary," and commonly called "the bell house,'' already referred to. There, on the above date, the unbroken ocal existence of the school now known for many ye'ars as the Seminary for' Young Ladies began. Those girls were in charge of four teachers who accompanied them from Nazareth. The next day the children of the nursery, twenty-nine little boys and twenty-six little girls, were taken to Nazareth with their nurses and attendants, and domiciled in the Whitefield house. This nursery, referred to already in the preceding chapter, was an institution of pathestic interest. Under the peculiar arrangements of the time, with no proper provision yet for separate family homes, while women, as well as men, were employed, in departments and companies, at the various kinds of labor or were traveling as missionaries, it was necessary, so long as this system was continued, to make special provision for the care of the quite young children in a special home. In this nursery they were placed as soon as they were old enough to be taken from the mother's arms and there certain of the widows and single women, or certain of the married women who were physically unable to engage in other duties, took care of them until, at three years of age, they were placed in the separate institutions for little boys and girls. The nursery was under the general superin- tendence of an intelligent and reliable married couple, with the assistance of such others in the external work of the establishment, as the number of children, from time to time, required ; and either the Superintendent himself, or some one associated with him, or located near at hand, was possessed of sufficient medical knowledge to serve all ordinary needs. Furthermore, on January lo, Dr. Meyer brought a few boys to Bethlehem who had been temporarily placed in the school on the farm of Antes in Frederick Township. They, with four boys who had remained of the little school in the Ysselstein house on the south side of the Lehigh, treated of in the last chapter, and several others brought down from Gnadenthal and Nazareth, were quartered in a room of the Brethren's House, the next day, and organized in proper charge ; they having reached an age at which it was thought desirable to have them under further instruction and training "nearer to the heart of the congregation," so that they should not grow out of 232 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. touch with the central influences. This was the idea which also c6ntrolled the transfer of girls, at a certain age, to the boarding- school now established at Bethlehem. In the following month of May, the school opened in 1746, in the house of John Bechtel at Germantown, was closed — mainly because of financial burdens. On May 24, the girls of that boarding-school were brought to Bethlehem, and eleven of them were placed in the, now vacant, Ysselstein house on the south side. Thus, that building became a boarding-school for girls, but without the slight stigma that attached to the boys' school which had occupied it before. This first school for girls on the south side was organized. May 27, 1749, but was only main- tained until February 25, 1750, when the older of the girls were installed with the older girls of Bethlehem w'ho w^ere engaged in learning various kinds of female industries, and the younger ones were taken over to the Maguntsche school. The subsequent school history of that house on the south side is the following : September 10, 175 1, eleven girls from the abandoned Oley school, which it will be necessary to mention again, were brought to Bethlehem and quartered in that house with some from the Maguntsche school, which from that time became a school exclusively for boys. A few others were added later, and there, a school for girls was again organized. It was continued until December 4, 1753, when the use of the house for school purposes ceased and a school for girls — fourteen girls in charge of two sisters — was again opened at Nazareth, in the older of the two log houses — long ago demolished — which stood near the Whitefield house. There this school remained until June 18, 1759. Therefore, for a while after these shiftings of January to May, 1749. the children of the Economy, with others under Moravian care, were distributed in the following institutions : Girls, in the boarding- school at Bethlehem, with an adjunct on the south side ; boys, in the school in the Brethren's House at Bethlehem, with an adjunct later opened in the log house next to the Community House, where the church now stands ; boys, in the school at Fredericktown ; boys and girls, in the schools at Oley and Maguntsche ; the nursery children, boys and girls, in the Whitefield house at Nazareth.^ It is an interesting circumstance, in connection with the re-organ- ization of school work in 1749, and particularly with the permanent I These changes and translocations are thus traced with some minuteness as a matter of reference, for the benefit of those who sometimes searcli for details of the early school work, locally or generally, and find the inaccuracies and contradictions in extant historical papers confusing. Subsequent shiftings will in like manner be noted as they occur. 1/49 1755- 233 establishment of the boarding-school for girls at Bethlehem, that Count Zinzendorfs daughter Benigna, who, in 1742, had made the beginning in this important branch of Moravian Church work in Pennsylvania, at Germantown, was now again here and manifesting her warm interest in it by helping to re-establish it on the new basis. She had more women of education and refinement associated with her, in these efforts, than at the start, seven years before ; and from this time on, the number of women, as well as of men, thoroughly qualified for such w^ork, steadily increased with the demands. On April 25, 1749, letters arrived from Europe in reference to the sailing of the Irene from London with the large colony mentioned in the preceding chapter, in connection with the parliamentary pro- ceedings in regard to the Moravian Church. These letters led to active preparations for their reception. They left London, February 20, put out to sea, March i, and anchored at New York, May 12; the very day on which the act of Parliament, to which their presence at London had helped to give impulse, was passed. Their arrival attracted considerable attention at New York and was commented on in the newspapers. Bishop David Nitschmann, accompanied by his wife, returned to Pennsylvania with this colony to resume his travels and negotiations, as a missionary superintendent. They Avere the first to reach Bethlehem, having started from New York in advance of the others. They came by way of Nazareth and arrived at Bethlehem, May 15, late in the evening. The leader of the colony was Bishop John Nitschmann who had been chosen to succeed Bishop Spangenberg at Bethlehem. Christian David, the indefatigable evangelist who had brought about the settlement of the Moravians at Berthelsdorf and the founding of Herrnhut in 1722, was also with them — "good old Christian David" writes the Bethlehem diarist who records the surprise and pleasure his arrival caused. The pioneer Greenland missionary, Matthew Stach, with whom Christian David Avas associated in founding that second mission of the Moravian Church among the heathen, was also one of the company, with his wife, his nephew Thomas Stach, who was to go with him to Green- land, and three Greenlanders, John, Matthew and Judith, whom Stach had taken to Europe and who were now returning to their home. Joseph Mueller of the Long Swamp, mentioned before this several times, who had been in Europe since 1743, studying medicine among other things, and now returning to serve the Church in Pennsylvania, was another passenger, together with his wife, Verona Frey, who, as 234 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. a single woman, had also accompanied Zinzendorf s party to Europe in 1743. David Wahnert, that man of many voyages and so serviceable to numerous colonies on ship-board, and his faithful wife, Mary, were with them. One ordained man, besides the two Nitsch- manns, who came with this third Sea Congregation was Samuel Krause, with his wife Rosina. They returned to Europe in 1753. One negro woman, Magdalena Mingo came with the colony.^ 2 Besides the above there were four married couples : Michael and Anna Helena Haber- land, Christian Jacob and Anna Margaret Sangerhausen, John and Anna StoU, Christian Frederick and Anna Regina Steinmann ; also John Schneider, a widower and Magdalena Elizabeth Reuss, a widow. While recorded statements differ as to the entire number on board, there were evidently nearly 150, including 16 officers and sailors, of whom 9 were members of the Church, and some other persons not bound for Bethlehem, whose names do not appear. 106 of the 115 Moravian passengers named were permanent accessions to the settlements in the Forks and to the missionary force connected therewith. The main part of the colony consisted of 39 single men, besides Thomas Stach who was bound for Green- land, and 48 single women. Thirty-one couples of these young people were betrothed, and, on July 15, 1749, were married at Bethlehem. This occasion, like the similar one at Herrn- haag in 1743, was commemorated by these families for some years, and also spoken of as " the great wedding." Some of them rendered valuable missionary service later and a few of the men were eventually ordained. The majority, however, served the Economy in various industries. There were among them bakers, blacksmiths, a book-binder, carpenters and joiners, cloth-dressers, cutlers, farmers, a fringe and lace-maker, a furrier, masons, shoemakers, stocking-weavers, tailors and weavers. The names here follow in alphabetical order : SINGLE MEN. Bemdt, Gottlieb, Opitz, Carl, Bernhardt, Wenzel, Pitschmann, George, Birnbaum, Joachim, Renner, John George, Drews, Peter, Richter, John Christian, Doerrbaum, John Philip, Rillmann, Andrew, Enersen, Enert, Schlegel, Frederick, Engel, John Godfrey, Schmidt, John, Fritche, Henry, Schmidt, John Christopher, Gattermeyer, John Leonhard, Schmidt, Melchior, (i) Gold, George, Schmidt, Melchior, (2) Hohmann, John Peter, Schneider, Martin, ' Kliest, Daniel, Schultze, Carl, Kuehnest, Christopher, Schultze, Godfrey, Krause, Andrew, Schweisshaupi, John, Kunz, David, Seiffert, Andrew, Mordick, Peter, Straehle, Rudolph, Mueller, John Bernhard, Tanneberger, David, Muenster, Michael, Weinland, John Nicholas. Nitschmann, Martin, 1749- ■I755- 235 In connection with this large accession to the population and working force, some other names began to figure in the records of occurrences during the year 1749, with which interesting and important events were afterwards associated. The first week in June, John Jones of Skippack who had sold his farm in order to settle near Bethlehem, came, with his family, and took temporary possession of one of the houses on the south side of the river. In April, 1750, he bought the 500 acres "east of Bethlehem adjoining the land of Secretary Peters and including the old field of Dr. Graeme," and in the autumn of that year, he finished his house and took up his residence there. He eventually entered into regular connection with the Moravian Church. Thus began the history of "the Jones place" near Bethlehem which stands in such close and interesting relation with the subsequent history of the neighborhood. Several Jerseymen, also connected with later important movements, appear upon the scene. Josiah Pricket — written also Bricket, Bracket and Brickets — who kept a public house in the neighborhood known as Greenwich, a warm friend of the Moravians, who had visited Arndt, Rosina, Arnold, Rosina Barbara, Ballenhorst, Margaret, Beyer, Anna Rosina, Beyer, Maria, Bieg, Elizabeth, Binder, Catherine, Dietz, Rosina, Dominick, Maria, Dressier, Sophia Margaret, Drews. Margaret, Eis, Charlotte, Engfer, Maria Elizabeth, Fichte, Catherine, Fischer, Catherine, Galle, Rosina, Groesser, Margaret, Gruendberg, Helena, Haberland, Juliana, Hammer, Anna Maria, Hans, Rosina. Heindel, Margaret Hendel, Maria Barbara, Kerner, Anna Rosina, WOMEN. Koffler, Anna Maria, Krause, Anna Maria, Krause, Barbara, Maans, Martha, Meyerhoff, Magdalena, Mingo, Magdelena, Nitsche, Anna Maria, Nuernberg, Dorothea, Nuss, Helena, Oertel, Elizabeth, Opitz, Maria Elizabeth, Paulsen, Catherine, Ramsburger, Anna, Rebstock, Anna Catherine, _ Roth, Anna Maria, Seidel, Juliana, Schmatter, Anna Maria, Schuling, Rosina, Schwartz, Magdalena, Uhlmann, Dorothea, Vogt, Divert, Weicht, Susanna, Wenzel, Catherine. 236 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENXSVLVANIA. Bethlehem several times, made formal application to be received into their communion, on June 7, 1749. His house had been one of the stopping-places of itinerants between Bethlehem and the Indian missions in New York, and finally one of their preaching-places. So also came, occasionally, Samuel Green, Jr., and his wife Abigail, whose house in "the Great Meadows," in the same neighborhood, was Hkewise such a stopping-place and center of stated religious meetings. They had previously attended Quaker meeting and services of "the long beards" in Amwell Township where Green's father, Samuel Green, Sr., was a large land-owner, a surveyor and, for some years, assessor and collector of taxes, clerk and finally Justice of the Peace. Samuel Green, Jr., and his wife were baptized at Bethlehem on Whit-Monday, May 26, 1749, he as John Samuel and she as Anna Abigail, and were enrolled as communicant members of the Moravian Church. This connection with these Jersey people was the inception of the work which resulted in the establishment of a regular Moravian settlement, in 1770, on the large tract of land on which Green had his home, and which he offered, in 1768, to present for the purpose, but which was regularly purchased in 1770. The place was, at first, called Greenland, but in 1775, was given the name Hope.^ During the summer of 1749, visits by persons of prominence in business circles or in public office were of frequent occurrence. One such visit, noted in September, was that of Thomas Penn's Secretary with "Justice Anthony Morris of Furnace Mill, on the road to Phila- delphia." This visit had some connection, as it seems, with planning and prospecting then in progress, with a view to the founding of a new town at the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers and the eventual erection of the new county which was being agitated. An epoch in the industrial development of Bethlehem came with the arrival, on June 25, 1749, of four young men from England; William Dixon, Joseph Healy, John Hirst and Richard Poppelwell, to make the first attempt at manufacturing woolen cloth. They were weavers from the Yorkshire mills Avhich were, at that time. 3 This church settlement, to which there will be further reference in these pages, had a very promising beginning, with its important mill, store and group of other industries, its community house, tavern and even a boarding-school, for a few years. It also has an inter- esting history during the Revolutionary War. A combination of causes led to its decline, and it was given up, as a church-settlement, in iSoS. Several of the old buildings and the cemetery remain as objects of interest in the modern village which yet bears the name Hope. 'AfJ(/ - T ■■ ••'' ^ 1^ iir "^ Fold-out Placeholder This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at future date. ^ 1749 1755- 237 being operated with vigor by men in connection with the Moravian Church in England.* Among the members of the Moravian Church won in America who became residents of Bethlehem, the most important man, after Antes and Captain Garrison, was Timothy Horsfield of Long Island. He removed to the place on November 8, 1749, and took possession of the new stone house that had been built for him during the summer, "outside of Bethlehem, beyond the grave-yard."^ Much attention was given during the year 1749 to plans for the extension of the work among the Indians. Under the new policy inaugurated by de Watteville, more efifort was to be devoted to this, as a special undertaking of the Moravian Church, while the evan- gelistic activity among white settlers was to assume a more defined and localized character, with the abandonment of Zinzendorf's Pennsylvania Synod scheme. Bethlehem was no longer to be considered a center from which a comprehensive plan of operations among all denominations was to be executed, but the headquarters where the activity which the previous course of things had put into the hands of the Moravian Church was to be prosecuted. Naturally then, the Indian missions became relatively more prominent, as a department of activity, for in this the Moravian Church then stood practically alone. The devoted David Brainerd, whose efforts among the Indians along the Delaware and in other regions are referred to occasionally in the Bethlehem records, departed this life on October 9, 1747. The Rev. John Brainerd, his brother, who took up his work in the previous April among the Indians of Crossweeksung, and had located at Cranberry, N. J., failed to establish it satisfactorily there, in consequence of complications about the land, which, 4 Among contributions received from Europe by the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, for the benefit of Indian missions, were several invoices of wares from these York- shire mills. 5 This house, then "outside" the village, is yet standing on the north side of Market Street opposite the old cemetery, and is marked by a tablet attached to it in Bethlehem's sesqui-centennial year, 1892. The addition built to the west side of it in 1753, for the first general store and trading-place of the settlement, was removed several years before the town became 150 years old. Horsfield was the successor (1752) of Antes as Justice'of the Peace at Bethlehem. When he located here he put his Long Island home at the disposal of the Church. A school for boys was opened there in the spring of 1750, under the supervision of Jasper Payne and James Greening, in connection with evangelistic efforts in the vicinity. In December, 1750, John Doehling, the teacher, moved the school into " a house near the ferrj'." 238 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. together with the interference of persons inimical to the mission and desiring its disintegration, led the converts, for the most part, to leave the place and scatter before the close of 1749. During the year there are various allusions to them, and to their intention of seeking a new location at or near Gnadenhuetten. Mr. Brain- erd, coming for a while under the influence of those untiring assailants of the Brethren who were distinguishing themselves in his denomination by their zeal in this sort of activity, declared that "if what Gilbert Tennent had written about the Moravians was true, he had rather see the Indians remain heathen than become Mora- vians." Fortunately the rabid things which this redoubtable defender of the faith and the State against the Moravian menace, and others who had joined in the campaign, said about them were not true. Brainerd evidently so concluded when he visited Bethlehem in October with the Rev. Mr. Lawrence who preached in the Irish settlement. He took friendly counsel about the Indian problem wath the missionaries at Bethlehem, against whom he had some months before warned his Indians, after reading Mr. Tennent's statements. Just before his visit, a number of the Indians from Cranberry who had become so dissatisfied that they could no longer be persuaded to remain, had come to Bethlehem and then proceeded on their way, intending to visit Gnadenhuetten. Bishop Cammerhofif, finding these Indians at Bethlehem on October 21, when he returned from a journey, and fearing the complications that might ensue from their visit to Gnadenhuetten, set out at once for that place to have a consultation with the missionaries stationed there and to caution the Indian congregation to be on their guard, to show themselves friendly but to answer discreetly, and not let themselves be persuaded into any plan for joining interests. The danger that lay in this became apparent later, when it transpired that this disafifected remnant of David Brainerd's once flourishing Indian congregation was worked upon by emissaries from the tribes that had been drawn into alliance with the French. Many of them, like sundry Moravian converts, not remaining true to their profession, became agents to sow discord and bring the peaceable and loyal Indians under suspicion. Some of the Cranberry Indians halted about eight miles from Bethlehem, on the Gnadenhuetten road, and spent the winter there. Their occasional presence among the Indians at Bethlehem and at Gnadenhuetten, at that early stage of the slowly-working intrigues to alienate the Delawares, as well as the Shawanese, from 1749 1755- 239 English interests, was dreaded almost more by the Brethren than that of strange and savage Indians. Their converts would be far less likely to heed the counsels of the latter than those of Indians who came to them as fellow-Christians. This is also the reason why renegade Moravian Indians, during the following years, were much more troublesome than savages who tried to allure the faithful ones. This first contact with the disaffected Indians from Cranberry thus proved to be the beginning of a series of perplexing experiences which culminated in the horrors of 1755. Therefore it is introduced at this point. During the summer of 1749, it also became clear that the hope entertained for a while, of being able to resuscitate the missions in New York and Connecticut, was vain. Although Moravian minis- trations among those who stayed there in preference to emigrating, and who remained faithful, continued at intervals for more than ten years longer, the blind intolerance that ruled the counsels of the Province of New York would not let the work live. Therefore, further bands of the converts followed those who had first come to Bethlehem. The faithful young missionary, David Bruce, brought a company of twenty-nine from Wechquadnach to Bethlehem, the middle of May, 1749, less than two months before his lamented death at that persecuted mission. These, added for a season to the number yet sojourning in Friedenshuetten, at Bethlehem's feet, near the Monocacy, and another little company, temporarily living to the north of the place "above Burnside's land near the creek," consti- tuted quite a congregation of them gathered, at this time, in the vicinity. They, with a delegation of the Gnadenhuetten Indians participated, on June 9, in a highly interesting service at Bethlehem, which, in a more tangible manner than the polyglot service of song referred to in the preceding chapter, indicated the broad range of Moravian missionary efforts. On May 6, the missionary Zander, whose wife Magdalena Miller formerly of Germantown, had died at sea on the voyage, arrived in Bethlehem with his two little children from Berbice in South America. With him came the missionary Grabenstein, and two young men from Berbice, Lorenz Van Wilier and Christian Eggert. The last-named became a resident of Bethlehem. They had landed at Bristol, R. I., the middle of April, after a protracted voyage. They brought with them, besides a four-year-old mulatto boy, Ari, an Arawack Indian girl, Elizabeth, sixteen years of age. 240 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. An Arawack boy, John Renatus,*' brought from Berbice in 1748 by- Matthew Reuz, was also in Bethlehem at this time. The missionary Stach was yet sojourning at the place with his Greenlanders. They were preparing to leave and a farewell service was to be held. When two Indian helpers came from Gnadenhuetten, on June 4, to see the Greenlanders and bring them fraternal greetings from their congregation, they were commissioned to invite as many of the Gnadenhuetten Indians as could come, to attend this farewell service on the 9th. They, as well as the Indians of Beth- lehem, were greatly interested in the Greenlanders, examined their native costume with much curiosity and tried to find what similarity there might be between their language and their own, as also that of the Arawacks. This unique service, with which a lovefeast was connected, took place in the chapel of the Brethren's House. The Greenlanders, in their native dress, were the central figures of the group. Next to them sat the Arawacks and, in a circle around them, were gathered all the Indians present, Delawares, Mohicans, Wam- panoags, and others, with a few negroes, and such missionaries who then happened to be in Bethlehem. The outer circle of the group consisted of the children and adults of Bethlehem. One of the features of the occasion was the singing of several hymns that had been translated into their respective languages — the same hymns simultaneously to the same tunes; the white congregation joining in English and German, and the whole being led by wind and stringed instruments. One record calls it "an incomparable concert." At the evening service, the Greenlanders appeared once more in their own peculiar garb. The missionary Stach spoke to them about the significance of the occasion and then, in the Greenland tongue, said the final words of farewell in their name to the congregation. He went with them to Philadelphia, the next day, to call on Gov- ernor Hamilton at his special request, and proceeded from there to New York. Christian David, who had been busily engaged in getting the timber to New York for a store-house he was commissioned to build in Greenland — helping the carpenters meanwhile at the new house of Nazareth, the main structure of the group that in later years was known as Old Nazareth — followed them to Philadelphia on the 1 2th, and from there also went to New York, where Captain 6 Renatus was taken to Europe by Zander and Grabenstein in October, 1749, and Eliza- beth died at Bethlehem, June 18, 1750. 1749 1755- 241 Garrison had the Irene in readiness to sail. The passengers were Matthew and Thomas Stach, with their wives — Thomas had been married, June 2, to Elizabeth Lisberger — Christian David and Catherine Paulsen. They left the dock on June 21, and, after taking on a supply of drinking water at Staten Island, put to sea early on the morning of the 23d. This was a remarkable expedition and one of those voyages that justified the statements made about the Irene, that she was "as strong as a tower," and was "a very superior sailer ;" also the testimony given Captain Garrison, that he had few equals at the time as a skillful navigator. They made the voyage to Green- land in twenty-six days, lay there fourteen days, during which time Christian David built the provision-house for which he had taken the timber along, all ready framed to be set up, and in six weeks after this task was completed, they were safely back at New York, with the Greenland missionaries Frederick Boehnisch and wife on board, to go to Europe on the Irene when she sailed again. Christian David left the ship at Sandy Hook and hastened ahead to announce their safe return. To the astonishment and joy of every one, he suddenly appeared in Bethlehem on September 13. None were thinking of the Irene as yet possibly back from Greenland. Without delay, Captain Garrison made preparations for another voyage to Europe, and, the first week in October, was ready to sail. Bishop John de Watteville's work in America was finished, and he prepared at once to take passage on the church-ship. Bishop Spangenberg and his wife had closed their temporary labors in Philadelphia and came to Bethlehem. Early on the morning of October 6, they bade farewell to the place and left for New York to make the final prepar- ations for the voyage, with Bishop David Nitschmann and wife, who also returned to Europe. They were followed by one of the Beth- lehem wagons containing the last baggage of the company. With the wagon went David Wahnert and wife, the missionaries Boehnisch and wife. Zander and Grabenstein, the Arawack boy John Rena- tus, the widow of the missionary John Hagen, and a young man, Gottfried HofTman, who had come with Grube's company in 1748 and now returned to Europe. A merchant, Lefiferts, is also men- tioned as taking passage with them from New York. Bishop deWat- teville and his wife left Bethlehem on October 7, accompanied by various officials. Henry Antes, who, at first, intended to take leave of them at the Delaware, there concluded to make it his gallant duty 17 242 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to himself drive the chaise that he had procured for the accommoda- tion of "Sister Benigna," all the way to New York and look after her personal comfort. It seemed very empty at Bethlehem after their departure, with so many others accompanying them to New York, remarks the chronicler. After some delay, the Irene left her dock, October 15, and finally sailed off from Sandy Hook at sunrise on the 1 6th. There the gentle and devoted Cammerhofif took his last leave of them on earth and returned on a pilot boat. He journeyed afoot to Philadelphia to make another official tour, and threw himself with greater energy than before into the arduous labors of his remain- ing brief term of service. These labors were mainly in connection with the Indian missions which were now to be prosecuted with renewed vigor. Some incidents of this work during the following year, which belong essentially to the course of events, and with which he was conspicuously associated, may be mentioned here. At two Synods held before the close of 1749, one in August in Philadelphia, and another in November at Warwick in Lancaster County, the Indian missions constituted the most prominent subject deliberated on. Moreover, in July, 1749, de Watteville had, in company with Span- genberg, Cammerhofif, Pyrlaeus and Nathanael Seidel, met the deputies of the Six Nations in Philadelphia, when they were there for an interview with the Governor. On that occasion, de Watteville renewed the covenant made with them by Zinzendorf in 1742, and the way was prepared for sending missionaries among them, not- withstanding the hostility in New York and the precarious condition of things generally, as regards government relations to this dominant Indian confederacy. In connection with that covenant the Indian deputies, who honored de Watteville as the son-in-law and messenger of Johanan — the name by which Zinzendorf was known among them — adopted him into one of their clans and gave him the name Tgari- hontie — the messenger.'^ 7 As a matter of curiosity, the names by whic'i various others were known among the Indians may be here mentioned. Spangenberg, in 1745, received the name Tgirhitoutie (row of trees); Zeisberger, in 1745, that of Ganonsserac/ieri (on the pumpkin); Cammerhoff, in 1748, that of Galichwio (good words); Pyrlaeus, in 1748, that of Tgatiniatarechev (between two seas); Mack, in 1748, tPrtWrtr/^rrtfif/a/ (the first man or leader); Seidel, 1748, ^;-t'«?wAT//?' (the head), Rauch was known as Z^Jiigochgoharo. Anton Schmidt, when he went to Sha- mokin, was given the name Rach'mstoni. John Joseph Bull, who was commonly known as Shebosh (running water), was also called Hajingonis (twister of tobacco). Post bore the name Ahatnaivad. On one occasion the explanation was made to some of the missionaries by the Indians that all were given names, in this way, because their German and English names were too difficult to be pronounced by them. Their judgement on this question of comparative difficulty would hardly find universal acceptance. 1749 1755- 243 - Those consultations led also to a conviction that it was important to make the life at Gnadenhuetten as agreeable as possible for their Indian converts, and to put forth every effort to hold them together at that point, while endeavoring to prevent the scattering of those who yet lingered about Bethlehem. This was felt to be increasingly desirable amid the prevailing public conditions and in view of the signs of the times, which the Brethren did not fail to discern, even if their quiet perseverence in the effort to push out farther into the Indian country with their evangelistic work, seemed to some of their friends to indicate that they were not aware of the critical devel- opments. Those who took a sinister view of their movements became more firmly persuaded that there must be some kind of an under- standing between them and the secret conspirators which made them feel safe among the Indians everywhere. There were some restless spirits at Gnadenhuetten who needed patient, watchful care, and some of those at Bethlehem were not reliable. Not only was it the desire of the Brethren to keep a firm hold on all these for their own good, but also to prevent them from becoming agents of mischief. Hence, when dissatisfaction began to be expressed by some at Gnadenhuetten with the stiff clay soil of the ridge, and the idea was also fostered among them that they ought to have more land, steps were at once taken to remove this cause of discontent and possible pretext for yielding to the persuasions of schemers who were tampering with them, and for removing to Wyoming. In March, 1750, a tract of 130 acres of rich bottom-land was purchased of Secretary Peters, on the east side of the river, for £75. There, in May, 1754, their nineteen cabins transferred from Gnadenhuetten, were set up again in another vil- lage which suited them better and was called New Gnadenhuetten. The mission compound on the other side continued to be occupied by the corps there stationed to carry on the work. At the very time when the new tract of land was pur- chased, an event occurred at Gnadenhuetten that first brought con- spicuously to the front the famous Indian who, above all others, was associated with the plots and intrigues of the following years. In connection with the baptism of certain Indians, on March 16, 1750, the statement is on record that "another Indian, a half-brother of Nicodemus and Peter, Tadcuscont, called among the English Honest John, who had long been acquainted with the Brethren, had repeat- edly asked to be baptized." It is stated that it was declined "for the present," there being misgivings about his case. Finally, after much 244 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. hesitation, he was baptized at Gnadenhuetten, together with his wife, on March 19, by Bishop Cammerhoff. His position among the Indians, his commanding personality, his tribal and family preten- sions, and his previous character as a reckless man who gloried in his contempt of all restraints and of the opinions of others in refer- ence to his conduct, served to render the occasion a peculiarly impressive one for the Indian congregation. Teedyuscung^ received the name Gideon, which would have been eminently suitable if he had proven to be such a man as Wasamapah the Mohican. His wife was named Elizabeth. At this period, pilgrimages to and fro between Bethlehem and another point on the border of the Indian country became frequent. This was the village of Meniolagomeka, in the valley of the Aquan- shicola Creek, north of the Blue Mountains, where Zinzendorf had stopped on his first tour in 1742, and various missionaries had occasionally visited. In 1749, the chief of the village was baptized at Gnadenhuetten and in 1752, a regular mission was established there. It came to an untimely end in May. 1755, when the Indians were compelled to remove because the land was wanted. They retired to Gnadenhuetten and recruited that station, from which twenty of the people had been lured away to Wyoming by Teedyus- cung in May, 1754, in spite of all the efforts of the missionaries. The journal of a Synod held at Bethlehem in March, 1750, records that at that time there were 102 baptized Indians at Gnadenhuetten and about 20 at Meniolagomeka.'' 8 There is hardly a limit to the variations in the spelling of his Indian name to be found in print and manuscript, then and since — Deedjascon, Dadjiiscong, Tadeuscong, Tadeiis- cund, Tadyttscong, Tedenscont^ Teedenscund^ Teedcuscung, Teedyuscung, etc. The last, having become one of the most common forms, will be used in these pages, without attempting to decide which is the most correct. Cammerhoff, in the record of his baptism in the Bethlehem register, calls him " ein kut efoj7/p grosser Sunder P The Greek expression is used in Acts 25 : 23 — " principal men " — and Cammerhoff means what St. Paul says of himself, I. Tim. 1:15, the chief of sinners. Unfortunately, as subsequent events proved, Teedyuscung did not cease to be this after his baptism. At this very time he was un- doubtedly trying to inveigle the Gnadenhuetten Indians. 9 The site of this village in Smith's Valley, on the north side of the Aquanshicola, eight miles west of the Wind Gap, is marked by a granite monument erected by the Moravian Historical Society and dedicated October 22, 1901. It stands near the side of the road that leads up from the creek towards Kunkeltown on the farm of the aged Benjamin Schmidt, who generously manifested his interest in this desire to preserve the historic associations of the spot from oblivion. 1749 1755- 245 The increase of travel between Bethlehem and the Indian country, occasioned by the opening of this new station, added to the uneasy suspicions of the people living in the neighborhood between, espe- cially so the frequent coming and going of Indians which could not be prevented. But far more excitement was caused by the malicious stories set afloat through New York and Pennsylvania by evil- minded persons, and believed by many anxious people who had no means for ascertaining the truth, in connection with an extraordinary journey undertaken by Cammerhoff in company with David Zeis- berger to Onondago, in the summer of 1750. Cammerhofif started from Bethlehem with some companions on May 14, was joined by Zeisberger far up the country and, after they had journeyed about sixteen hundred miles by canoe, afoot and on horse-back, they got back to Bethlehem at midnight on August 16, with Cammerhoff's health permanently impaired and his constitution broken. This jour- ney was undertaken with government sanction and passport, and was in pursuance of a preliminary understanding had with the depu- ties of the Six Nations at the treaty of the previous August. Its sole object was to gain a foothold for permanent missionary work among people under their control. It was a journey of such extra- ordinary hardship and attended with so much adventure that the narrative reads like a romance. The result was such public sensation created by the wild fictions circulated in reference to it, that an official examination by the government of Petmsylvania became necessary to clear these heroic men and the authorities at Bethlehem from the suspicion engendered. This, of course, did not change the minds of those who were determined to think evil and to believe no good of their movements. Thus, with the renewed efforts for the evangelization of the Indians, at a time when the ominous outlook in the matter of relations to them kept the minds of so many in a state of constant dread, the eye of suspicion was anew turned upon Beth- lehem. This was contemplated, however, with less anxiety by men at Bethlehem, like Antes, who were most capable of understanding the whole situation and were of most service in explaining the principles and purposes of the Brethren to people of all kinds and in correcting popular misapprehensions, than the internal tendencies that had set in since Spangenberg's retirement, and were being propagated by his successor, John Nitschmann, supported by the new element he had brousfht with him to Bethlehem. Nitschmann besran his 246 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. administration with the understanding- that he was to foster and estabHsh certain things that were products of the unhealthy spirit which was then prevailing in the central circles in Europe and in some respects yet holding Zinzendorf under a spell for a season ; things which, although promulgated from headquarters, Spangenberg had been discreetly evading. They had taken pronounced form and become matters of deliberate official annunciation in Europe since Cammerhofif came to Pennsylvania, at an earlier stage of the distemper, and are therefore not to be laid to his charge. They were advanced to a certain degree by de Watteville before he left Bethlehem, but with caution and with an intelligent tact superior to that of the man now installed to bring the spirit, language and practices of Bethlehem into full accord with the most recent fancies. The things thus referred to were an exaggerated idealizing of certain offices and functions ; the adoption of unwarrantable titles and prerogatives by the incumbents, corresponding to this ; the exaltation of the persons to a kind of spiritual pre-eminence and a laudation of them in over-wrought terms that were distasteful to sober-minded people, startling when suddenly introduced and regarded as danger- ous. With this came methods of conducting internal afifairs in the spirit of these eccentricities and the cultivation of a novel liturgical system elaborated to give expression to the underlying conceptions. While Zinzendorf was not responsible for every absurdity that issued from this tendency, yet primarily it was all the fruit of his propensity, already mentioned, to follow out and experimentally apply every idea or fancy with which he started, to the utmost extent and in minutest detail. This eccentric regime brought in by John Nitsch- mann was something later than the mere reveling in extravagant language that is associated with Cammerhoff. The latter had been more tolerable to solid and staid men at Bethlehem than what now followed, for they had recognized under the effervescing surface the sound, true gospel of the cross. They were impressed by his heroic, self-sacrificing devotion to arduous duty. He was as ready as any of them to endure every kind of hardness ; was gentle, unassuming, and won the hearts of all. John Nitschmann's name is not associated with apostolic labors among the Indians, like that of Cammerhoff. It cannot be said of him that he was "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness," to carry the word of life to brutal savages 1749 1755- ' 247 and to serve men of every kind in the spirit of his Divine Master, as can be said of Cammerhofif. The sturdy men who laid the material and spiritual foundations of Bethlehem, who battled with the stern realities of the beginning, who opened the farms and built the mills while they preached the gospel of the love of Christ in plainness to plain people, were personally attached to Cammerhofif, with all his extravagancies and in spite of the fact that he was sent to work at cross purposes in certain respects with the policy of Spangenberg, whom they esteemed above all others, but who was not considered sufificiently imbued with the spirit of the time by those in control in Europe. Antes, Garrison, Horsfield, Payne, Brownfield and other such men who were of most value at the time and were Spangenberg's most staunch friends loved Cammerhofif, notwithstanding all this. The Indians sent messages of sorrow from distant places when they heard that he had passed away, and years afterward the name of Galichwio, by which they knew him, was spoken among them with reverence and afifection. His memory deserves to be exonerated from the exclusive respon- sibility for introducing fanatical tendencies at Bethlehem which has commonly been laid upon him by Moravian writers. He was the diarist and correspondent with the European author- ities during the greater part of his term of service at Bethlehem. He was a voluminous writer who went into great detail on all subjects and wrote without reserve in the kind of expressions he was accus- tomed to use. Thus what there was in his words and ways that was objectionably eccentric became conspicuous afterwards in the written evidences. John Nitschmann did very little of the writing. He was the central manager who gave the impulse and steered the course of things. His chief mission was to establish himself at headquarters and press the innovations he was authorized to introduce. He had been held in high esteem in Europe and had rendered service in various ways that was much prized. He enjoyed the full confidence of those who wished him to rectify what were thought, in the infatuation of the time, to be internal defects of Spangenberg's administration. Not only did he throw himself completely into that infatuation, so that he was not disposed to be cautious and reserved in propagating it, but he thought himself under obligation to follow the letter of his instructions blindly, no matter what obstacles and embarrassments he met. Lacking the degree of scholarly culture possessed by Spangenberg and Cammerhofif, as well as the broad- 248 * A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. mindedness, the extensive knowledge of men and things and the excellent common sense and tact that distinguished the former, he was not able to see where and how he ought to adapt himself and his course to conditions that were different from those out of which he had come and different from what he anticipated. From first to last, he quite failed to get into touch with his larger surroundings in the New World. He moreover felt fortified in things which he soon discovered were not acceptable to those who were the most substantial and forceful men at Bethlehem, for most of those whom he had brought over with him had come right out of the atmosphere of Herrnhaag and ralhed around him. Some, previously at Bethle- hem, were drawn in, and in the summer of 1750, a large colony of those who had made up the population of the Herrnhaag Brethren's House and had been constrained to emigrate when the abandonment of the place became necessary, arrived at Bethlehem with yet more offensive assumption of superiority over against the original congre- gation and yet more distasteful parade of sentimental puerilities ; posing, besides, as persecuted exiles deserving admiration. Many of them, when they later came to their senses and settled down to soberness, became stalwart pillars in the Church, but many were unreliable and unsound — mere useless nurslings. They spoke in terms of disparagement of the people who were previously at Beth- lehem and strutted before them like religious coxcombs, assuming to be the select clientelage of the man at the head. A schism was cre- ated between "the old congregation and the new congregation." Many of the former were filled with grief and indignation. Some resented such assumptions and spoke their minds plainly to certain of the new-comers, who had stepped in to enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice and toil, but hardly any dared to express open dissent and object to the innovations in official quarters. One man, however, whose position was such that he most readily could, did so honestly and fearlessly. This was Henry Antes. Not only was the new departure, with its speech and manner, exceedingly distasteful to him personally, just as it was to other sensible men at Bethlehem, but he discerned under it the beginning of a drift away from scriptural soundness, and recognized a new occasion that would be given for sensational public discussion of the Brethren. He understood — as John Nitschmann and those who went with him did not — how serious, in spite of the act of Parliament passed in 1749, the constant agita- tions of those who were trying to inflame the public against them 1749 1755- 249 as alleged Papists, and therefore allies of the French, intriguing with the Indians, might become, if anything within the Church should seem to lend new color to this accusation. He knew the readiness of ill-informed and credulous masses to exaggerate every eccentricity or oddity reported of Bethlehem and to draw groundless inferences. Therefore, when he heard absurd titles applied to Zinzendorf, to Anna Nitschmann and to others who held general offices of a spir- itual nature among men or women, and heard John Nitschmann declare that the members must all now call these persons by such names according to instructions from abroad — names that could be easily construed by some people as indicating Romish institutions, orders and functions ; by other people as evidences of fanatical mys- ticism like that into which Conrad Beisel had led the Ephrata com- munity — he found in this something far more objectionable and ominous than the mere affectation of spiritual child-talk in which Cammerhoflf and others had before been indulging. He wrote a plain, manly letter to Zinzendorf on the subject in September, 1749. He had been in correspondence with him occasionally since 1743. To his great perplexity this letter remained unanswered. Subse- quently he became convinced that it had been intercepted in Europe and had never been seen by the Count. He followed this with pro- tests and even entreaties addressed to Bishop John Nitschmann, face to face and in writing. Failing to accomplish anything, he concluded to go to Europe and present the case to Zinzendorf and the general conference personally, but, although he was encouraged to do so by leading men at Bethlehem, his wife objected and he did not go. Under these trying circumstances John Nitschmann became some- what obstinate and imperious, and, in addition to other blunders, played the martinet in disciplinary matters, going to lengths so auda- cious, in dealing with recalcitrants, that Antes, as local magistrate, warned him that he would not only create fatal dissension and jeopar- dize everything that had been accomplished at Bethlehem, but might even get himself into serious trouble under the law of the Province. In this blind pursuance of what he understood by his "instructions" and this infatuated determination to assert the authority with which he thought himself clothed, he was sustained by his wife, who had been placed in similar authority over all the female membership — a woman of rare gifts, intense devotion and great personal influence, but, like her husband, carried off beyond reason by the idea of the functions supposed to be committed to them ; sustained also by 250 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, Samuel Kratise, who had been sent over with him as coadjutor at Nazareth in his efforts to bring things in Pennsylvania into "com- plete conformity." Finally Antes tried to persuade the Bishop to simply suppress the objectionable sayings and doings of the "new congregation" and to let the peculiar innovations in official regime and terminology^ in which Nitschmann appealed to his "instructions," stand in abeyance until proper communications with the authorities in Europe could be had ; for Antes believed that if the case was properly stated to Zinzendorf, in connection with his interview with Spangen- berg, everything would be set right. In this effort he was supported by Cammerhoff and Nathanael Seidel, whose official connection with Nitschmann and partial agreement with his course on the one hand, and their warm attachment to Antes and to the "old congregation" on the other, made their position very embarrassing. John Nitsch- mann, shut off to the choice between receding even to this extent or breaking with Antes and risking all that this might involve, chose the latter, and then Antes concluded to withdraw from Bethlehem,, retire to his farm and there, out of immediate connection with the things which he could not be reconciled to, await further develop- ments. His breach was only with John Nitschmann ofificially and with current tendencies which he believed would be rectified in due time. Meanwhile he felt that less harm would be done by his quiet withdrawal than by the possible further centralizing of factions pro- and con if he remained at Bethlehem. While much consternation followed the announcement of his intentions, and there were rumors on all sides of others doing likewise, Antes used the great influence he possessed among the former residents of Bethlehem and the Nazareth stations, in the interests of peace and quiet and patient waiting. He faithfully completed the work he had in hand, especially the important large mill^** on the Bushkill where the colony of Friedensthal was estab- 10 This mill, built east of Nazareth, where the first purchase of 324 acres was made in the autumn of 1749, " at the kill," as the place was called for a while — Lefevre's Creek, Leheitan, Bushkill ^ was the largest and most complete that Antes had erected for the Economy. Work at the spot was commenced, January 6, 1750. and, August 21, the first grinding was celebrated by a lovefeast in the mill. A visitor in April, 1751, thus described its mechanism : " It grinds and bolts all at once, there being no trouble in hoisting the flour as in common mills, but as the stones deliver it so the bolting cloth receives it, and so it is bolted as fast as ground. Another contrivance, which is very extraordinary, is that when the wheat is within about a peck of being ground out of the hopper, there is a stick so fixed that one end shall strike against the stone as it runs i-ound which has a bell fastened at 1749 1755 251 lished, and got all the affairs with which he was further connected into such a shape that he could give them what further attention they required from him at his home or by occasionally coming to Bethlehem, and on the morning of September 5, 1750 — before day- break, when few were astir, in order to avoid painful scenes — he started with his wife and some of his children for Frederick- town.^^ Cammerhoff accompanied him, weeping, across the river and some distance on the way, and then took an affectionate leave of him and turned sadly back to Bethlehem. When Antes reached his home, the premises which he had turned over to the use of the Church in 1745 were nearly vacated. The flourishing school was closed. John Nitschmann, having determined not to yield any points and knowing that this would cause a breach between them, instituted measures, without consulting Antes, to remove the children from Fredericktown. These were carried into effect in August, 1750. On the 12th of that month a number of boys were taken to the Maguntsche school and a few of the Indian boys were removed to Bethlehem and Gnadenhuetten. Two weeks later the remaining boys were placed in the school at Oley. Pyrlaeus and his wife, who had stood at the head of the work, came to Bethlehem the first week of September, with Peter Sehner and wife, John Mich- the other end, which rattles in a surprising manner, to give the miller warning that the mill is near running empty." In this contrivance, which seemed a novelty to that visitor, many a reader will recognize a familiar feature of old-time grist-mills. It was equipped with double water-wheels and two run of stones. The settlement which arose there received the name Friedeiisthal — Vale of Peace — at the dedication of its community house and the organization of its milling, farming, dairying and stock-raising personnel, with chaplain, steward, etc., April 27, 1751, in the season just after Easter, when the peace greeting of the risen Lord called to mind, suggested the name. The mill was stockaded and turned into a fort during the Indian war, 1755-56. The property was sold to private parties by the church authorities in 1771, and a second mill was built there in 1794. The history of Friedcnsthal and its Stockaded Mill, entertainingly written by the Rev. Wm. C. Reichel, is to be found in Vol. II, Transactions of the Aforavian Historical Society. II Some readers, to whom the whole subject is new, may fail to appreciate the reason for introducing this episode, little to the credit of those in control at Bethlehem. Like the general fanatical distemper of that period with which it was connected, it might have been passed with a brief reference or left quite untouched, if it were never mentioned by other writers. But since it has been frequently written about and occasionally over-stated, mis- stated or alluded to in that manner which sets readers to guessing, or perhaps drawing groundless inferences in view of the many calumnies of the time that have found their way into print, it has seemed best to present the whole offence given — the gravest that Antes himself ever adduced against them according to his own statements. It is true, as some- times stated, that he objected to the sudden introduction of robing by Bishop John Nitsch- 252 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ler and several farm laborers who had been employed at the estab- lishment. John Levering and his wife and Peter Braun accompanied the detachment to Oley. Dr. Adolph Meyer and wife remained after this at Fredericktown. September 14, he brought the closed out accounts of the institution to Bethlehem and returned two days later, and thus ended the history of the Fredericktown school. In this connection the various changes made in the schools to the next epoch may be noted. Financial strain in the summer of 175 1 caused the abandonment of the important Oley school, which had been organized in February, 1748. The institution was closed on Septem- ber 10, when the boys were transferred to Maguntsche — after this more frequently spoken of as Salisbury — and the girls of this latter school, as previously stated, were brought to Bethlehem with those from Oley, during the following two weeks and distributed between the boarding-school and its adjunct in the Ysselstein house on the south side, the school history of which to the end has already been given. In August, 1753, the authorities decided to close the boys' school at Salisbury and on the 27th of that month fourteen boys were brought from there to Bethlehem and quartered in a room in the Brethren's House, which had been occupied by the boys of the Beth- lehem school now domiciled in one of the log houses on the site of the present church. In December, 1754, however, it was concluded to move them back to Sahsbury, and this was done, January 10, 1755, Tiiann at the celebration of communion, May 2, 1750, the first time a surplice was worn by a Moravian minister in Pennsylvania. But a large-minded man like Antes would not have made an open grievance of a thing like this, even if he were strongly averse to it, under circumstances otherwise normal. Associating it as an innovation with the more important things against which he had protested, his disturbed mind found in it the proverbial " last Straw," while he thought with dread of the ill-natured gossip this new thing, so unfamiliar in the region, would stir up among those who were watching for new evidences of ''Romish practices," in addition to the foregoing offences of following the new style dates of a " Popish," calendar, kneeling in worship, etc., which vigilant neighbors had made much ado about. Another point, always in question, has been the extent to which his removal from Bethlehem meant withdrawal from the Moravian Church. That it was quite generally so interpreted and published abroad by those with whom the wish was father to the thought, is very natural, and even Moravian writers have frequently adopted this supposition. A more complete examination of the subject in the light of all authentic sources of information extant, including statements by Antes himself and subsequent lists of members, than has probably been given to it hitherto by any one, has made it quite clear to the writer of these pages that his removal from Bethlehem was not so intended by him and was not so regarded afterwards by the Church authorities. Antes considered himself and was considered in the fellowship of the Church to his death. 1749 1755- 253 when a new school was opened there, with Joachim Sensemann and wife in charge of the household and Hans Petersen serving as pre- ceptor, the whole under the general superintendence of John Ettwein and Francis Boehler with their wives, now in charge of the entire department of work among the children at outlying places. This school existed when the dire times to be treated of in the next chap- ter suddenly brought such peril to old and young at these places. Antes, after he returned to his farm, seems not to have visited Bethlehem until the following spring. He came early in March, to transact business, and went up to the Bushkill to examine the new mill and see that it was operating properly. He also had consulta- tions with those in charge of the work, in reference to the enlarge- ment of the grist-mill at Bethlehem, the building of a fulling-mill in connection with it, needed repairs to the bark-crushing-mill and the dye-house, the proposed extension of the Sisters' House and the building of another wing to the west of the Children's Home ('"bell house") occupied by the boarding-school for girls, to contain a larger place of worship, a wing having been added on the east side in 1748, and one to the west in 1749. Some of these tasks were then being commenced. The large accession to the working-force the previous June^- rendered these undertakings possible, and the expec- tation of yet other colonists in the course of the following year, made it desirable to proceed with them as rapidly as possible. 12 This large number of young men, mainly from Herrnhaag, in part also from the settle- ments of the Church in Holland, has already been referred to. They came under the leadership of Henry Jorde and are sometimes called the " Henry Jorde Colony." There were 81 besides Jorde, one of them being a Negro called " London," and they were accom- panied by two married couples; the Rev. Frederick Emanuel and Susan Maria Herrmann, and Francis and Sophia Steup. The most important man among them was Dr. John Matthew Otto, the second, and more distinguished, of these two brother-physicians of Beth- lehem, referred to in a previous chapter. This colony sailed on the Irene from London, May 9, put off from Dover, May 11, and reached New York, June 22. It is stated that they came up the bay enveloped in such a dense fog, the entire way from Sandy Hook, that all the seamen in the harbor were astonished at Captain Garrison's skill. They arrived at Bethlehem in squads from June 25 to July 2. On July 13, thirty of them located at Chris- tian s Spring. The following is the list for reference : Albrecht, John Andrew, Erd, Justus. Fockel, John Godfrey, Baumgarten, George, Euler, Nicholas, Fockel, Samuel, Bergmann, Henry, Feldhausen, Christopher, Fritz. Henry, Borheck, John Andrew, Feldhausen, Henry, Freyhube, Andrew, Eckhard, Zacharias, Feldhausen. John George, Fuss, Lucas, Ernst, Walter, Fockel, Godfrey, Gerstberger, Henry, 254 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Besides the external improvements already mentioned, material additions to the agricultural and industrial equipment were made during 1750. A large increase of barn-space and stabling was in readiness for use before winter. A new blacksmith-shop, with facili- ties for the employment of more workmen to meet the growing needs of the Economy and the calls for such work from the surrounding region, was added. The estabhshment of a battery, long under dis- cussion, was also consummated. After the plan of locating it in the Ysselstein house, south of the river, had been abandoned, the build- ing formerly occupied by the blacksmiths and locksmith was fitted up for the purpose, the latter part of the year, and before the middle of January, 1751, it was put into operation. These various indus- tries, with the accumulating buildings of the stock-yard — the latter grouped about the original log-house of the settlement, in which the man in charge of this department was living — were strung along what is now the old west side of Main Street, from above the present Goundie's Alley, down to Church Street, and turning toward the Old York Road, the first thoroughfare following the Indian trail. That TOW, with the increasing cluster about the grist-mill below, made up the busy section of the place, which was an object of surprise and admiration to visitors. Nothing like it, in the extent and variety of industries, could have been found anywhere in the country, outside Giersch, Christian, Groen, John George, ■Gross, Andrew, Haensel, John Christian, Hasselberg, Abraham, Hege, Balthasar, Hennig, Paul, Herbst, John Henry, Herr, Samuel, Herrmann, Jacob, Heydecker, Jacob, Hoepfner, Chrisiian Henry, Hoffmann, John Gottlob, Hoffmann, Thomas, Ingebretsen, Eric, Jaencke, Andrew, Kornmann, John Theobald, Lange, John Gottlieb, Lauck, John Samuel, Lindemeyer, Henry, Loether, Christian Henry, London, the Negro, Ludwig, Carl, Lung, Jacob, Masner John George, Matthiesen, Christopher, Matthiesen, Nicholas, Merck, John Henry, Merkle, Christopher, Meyer, Jacob, Meyer, John Stephen, Meyer, Philip, Muensch, John, Muenster, Melchior, Nagel, John Jacob, Neilhock, Odenwald, John Michael, Ortlieb, John, Otto, John Matthew, Pell, John Peter, Presser, Martin, Petersen, Hans, Pfeil, Frederick Jacob, Pitzmann, John Michael, Priessing, Jacob, Ralffs, Marcus, Richling, John Henry, Richter. John, Roesler, Godfrey, Ruenger, Daniel, Sauter, Michael, Sherbeck, Paul Jansen, Schoen, Henry, Schweigert, George, Schwartz, Christian, Schwartz, Gottfried, Stauber, Paul Christian, Strauss, Abraham, Sydrich, John Daniel, Theodorus, Thomas, John, Wagenseil, John Andrew, Weber, Andrew. 1749 1755- 255 of the several principal cities on the sea-board. A visitor, in April, 1751, said: "Though this place at Bethlehem seems but small, you can scarcely mention any trade which is in the largest city in this country, but what is at this place, and carried on after the best man- ner."^^' On February i, 1751, the plans drawn for the new stone wing that was to complete the connection between the Community House and the girls' school, and to contain a larger place of worship, were examined and adopted. It was decided that this structure should be erected without delay, because of the pressing need that was observed already on Whit-Sunday, 1749, when the people had to assemble in successive sections to receive the communion, on account of the con- tracted quarters in the original chapel of the Community House. That chapel had remained in its first interior form, with the rough logs of the walls and the joists and flooring above appearing, until February, 1750, when it was plastered and two pillars of black wal- nut were placed in it to support the heavy ceiling. The excavation for the foundation of the new building was commenced on April 5, after the adoption of the plans, and the masons began their work at once. The most of the timber was floated down the Lehigh from the Gnadenhuetten saw-mill. On July 9, it was entirely finished and the next day, July 10, 1751, this second place of worship in Bethle- hem was dedicated. It was Saturday, and at eleven o'clock the cus- tomary meeting and lovefeast for the children took place in the old chapel. Then followed the dedicatory service in the new building, which was entirely filled by the adult congregation; many being present "from the upper places" — an expression often used in refer- ence to the stations on the Nazareth land and Friedensthal — and some came from Maguntsche, or Salisbury. This service was in charge of Bishop John Nitschmann. He had composed some verses for the occasion that were sung, together with other hymns. After the service of consecration, a special service of the time, known as the Te Agnum, w^as sung kneeling. At the general "Sabbath love- feast," at one o'clock, a cantata arranged for the occasion was ren- dered by the musicians of Bethlehem, and at the close the Bishop discoursed on the watchword for the day: "And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks." — Isaiah 65:10. Besides these, there were two even- 's This, and the remarks about the Friedensthal mill in note lo, from the journal of two \oung men, Kennedy and High, transcribed at the Delaware Water Gap, and published in the Mountain Ec/io, in August, 1879. 256 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ing services for the communicant membership. The first was of the ordinary character — singing and prayer, with a discourse suitable to the hour. The second consisted of another formal, chanted prayer characteristic of the time, called Te Pleuram, expressing the thoughts associated with the significance of the Saviour's pierced side. The regular order of daily evening prayer followed and closed the festivi- ties. Thus began the history of the present venerable "Old Chapel" of Bethlehem. The original roof of the building was of tiles. On account of their great weight, they were removed in 1753, and shingles were substi- tuted. Under the chapel a large dining-room for the married people was fitted up. It was opened on February 8, 1752, by a formal din- ner of roast venison, of which fifty men and thirty-two women par- took. Meanwhile, the other wing which formed the connection between the Sisters' House and the eastern end of the girls' school- building — "bell house" — was being completed, as an extension of the Sisters' House, affording a larger dining-room and a new dormi- tory and later the chapel of that institution. This new dining-room was first occupied on May 10, 1752, when a dinner of shad from a catch of a thousand made the previous day in the Lehigh — "many of them the size of the carp in Germany," remarks one chronicler — was served to one hundred young women and girls. Yet other structures were under way, or had in view, and the Gnadenhuetten saw-mill, which at that time was supplying all the lumber used at Bethlehem, was kept busy. It is recorded that on May 13, seventeen rafts and, two days later, fourteen rafts, containing together thirteen hundred boards, reached Bethlehem from that mill. The statement is made that these rafts were usually built one board's length and high enough that one man could steer and control two rafts. On September 2, 175 1, the rebuilt grist-mill was put into opera- tion and on November 18, the fulling-mill, connected with it and worked by the same power, was started. A second run of stones was added to the mill and set to grinding. May 11, 1753, to meet the demand from an ever-widening extent of country that found the Bethlehem mill the most convenient and satisfactory. In June, 1752, the apothecary shop was finished and on July 10, Dr. Otto began to move the stock and outfit of his pharmacy from the room before occupied in the western wing of the girls' school-building into the new quarters. In October, a new building in which to break and prepare hemp w^as erected and on November 6, the masons com- 1749 1755- 257 menced work at an addition to Timothy Horsfield's house, already mentioned. After some delay this structure was finished in July, 1753. On the 17th of that month the occupation of these subse- quently interesting and important apartments began. Here was opened the first general store and trading-place of Bethlehem, long desired by the numerous customers of the grist-mill and others of the surrounding region, and long planned as a desirable addition to the establishments of the village. At a meeting of the masters of trades, the previous March, the subject of stocking this store was discussed and over a hundred distinct items in the line of commodities for such a stock were enumerated that could be produced by industries then in operation at Bethlehem. Joseph Powell, who, by turns, was employed in evan- gelistic work and in various local capacities, had temporary charge of it until December 11, 1754, when it was entrusted to William Edmonds, who had been assisting at the Crown Inn, south of the river, and whose name was later associated with the tavern built in 1752, north of Nazareth, known as "the Rose,"^* having charge of the store that was carried on for a while there. Edmonds was elected to the Assembly of Pennsylvania in October, 1755, as the second repre- sentative from Northampton County. In that building were also quartered John Okely, the conveyancer and agent of the Bethlehem authorities in land matters ; Abraham Boemper and John Leighton who, in addition to other duties, were appointed to serve as 14 For some years Friedensthal (note ic) and the Rose were mentioned together in refer- ences to the group of settlements, because of near neighborhood relation. That inn on the north-eastern confines of the Barony of Nazareth and by its name perpetuating the remem- brance of the quit-rent token — a red rose in June— associated with the domain, was designed originally to serve the double purpose of quartering the men who were to build the projected village of Gnadenstadt north of Nazareth — of which the only outcome was the organization, in 1762, of the congregation of Schoentck (Fairnook) — and to accommodate travelers, up and down the Minnisink road, who often sought hospitality at Nazareth, which under existing arrangements was difficult to furnish. i6o acres, bordering on the Nazareth land, were surveyed as the site, January 3, 1752. The designs for the building were ordered by the board at Bethlehem, February 2, and, on March 27, 1752, the corner-stone was laid. On September 15 of the same year the finished building was opened as an inn, with John Frederick Schaub and Divert Mary, his wife, as the first of the succession of inn-keepers. August 6, 1754, it first displayed its sign with the emblem of the rose. Like Friedensthal, it had a thrilling connection with the frontier horrors of 1755-56 The store was opened, 1763, in a near-by log house. In 1771 the property was sold to private parties. In 1772 the inn was closed. The building dis- appeared in 1858. 18 258 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. cicerones and otherwise attend to the wants of visitors. A Httle later two rooms were fitted up in it to lodge g'uests. These various associations of the house, together with the public business trans- acted in the office of Justice Horsfield, the successor of Henry Antes, made it the principal rendezvous of strangers and people from the neighborhood. Another house, built in 1752, that deserves to be mentioned was the "Indianer Logis" (Indian lodge or inn), which stood near the west bank of the Monocacy, immediately north of the present stone bridge at the mill. It was a stone building of one story, fifty-two by forty feet in dimensions, erected as a temporary dwelling for the Indians of Friedenshuetten at the foot of the hill to the south, after it had been decided to transfer them to another spot. It was then to serve as the regular Indian tavern of the place, in which an Indian couple, or some white persons adapted to the task, were to have the over- sight and attend to the entertainment of Indian visitors. In the sequel, after all the Indians had removed from Bethlehem, it was fitted up to serve for a while as a lodging for travelers, when inclement weather or high water rendered it too difficult, or even dangerous, to cross the river to the Crown Inn at night; and the first public house of Bethlehem had not yet been built. That "Indian house" therefore shared, with the rooms over the store in the Horsfield house, the honor of being the first hotel on the north side at Bethlehem, of more pretensions — being built of stone — than the primitive guest-room of 1743, in one of the hastily-constructed log cabins. The first foundation-stone was laid, August 14, 1752, and on October 25, the house was ready to be occupied. On that day about twenty Indians moved in procession from Friedenshuetten to the new building and took formal possession, partaking together of a meal, with songs of praise. ^^ In the summer of 1756 a log house, sixty-three by fifteen feet, was built just south of it, near the creek, containing a chapel for the Indians. This was taken down and transferred, in 1758, to the Indian village of Nain near Bethle- hem, to which reference will be made in another chapter. While these various building operations were in progress, time was found to also make numerous improvements which enhanced the IS The Rev. Wm. C. Reichel, in Memorials of the Moravian Churchy published in 1870, states, on page 23, that the spring which empties into the creek near the bridge, on the nortli side, rose in tlie cellar of the Indian house, that the building was removed early in the cen- tury, and that portions of the tiling, with which it was paved, remained at the time of writing. 1749 1755- 259 attractive appearance of Bethlehem and the places on the Nazareth domain, and added comforts and conveniences. Many things in this line were quickly accomplished by systematically distributing num- bers of workmen, to undertake one task after another vigorously, and with the stimulus that comes from seeing the work move rapidly under many hands. Thus streets were gotten into condition, pavements were laid, open spaces about the buildings were made tidy, large rows of trees were planted along the borders, and gardens were beautified, by efforts that often seemed Hke mere holiday diversions. When it was concluded that the time had come to make the road from Bethlehem to Nazareth look more like the highway of an old, settled country than a mere back-woods trail, barely passable for wagons, as the character of all the roads of the region then was, two large gangs of men and boys, one at the Bethlehem end and the other at the Nazareth end, were set to work simultaneously, the second week in May, i/S^j ^^ straighten, clear and level the road. One day's work, followed by another in the third week of the month, when they met with their respective sections finished, resulted in a thoroughfare so excellent by comparison with others in the surrounding country, that it occa- sioned special comment by visitors from a distance. Loyal, energetic and capable men were at hand to direct the exter- nal afifairs, so that the unsatisfactory conditions described in the pre- ceding pages did not seriously affect the situation in this respect dur- ing the time that elapsed before they were rectified. Knowledge of the crisis that came when Antes left Bethlehem soon reached head- quarters in Europe, and, without much delay, steps were taken to correct the mistake that had been made in sending Bishop John Nitschmann to Bethlehem to take Bishop Spangenberg's place, and in giving him the kind of instructions he was carrying out. In the autumn of 1750, after important interviews between Zinzendorf and Spangenberg had taken place and the position of Antes had become known, Nathanael Seidel went to Europe — apparently in response to a letter from there — to report on matters and take the written state- ments which Nitschmann was pleased to send. He was accompanied by David Zeisberger who went as a messenger, more particularly in reference to Indian affairs. They sailed from New York on the Irene, the first week in September.^® ^6 She left the dock. August 28, and sailed out from Sandy Hook, September 3. They had a very stormy passage. A captain who arrived at New York, October 5, from the north of Scotland reported that, September 25, he passed the Irene, after a gale of several days, with fore and top-mast and bowsprit gone, and sailing with a jury-mast rigged up; and that 260 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Before they returned or any action towards righting matters had been consummated, death entered official circles at Bethlehem and wrought changes independent of the plans of men. The wife of Bishop John Nitschmann^'^ was taken away on February 22, 1751. Bishop Cammerhofif who was then bedfast departed on April 28. In view of the importance attached to their respective offices at the time, their decease caused no little consternation at Bethlehem. Three days after the death of Cammerhoff, Samuel Powell, who arrived from Philadelphia, brought an affectionate greeting to the sufferer from Antes who had not heard of his release. When Powell returned he was specially commissioned to stop at Fredericktown and give Antes an account of his happy departure which had made a deep impression upon all. A kind of ad interim arrangement ensued. Bishop John Nitschmann confined himself mainly to purely pastoral ministrations. With Nathanael Seidel absent in Europe, the oversight of the large number of single men and the share in general administration otherwise taken by him devolved upon his able and zealous assistant Gottlieb Pezold. two vessels which had sailed with her, were putting back, too badly crippled to proceed. Captain Garrison reported ♦' all right " to this captain. Her two companions, one a vessel belonging to Captain Badger, which got back to New York, and the other under Captain Goelet, which reached Boston, were reported in port by the New York newspapers in October. Letters from Europe desiring Cammerhoff to visit Nova Scotia and inspect the opening for evangelistic work and a settlement there, in response to invitations, reached Bethlehem when Captain Garrison was getting ready to sail. He was asked whether he could make a detour and go to Nova Scotia, but he stated that, for some reason not explained, he could not do so. Letters came again in April, 1751, urging the Nova Scotia project but Cammerhoff being then on his death-bed, nothing could be done in the matter. Therefore, Nova Scotia was never visited by the Irene. The Rev. L. T. Nyberg, mentioned in the previous chapter, accompanied Seidel and Zeisberger to Europe. 17 She was born at Schoenau, Moravia, in 1712, fled to Herrnhut with her parents — her maiden name was Haberland — in 1729, and was one of the seventeen young women and girls who joined in the covenant with Anna Nitschmann, May 4, 1730. In the phraseology propagated during the period of extravagance, she, as overseer or Eldress of the female membership in America, was given the title of " the mother," as Anna Nitschmann was called in the more general sense. As a special distinction, she was interred in what was then the center of the cemetery at Bethlehem, where a marble slab now marks her grave. One of her four sons, Immanuel Nitschmann, was later a leading musician of Bethlehem and, for many years, the secretary who made those copies of official records, which are so gratifying to all who use them, on account of the eEise with which they are read. He ended his days at Bethlehem. His wife was Maria Van Vleck, daughter of Henry Van Vleck, merchant, and sister of Bishop Jacob Van Vleck. She, late in life, became the second wife of Joseph Jones, son of the founder of the Jones farm east of Bethlehem, and himself its occupant until his death in 1S24. 1/49 1755- 26i Perhaps the most important man at Bethlehem during this time was the Rev. Frederick Emmanuel Herrmann, although his is not one of the more famihar names of that period. He appears to have been a man of uncommon executive ability and capacity for affairs. Besides fulfilHng his duties as an influential member of the central executive board, and as a preacher of ability, he, for more than a year, served as a general inspector of trades and industries, and did much to perfect system and order. With Brownfield, the faithful steward, until his death in April, 1752, and Okely, as men experienced in the business affairs of the Economy ; Timothy Horsfield as a new adviser, and the patriarch. Father Nitschmann, whose great personal influence was daily exerted in the interest of harmony and smooth- ness, all rallying together, things moved on without very serious disturbance. In the night of September 24, 1751, Captain Garrison suddenly brought the long-expected Irene into port at New York. Nathanael Seidel and David Zeisberger were on board, returning to Bethlehem. With them came two married couples and two single men who all rendered conspicuous service in their several spheres : John Michael and Gertrude Graff, Joachim and EHzabeth Busse, John Jacob Schmick and Hans Christian Christiansen.^^ Bishop John Nitschmann received intimation in letters brought by Seidel, of his recall to Europe, but this did not come formally until November 14. He immediately finished his preparations, took leave of Bethlehem three days later and went to New York where Captain 18 Graff and Schmick were both ordained men and university graduates ; the first of Jena and the second of Koenigsberg. Busse was likewise an ordained man who had been serv- ing the Church in BerHn. He and his wife went to St. Thomas before the close of the year, as missionaries. Graff and his wife came to devote themselves especially to the work among the children. They located at Nazareth in 1755. He became a bishop, 1772, and settled at Salem, N.C., where he died in 1774. Schmick entered the Indian mission service in which he figured conspicuously amid the tribulations of a few years later. Christiansen was an eminently skilful mill-wright who rendered valuable service at Bethlehem and other places. Others who came with them were Adam Foelker, blacksmith and farmer from Wuertemberg, with his family ; Andrew Giering, journeyman shoemaker from near Suelz on the Neckar, Wuertemberg, who, on October 24, went to Maguntsche to work for Jacob Ehrenhardt ; a merchant named Schlosser from Pforzheim, Durlach, with two children attended by a maid named Schaemel, and Maria Barbara Meyer, who accompanied Foelker's family as a redemptioner. None of these people were members of the Moravian Church, but some of them became such. The maid with Foelkers was released for £^ by the single sisters at Bethlehem and taken into service in the Sisters' House. The girl Schaemel, upon application, was likewise so employed. Abraham Boemper's son was also a passenger. 262 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Garrison was getting the Irene ready for her fifth voyage. Those who were to accompany him to Europe were assembled there or went with him from Bethlehem. ^^ On November 26, the vessel left the dock. After nearly drifting upon a reef in consequence of an almost instantaneous cessation of the wind, she lay to in a cove on the Staten Island shore, on account of a heavy storm that broke upon the coast, until December 4, when the Captain put out to sea. Moving down the narrows, they passed the ship that was bringing Bishop Spangenberg back to "America to again take charge of the work. He, of course, recognized the Irene, but in consequence of the stormy weather, attempts to communicate with her by means of the speaking-trumpet failed. Bishop Matthew Hehl came with him as coadjutor, accompanied by his wife and a young woman, Henrietta Petermann, as attendant. Other Moravian passengers were Philip Christian Bader, Nicholas Henry Eberhardt, Matthew Kremser, Henry Miller the printer, who had again been in Europe, and Carl Godfrey Rundt. They reached Bethlehem, December 10. Spangenberg and Hehl went to Philadelphia on the 17th, to' pay their respects to the Governor. Returning to Bethehem, they stopped at Fredericktown to visit Henry Antes. Dr. Adolph Meyer accom- panied them from there, more than half way to the Lehigh. There was general rejoicing and a restored feeling of confidence at Beth- lehem. It had not been known with certainty, even by the principal officials, that Spangenberg would return, and his sudden appearance immediately after the departure of his predecessor, was a great surprise to every one. One of his first important acts was to convene a Synod at Beth- lehem on December 22, to communicate various necessary matters, both of principle and method, in the general work ; to get back into personal connection with all ministers immediately and to reach as many spots in the varied activities as possible with such new regulations as were to be introduced. From this time, all that was abnormal in the tone, language and manner of the preceding few years rapidly disappeared. '9 The company consisted of John Nitschmann, J. C. Pyrlaeus and wife, John Philip Doerrbaum and wife, James Greening and wife, the widow of Cammerhoff, Henry Jorde, John Eric Westmann, Matthew Kuntz and Christian Frederick Post, from among the persons who had come over from Europe as members of the Church; also Ferdinand Fend (Vend), son of '' Kiefer" Fend, of Germantown, and the boy James Noble. Samuel Fockel, of the colony brought over by Henry Jorde, intended to return to Europe with them, but at New York changed his mind and remained. 1749 1755- 26 At Bethlehem, and in the affairs of the Economy throughout, broken ends had to be caught up and tangled threads unraveled. A situation now existed that required stronger external regulation, for the somewhat demoralizing effects of temporary variance between factions, and the presence of numerous elements that were not in sympathetic unity, made it less easy than in previous years, to main- tain the necessary order through mere spontaneous sentiment. An evidence of what appeared necessary in this direction was the decision, in February, 1752, to resuscitate the Richtcr Collegium, explained in the preceding chapter. John Bechtel, David Bishop, John Brownfield and Jasper Payne now constituted this board and were formally inducted by Spangenberg on February 16, with Herr- mann and Pezold as advisory members. The former name, Richtcr Collegium, had been subject to misconception, not only by the public but even by some within the congregation. It was spoken of now for a while as eine Commission — a Board of Commissioners — and finally, in 1754, to indicate more clearly to the English-speaking part of the public and to the civil authorities, what the nature of its functions was, it was given the English name — ofificially used — "Com- mittee for Outward Affairs." In this, one line of internal organi- zation may be traced from the beginning through to the final system that existed, as in all exclusive Moravian Church-settlements, on to the eventual abolition of this system at the middle of the nineteenth century, at Bethlehem — the Gemein-Richter, an individual office, the Richtcr-Collcgiiun, the Commission, the Committee for Outward Affairs, and finally the Aitfschcr Collegium, or Board of Supervisors, which existed until 1851. The general executive board which at different times bore various names, was not only the ultimate local authority, but the board in central control of the whole Economy, or co-operative union, and likewise superintended the entire work in America. It was not until after the dissolution of the Economy that this general executive authority began to be differentiated from the central, local authority, and the latter came to be embodied in a board of purely local executive control and spiritual oversight ; and various functions distributed among a group of organized bodies of somewhat nebulous appearance, when superficially viewed, were concentrated in a smaller number of more clearly defined boards under a simplified arrangement.-*' 20 As a sample of this elaborate and intricate organization, the following array of official bodies, some executive, others merely deliberative, that existed in 1752 may be mentioned: Juenger CoHegium (the highest central authority), Richter Collegium (elucidated above). 264 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, It was a happy turn in season when the exotic administration and whimsical ideas that prevailed at Bethlehem from 1749 to 1751 were succeeded by the influence of men and measures less distinct from their surroundings ; for developments were taking place which left Bethlehem no longer an almost isolated settlement, having no other connection with outside movements and public affairs than that which lay in its general relations to the government of the Province and to the distant Court of Bucks County at Newtown. The foundations of a neighboring town had been laid "at the point" in the Forks of the Delaware, where the plans of the Proprietors for opening up new bodies of land yet lying unoccupied in the upper part of the extensive territory included in Bucks County ; the restive desire of the Scotch- Irish people in the Forks to cut loose from the incompatible Quaker element dominant, with its German support, in the old county, and to have a seat of justice nearer home ; and the political calculations of various parties, with the growing German population of the region to be catered to or manoeuvred against as the case might be, would all have a center at which they might be promoted. The importance Oeconomische Conferenz (conferring on general management), Diaconaf s Conferenz (more strictly financial), Kinder Conferenz (department of children and schools), Chor Conferenzen (on special affairs of the several choir divisions and houses), Diener Conferenz (on various branches of service and attendance — sacristan's corps, culinary department, attention to visitors, strangers, etc.), Kranken- Waerter Conferenz (conferences of nurses, male and female), Handwerker Conferenz (heads of handicrafts), Ackerbau Conferenz (relating to the agricultural department), Heifer Conferenz (advisory to central management giving some opportunity for the representative feature in control), Geinein Rath (more fully representative in deliberation — vox popuH), Polizei Tag (general town-meeting to statedly hear exposition of principles and regulations that concerned all, to disseminate general information on public affairs, to preserve order and correct irregularities and periodically tone up the common morale). The name fuenger Collegium applied to the central authority, being a unique term, requires some elucidation. Juenger, the vi^ell-known equivalent of Disciple in the German Bible, gave Zinzendorf one of his favorite conceptions of religious life and activity expressed by Juengerschaft (discipleship). It came into use in connection with the general directing body in Europe, which received the name Juenger Haus, literally Disciple House (corps or conference of Disciples directing the whole). The word was then attached also to the quarters occupied by this body. This fanciful term was made to imply unwarrantable spiritual prerogatives and exaggerated dignities during the abnormal period that has been described ; but these were set aside, even though the name remained for a while, after the close of John Nitschmann's administration at Bethlehem. Spangenberg did not permit himself to be called Juenger, although at the head. Later, after all this official terminology ceased, this name was exclusively applied — unofficially and harmlessly — to Zinzendorf, merely in the sense of one who lived in very close spiritual communion with his Saviour, cherishing the disposition of a John, the beloved disciple. After his death he was spoken of in reverent affection as " der selige Juenger J^ — the sainted disciple. 1749 1755- 265 of the Moravian settlements was duly considered in all of these designs, from various standpoints, by men of widely different atti- tude towards them. William Parsons, the former Surveyor General of Pennsylvania, who took the leading part in founding the new town, being spoken of now as "the Father of Easton;" who repre- sented the Proprietary interests and filled various important offices at this new center during the first years, was disposed to be anti- German in general, as well as anti-Moravian in particular.-^ This was very acceptable to those men of the region who had looked askance at Bethlehem from the first and now, in forming their plans, proposed to have the importance of the Moravians consist mainly in their usefulness as tax-payers. It was desirable, therefore, that 21 Mr. Parsons, with all his abilities and his energetic services in the early years of Easton which deserved better than that even his grave should be left neglected in after years, and for a time entirely lost sight of, was a man of perverse disposition, in some respects, that marred his relations to people in many directions without real occasion. Apart from the anti-German position which he thought the Proprietary interests he represented demanded •of him, intensified by his irritation at being out-voted several times in the new county, his grudge against that nationality, and his prejudice against the Moravian settlements in the Forks — a prejudice which he tried to impart to Proprietor Penn — had, back of all this, a personal reason, which is not commonly known. His wife was a German woman, Johanna Christiana Zeidig, a niece of the brothers John Henry and Christian Ludwig Sprogel, well known to students of Pennsylvania history. Her almost morbidly emotional and pensive piety, with which he hadneither sympathy nor patience, and which he tried to dispel by alternate ridicule and harshness, led to estrangement between them. When she joined the Moravian Church in Philadelphia, he deserted her and took with him to Lancaster County and finally to Easton, his two youngest daughters, Johanna Grace, later married to Nicholas Garrison, Jr., son of Captain Garrison, and Juliana Sarah, who became the second wife of Timothy Horsfield, Jr., son of Justice Horsfield, of Bethlehem. Both of them, as well as an older daughter, Ann Mary, familiarly known as Molly Parsons, who was married to a Moravian minister, Jacob Rogers, and another daughter, Susan, who died single in Philadelphia, were all members of the Moravian Church. His son Robert, whom he threatened to disinherit for the same reason, and a married daughter, Hanna Warral, both died young in Philadel- phia, receiving the ministrations of the Church. A bitterness possessed him in consequence •of all this that became almost a mania. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand why the Moravian settlements were represented by him in an unfavorable light in official correspon- dence. He never resumed relations to his wife, who continued to live in Philadelphia until after his death, when she removed to Bethlehem, where she died. When, after he had mellowed greatly in his feelings, long recovered from his prejudice against the Moravians, come to cordial terms with them and embraced evangelical faith, his end drew near, he ■desired to have all his family gathered around him. but in that pathetic hour it was loo late for his wife to come from Philadelphia. He died at Easton, December 17, 1757. A simple service was conducted in accordance with his request, by his son-in-law, the Rev. Jacob Rogers, at the funeral, December 19, which was attended by a number of Bethlehem people. Timothy Horsfield, Esq., was executor of his estate. TIMOTHY HORSFIELD (1st) JOHN VALENTINE HAIDT NICHOLAS GARRISON J03EPH OERTER BERNHARD ADAM GRUBE 1749 '755- ^^7 the company intimating that his excellency would be glad to make a stop at Bethlehem if a regular invitation were given. Justice Horsfield and James Burnside, candidate for the Assembly, hastened to Easton to fulfill the formalities of the case, and word was quickly sent to Bishop Spangenberg, who was at Nazareth. The middle of the afternoon, the distinguished visitors were again in Bethlehem. The Governor alighted at Horsfield's ; was then escorted about the place ; through the buildings ; to the terrace on the roof of the Breth- ren's House, where he enjoyed a view of the place and its surround- ings ; into the new church, where the best music Bethlehem could produce was discoursed on the organ and on wind and stringed instruments ; and finally into the old chapel of the Community House, where the best that the larder and cellar afforded was served ; the luncheon being accompanied by the dulcet tones of an improvised orchestra — harp, violins and other instruments. While this was in progress, Spangenberg returned from Nazareth to do the closing honors. The Governor was greatly pleased with this reception, with the thrift and industry manifest on every side and the beautiful appearance of the place. He said that he had not only found all the favorable descriptions of Bethlehem true, but found more that was pleasing than he expected. After a stay of two hours, the party again mounted their horses and rode away. An incident of that first county court-day, bearing upon relations between Bethlehem and Easton, deserves mention in this connection, together with its outcome. Two of the Bethlehem officials, Nathanael Seidel and Andrew Anthony Lawatsch — a new man who had arrived from Europe in May — went to Easton on that day to take up two town lots with a view to securing, betimes, a site for a build- ing and a possible official establishment at the county-seat. It is stated that they were the first to secure the lots they selected, there being a lively scramble. These lots were on Ferry Street. On one of them a building was erected in 1761, which was to be occupied by an organization of single men, and to serve as a preaching-place. On this account it was spoken of later as a Brethren's House.-' It 23 The reasons for abandoning that foot-hold at the county seat are not clear. Captain F.Ellis — Histoi-y of Northaiiipton County, 1877 — erroneously notes this house as built "probably at least as early as 1745," and ascribes the withdrawal of the Moravians to their "strong desire to avoid contact with other communities and peoples," when it was con- cluded to establish the county seat where they had built that house. Deeds for the lot were executed in 1757, and the lines re-established, July 23. 1760. The foundation was staked off, October 8, following. The building was commenced in the spring of 1761, under the 268 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENxNSYLVANlA. was sold by the Bethlehem authorities in 1763. They owned the other Easton lot, a "water lot," until 1793. The first election held in the new county, October i, 1752, which tested the relative strength of the several parties which had formerly competed in Bucks County, resulted in the election of James Burnside as first assembly- man ; he being a Moravian, living near Bethlehem and representing the elements which Mr. Parsons, the opposition-candidate, spoke of as the Quaker party drawing the Germans and at variance with the proprietary interests he assumed to stand for. According to published statistics, Bethlehem Township, at that time, embraced about 600 of the new county's population of about 5900. The Moravian population at the close of 1752 was 578. During the time when these developments were taking shape, some movements of importance afifecting the material interests centering at Bethlehem were quietly in progress, in anticipation of new conditions which would make it desirable to have the properties oversight of Gottlieb Pezold, according to plans by Andrew Hoeger, the Bethlehem architect; timber and boards having been floated down the Lehigh. No Moravian organization was formed there. At the solicitation of Jost VoUert, formerly living south of the Lehigh at Bethlehem, and at this time in Easton — he helped to work at the house — Moravian preach- ing was frequently held from October 30, 1759, on through 1760, in the undenominational log school- and meeting-house, built by Mr. Parsons in 1755 on what was then Pomphret Street, with aid from the '' German Society"; and after the new stone house was completed, it was continued there occasionally until the property was sold, in 1763, to John David Boehringer, formerly of Bethlehem, who appears to have established the first tannery at Easton. Boehringer bought it for the Lutheran congregation, the price being ;i^400 — so says Matthew Henry, History of the Lehigh Valley, who states that the second floor was used as a place of worship, and the lower rooms as a parsonage. Mr. Henry (i860) says the house was at the time of writing " part of the Washington Hotel." Daniel Rupp, in his History of Northampton County, says " it is now (1845) a part of Mr. John Bachman's hotel." Col. Ellis says (1877), "it stood on the site, at present occupied by the new brick and iron block on the west side of Third Street and cornering on the alley next below Ferry Street." The Rev. W. C. Reichel — Cro'vn Inn, (1872) — quotes (p. 41) description of its site as "on a lot bounded east by Pomphret Street, south by lot No. 120, west by a twenty-foot alley, and north by Ferry Street." Frederick Schaus, referred to by Mr. Reichel as doing the mason work — he learned his trade in Bethlehem, in part — was the son of John Adam Schaus, associated with the first ferry and grist-mill at Bethlehem, and with the first tavern south of the Lehigh, who later for a while lived in the neighborhood of Hoeth's farm beyond the Blue mountains, which at one time bore the name Friedensthal ; who then found his way to the new county seat, where the family name again became associated with the entertainment of travelers, Frederick keeping tavern for a season. So much in connection with the first Moravian property, members and ex-members at Easton, for the local anti- quary of the future. 1749 1755- 269 that had been acquired, secured in a satisfactory manner. Purchases had originally been made by individuals acting for the Brethren, and were held by such individuals in their own name ; there being no legal corporation. After April, 1746, the 500 acres on which Beth- lehem was built, the large island in the river and some other lands had been held by three Joint Tenants, Spangenberg, Antes and David Nitschmann, Sr., to whom they had been conveyed through John Okely, Notary and Conveyancer ; he having acquired them through deed (1745) from Antes the original purchaser, and given a declaration of trust. Upon consultation, when Antes removed from Bethlehem, it w^as concluded, for various important reasons, to change this and concentrate these holdings in the hands of one man as individual Proprietor. Father Nitschmann, one of the Joint Tenants, was selected and, the first week in October, 1750, he went to Philadelphia and took out naturalization papers, to qualify him to be a free-holder. November 21, O. S., 1751, Spangenberg and Antes, the other two Tenants, conveyed their nominal shares to him. Thus a system was introduced, in the holding of title to the lands of the Church, that was maintained for more than a hundred years. With this succession of Proprietors were eventually associ- ated Administrators to whom the Proprietors gave the necessary authority to transact business in connection with the real estate. Sometimes, as in the case of the last of the succession, the Proprietor and Administrator were the same. In connection with the beginning of the process, it may be added that in 1757, David Nitschmann executed a will and constituted Bishops Spangenberg and Boehler Executors to sell the properties for his heirs legally inheriting it. After Father Nitschmann's death, in 1758, they made such sale to Nathanael Seidel, who became the next Proprietor, assuming all debts in lieu of purchase money. Thus, at the period now treated of, all the real estate acquired and controlled by the authorities at Beth- lehem, in addition to the Barony of Nazareth, the purchase of which took place in a different manner at the start, was held by the first such Proprietor. The debts figuring in the transaction with Seidel were the incumbrances resting upon the estate in consequence of purchases on credit with security. In this a connection existed with the financial management in Europe, which now brought a new strain upon affairs of a very dilTerent kind from that described in the fore- going pages. That central financial management of the whole, called the General Diaconate, endeavoring to carry all the heavy burdens 2/0 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of the work in all countries with inadequate resources — the income from Zinzendorf's estates, loans by mortgage on some of them, occasional gifts by wealthy friends supplemented by the revenue derived from the several missionary societies organized — had become deeply involved and seriously embarrassed. The immense losses suffered through the disastrous end of the Herrnhaag settlement, lavish and reckless expenditures by those in charge during the period of folly just past, precarious shifts to meet pressing obligations and tide over emergencies, and over-confident manufacturing and com- mercial ventures in England, in the hope of largely increasing revenue — much of this concealed from Zinzendorf, who proceeded without comprehending the real condition of things — brought a crisis in the early part of 1753, when a Jewish banker, with whom the General Diaconate had large monetary transactions, suspended payment and a panic ensued among their creditors. In this crisis, which fully opened Zinzendorf's eyes to the condition of things and came near bringing financial ruin, he unhesitatingly stepped into the breach personally with all his property and credit. Some who could be of similar service stood by him. In spite of the advantage taken of this crisis by hostile parties who proposed to now ruin everything, the Brethren were enabled to adjust matters and prevent a complete crash. The claims of some obdurate creditors — among them a woman who held a lien against the Barony of Nazareth and was inspired to press relentlessly, by the Rev. George Whitefield, who just at this time excitedly joined the pasquil-mongers and printed his most vigorous attack upon Zinzendorf and the Brethren — were purchased by other creditors who agreed to make terms and give the financial managers time to settle. Then the whole system of things was re-organized and put into competent hands. The debts of all kinds that finally accumulated, amounted in the aggregate to far beyond a million of dollars. Half a century was required to completely extinguish this great sum. In March, 1753 — just at the time when the crisis came — Bishop Spangenberg prepared for another journey back to Europe to help plan measures to meet the critical situation, of which he was fully aware, and in anticipation of which, the steps before described to get the real estate at Bethlehem into satis- factory order were taken. He also wished to report and consult on two important matters of 1752 which have not yet been referred to, as well as on numerous details of the general work that could 1749 1755- 271 better be treated through personal interviews than through corre- spondence. One of these matters was the survey of the immense tract of land in North Carolina secured from the Earl of Granville, which received the name Wachovia {die Wachau) from one of the Zinzendorfian estates ; and on which the Moravian settlements in that State were founded. August 25, 1752, Spangenberg had started from Bethlehem for North Carolina with his selected company to undertake the survey. Count Reuss XXVIII, commonly spoken of as Ignatius, a nephew of the Countess Zinzendorf, had been expected in America in connection with this expedition, but plans were changed and he did not come. Spangenberg was accompanied from Beth- lehem by Timothy Horsfield, Herman Loesch, John Merck and Joseph Mueller. At Fredericktown they were joined by Henry Antes, although he had just arisen from a sick-bed, and together they proceeded on their way, making most of the journey on horseback. It required until after New Year to complete their formidable task, in the course of which much sickness, privation and hardship were experienced. Spangenberg got back to Bethlehem, February 12, 1753. The other matter alluded to was the suspended project of building the villages of Gnadenhoeh and Gnadenstadt on the Nazareth domain, as residence-places for families, different from the kind of institutional arrangement existing at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gnadenthal, Christiansbrunn and Friedensthal ; completing thus the original scheme of six centers on the Nazareth land on a more elaborate scale than was at first proposed. The start made with founding these villages has been referred to. When Spangenberg returned from North Carohna he not only observed that the zeal for these undertakings had waned somewhat, but prudently concluded, in the light of the latest correspondence from Europe, that the financial outlook did not warrant any headlong movements. During March, 1753, there were numerous official consultations on these things and on aflfairs arising out of the new county organization. Antes was in Bethlehem at these meetings, March 16-24, and helped to form further plans for securing the Church property against any sudden adverse turn; to sketch a scheme for occupying the North Carolina land; and to frame a petition to the Assembly for relief from what was felt to be an oppressive principle of taxation applied to the Economy, but which the County Commissioners declined to relax, because they held that technical constraint bound them. 2/2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Successive representations to the Court of Appeals were unavailing and in pursuance of legal counsel, the assessments were paid under protest and an appeal finally taken to the Assembly.^'* Several church councils were held at which all of the communicant members were assembled to hear what it was deemed expedient to publish at that time about all of these precarious matters ; to also hear the ad interim management arranged for the time of Spangen- berg's absence, the suspension of plans on the Nazareth land, and the measures urged to be able to proceed on a self-sustaining basis as nearly as possible. Spangenberg then went to New York, on March 26, preparatory to sailing for Europe. The Irene was lying at New York where Captain Garrison was getting her ready for the seventh voyage.-^ 24 Their main contention was in reference to the taxes assessed on the large number of single men individually. It was claimed that they should not be taxed personally, on the basis of the valuation put on the properties of their establishments and the magnitude of the agricultural and manufacturing operations in which they were jointly engaged, because they were not part owners, enjoyed no share of any profits, received no wages, but merely got their subsistence from the common store, giving all their labor to a common cause, which was not for the material aggrandizement of any individual or body of individuals, but for benevolent and charitable objects in the furtherance of evangelistic work. It was argued that they should be taxed jointly as large families in their several houses. This was met by the opponents in two ways. Some flatly refused to believe these statements. This, of course, was no argument, and was not to be reasoned with. Others took the position, that, if such was the case, the organization for which they labored was under obligation to pay the individual taxes for them as a part of the body of current expenses necessarily in- volved ; and that the law had nothing to do with the question of what was done with the proceeds. The position taken by the courts seems to have been that the plea made in behalf of the single men could only be admitted if they stood on the basis of indentured "servants," like "redemptioners "; and this was not the case. This question continued to be agitated for some years. Their contention had been admitted by the court of Bucks County, and they had been thus taxed as family establishments. It is on record that the amount of such tax collected from the single Brethren in April, 1753, was £-jt„ while the taxes of the whole County, with its population of over 6000, was slightly more than ^300. So the new county managed to make the Moravian settlements rather profitable, while Parsons was declaring them "detrimental to its prosperity." 25 Two companies had arrived from Europe on the Irene since Spangenberg's return to America, December, 1751. Returning from her fifth voyage. May 17, 1752, she brought, besides the Rev. Andrew Anthony Lawatsch, with his wife Anna Maria; the Rev. Jacob Rogers, a widower ; Francis Boehler, later ordained, and his wife Anna Catherine ; Rosina Pfahl, a widow, and Margaret Wernhamer, a single woman. They were accompanied by the faithful and valuable steward, David Wahnert, who was now a widower. After another voyage on the Irette, ]\\\y 6 to November 20, 1752, he was married at Bethlehem, January 29, 1753, to Rosina Pfahl, who then accompanied him on the next voyage in April, 1753. 1749 1755- 273 Spangenberg had hoped to have some leisure, after getting away from Bethlehem, to dispose of a mass of important writing before the ship sailed, that he had no time for during the preceding extremely busy weeks, and was much disconcerted when he found everything in readiness to leave. Just then a letter came to him from Zinzendorf intimating that, as matters then were, he might delay until after Easter if he preferred. So he let the Irene sail-*^ without him and, while the people at Bethlehem supposed he was on the ocean, he retired to a house in the vicinity of New York, where he quietly finished his voluminous report on the North Carolina plans, and other writing, and did much thinking on affairs, that had not been possible in the whirl of the previous weeks. On April 20, he preached the Good Friday sermon in New York and directly after the service hurried aboard the ship on which he had engaged passage. After his departure, yet other important conferences on the financial situation were held by Bishop Matthew Hehl, who now took his place ; Nathanael Seidel, Herrmann and Lawatsch, the temporary Board of Wardens ; Nicholas Henry Eberhardt who had come over in December, 1751, and now temporarily took Pezold's place as Warden of the single men ; Antes, Horsfield and Okely ; these being principally the men who had to worry with the uncertain problems of the hour. One such session, May 25 to 28 — during which When the vessel returned to New York from her sixth voyage, November 20, 1752, she had on board John Toeltschig, vs^ho had been one of the early Georgia colonists, and Anna Johanna Piesch, daughter of John George Piesch, the conductor of the First Sea Congre- gation, grand-daughter of Father Nitchmann and later the wife of Nathanael Seidel. She had charge of seventeen single women. Johanna Dorothea Miller, wife of the printer Henry Miller, and a certain widow Schultz, were also passengers, and, as stated, David Wahnert was again along as steward. The single women were the following : Beyer, Anna Maria, Klingelstein, Margaret Catharine, Ruch, Catherine, Dietz, Maria Catherine, Mann, Anna, Schuster, Felicitas, Ebermeyer, Maria Margaret, Meyer, Maria Agnes, Seidner, Margaret Barbara, Gaupp, Dorothea, Morhardt. Christina, Sperbach, Johanna Rebecca, Gerhardt, Catherine, Neumann, Regina, Waeckler, Juliana. Heyd, Inger, Redelerburg, Helena, 26 The company that sailed in the I)'ene were John Toeltschig and Anna Johanna Piesch, returning ; Samuel Krause and wife, now also leaving Pennsylvania ; David Wahnert, the steward and his wife ; Judith, widow of the missionary Abraham Meinnung ; Gottlieb Pezold, who was to bring a large colony of single men to Pennsylvania ; Dorothea Bechtel, a daughter of John Bechtel; Bally Noble, a girl, and the young men Jacob Adolph and William Okely, the latter a sailor and ship's-carpenter who was with the crew of the Irene on several voyages. 19 2/4 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM. PENNSYLVANIA. time Antes remained in Bethlehem — was occasioned by the receipt of a letter from Bishop Jo4in de Watteville in reference to the extensive credit-system that had been carried on and now rendered the crisis the more critical; stating what steps had thus far been taken, and expressing concern about the credit in Pennsylvania, where the difficulties in Europe had become known and a panic was imminent. After mature deliberation, all the communicant members at Bethlehem were summoned and were told how matters stood, de Watteville's letter was read to them, and they were called upon to manifest united loyalty. At the conclusion of the conference. Antes and Lawatsch started for Philadelphia, followed later by Father Nitschmann, Joseph Mueller, Hermann. Horsfield and Okely, to have interviews with the men who had made loans in this country, to explain the entire situation, so far as they could at that time, and correct erroneous and exaggerated reports that had gotten afloat, when the news of the failure of Gomez Serra, the banker, and the connection of the General Diaconate of the Church with him first reached Philadelphia. They succeeded in allaying the excitement and the creditors had sufficient confidence to wait. At another such conference in June, yet fuller explanations were made to the people at Bethlehem, and it was decided to give every one an opportunity to express his views and wishes on the question of standing by the Economy, and continuing to serve on the basis hitherto maintained. They Vv^ere reminded that, while they were important producers for the general cause, their transportation and keeping had occasioned a considerable part of the great debt that had accumulated. They were asked to devote themselves anew to the task of helping to bear the common burden, and to be ready for yet more plain and frugal living for a season. In addition to these trying financial circumstances, the outlook for the harvest of that year was by no means promising. In that, and the two following years there was a very general failure of crops throughout Pennsylvania, succeeding several years of plenty. The spirit manifested by the people generally, in response to this appeal, was highly gratifying, and when the intimation was given that if any preferred to sever their connection with the Economy under this test, they should feel at liberty to do so and might go in peace, no disposi- tion to withdraw was apparent. The sensations set afloat by these circumstances attracted new attention to Bethlehem in business circles and among civil officers, not onlv in Pennsvlvania, but also in 1749 1755- 275 New Jersey and New York. INIany men of prominence visited the place during the summer of 1753, either to inspect the situation and talk with the officials in order to form a better judgment about matters from a business point of view, or to merely gratify awakened curiosity. Among other visitors noted in June, was "Mr. John Penn, the son of Richard Penn, one of the Proprietors, with two gentlemen who looked about Bethlehem with pleasure." In September, besides many others referred to, were "a number of gentlemen from Phila- delphia, among them the Director of the Academy, Mr. Allison, and two of his colleagues." Merchants from New York and Philadelphia and a number of sea captains were among the visitors. In June, 1753, three weeks after Bishop Spangenberg reached England, Bishop Peter Boehler sailed, with his wife, for America on the Irene to take Spangenberg's place until the end of the year, and oversee the further work of settlement with creditors in Pennsylvania, in harmony with the policy and method which had been instituted in England. Boehler was not only fully acquainted with the plans of the hour and possessed of more than ordinary ability in such matters, but had been one of those who deplored the heedless methods of the preceding few years and raised his voice against various measures and ventures, to the displeasure of those who were running things down the road to ruin. He landed at New York, September 9. They were accompanied by two married couples, Jacob and Elizabeth Till, and George Stephen Wolson and his wife Susan Rebecca, with David Wahnert, the steward, and his wife, again in attendance. Besides these, there came, under the leadership of Gottlob Koenigsdoerfer, a colony of twenty-three single men, to engage in the service of the Church in various ways. It was, on the whole, a body of superior men. Nine of them had studied at universities, and some others were men of considerable education. They added eight men to the educated ministry, while several more of good natural abilities joined the ranks of the assistant missionaries. There were also a surgeon, a surveyor and an experienced scrivener among them, while nine other trades were represented.-' Bishop Boehler reached Bethlehem, September 13, and, after protracted consultations with Antes, Horsfield, Okely and others, 27 Jacob and Elizabeth Till also entered the ministry, engaging at first, with great zeal and faithfulness in the work among the children. The university men later best known in the ministry among those in the list which follows, were Friis, Krogstrup, Rusmeyer and Soelle. The surgeon was Kalberlahn, who later went to North Carolina, and the surveyor was 276 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. applied himself to the difficult task before him. The formal com- mission and guarantees he brought with him, the detailed statements he was able to make, together with his own personal standing in Philadelphia, eventually restored confidence and enabled him to so arrange matters with the creditors, wdio had agreed to wait only to the end of the year before foreclosing, that everything was gotten into order and the properties of the Church were secured. While engaged with these things, he also held a Synod in November, to deliberate on such matters as required the attention of all who were engaged in church work at that time. Furthermore, on October 8, the first colony of thirteen men — some from among those who arrived with Boehler — started for North Carolina to found a settle- ment on the new domain of Wachovia. At that time another project of some extent, which however was never consummated, began to engage attention at Bethlehem. Just before Spangenberg sailed for Europe, a proposition came to him by a company which owned about fifty thousand acres of land in New York, to give four thousand acres and sell seven thousand additional acres at a very low figure, to the Moravian Church to found a settle- ment. The land lay in Ulster County, a short distance east of the Delaware River between the Minnisinks and Schoharie. In May, after Spangenberg's departure, men were appointed to inspect the tract and send a report to Europe. This report was such that, not- withstanding the financial embarrassment of the time, it was con- cluded to investigate the proposition further. Boehler had been requested to give attention to it, but the early beginning of a severe winter prevented him from visiting the neighborhood. When Bishop David Nitschmann returned to America the following year, he was commissioned to take the matter in hand. May 2, 1754, he started Golkowsky, Krause was a butcher, and the first of the line of that name who have conducted the business at Bethlehem. The following is the complete list : Backhof, Ludolph Gottlieb, Juergensen, Jacob, Baehrmeyer, Christopher Henry, Kalberlahn, Hans Martin, Beyer, Frederick, Krause, Henry, Daehne, Ludwig Christopher, Krogstrup, Otto Christian, . Eyerie, Jacob, Lemmert, Joseph, Fabricius, George Christian, Rusmeyer, Albrecht Ludolf, Friis, Jacob, Soelle, George, Golkowsky, George Wenzeslaus, Toellner, Christian Frederick, Haberland, Joseph, Wedsted, Christian, Herr, Jacob, Weicht, Peter, Hunt, Samuel, Worbass, Peter, Ziegler, Curtins Frederick. 1749 1755- 277 from Bethlehem with David Zeisberger for Ulster County to select a site for a settlement. On that day, thirty years before, he and the other "Moravian churchmen" had started from Zauchtenthal, the old Moravian home of the Nitschmanns and Zeisberg-ers, on the pilgrimage which led them to Herrnhut, and this suggested the idea of calling the new settlement Zauchtenthal. Further visits and negotiations with the owners followed and progressed so far that, at the end of November, what promised to be mutually satisfactory terms and forms of deeds for the land had been agreed to, and Bishop Nitschmann had arranged to take up his residence there and open the settlement, for which elaborate plans had been made. Then a closer inspection of the land revealed that the variety of uses tO' which it could be put was too limited to meet the stipulations, on the part of the owners, that had been accepted, and at last the scheme collapsed. A new individual offer of another tract in that region by Mr. Livingston, one of the company, was taken into consideration the next summer, but nothing came of it. A more promising opening was at that time being taken advantage of. This was the donation, by George Klein, of his entire farm at Warwick, in Lancaster County, where a little congregation had existed since 1749. On that body of land, first offered in 1753, the important settlement of Lititz was founded under the superintendence of Bishop Matthew Hehl, who had been Bishop Spangenberg's coadjutor at Bethlehem. This settlement, which was planned to be more fully one of separate homes than Bethlehem and the Nazareth places had been, and at which no such arrangements as the Economy of these places was ever instituted, not only diverted attention from the opening in Ulster County, New York, but took the place of the proposed villages of Gnadenhoeh and Gnadenstadt on the Nazareth land. Bishop Spangenberg got back to Bethlehdm, April 22, 1754; having arrived at New York on the Irene on the 15th. The record states that the return of "Brother Joseph"^^ to Pennsylvania caused great joy at Bethlehem. Besides a number of other persons, Bishop David Nitschmann accompanied him, after an absence of more than 28 This name by which Spangenberg was commonly known then and on lo the end of his life— he often used it himself signing his name even officially ''Joseph, alias Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg " — was a metonymy first applied to him by Zinzendorf, substituting the sacred Bible name for Augustus, which had radically the same meaning. In his provision for the sustenance of so many dependent upon his wise fore-thought and good management at Bethlehem, he was compared to Joseph, the provider in Egypt. 2/8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. four years, to pass the rest of his Hfe in America. Like Spangen- berg,-^ he was at this time a widower.^" There were others of note among the passengers : the Rev. John Ettwein, with his wife Joanetta Maria and his infant son Christian — the zealous superintendent of work among the children, the inde- fatigable itinerant, the commanding spirit at Bethlehem during the Revolution, and then the bishop of such extensive acquaintance and correspondence with public men ; the Rev. Francis Christian Lembke, a widower, the accomplished schoolman a«id preacher who became the pastoral head at Nazareth the next year ; John Valentine Haidt, with his wife Catherine, less known as a minister than as a painter of pictures in oil, whose numerous scenes from the Saviour's passion and portraits of prominent Moravians remain, both in Europe and America, as mementos of those days — his studio was in the Horsfield house at Bethlehem for a season, and nearly all the oil portraits in the Church archives are his work ; Andrew Hoeger the architect and building-inspector who rendered important service at Bethlehem ; the Rev. Christian Thomas Benzien, with his wife Anna Maria and his two children Anna Benigna and Christian Lewis — worn and broken by the harassing ordeal of the financial crisis in England during which he had to bear a heavy load. The Rev. Paul Daniel Bryzelius, with his wife and three children, were also passengers. But the most interesting name in the company was that of Hecke- welder. The parents, David and Regina Heckewelder, subsequently joined the missionary force in the West Indies. Their children were John, David, Christian and Mary. The name of John Heckewelder, Indian missionary, linguist and archaeologist, founder of settlements, government agent and man of afifairs, figures in the Bethlehem 29 Spangenberg was married again at Bethlehem, May 19, 1754. His second wife was a widow who had been engaged in official work among her sex in Europe, Mary Elizabeth Miksch, m.n. Jaehne. She was one of the passengers with him on the Irene. He later called her his " Martha," and she came to be known by this name so exclusively that it has often been taken by writers to have been her real name. She was an excellent woman and of great value to him as an assistant. Spangenberg left no issue by either marriage. 30 Bishop Nitschmann's wife Rosina died at Marienborn, near Herrnhaag, August 10, 1753. Intending to locate m Ulster Co., N. Y., at the head of the projected settlement, Zauchten- thal, he married , again, .September 7, 1754, at Bethlehem. His second wife was Mary Barbara Martin, m.n. Leinbach, widow of Frederick Martin, missionary bishop in the West Indies. They had a daughter, Anna Mary, who became the wife of Christian Heckewelder, brother of the celebrated missionary John Heckewelder, both of whom were among the boys of the company that arrived on the Irene in April, 1754. 1749- •1755- 279 records until his death in 1823. As missionary and master of Indian languages and traditions, his name stands second, in the Moravian Church, only to that of David Zeisberger. Captain Garrison was accompanied by his wife on this voyage, and his son Nicholas Garrison, Jr., was again with the crew, who this time were exclusively Moravian sailors. Christian Jacobsen, later Captain of the Irene, was again along; also Andrew^ Schoute, one of the most useful and interesting men in this service ; William Edmonds who served as ship's cook, later inn-keeper, shop-keeper, county officer and Assem- blyman, and the Norwegian sailor, Jost Jensen, who later was inn- keeper at Bethlehem. Dr. John Michael Schmidt, subsequently apothecary at Lancaster and (1757) at Lititz, and three young women, with David Wahnert, the veteran steward and his wife were also on board. Returning from her ninth voyage, on November 16, the Irene brought Gottlieb Pezold back to America with the large colony of single men he had gone to bring over. He was accompanied .by the missionary Christian Frederick Post, who had gone to Europe in 1 75 1, and the next year was with the unsuccessful missionary expedition to Labrador. A sturdy company of farmers and mechanics was now added to the membership, in the arrival of this colony. They represented no less than sixteen trades. One person of special interest was Samuel Johannes, the one jNIalabar convert of the Mora- vian Church from the Island of Ceylon, who was taken to Europe in 1742, was baptized at Marienborn and died at Bethlehem in 1763. Some of these young men were had in view for the new settlement in North Carolina and for that to be foimded in Warwick Township, Lancaster Countv.^^ 3' The following is the list Anspach, Nicholas, Anst, Gottfried, Bagge, Lawrence, Bailey, Joseph (?), Bulitschek, Joseph, Coeln, Nicholas, Colckier, Jens, Cramer, Adam, Conrad, Melchior, Delfs, Detlef, Diemer, Franz Christopher, Dreyspring, Carl Joseph, of names for reference : Dust, Gottfried, Ernst, Jacob, Fischer, Caspar, Francke, August Henry, Friebele, Christian, Funck, Hans Nicholas, Giers, Joseph, Gruenewald, John Henry, Gimmele, Matthias, Plassfeldt, John Adam, Huepsch, Joseph, Jag, John, Johannes, Samuel, Klein, John, Kloetz, Christopher, Koffler, Adam, Kriegbaum, John George, Kuerschner, Christopher, Kunz, David, Lenzner, John Henry, Linstroem, Michael, Miksch, John Matthew, Meisser, Henry George, Nielsen, Lawrence, 280 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The course of events in Europe altered many previous plans and led to new ones in America also, some of which were carried out while others were not. Among the latter was no less a scheme than that which Count Zinzendorf, as clearly appears, entertained quite seriously for a while, when, after the storm of financial trouble lulled, and he was preparing to leave England where he had his residence for some time, he thought of coming to Pennsylvania again and establishing himself here, a project alluded to in a previous chapter. This thought, which at one time took sufficiently definite shape that details were already being considered at Bethlehem, brought about an enterprise on the Nazareth land that did not remain merely on paper, like those two projected villages, but, even though Zinzendorf did not return to Pennsylvania, resulted in the erection of an imposing building which remains standing, the most conspicuous edifice in the vicinity and richest in historic associations. At the general meeting of the people in March, 1753, before Bishop Spangenberg started for Europe, when the suspension of operations in founding Gnad- enhoeh was spoken of, he intimated that the site had in view for it might be utilized for the "JucngcrJimis''^- the building of which had been under consideration. The favorable location of the site "in the midst of the group of other places" was pointed out and the collection of some building material at the spot preparatory to the founding of the village, that might be made use of, was referred to. The outcome of the enterprise thus mooted may be here given. At another Church Council on November 18, 1754, Spangenberg stated that the "Disciple" — Dcr Jucnger, i. e. Zinzendorf — now needed a house to dwell in, with his little company, for things had come so far that he might be expected in Pennsylvania, and timely provision should be made. He added that a site between Bethlehem and Naz- areth was at one time had in view but could not be secured,^^ and then another between Nazareth (Old Nazareth) and Gnadenthal had been proposed — the site eventually selected. Ollendorf, Carl, Schindler, George, Weinecke, Carl, Petersen, Hans, Sproh, Christian, Willy, Joseph, Ring, Philip Henry, Stiemer, Anton, Wittenberg, Jens, Rohleder, Martin, Stark, John George, Wuertele, John, Saxon, Samuel, Stettner, John, Zillman, Henry. Schenk, Martin, Thorp, Edward, 32 On this word see note 19, this chapter. 33 The plan to secure a tract, on which it was thought for a while such a manor house might be built, between Bethlehem and Nazareth and the new county seat, on the proprietary manor of Fermor — so named by Thomas Penn in honor of the maiden name of his wife, the 1749 1755- 28i Spangenberg stated, furthermore, at that meeting, that Zinzendorf had been written to about this site between Nazareth and Gnaden- thal and was agreed that his house should be built there, provided that it did not bind him exclusively to Nazareth, in view of the special attention he desired to devote to certain features of the work at Bethlehem also. When it was suggested that if the enterprise were vmdertaken energetically and building material gotten together dur- ing the approaching winter, the erection of the house could easily be accomplished the next year, general willingness was cheerfully expressed. Already on December 3, a site for the proposed manor house was selected at the place referred to. On the 8th, the building committee was announced and the statement was made that this house would be planned to contain the central place of worship for the people on all parts of the Nazareth domain, in addition to the provisions for separate services by the several colonies at their respective places ; such a common place of assembly having been one of the features had in view in planning the village of Gnadenhoeh. Zinzendorf changed his mind and, after he broke up his establishment in England and returned to the continent in March, 1755, concluded to retire to Herrnhut and remain there ; but with these plans and movements on the Barony that had been the property of his wife, the Countess Erdmuth Dorothea who, not long after this — June 19, 1756 — departed this life at Herrnhut, the history of Nazareth Hall lady Juliana — was evidently thwarted by the opposition of William Parsons who strongly represented to Penn, the undesirability of permitting this tract or any part of the so-called " dry lands " falling into the hands of the Moravians, even though it was all for sale and hard to sell on account of the absurd supposition that it was worthless; and, much as he dis- liked the '' Dutchmen" who were coming into the neighborhood to locate farms, the lesser prejudice gave way to the greater in his mind and he advocated selling it oft' to them in smaller parcels. The matter of the acquisition of land between Bethlehem and Nazareth to complete a connection between the domains, had been under consideration from 1743. In that year Zinzendorf, who had also gotten the current bad opinion of the *' dry lands," writing in a letter about the practice of granting proprietary lands gratuitously for opening highways and about applying to Thomas Penn for a strip of this land for such purpose, observes that €ven if a strip of this •' barren and worthless " land a mile in width were given for a road, it would be of little consequence to the Proprietary. This remark gave rise to the absurd statement which has been put into print as history, that Zinzendorf projected a road a mile wide, from Bethlehem to Nazareth. At a later time, patents held by the authorities at Beth- lehem, to certain parcels in this neighborhood, led to disagreeable complications with their conveyancer, John Okely, when he used his position to further his private plans to the detriment of the common interest. It led to litigation and Okely's removal from Bethlehem and severance of all connection with the Church, in 1788. 282 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. begins — this name being applied to the intended Zinzendortian manor house the first time in the records on October 25, 1756. A company of single men went up to Christiansbrunn, December 17, 1754, and, joined by a number of those who lived there, began to quarry stone and fell timber for the building. Ground was broken for the foundation on April i, and, May 3, 1755, the corner-stone was laid with elaborate services, attended by all the people of Bethlehem and the Nazareth places who could be present. A lengthy document in Latin prepared by the learned Nazareth minister, the Rev. Francis Christian Lembke, was deposited in the stone, with various other manuscripts, the principal of which were the following: an ode by Bishop Matthew Hehl which embodied the names of all the Moravian congregations, missions and preaching-places in America ; hymns composed for the occasion — some of them sung — by Lembke, by John Michael Graff and John Ettwein who represented the department of work among the children, and by George Neisser, Christian Frederick Oerter and Anna Maria Beyer; verses composed in Indian languages by missionaries representing this field of activity — by Bernhard Adam Grube, in the Delaware tongue, and by John Jacob Schmick and George Christian Fabricius, a student of Indian language at Gnaden- huetten, in Mohican. The copies deposited in the stone had inter- linear translations. Besides all this, there was a catalogue of 1034 persons, who on that date were counted as connected with the General Economy, wherever stationed or employed, including all the Indians then under the care of its missionaries and all the children, both of members and others, in the several institutions with their overseers and teachers ; the offices of all who held positions being carefully noted. Not the least interesting feature of the occasion was the address of Bishop Peter Boehler at the lovefeast, held in the after- noon at the "stone house" (Whitefield House), in which he enter- tained the assembly with historical reminiscences of the locality, from the time when he led the first band of pioneers to the place in 1740. The walls of the new building were laid up to the top of the first story at the end of June and on August 31, the masonry was finished to the eaves of the roof. When Boehler left, on September 18, to sail from New York, he expressed his delight at seeing the frame-work of the roof raised, and being able to report the building as nearing completion when he reached Europe. But it was not finished until more than a year after this, and was first dedicated, November 13, 1756. The panic of the awful November of 1755, interrupted the 1/49 1755 283 rapidly progressing work, and during the months of terror that ensued, it was entirely suspended. Meanwhile another commodious structure, one of the most substantial in the group, had been erected at Bethlehem in 1754. This was the large stone house that stood until 1869 on the site of the present Moravian Publication Office and of the building adjoining it to the north. It was variously known at different periods as the "men's house," the "boys' institute," the "new children's house" — when the turreted building on Church Street was known as the old one — the "family house" and the "economy house." Originally it was intended to afford better quarters for a considerable number of married men who, under the make-shift necessities of that time, when dwelling apartments for separate families were yet very Hmited, had to be thus arranged in large room companies, while their wives occupied several rooms in another house. Part of the building was designed also for such separate family dwellings. It was, further- more, to contain more w^orking room for the increased number needed of such artisans as shoe-makers and tailors, the work-shops in the Brethren's House being over-crowded. At the same time it was to enable the authorities to provide more satisfactory accom- modations for the large number of boys who were to take possession of the rooms before this occupied by the men. This is why this stone building was, at first, called simply the men's house. The project of building such a house had been broached by Spangenberg already in Alarch, 1753. A few weeks later it was discussed at a general meeting, when it was proposed to construct it with two main entrances, one for this body of men and for access to the workshops, the other to lead into the part designed for family dwellings. On April 2, the plans having been finished, the foundation lines were staked off. In June, w^hen it appeared that it could not be proceeded with on account of the harvest and other pressing work, it w'as decided to merely lay up the walls of the cellar that had been excavated, so it should not cave in if left during the following wanter. Thus it remained until the spring of 1754. Having been completed during the summer, it was formally taken possession of on September 30. A procession was formed at the Community House, headed by Bishops Spangenberg and David Nitschmann, with Father Xitschniann walking between them, and they were greeted by a band of music stationed on the balcony that extended along the east side of the new building. ^Matthew Schropp, as 284 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Warden of the house, met them at the door and escorted them in, and then a lovefeast was held. That building which had a history in connection with school-work and with the military occupation of Bethlehem during the Revolutionary War, is remembered by many as one of the plain, solid structures of the olden time which helped to give the place "a foreign look." The character of the work done by the old Bethlehem builders was tested in the hard labor it cost to THE FAMILY HOUSE, 1754-1869. demolish the structure. It was sixty by thirty feet in dimensions and three stories high. The large attic floor was lighted by dormer windows. It had two front entrances with passages running through the house. There were corresponding passages in the second story with communication at the rear by means of the balcony on the east side, from which doors opened into the passages. On the first floor the entire north section was used as a shop by the cabinet- makers and joiners. The corresponding south section, front to rear, was the shoe-makers' shop. In the middle section were the Warden's room and a conference room. The second story, middle and north sections, was cut into four dwelling rooms and the south section was 1/49 1755- 285 left in one large room for any purpose for which it might be needed. The third story was used as a dormitory, in sections and the attic floor contained clothing and store rooms. It had a cellar with massive vaulted masonry along the west side, towards the street, and the east half of the basement was used as the linen-weaving room. But a large part of it was soon turned to another use. The home and school for boys needed more space. The room in the Brethren's House had to be vacated and the quarters in the log house, to the west of the Community House, then in use by them, were insuffi- cient. The other log house, west of that, at the end of which the water tower — familiar from extant pictures — was built, was uncomfortable and unsuitable for the purpose to which it was then being devoted — hospital quarters for women and rooms for the accommodation of mothers with infants. The men were ready at once to cheerfully surrender their commodious rooms in the new building, for the comfort of wives and children was in question. On February 20, 1755, it became the "boys' institute." The boys moved into the new stone house, the invalid women, the nursing mothers and the several widows who lived with them as nurses and attendants, were trans- ferred to the inner log house near the Community House which the boys had just left, and the company of men established their quarters in the less desirable outer log house — the water tower building. These changes which involved the moving of a hundred and sixty-live persons with their effects, including, in part, even beds, were accom- plished in twelve hours on February 20. A chain of incidents like these reveals the kind of system and arrangements that had to be resorted to under the circumstances of that time. It may be men- tioned, in connection with these references to institutional and private dwelling arrangements, that on May 2, 1755 — the day before the corner-stone of Nazareth Hall was laid — the widows of the Economy who had to frequently shift their common quarters to accommodate themselves to changing arrangements, with the exception of several who filled special positions at Bethlehem, all removed to Nazareth and took possession of the better of the two original log houses built in 1740 — that which is yet standing. This became the home for the widows of Bethlehem and Nazareth until the large stone building on Church Street was erected for this pur- pose in 1768. During the summer of 1754 plans began to take definite shape for adding another important building, a tavern on the north 286 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. side of the river, "not too near to Bethlehem nor yet too far away."' This need began to be spoken of as early as 1747, when the frequent difiicnlty experienced in conveying travelers across to the Crown Inn at night in bad weather, or when the water was high, led to the consideration of the subject. On July 10, 1754, it was first formally discussed by a general meeting of men. This difficulty was again spoken of, and it was remarked that the prevalent ideas of hos- pitality to strangers required that courtesies should be shown to trav- elers who wished to pass the night at Bethlehem, and that this w^as often a very difficult and perplexing matter under existing arrange- ments, because there were hardly any private family homes that could ofifer such accommodation. It was observed also that one of their neighbors, "a man of some standing," had declared his inten- tion to open a tavern quite near the Bethlehem line, if one was not soon erected by the authorities of the place. This was probably their neighbor eastward, John Jones, who had been appointed constable of the township to succeed Anton Albrecht, who removed to Phillips- burg. A committee of six was appointed to select a site. On July 16, they reported to the Church Council a site "on the road to the brick sheds, opposite the stone quarry at the Monocacy." It was proposed "to open the road to Easton right across the field, so that it would lead to the tavern, and to vacate the road hitherto running across the Bethlehem line and forming an elbow; this to be presented to Court for approval." The report was adopted. Further steps were then postponed. It was decided to proceed first with the erec- tion of Nazareth Hall. Besides this, in February, 1755, wdien this conclusion was reached, the necessity of enlarging the grain-growing area at Bethlehem by grubbing and cleaning fifty acres of new land south of the Lehigh in time for spring ploughing, called for a num- ber of laborers. The great scarcity of grain was being felt. A thousand bushels had been bought during the winter in addition to what had been raised on all the farms, and much more was needed before the next harvest. Thus the building of the Inn was delayed, and when it might otherwise have been begun, the demoralizing ordeal of the Indian war occasioned further postponement, so that it was not proceeded with until 1758. It wull be referred to again in another chapter. At the time when this enterprise was first being seriously consid- ered, the increase of travel through Bethlehem, and of visitors from all parts, in consequence of the establishment of the county-seat at 1749 1755- 28/ Easton and of highways from there to different points in the country that were being opened up and developed, led to the more frequent consideration of various matters involved in relations to the public by the Bethlehem authorities. Thus in the autumn of 1754, two inci- dents, in connection with the growth of communication and traffic by land and water, occurred that deserve mention. The first was of some importance in the topography of the region ; the second was interesting merely as an episode of local enterprise. On September 26, the records refer to the order of the Provincial Council to the authorities of Northampton County to lay out a road from Easton to Reading, in the new County of Berks ; and to an inquiry on the part of the county autharities addressed to the board at Bethlehem in regard to their preference in the matter of its course past the town. It was not deemed desirable to have the highway pass near the cen- tral establishments, even so near as along the line on which the store stood — the present Market Street. Therefore, two propositions were favored and referred to a committee to be formulated. One was to direct its course, in approaching Bethlehem from the east, so that it would pass along the foot of the hill, south towards the river, where the Indian cabins of Friedenshuetten had stood, and thence to the ferry. The other was to run it along the northern line beyond the site chosen for the projected tavern, there turning southward — the present Main Street — to the ferry, and to adapt the proposed change of roads intended to suit the establishment of the public house at that point, to the larger plan of this new highway. The latter proposi- tion was adopted and on October 15, 1755, it is stated that Justice Horsfield went to Easton to help lay out "the King's Road to Read- ing." The dire events that caused a long suspension of this enter- prise, as well as of the tavern building, opened, like the burst of a tornado, a little more than a month after this beginning was made. The other incident alluded to was an experiment in river naviga- tion from Bethlehem to Philadelphia made in 1754. On July 10, the same day on which the building of the tavern was discussed, the project was broached in the general Church Council, of building a boat to run down the river with products for the Philadelphia market and return with wares for the store and other purchases. Two sailors from the Irene, Andrew Schoute and Peter Brink, with the negroes, Anthony and Thomas, were appointed to explore the channel from Bethlehem to Philadelphia when the water was low, noting obstruc- tions and tracing a course over the falls. A flat-boat was built, pro- 288 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. vided with two masts to carry what was thought would be adequate sail. The rigging was constructed by Schoute and Brink, with the assistance of two other sailors of the Irene, Peter Drews and Lam- bert Garrison. The launch at the Bethlehem boat-yard, where the several ferry flats had been built, took place on September 27. The school boys were given a holiday, and they helped to haul it on roll- ers to the water. When it was floated, some of the officials of Beth- lehem were taken a little way down the river on a trial trip. The record states that seven men and seven women, accompanied by seven boat-builders and sailors, were on board. Meanwhile, Father Nitschmann served a luncheon on shore to the boys who had helped to tug at the ropes. He and they all then boarded the boat — fifty- six boys and eleven men — and sailed up and down the stream, sing- ing hymns. The record states that with the first load, the boat drew nine, and with the second load, eleven inches of water. At the sug- gestion of Bishop Spangenberg, the favorite name Irene was given this Delaware boat, and she was then referred to as the "Little Irene,'' in distinction from the larger Moravian ship that ploughed the Atlantic. This gala-day was closed with the harvest-home ban- quet held on the square between the Community House and the Sis- ters' House. Instrumental music was rendered from the balcony in front of the turreted building in which the boarding-school for girls was then domiciled, and the smaller girls gathered in the doorway and passage and sang hymns. The history of the Little Irene is brief. On November 6, she started down the Lehigh on her first trip to Philadelphia with a load of linseed oil, in command of Schoute, with several assistants. They reached the city and delivered their cargo, but on November 16, they returned to Bethlehem without the boat. It was too broad to be gotten up stream past the falls, and was left at the city to be sold. They reported officially and recommended the purchase of a Delaware flat that was for sale not far from Beth- lehem. It was prudently decided first to hire one on trial, and con- sider the question of purchasing later. Another enterprise that engaged the thought and skill of Bethle- hem mechanics in 1754, more distinctly marked an epoch in the pro- gress of the town. This was the successful experiment that gives the credit to Bethlehem of constructing the first water-works in Pennsylvania. The problem of finding an easier way to bring the water of the spring up the hill and distributing it where needed, than by means of a cart and buckets, had been officially discussed and had 1/49 1755- 289 engaged the thought of the ingenious Hans Christiansen, the new mill-wright of Bethlehem. There was the water-power that ran the oil and bark mill. That wheel might be made to do more work. A water tower above, and one or more tanks were easily constructed. The matter of pipes to convey the water to the tanks, especially the question of material, was important. Yet more serious a problem was the construction of the necessary pump. John Boehner, the West India missionary, one of the pioneers of Bethlehem, was on a visit at the place. He was an ingenious man, had some knowledge of such mechanism which he had seen success- fully operated and was interested in the subject. He made a model of a pump and connections. He and Christiansen discussed it together and the latter set about the task. Carefully selected trunks of hemlock were rafted down the Lehigh from Gnadenhuetten in March, 1754, from which water-pipes were to be made. While Christiansen worked at his pump, a building was erected near the oil- mill where the power was to be supplied for his first experiments, and already on the evening of June 21, he demonstrated the feasibility of his plan by forcing water as high as the houses around the square in the town above, to the astonishment and joy of all. Then the machinery was perfected, a separate water-wheel was built, the pipes were laid, the water tower was gotten ready, at the end of the outer- most of the two log houses west of the Community House, a large tank was constructed in the square in front of the girls' school, between the Community House and the Sisters' House. On May 27> I755> the water was successfully forced up the water tower and on June 27, the flow into the tank in the square began. The regular operation of the Bethlehem water-works was commenced and the occupation of the water carriers trudging up the hill from "the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate" was at an end. The value of the spring and the importance of properly guarding it were appreciated more highly than ever.^* 34 In aboard-meeting on September 2, following, it was observed that nobody who did not understand it should attempt to clean the spring, for in this country the springs had the peculiarity that they dried up if stirred in at the wrong time. Did this refer again to the folk- notion mentioned earlier, that the state of the moon must be heeded? On February 4, 1751, the singular record occurs that the spring which had ceased to flow about a year prior to that, was suddenly running again ; as were also springs along the Monocacy on the way to- Nazareth, that had been been dry more than a year. 290 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Nothing about Bethlehem in those days excited the interest of visitors so much as the water-works. Even before the plan had been successfully tested, when they were yet in process of construction, the project was mentioned in descriptions of the place, as one of its notable features. The earUest such reference to it in print is probably that of the Swedish Lutheran Provost, the Rev. Israel Acrelius, in his history of the Swedish Churches of former New Sweden and descriptions of the adjacent regions, written in 1758. He visited Bethlehem "in company with the Rev. Pastor Peter Brunnholtz, Pastor Eric Unander and Mr. Sleydon," in June, 1754, just two days before the first successful experiment, when the water was forced "as high as the houses." He refers to this project at which "the Brethren were working very actively and industriously." This, he says, "will be a very useful work for the cloister,^^ for hitherto it has kept a man busy from morning till night to carry the water up the hill to the houses." Among the various industries mentioned in an interesting manner by Dr. AcreUus, was a particular one that reveals the disposition of that time at Bethlehem to experiment with every possible thing, in extending the range of activities and products. This was the culture of silk-worms carried on in the Brethren's House since 1752. He found two men in charge of the brood who were kept busy gathering and spreading mulberry leaves. It was explained to him that there 35 The description given of Bethlehem by the Rev. Provost, while highly interesting and, in the main, not as objectionable in tone as the animadversions of Lutheran divines of that time usually were, nevertheless reveals a preconceived aversion to the Brethren. A quizzing manner, with bantering questions and derogatory comments by the party, made their escorts at Bethlehem reserved and ill at ease ; for they were not sure that it was not all preparatory to a new contribution to the library of publications against " The Herrn- huters " that had accumulated. Spangenberg, to whom he had a letter of introduction, and who would have met him with ease and dignity, as his peer in all respects, and would, perhaps, have enlightened him on some points, was, unfortunately, not at home. That his acquaintance with the Moravian Church was very defective, and that he entirely miscon- ceived the genesis of things at Bethlehem, as well as the nature of the settlement and its establishments, appears in the opening sentence of his description : " Bethlehem is a Protestant cloister belonging to the Hermhut Brotherhood, established in the year 1743 by Count Zinzendorff, the founder of the Brotherhood, and instituted by David Nitschmann, Spangenberg, Anna Nitschmann and others, as the elders and officers of the society." It sounds like some articles in modern newspapers, by persons who, after reading such accounts, come and stroll about the town a few hours, pick up some stories at random and then pro- ceed to write up " Bethlehem and the Moravians." The extracts given above are from the translation of Acrelius published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1876. BETHLEHEM 1750 1755 1749 1755- 291 were always persons available for such light duty "who could not be employed for anything else." He drew the amusing inference that these were the "indispensable" musicians who were continually in readiness for service and could not "be put to any hard work;" although the previous evening, when he asked his escort whether he could not hear some music, he was told that it was doubtful because the men "were weary from their work." Some of the hardest toilers, stone-masons, carpenters and farmers, were among the musicians. He was informed that £20 might be expected from the silk product of that year, and that there was a larger cocoonery at Nazareth. That one was started in 1753 by the Rev. Philip Christian Bader, house chaplain at Christiansbrunn, who had come over with Span- genberg two years before and had made the original attempts at Bethlehem. Several times the yield of silk was considerable. The first efforts to foster this industry were suggested to the minds of these men by the large number of mulberry trees in the forest about Bethlehem. Experiments were tried also with the cocoons of wild worms found on these trees. Bader's cocoonery was continued a number of years at Christiansbrunn.^" The more important industries at Bethlehem were at this time in successful operation, well manned and well regulated ; and the variety of articles produced, not onl}^ to meet the practical needs of the com- munity but also for sale to others, is surprising. Spangenberg's executive ability which had again gained control of the situation, the efficiency and faithfulness which, in the main, distinguished the men in charge of departments, as well as the cheerful diligence with which most of the mechanics and laborers applied themselves to their tasks, 36 There have been four silk epochs at Bethlehem and in the surrounding region. The second was near the end of the eighteenth century, when scientific and industrial organiza- tions were encouraging efforts at silk culture, even offering premiums. Bishop Ettwein at Bethlehem, and the Rev. David Zeisberger — cousin of the famous missionary — at Nazareth, were giving special attention to it and making it fairly profitable. They were in cor- respondence in 1793, with President Stiles of Yale College, who was conspicuously in- terested in this, as in so many other efforts in the line of scientific progress and economic improvement. The third was the contagion of the wide-spread, notorious moms mul- ticaulis craze of 1837-39 which also struck Northampton County, when so many farmers, thinking to get rich quickly by raising silk worms, were victimized into planting their fields with real or alleged mulberry trees, by tricky speculators. With very few exceptions, the venture never advanced beyond excitedly buying the trees, planting them and then, when the fever passed, digging them up in disgust and burning them. The fourth came in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, when the era of silk-mills suddenly opened in the Lehigh Valley and brought a new and important addition to the industries of Bethlehem. 292 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. combined to keep the machinery of the whole running smoothly. There had been a disposition among some, for a while, to chafe under the rigid restraints and minute regulations of the Economy. Novelty had worn off and enthusiasm subsided. The more substantial qualities of sterling loyalty and staunch faithfulness to the common purpose were then tested. Here and there one severed his con- nection and went his way or subjected himself to expulsion. Some such returned and sought readmission. Those who were in control knew that the system, as then operated, was necessarily only a temporary expedient and it was never intended to be anything else. The question was carefully considered whether the time had come to do away with it, but the difficulty of dealing with all the new problems that would be involved in radical changes, not yet prepared for, appeared, at that time, to be greater than the difficulty of maintaining the existing methods. Hence, in the summer of 1754, the conclusion was reached to continue the General Economy a few years longer, and meanwhile to develop the regulations to which all voluntarily bound themselves, into something more like a contract, in which men would feel not merely sentiment and enthusiasm appealed to, but conscience and honor laid under obligation. On August 19, 1754, a general meeting of all the adult members at Beth- lehem and "the upper places" was held for the purpose of considering the fundamentals of the situation. Bishop Spangenberg communi- cated a document in eight elaborate paragraphs, setting forth the central objects for which the co-operative union existed, and the cardinal principles upon which it rested. These, when fully elucidated, were to be submitted for common agreement, formal adoption and signature. There was a second reading and discussion on the 21st and a third on September 2 ; all having been given full opportunity to express their views in the Church Council, or, if they preferred, in writing to the executive board. The paragraphs were all adopted and signed as the first formal "Brotherly Agreement" of the people of Bethlehem and the Nazareth stations. After this had been accepted by all, with a general toning up of morale and strength- ening of bonds for a new start on this basis, various special measures were agreed to, more strictly of a business char- acter. These had long been felt to be desirable, but prior to those general discussions and conclusions, would not so readily have found intelHgent acceptance. The most important of them, perfected and communicated in November, was a formal agreement in writing 1749 1755- 293 drawn up in final shape, in English, by Charles Brockden of Phila- delphia with the aid of legal counsel. It bound each male adult who remained a member of the Economy or joined it, in five points. These were a declaration of his purpose in belonging to it, as set forth in the Brotherly Agreement ; a disavowal of any improper or undue influence of any kind from any quarter ; an agreement to give due notice of intention to leave and to peaceably withdraw upon due notice of request to do so ; an agreement to accept all conditions as found and conform to all regulations ; a promise to sign a quit- claim or release of all demands upon the property held by the Pro- prietor for the Church, or of wages for work performed while living at Bethlehem as a member of the Economy under the accepted conditions. Over against the misunderstanding and misrepresentation to which the general terms of membership have been subjected, it is of importance that four facts be borne in mind. The first is that no individual or body of individuals was enriched in property by the labor of the people under this agreement. The second is that every man, woman and child was entirely provided for in all material and spiritual things — fed, clothed, nursed in sickness, instructed and pastorally cared for, while a member of the Economy under this agreement. Many were thus much better provided for and made much more comfortable than they would have been if taking care of themselves. The third fact is that every adult was entirely at liberty to leave at any time if he wished, and to enter employment for wages elsewhere, or follow his inclinations as he chose. The fourth is that these agreements did not in any way affect the private property of any one possessed of an estate. If any one had loaned money to the general treasury or made it his banker, the release he signed had no bearing on this, which was purely a business transaction, apart from the agreement signed, and settlement was made the same as with any other creditor. That this strengthening of the institution on a more businessdike basis for a further term of existence was thus accomplished without any defection or even serious difificulty in securing unanimous agree- ment, with an adult population of nearly four hundred involved, is all the more notable because the number of quite new recruits who would be more likely to agree, as novices, to anything that was pro- posed, was very small. The men, with few exceptions, had made trial of the situation long enough to know all sides and aspects of it, both desirable and undesirable. Thev had also learned enough of 294 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. surrounding conditions and opportunities to have felt whatever there was of temptation to break away from the compact, and either with- draw to begin an independent hfe elsewhere, or press for the aboHtion of the system when the subject was opened for general debate. The members of Gottlieb Pezold's colony, which had lately arrived, had been only in part incorporated in the Economy. Many were distributed at the new settlements in Lancaster County and in Wachovia, North Carolina. After that, until 1761, there were far fewer arrivals from Europe than in previous years. When that colony was safely landed at New York, Captain Garrison determined to quit the sea. He passed most of the time to the middle of July, 1755, at Bethlehem. On January 4, 1755, his son Nicholas Garrison, Jr., was officially appointed captain of the Irene for her next voyage. He sailed from New York, February 4, and on August 12, brought the vessel back to her dock ;but under trying circumstances, for small-pox had broken out on board, carrying of¥ three children during the voyage. The passengers were placed in quarantine on Kennedy's (Bedloe's) Island. Only four of these with four children are men- tioned by name in the records and were Moravians who came to Bethlehem ; one of the children being born while the mother was in quarantine, suffering with the disease. When Bishop Spangenberg heard of their distressing plight he hastened to New York and tried to secure their release and transfer to private quarters, but could not effect anything. These persons, who reached Bethlehem September 25, were William Thorn with his wife and two children from England — he left Bethlehem "without saying good-bye," the end of March, 1757, to shift for himself — and the Rev. Lewis WilHam Weiss^^ from Germany, with his wife, the infant born in quarantine at New York, and another child. When the Irene sailed again. 37 This was the later well-known Lewis Weiss, conveyancer, counsellor-at-law and Justice, of Philadelphia. He had studied in the Moravian Theological Seminary at Lindheim and been ordained, 1746, but did not follow the ministry after he came to America. In framing legal documents and as a guide in all matters relating to title and conveyance of real estate, he was an acknowledged expert of first rank in Philadelphia. He rendered the Moravian Church important service for many years as legal agent and counsel, and at one period (1788) the Church owed more than has ever been acknowledged in published history, to his ex- cellent judgement and acumen, and his persistent concern for the welfare of its interests, even when not listened to for a while, in persuading the authorities to take special measures, which he saw were necessary at that stage, to secure and establish the title to its real estate in Pennsyvania beyond all possible question, and remove all suspicion of a flaw which the uncleamess of certain important documents might have awakened. 1749 1755- 295 November 9, 1755, she was in command of Christian Jacobsen of Staten Island, the able and experienced seaman who had made a number of voyages, as mate, with Captain Garrison, and now became captain of the vessel.^® Captain Garrison and his wife were passengers on this voyage. One long-familiar figure was wanting at those important meetings in the summer and autumn of 1754, and at the inception of the newest enterprise on the Barony of Nazareth, in the spring of 1755. Henry Antes was not there. These affairs did not lie in the sphere of more general business of the Church, with which he yet had to do, and the heavy labors of his busy life had broken his powerful frame so that during those months he was much of the time an invalid, fre- quently suffering intensely. He visited Bethlehem the last time on June 16, 1754. After that, when consultations with him were necessary, they took place at his home. On June 13, 1755, a message came to Bethlehem that he was very ill and his daughter was taken to Fredericktown to see him. There were repeated pilgrimages to his bed-side during the following weeks. On July 3, Bishop Span- genberg and Captain Garrison went to visit him the last time. The Bethlehem diary contains this record on Sunday, July 20: "A messenger came from Fredericktown this afternoon with the word that our dear brother, Henry Antes, who has rendered such good service to the Church and to the Economy at Bethlehem, passed away, happy in the Lord, this morning." Many a tear was shed at Bethlehem when this message was published. "All were very much affected," says the record. At five o'clock that Sunday afternoon, Spangenberg and his wife, Abraham Reinke, John Bechtel, Matthew Schropp, and eight others set out for Fredericktown. The funeral which took place the next day, was attended by a concourse of six hundred persons, as the record states, of all creeds and persuasions. Bishop Spangenberg spoke the words of consolation, the Rev. Abraham Reinke read the service at the grave, and ten of the men 38 He got back to New York, June 2, 1756, having on board fifteen single men, viz : — Seidel, John Henry (leader), Mueller, John, Boehninghausen, John Bartholomew, Ollringshaw, Henry, Busse, Andrewr, Rippel, John Michael, Hall, James, — Roth, John, Hellerman, Caspar George, Ruch, Michael, Koorts, Ellert, Schmaling, William Christopher, Mentzinger, George Ernst, Seneff, George, Schmidt, Hans Jacob. 296 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. from Bethlehem bore his remains to their place of rest on his farm. July 22, at ten o'clock at night, the Bethlehem delegation reached home again, bringing his eight-year-old daughter Benigna who, according to her father's wish and with her mother's full consent, was to be brought up and educated under the care of the Church. Dr. Adolph Meyer and David Bishop were appointed guardians of his minor children, in accordance with his last will and testament. He had also given instructions that all papers and letters relat- ing to affairs of the Church that were found among his effects, were to be sent at once to Bethlehem after his decease. He had selected a spot in the Bethlehem cemetery at which his remains were to rest. This could not be, but very soon a grave was made at that spot for another. On the morning of July 22, Justice Daniel Brodhead, who had come from his home up the Delaware to be treated for cancer of the throat by Dr. Otto, passed away at the home of James Burnside, north of Bethlehem. At the noon-day service his death was announced. It was stated that he had been a friend who was always interested in the welfare and prosperity of the Church and that he had departed in the happy anticipation and ardent longing to meet his Saviour. Justice Horsfield took charge of the funeral arrangements. Two other Justices of the County, Craig and Wilson, were among the large number of people from the surrounding country who, with his widow and her two sons, and the people of Bethlehem followed his remains to the cemetery at seven o'clock on the evening of July 23, and saw them laid to rest at the spot where the grave of Henry Antes was to have been. The weeks of his patient suffering at the house of Burnside were rendered the more pathetic by the fact that his host himself was at the time an invalid nearing his end, and they occupied a room together. On August 8, early in the morning, Burnside died. Horsfield sent messengers to all parts of the County to announce the departure of the Assemblyman. The funeral on the loth was attended by about 350 persons from the sur- rounding regions, besides the Bethlehem people. The Rev. Abraham Reinke preached the funeral sermon in English. Doubtless these two men as they passed their last days in that room, associated as they were with public affairs, spoke together of the threatening calamities that might follow the disaster to the British arms in the west, and, as men whose hearts were tender in the shadow of death, perhaps they prayed together for Pennsylvania and for Bethlehem. CHAPTER IX. Bethlehem During the Indian Uprising. 1755— 1756. The autumn of 1755 brought dark and dreary days to all the set- tlements on the frontiers and, therefore, also to Bethlehem. Although the storm burst upon the Forks of the Delaware with appalling sud- denness, the clouds had been slowly gathering for months, and already in mid-summer the first roll of distant thunder was heard. The report of the defeat of the British forces and the death of Gen- eral Braddock at Fort Duquesne, was brought to Bethlehem on Sat- urday morning, July 19. The people were assembling to morning prayer when Nicholas Scull arrived from Philadelphia, as courier from the Provincial Coun- cil to Albany, to convey the report of this calamity with all speed to General Shirley. By virtue of a letter from Secretary Peters,^ he •called for a fresh horse and a guide to Dansbury to expedite his jour- ney. They were, of course, furnished without delay. While this occurrence produced considerable sensation, compara- tively few at Bethlehem possessed that knowledge of the general situation which would suggest to them all that the catastrophe por- tended ; and probably the messenger who came the next day, not in haste and excitement, but wdth quiet sadness, to announce the death « " On his Majesty's service : To the United Brethren at Bethlehem and Nazareth : Gentlemen — The Bearer is sent by the Council, in the absence of the Gover- nor, with Despatches of the utmost consequence to General Shirley, at Albany. I earnestly entreat, you will furnish him with a good horse, if he wants one, and a guide to shew him the nearest way. If he arrives, time enough, it may be of infinite service to his Majesty's arms, and if you assist, it will be much for your honour. I am, gentlemen, Philadelphia, 1 8th July, 1755. Your humble servant, To the Brethren RICHARD PETERS, at Bethlehem and Nazareth. by order of council." 297 298 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of Henry Antes, caused far more emotion among the people. Not until four months later did they all realize fully the significance of that French victory for all the border regions, for the country over which the savage allies of the French had planned to wield the scourge of vengeance on account of the doings of 1737, and even for the Moravians, for their Indian missions and their little town of Bethlehem, at which the linger of suspicion had so long been pointed with slanderous inuendoes about serving French interests. Those at Bethlehem who were most familiar with the larger connections of circumstances and events, understood, of course, the uneasy and uncertain disposition of the powerful Iroquois confederacy, the irreconcilable Monseys, the treacherous Shawanese of Wyoming, and the many disaffected Delawares who were not under the influence of the missionaries. They understood that the French had a stronger hold upon them than that which the English had been trying to maintain, and that such a sudden reverse coming to the British arms might precipitate an Indian crisis. It was, furthermore, not unknown to better-informed men at Bethlehem that attempts had been made by French emissaries to tamper even with non-English elements among the white population of Pennsylvania in some quarters ; that it was a part of their cunning policy to pretend that they had their quiet allies among the German people of the Province in order to weaken the confidence of the government in its own citizens, while they counted upon the strong Quaker element in the Assembly with its passive policy of non-resistance — in some cases a sincere convic- tion and in others, perhaps, as charged, merely the cant under which was masked a dogged antagonism to the Proprietaries in the bicker- ings of the time — as a partial handicap to aggressive measures on the part of the government. The Moravians of Bethlehem, being classed with the Germans in suspected foreign sympathies and with the Quakers in alleged obstruction of all defensive measures, besides standing in closer relations to the Indians than any other people, naturally came under particular suspicion from these three points of view. Therefore, while there was not a grain of truth in the accu- sations against them in any of these three respects, the situation made it very difficult for them, and afforded abundant opportunity for those who mistrusted them to conceive a strong mass of cir- cumstantial evidence. They did not get excited, did not have much to say to any one, either about public matters or about their own affairs, did not, like so many of their neighbors, let their tools lie 1755 1756. 299 idle in the shops, the summer fruit rot in the orchards and gardens and the weeds grow rank in their corn, while they gathered at the court-house, the taverns and the mills to talk about the signs of the times, but went quietly on minding their own business and follow- ing their accustomed routine. This rendered their position all the more perplexing and suspicious to wrought-up minds. But more than anything else, the incessant tramp of squads of Indians to and fro between Bethlehem and the Wyoming Valley — often quite need- less and both burdensome and annoying to Bethlehem, but not to be prevented — kept suspicion and fear at a feverish stage among the people who were watching it. The great scarcity of food in the Indian country during that try- ing summer reached the degree of positive famine at one time. Under the double constraint put upon them by their lords, the heads of the Six Nations, to the north, and the government of Pennsylvania to the south, the sullen and restive bands in the Wyoming region were kept confined within their boundaries. The utter destitution of the season, which sharpened the other incentives to desperate undertakings, when the ambitious and wily Teedyuscung and his confederates saw their opportunity to lead them on to open violence, was frequently the sole cause of this restless roving up and down the country. Some deserters from the Moravian Indian congrega- tion, who had gone up and joined the camps of the savages, told of the good living at Gnadenhuetten and the abundant food to be had by all visitors at Bethlehem. Many a strolling band, suspected by uneasy people to be carrying secret French messages to and from the Moravians, and even conveying French powder and lead from an imaginary secret magazine at Bethlehem, visited the place for no other purpose than to enjoy a few substantial meals furnished by the people who, in pursuance of their altruistic aims towards the Indians, incurred all inconvenience and took all risks to hold the good will of every class and kind of them. Indeed, since these excursions from the Wyoming Valley could not be prevented, the Brethren dreaded the presence of the strollers less at Bethlehem than at Gnadenhuetten ; for it was of extreme importance to keep that little congregation of converts, who were remaining faithful, from being entangled by the subtle arch-schemer Teedyuscung and the renegades whom he employed; coming to them as their brethren and using this advantage in the attempt to draw them into alliance. Besides this, the time came when there was no food to 300 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. spare at Gnadenhuetten. A heavy frost on J\Iay 31 had ruined the wheat crop over an extensive area and made the outlook very gloomy. On July i, the "melancholy report" came from there that the provisions, not only of the Indian congregation, but also of the missionary household, would be entirely exhausted in a fortnight, and no prospect of supply from any source was in sight ; and then the record states, "behold the same hour we received a letter from Philadelphia telling us that a hundred bushels of corn lay theire ready for this purpose, and only needed to be sent for." On July 4, the first wagon-load of this corn arrived for the relief of Gnaden- huetten, and there was joy at the thought that now this new test that had come upon the steadfastness of those Indians was removed. One of the measures that had been adopted, the preceding April, to prevent dangerous Indians from visiting Gnadenhuetten, was to announce in the Indian country that the blacksmith and gunsmith at that place would not do work for any "strange Indians," but would only serve the residents and such others who were well known and trustworthy. Among those who came to Bethlehem, at various times during the first months of 1755, was the famous Shawanese chief Paxnous (Paxinosa), who so adjusted his attitude and move- ments that the government had abundant proof of his value as an opponent of the dark conspiracies. He remained a consistent friend of the Moravian missionaries and faithful to whatever promises he made them ; later interesting himself, even with hazard to his own standing among his warriors, in devising means to rescue certain of them from deadly peril and enable them to escape. On February 17 of that year, when his wife, with whom he had lived faithfully for thirty-eight years — "a surprising thing," says the record — was baptized at Bethlehem, and the Brethren expressed the hope that he would yet follow her example, "he responded with a hearty Kehelle" — an exclamation of concurrence. On several of his visits he was accompanied by Abraham the Mohican, one of the original converts, a man of standing and influence among the Indians, who, although he had not become alienated from his Chris- tian teachers and friends, had withdrawn from the Indian congre- gation and was living in Wyoming. He was one of those whose equivocal attitude, while they were classed by the people as "Mora- vian Indians," but were outside of Moravian constraint, was so mystifying to many, so troublesome to the Brethren and awakened so much distrust among persons who did not discriminate between 1755 1756. 30I the converts living at the stations, under the eye of the missionaries, and those who had strayed away and over whose movements no con- trol could be exercised. The Moravians could not be chargeable with any measure of responsibility for what any Indians were or said or did, when trouble came, excepting those living in the Indian con- gregations, or being quartered at Bethlehem, to keep them away from dangerous associations. The case of Abraham, and several others like him in Wyo- ming, who were yet friendly towards the Brethren and not entirely renegade, even if they had broken away from the restraints of external discipline in a congregation, made it seem advisable at Bethlehem to have some one take up his abode in that precarious region as a kind of outer guard. The intention was that he should "go after the straying sheep," keep in friendly touch with those who might yet be held in restraint, watch the trend of things in order to send down timely information of important movements that should be known, and, at the same time, maintain a kind of lodge in the wilderness to break the long course of missionary journeys to points farther up. Several missionaries, especially Bernhard Adam Grube, had been visiting them. A request by Abraham, that a missionary again come to see them in Wyoming, offered the opportunity. The most suitable man for this particular undertaking was the intrepid and venturesome Frederick Post, and, the middle of February, he started off to assume that lonely and hazardous position. There he remained during the greater part of the year, until the time came when he had to fiee for his life. Even this well-meant move, which placed a Christian missionary, taking his life into his hand, as a sentry beyond the boundaries of their settlements, to endeavor to preserve peace, was construed by suspicious persons between Bethlehem and the mountains, as a new evidence of Moravian complicity in dark intrigues. In the midst of these things, the authorities at Bethlehem, knowing how important it was that the government should correctly under- stand their position over-against the many Indians who came down to the place, and should have the benefit of whatever information came to them in this way, had made arrangements to promptly forward confidential reports to Philadelphia, by special messenger from Justice Horsfield, whenever there seemed to be occasion for doing so ; and to announce any considerable bands that arrived, their avowed object and all knowledge of affairs in the Indian country thus brought to them that seemed to deserve the attention of the 302 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Governor. Therefore while persons, in their excitement, were taking stories to the authorities at Philadelphia of the suspicious connection of the Moravians with "strange Indians," the Brethren were at the very time serving the Government, by mutual understanding, as a bureau of information, without the knowledge of such persons and from sources that would never have been open to them. This, in general, was the state of Indian relations at Bethlehem when the startling announcement was brought by Scull on that Saturday morn- ing in July. The men at the head of affairs at Bethlehem had refrained from informing the inhabitants, to a needless extent, in reference to those critical factors of the situation which would merely occasion excite- ment and alarm without serving any practical purpose. All efforts were made to preserve quiet self-restraint, manly composure and simple trust in Him in whose Name they went and came and labored. When it was deemed necessary, information was given about matters of which all should have knowledge, and be ready to speak intelli- gently and discreetly to people of the neighborhood or visitors with whom they conversed on the conditions of the time. Thus, early in January, the dangerous reports circulated and carried to England that the Germans of Pennsylvania were indifferent to English inter- ests and quite as ready to take the part of France ; and the address of the Germans of the Province to the Governor, contradicting this calumny, were discussed at Bethlehem. The question was considered whether the Brethren, as a distinct community, but also, for the most part, Germans, should make a hke declaration of loyalty or quietly rest on the credit given them by the Act of Parliament in 1749. They decided upon the latter course. Then special attention was drawn to this subject, in a general meeting, by Bishop Spangen- berg. He deemed it important to make the matter clear. He emphasized the favor received from the British government in that act, and drew attention to the various points of significance in the difference between bcir;; under English or French rule. He instructed the less enj;7i.'.rr.''d of the Germans at the place who might perhaps indulge in thoughtless or foolish remarks on the subject, not being Engli.'.nen and not understanding the vital issues of the conflict, as to v.lrl it all involved for the settlements of the Brethren and for their missionary work, and what the correct attitude of all should be to the question. So likewise, on June 19, when the day of fasting and prayer, in view cf the almost calamitous injury to 1755 1756. 303 the grain crops of the Province and the dubious issues of the war, was observed, in compHance with the proclamation of Governor Morris, instruction on the position to be taken as Christians and loyal subjects was given in English and German sermons; the first by the Rev. Jacob Rogers, who was an Englishman, and the second by Bishop Matthew Hehl. It was thought that if those Brethren who needed information and guidance were in so far enlightened that there was no danger of any utterance on their part that could be construed to indicate sympathy with French interests, disloyalty to the government, or partisanship in the issues between Pennsylvania factions, this would be sufficient. The further subject of the relation of the Indian tribes to the war which was in progress, and the menace to the settlements that lay in the disaffection of so many of them who were being worked upon by the French, was treated with caution and reserve by the leading men at Bethlehem in speaking to the mass of the people. The reason for this was two-fold. They wished to avoid creating excitement and alarm, and to prevent the spread of that dread of and antipathy towards the Indians which possessed the people of the frontier generally ; for this would quench the missionary spirit among the members of the Economy, would make them reluctant to labor for the support of the work and would render it more difficult to maintain the ground that had been gained and to pursue the important policy of friendly treatment towards those Indians who came to Bethlehem. Therefore, during the summer, the farmers and mechanics of Bethlehem and the Nazareth places, with the women and children, calmly followed their daily routine, quietly pursued their several tasks in field and work- shop, in dairy, spinning-room and school, and showed neither alarm nor aversion while band after band of Indians of all dispositions and descriptions came and loitered about and enjoyed their hospitality; some of them individuals whom there was reason enough to dread. In the midst of all this, as if it had been a time of the greatest peace and security, many acres of new land were grubbed, fenced and gotten ready for the plow ; troops of boys worked happily in the new fields, collecting and burning the stumps and brush ; the water works were finished and successfully put into operation, to the delight of the town ; the harvest was gathered and the harvest-home feast celebrated as usual ; the walls of Nazareth Hall were laid up ; mission- aries and mechanics traveled the accustomed road to Gnadenhuetten and back with that sturdv unconcern which was so hard for their 304 A HISTORV' OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. neighbors to understand, accompanied frequently by Indians ; and the grist-mills of Bethlehem and Friedensthal "ran day and night" in August and September, to accommodate the large number of customers, "some from a distance of thirty miles beyond the Blue Mountains," compelled to come that long way by the drought that dried the lesser streams and left nearer mills idle and useless. Dismal was the fate that hung over many of the rude backwoods homes to which those men from the mountains returned with their bags of wheat and rye flour and cornmeal for the coming winter. It seemed as if the shadow of the black cloud had fallen upon many of them ahead of its approach, for they came and went with an air of anxious dread. It seemed as if the very autumn winds that blew down from the north and west, brought a scent of the blood-shed that was being plotted in the back regions. Rumors of terror, growing as they traveled, were rife. They were discussed around the mills by the men who waited for their grist, and were repeated to the millers and the workmen of Bethlehem and the Vale of Peace on the Bushkill. Questions were asked about Gnadenhuetten, some in anxiety, as if seeking re-assurance in regard to the trustworthiness of those Indians and their missionaries, others in a suspicious and insinuating tone, as if to ferret dark secrets out of the reticent and cautious Moravians. Thus the feeling of unrest and dread began to communicate itself to some of the more excitable and timorous at Bethlehem. The disturbing reports that had previously been coming to the Board at Bethlehem had not, as already stated, been circulated much outside of official circles. Even before the news of the British defeat at Fort Duquesne had been received, rumors of such a disquieting nature had come from Wyoming that the board sent a message to Post, intimating that he had better abandon his efforts and leave the neighborhood. Shebosh had gone up, the last week in May, to look after his welfare, and at the beginning of June, Dr. Otto went to treat an injury he had received. At the middle of June, David Zeisberger, who a few days before had returned to Bethlehem with Carl Friederich from Onondago, where he had been sojourning nearly a year studying the language of the people, with a view to founding the mission long planned — he was prevented from returning by the outbreak of hostilities and that mission was never com- menced — went to Wyoming with Christian Seidel to see how Post fared. They found him keeping his lonely watch in the midst of 1755 1756. 305 great peril, sharing the dire need, next to starvation, that prevailed there, trying to maintain sympathetic relations with the Indians who had been enticed away from Gnadenhuetten, and to hold them from lapsing to the hostiles who were pledged to the French and who fiercely resented his presence and influence there ; for, in accordance with the scheme of Teedyuscung, they hoped, by capturing this band, to make a further break, through them, in the congregation at Gnadenhuetten. Zeisberger and Seidel pushed on, far up the Susquehanna, to procure some food for this famishing little flock of "straying sheep" and the faithful shepherd who was watching them at the hourly risk of his life. They made this effort not only as an act of humanity, but to impress the Indians with the conviction that their needs would be cared for if they remained together with Post and listened to his counsel. In reply to the message from Bethlehem, suggesting that he had better abandon his effort on account of the great peril, Post wrote, the middle of July, that "he did not propose to yield to the powers of darkness and the evil spirits to whom he was a hindrance, unless they expelled him by force." Having brought their few bags of corn safely to Post and the little band he was yet holding, Zeisberger and his companion continued their tour among the Indians at various places, in spite of the dis- turbed condition of things. While on this tour they heard of the first savage outbreak, October 16, on Penn's Creek, near Shamokin, where more than twenty persons were killed or captured. They turned their faces homeward the latter part of October, warned by Paxnous, who informed them of that first blow struck by the sav- ages. From Gnadenhuetten, where they found everything quiet and peaceful, they proceeded to the Delaware Gap, having intended to traverse the region beyond, to the north and east, more extensively. There they encountered a large company of militia-men who were much agitated by the reports they had heard, and plied the missionaries with questions. They and people in the vicinity had also heard of the alleged letter from a French officer — a rascally forgery — published in the newspapers, setting forth that the Mora- vians and their Indians were alHes of the French, aiding their move- ments. This wicked trick, producing impressions that could not be followed up wherever the report spread with disproof or even authori- tative denial, had borne its fruit among the people up the Delaware ; and the impression of these calumnies was in the minds of some men 306 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. who came to the Bethlehem mill from that neighborhood in the course of the autumn. Zeisberger and Seidel reached Bethlehem in the night of Novem- ber 2. They at once reported to Justice Horsfield all that they had learned about the beginning of hostilities by the savages, and their statements were immediately forwarded by special messenger to the Governor and the Assembly ; also the statements of George Bieb- inghausen, who, the previous day, arrived from Allemaengel, not very far from Gnadenhuetten — a Moravian station in the present Lynn Township of Lehigh County — that the people there were panic-stricken by rumors of an Indian raid, and that thirty persons had fled from their homes and taken refuge together in the Mora- vian school and meeting-house. On November 4, Henry Frey and Anton Schmidt set out from Bethlehem for Shamokin to rescue the missionary and master-smith, Marcus Kiefer, who had not, like his two companions, the missionary Godfrey Roessler and the black- smith Peter Wesa, made good his escape. These rescuers turned back at Tulpehocken, where all was in a state of terror, for they were assured that they would not be able to proceed. The panic at Allemaengel had not been without reason. Following upon a second raid made by the savages at the beginning of November, at the great cove in the present Franklin County, the Tulpehocken neighborhood was visited by skulking forerunners at this time, and, on November 16, the first outbreak east of the Susquehanna occurred, when mur- derous gangs swooped down upon the farmers on the Swatara and Tulpehocken Creeks, killing thirteen persons and destroying much property. Thus the reign of terror opened in the region in which the savage raids were to be generated by Teedyuscung. He had risen to the honor — suspected by many to have been quite unauthor- ized — of having himself called "King of the Delawares." The out- rages west of the Susquehanna were under the direction of Shingas "the terrible," a brother of Tamaqua. On November 6, Henry Frey started again, accompanied by the missionary John Jacob Schmick, for Wyoming, hoping to reach Sha- mokin by that route and find Kiefer. They returned on the 13th and reported him safe. He had gotten away from Shamokin, and, six miles from there, met two Indians whom Paxnous had dispatched to the place to rescue him. One of them was the son of the old chief and the other was a son of the Mohican Abraham. He had, mean- while, been protected by John Shikellimy or Thachnechtoris, son 1755 1756. 307 of the famous chief, old Shikellimy. He escorted him safely to Gnadenhuetten, from which place they arrived at Bethlehem, November i6. With the arrival of these three men from Shamokin began the flight from various directions and distances to Bethlehem as a city of refuge. At one of the evening services during those weeks, Spangenberg took occasion to admonish two different kinds of people. On the one hand, he urged those who were becoming timid and uneasy to remain calm and clear-headed and to be "strong in the Lord." On the other hand, some who, with perhaps a slight symptom of bravado, were disposed to over-estimate their security and, without realizing the peril that really existed, to make light of the trepidation manifested by people of the neighborhood who came to Bethlehem, were admonished that they should appreciate the cause these scattered settlers had for being alarmed, sympathize with them and try to encourage them. On November 20, came the first company of frightened people from the Saucon Valley, who had heard reports of the approach of hostile Indians. Some of them were given quarters for the night at the Crown Inn. That night guards were quietly stationed at three approaches to the town, not in fear of a surprise by Indians at this time, but as a precaution against a panic that might be cre- ated in the town by a possible inrush of terror-stricken people, sounding an alarm. The next day a company of persons who had been at Gnadenhuetten returned, bringing a letter from the mis- sionary Martin Mack. He, with Shebosh and the missionaries Grube and Schmick, was stationed with the Indian congregation at its new quarters on the east side of the Lehigh, New Gnadenhuetten, where the more satisfactory tract of land had been purchased for the Indians. As previously stated, the other men and women connected with the industries of that settlement, and engaged in the study of Indian languages, occupied the mission houses of the original village on the west side. In that letter Mack wrote that the entire neigh- borhood was in a state of excitement on account of the "French Indians." that many of the settlers had fled to Allemaengel and that some of those Indians were trying to create a panic and stampede among the Gnadenhuetten Indians, but that the most of the men were ofif hunting. He quoted in his letter the sayings of several of the sturdiest Christian men among the Indians at Gnadenhuetten, in reference to the critical situation, their expressions of trust in the Saviour, if the worst should come, and their declaration that they 308 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. would cling together and, if so it must be, die together. This letter from Mack was read to the congregation at Bethlehem by Spangen- berg on the evening of that day, November 21, and the next day was communicated to Parsons at Easton by Horsfield, as the first note of danger for the Forks of the Delaware. While this little band of converts were thus giving expression to Christian resigna- tion and considering the likelihood of their being murdered by the "French Indians" when all efforts to draw them away proved fruit- less, the latter were planning to not only do this, but also to wreak vengeance upon their missionaries, to whose influence they ascribed the steadfastness of the Gnadenhuetten Indians in with- standing every attempt to cajole, bribe or bully them into joining the conspiracy. At the same time, men from the Irish Settlement were coming into Bethlehem with reports of how the people feared being suddenly fallen upon by those same inofTensive Indians at the mission ; how some were planning to destroy the mission as a measure of self-defense, and how there was talk among some Jer- seymen of even taking revenge by raising troops of rangers to move upon Bethlehem, the supposed harbor of French allies, white and Indian, and storage-place of arms and ammunition for the savages. What human power of word or deed could rectify such an awful complication as this with hundreds of lives jeopardized in its mazes? How was it possible to convince such men in the panic of the time, with this belief about the Moravians firmly fixed in their minds for years, that they were completely and terribly mistaken? What was to save Bethlehem when the storm should break? Earnest, well- disposed men came and asked, why is it that your people rest quietly and do not seem afraid? Tell us, and explain this mystery, if you have not an understanding with the French and with the blood- thirsty hordes in their service. Spangenberg simply answered : "The people are quiet because they set their hope in their God, knowing no refuge under such circumstances but in Him ; and as He has counted all the hairs on our heads, not one of them shall be permitted to fall without His will." He felt that a time had come for the Moravians to supremely demonstrate that they believed what they professed and taught and to let God take care of the result. It is recorded how one went away convinced of the truth and begged permission to bring his family to Bethlehem if the time came when they must flee. 1755 1756. 309 Even some who had been sure that the Moravians were on terms of understanding with the French and the murderous savages, were open to conviction to the contrary, right in the panic of those days, when it was not easy to reason with excited men. The next day, Sunday, November 23, when in storm and rain, scores of families were fleeing from their homes between Bethlehem and Gnaden- huetten, and not only expressions of fear and distrust, but even maledictions were heard among persons gathered at Easton, who spoke of the Indians harbored by the Moravians, David Zeis- berger, who was at the county-seat in the interest of certain peace- able Indians of Wyoming who desired some kind of a safe conduct to Philadelphia to deliver a message to the Governor, rendered an opportune service. He had an interview there with a number of men from New Jersey, who were among those who had been firmly persuaded of the treachery of the Moravians and their Indians, and had been drawn to Easton by the publication of Horsfield's mes- sage to Parsons. Their comment upon his statements and explana- tions was : "This is the first sensible account of the case we have heard, and even if the Brethren will not take up arms they can secure their own lives (against mobs of avenging white men) by giving out reliable information." The policy of silence usually pursued by the Brethren mystified many. While, in the main, it was undoubtedly the best, it had its limits, and possibly they carried it too far. Plain, blunt men, such as those Jerseymen probably were, do not take kindly to an imperturbable silence when they are wanting to know the truth of a matter about which their minds are exercised. And yet, the sublime conviction that the case could best be left in the hands of God, for the results to work out and the truth to appear in His way, was vindicated in the end. There was much anxiety at this time about that stout-hearted ranger of the missionary force, Frederick Post, who had been defy- ing "the powers of darkness" in his lonely hut in the Wyoming wil- derness ; for now it was known that in that region those powers were holding grim carnival, and no white man could live there. He knew, however, when the moment had come beyond which it would be sheer folly for him to remain. He had acquired much of the Indian instinct and method in his movements. Suddenly, when two strange Indians with questionable motives were endeavoring to find him, he had disappeared without a word to any one as to where he was going. This was all that was known about him at Bethlehem — 310 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. reported from trustworthy sources — until November 22, when it was learned that he had safely reached Dansbury, the Brodhead settle- ment, where at this time Jasper Payne was stationed. Payne was the last who ministered in the little church built there under the special patronage of Justice Daniel Brodhead, who had died at Beth- lehem in July. It was dedicated May 19, 1753. Payne and Post, like so many people of the neighborhood, had to flee from the place in December and the little church was burned to the ground by the savages. Post reached Bethlehem on November 25. In the afternoon of that dismal, rainy Sunday, November 23, upwards of seventy armed and mounted men from New Jersey sud- denly arrived at the Crown Inn, not for the purpose of destroying Bethlehem, as the talk of some had been shortly before, but to ofifer their services in defense of the place and of the Irish Settlement, as there might be need ; very positive expectation of an intended attack by the savages having been awakened through the spread of Mack's letter beyond the Delaware. Justice Horsfield informed them that there was not thought to be any immediate peril at Beth- lehem, and officially arranged for them to remain at the Crown over night, in order to prevent the consternation that would be caused by their sudden appearance in the streets of Bethlehem. The nerves of invalids and of timid women were considered, and the greatest care was being taken to prevent all knowdedge of the terrors of the time from reaching the children, both at Bethlehem and at Naza- reth. November 24 was a day of noise and confusion such as had never been experienced at Bethlehem, with sights that seemed very strange in its quiet streets. All day armed men marched through from different parts of New Jersey and some of the lower neighbor- hoods of Pennsylvania, on horseback and afoot, with drums and flags, intending to scour the woods in the direction of Gnadenhuet- ten in search of hostile Indians. It was hoped that some detach- ments of the murderous hordes might be encountered and repulsed, and their further advance thus be checked. David Zeisberger, with the knowledge of the militia captains, mounted a horse and started for Gnadenhuetten ahead of the rangers, to deliver Horsfield's mes- sage to Mack in reference to the desired convoy to Bethlehem, to inform the Indian congregation of this expedition and instruct them to remain quietly in their houses, so that they would not be found outside in the woods and mistaken for savages. He was stopped on the way by a company of excited Irishmen, who took it for 1755 1756. 311 granted that he was bound for the hostile camps to give the alarm to the "French Indians" and frustrate the purpose of the militia- men, and thought that they had at last caught one of the Moravian traitors in the very act. Zeisberger's coolness and tact, which seemed never to forsake him in any emergency, together with that impressive power of conscious innocence which often turns the sen- timents, even of the most bitter and excited men, served him well, as it had before and later did in far more critical straits. He was finally permitted to ride on, but the detention involved great peril for the Indian congregation. Evening was coming on when he reached the mission. Having delivered his letters to Mack, he immediately turned his course to the river, to cross before it became quite dark, intending to rest over night at the establishment on the Mahoning, on the other side, after delivering his messages there. He had heard gun-shots west of the river as he approached the mission, but did not suspect anything amiss, for, with squads of militia now traversing the woods and occasionally firing signals to other bands, this was not a particu- larly startling sound that day. Suddenly a piteous cry from the other shore came to the missionaries on the east side who had just taken leave of Zeisberger. Shebosh instantly pushed a canoe into the water and directly returned, bringing Joachim Sensemann and George Partsch. with the horrible tidings that the savages had fallen upon the settlement and, as they supposed, murdered the rest of the household. Then the rising flames began to light up the gloam- ing with a sickening evidence of the fiendish work that was being done. Zeisberger had meanwhile slowly made his way to the ford, and was crossing the stream. The nearer noise of the splashing water and the crack of the stones under his horse's hoofs prevented him from hearing the shooting and yelling of the savages, broken by the thick underbrush of the river-bank and the bluff beyond, which also concealed from him the light of the starting flames. Mack called to him several times at the top of his voice, but did not succeed in attracting his attention until he had reached the other side. A moment he paused and with dismay took in the awful situ- ation, just as young Joseph Sturgis, who had escaped with a slight wound on his face, rushed gasping down to the river. Turning about, he forded back to the east side. There a consultation was held in the anxious suspense of the hour. The Indians, who gath- ered about Martin Mack in terror asking what they should do — 3^2 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNbYLVANIA. many of the younger men were yet off on their fall hunt— were advised by him to quietly disperse and conceal themselves in the thick woods; for it was taken for granted that an attack upon the buildings on that side would soon follow. Sturgis had slipped away into the forest. Zeisberger gathered what particulars could be given him by Sen- semann and Partsch, and, with these and Mack's official message, set out in the darkness to make his way with all the speed his tired horse could command, back to Bethlehem. His dreary midnight ride was broken by a brief interview with some of the militia rangers of the previous day whom he met on the road. He told them what had taken place, and their first impression was expressed in the declaration that this appalling fate of the Moravians at Gnadenhuetten proved their innocence of com- plicity with the savages in the interest of the French. Thus he could carry back, with his tale of woe, also the first evidence of good to come out of this great evil. He had not many details to report. The household of sixteen persons, fifteen adults and one infant, excepting two who were not well — Sense- mann's wife, who had remained in the room set apart for the women, and Peter Worbas, single, who was in another building in which the unmarried men had their quarters — were gathered at the table in the general dwelling and guest-house, partaking of their evening meal. The barking of the dogs and a sound as of persons approach- ing the premises, led Sensemann, who was steward, to go out for the purpose of locking the doors of the main building in which the chapel was, and making things secure for the night. He saw no one, and entered the building. Hardly had he struck a light, when he heard a loud report of firearms. He, like Zeisberger, thought the shooting was done by a company of militia who had passed sev- eral hours before, and were expected back to spend the night there, and paid no attention to it. Having locked the door, he started to return to where the others were, when he was met by Partsch, who announced that Indians had rushed upon the house and were shoot- ing at the inmates, and that he had escaped through a window. Sensemann proposed that they make an effort to rescue the women, and they turned towards the house, but it was entirelv surrounded by the savage troop and they, being unarmed, could do nothing more than make their escape and sound an alarm at the mission, east of the Lehigh. The setting fire to the house followed after they fied and the presumption with which Zeisberger started for Bethle- 1755 1756. 313 hem was that all, excepting these two men and young Joseph Stur- gis, whom he had seen, had perished by the bullets or tomahawks of the murderers or in the flames. At three o'clock on the morning of the 25th he reached Bethlehem, aroused Bishop Spangenberg and told him the horrible story. Whether any others were immediately informed of it does not appear in the narratives. A messenger was sent to Parsons at Easton about two hours later. In the early dawn of that sad November morning the people of Bethlehem were summoned, by the ringing of the bell, to morning prayer as usual, this being the first thing each day. Spangenberg had, according to custom, opened the book of daily texts to see what the watchword of the day was, and he found a peculiar significance in it that gave him a starting-point from which to begin the service and the morning words to the people in the usual manner, prepara- tory to breaking the mournful news. "Joseph made himself strange unto them and spake roughly unto them."- And his breth- ren, not recognizing him under the temporary disguise of this harsh exterior, said to Jacob their father, "the man spake roughly unto us." Thus, said Spangenberg, our Lord sometimes deals roughly w'ith us and makes Himself strange, but we know His heart. ^ A pecu- liar impression was felt — an apprehension of something momentous — as he looked about the congregation, and his voice quivered with pent-up emotion. Then the announcement of the tragedy was made and tearful supplications went up to the darkly veiled throne of grace. Many a one's early meal was left untouched in Bethlehem that morn- ing, and the day was one of mourning. Another thing Spangenberg said at that morning service: "Our neighborhood can now see that the Brethren are not allied with the French, for we have been in such danger for several days of being fallen upon by a mob that they have quite openly said, 'before we move upon the enemy, we must not leave one stone upon another in Bethlehem.' The Justice, our Brother Horsfield, has been a real martyr, for he could not convince all of the people that our remaining so quiet in the midst of the tumult that fills the whole land did not signify that we had an under- standing with the French." Those slain on the Mahoning were verily martyrs, destined, in the mysterious ways of God, who made Himself strange unto them and spake roughly unto them," to bear the con- 2 Genesis 42 : 7 and 30. 3 '■'■Der Mann stelH sich hart, abcr wir kennen sein Ilerz." This last clause was the line of a hymn-verse accompanying the text in the book. 314 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM PENNSYLVANIA. victing testimony to men who refused to be convinced by lesser proof. In some sense and degree, their blood was vicarious blood. It had to wash out the cruel calumny which excited preju- dice, incapable of understanding the Moravians, persisted in writing on the bulletin board of public sensation, and it became the sprinkled blood on the lintels and door-posts of Bethlehem to stay the destroy- ing hand of men, maddened by the fiendish atrocities perpetrated upon their homes, who might otherwise have taken vengeance upon the Moravians, as friends of the Indians. When the murderous hand of the savages was to be lifted against Bethlehem, God stayed that hand, for He had chosen the place as a city of refuge to which many who escaped might flee from the fields, where one was taken and another left. The most obtuse mind could be expected to compre- hend, when the massacre on the Mahoning became known, that the savages would not fall upon those who w^ere secretly working with them, and murder them. They thus took revenge upon the Mora- vians for standing in their way with that settlement at the mountain gate-way, and foiling their attempts to secure the co-operation of those converts. After this, the repetition of the old slander — and, although common opinion among suspecting masses was suddenly and powerfully changed, it was repeated by some, even after this — could no longer be charitably ascribed to mere ignorance about the Moravians. It now became criminal malice. In the course of the day, on that 25th of November, one after another arrived from the scene of carnage, like the messengers of Job coming in to tell of the ruin wrought where Satan's hand was permitted to fall. From one after the other, further particulars were learned. About seven o'clock the first fugitive arrived ; Peter Wor- bas, who at first had watched the horrible scenes from the room of the single men in another building. Although ill, he had trudged the long distance to Bethlehem afoot. He could not tell much more than was known. He saw one of the women flee to the cellar, out- side the house, and back into the "sisters' room," pursued by a savage with uplifted tomahawk. He heard the heart-rending screams of an infant amid the crackling of the flames. For some time he was a prisoner, a guard being posted at the door. A shout from the other savages diverting the attention of his guard, he leaped from the window towards the Mahoning and fled. On the way to Bethlehem he heard of the escape of Sturgis. Anton Schmidt and Marcus Kiefer, who, at Shamokin, had become veterans in fac- ing the dangers of savage surroundings, were soon dispatched to /:)5 '/ 3 6. 315 Gnadenhuetten to ascertain how matters stood there, and to take a message from Justice Horsfield to the militia gathered at that point, stating that provisions would be sent them if needed. Span- genberg, meanwhile, went to Nazareth to make the sorrowful announcement there, and institute the first steps towards guarding against a surprise by the savages. There, when he undertook to speak again of what had taken place, his composure forsook him. He broke down under the strain and for a while could only weep. In the afternoon Sensemann came, bringing about thirty of the Gnadenhuetten Indians, all completely exhausted by their hard experiences. While making his way through the woods towards Bethlehem, he came upon this little band cowering in their place of concealment, and brought them along. All that Sensemann could relate was already known through Zeisberger. Later in the day Martin Mack arrived with his wife, Grube and his wife, Schmick and Joseph Powell and his wife, who had been temporarily at the station on the east side, and more of the fugitive Indians. Mack was almost broken-hearted. Gnadenhuetten had been very dear to him. He had devoted himself to that mission from the beginning with all his heart, and he felt as a father towards the converts who were singularly attached to him. The colony of men and women who occupied the original buildings on the west side of the river had trusted his counsel and leadership when the time of peril came. He had encouraged them to stand quietly and manfully at their post. They had done so, and now they had fallen at that post, and he was spared. He was overwhelmed with sorrow. The entire Indian congregation of seventy persons gradually found their way to Bethlehem. Here they were sheltered in the "Indian house" and were cared for, regardless of the risk their presence might entail upon Bethlehem when the unreasoning excitement of some in whose eyes all Indians were aUke, was stirred anew by the discovery that they were housed there. It put a strain even upon the confidence and good will of some of the Bethlehem people, under the poignant grief they felt for the awful fate that had befallen their brethren and sisters on the Mahoning; all on account of Indians and at the hands of Indians ; and under the growing dread of an attack upon Beth- lehem, which might the more quickly be provoked by the presence of these people whom the savages were now bent upon killing, since they could not entice them. It even became necessary for Span- genberg, a few weeks later, to plead with such openly, to not permit 3l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. aversion and bitterness to possess their hearts towards these poor creatures snatched as a brand from the burning ; the remaining fruit of many labors, prayers and tears. In the afternoon of November 26, Partsch and his wife Susanna reached Bethlehem. It was not known whether he had escaped or not, after he and Sensemann parted, and his wife was supposed to be, of course, among the victims. Young Sturgis came with them. They brought the fullest details of the horrible massacre. After Sense- mann had gone out to lock the door, as related by him, the barking of the dogs increased and footsteps were heard abovit the house. Sturgis, followed by several of the other men, arose from the table and opened the door, supposing that the expected militia men were coming. There, before the door, stood some of the murderous savages, ready for the attack. Instantly they fired, and Martin Nitschmann fell dead, while a bullet grazed the face of Joseph Sturgis who was nearest to the door. Another volley quickly followed, and John Lesley, John Gattermeyer and Martin Presser fell. Presser, as was discovered some months later, was not instantly killed, but was able to creep from the house and find his way to the woods nearby, where he succumbed to his wound.* Martin Nitschmann's wife, Susanna, was next wounded by a ball. She was seen to fall and her cry, "O brethren ! brethren ! help me !" was heard. That was the last then known of her, and it was supposed that she had perished by a tomahawk or in the fiames. She was evidently dragged out of the house when the remaining inmates fled to the garret, and, as was afterwards learned, she was taken captive bv the murderers.* 4 April 29, 1756, Stephen Blum, who had carried an order from the Governor to Captain Carl Volck, Commandant of Fort Allen, built where the New Gnadenhuetten of the Indians had been, on the east side of the river, the site of Weissport — Volck was a member of the Moravian congregation at Allemaengel — returned to Bethlehem and reported that the pre- vious week the soldiers had found a corpse in a dense thicket at the " sand spring," not scalped but shot in the right side, and that the man had died lying upon his back with his hands folded. The Captain had the body buried by the militia, and sang as a committal service the verse : Seiji' Aiigen. Seinen Ahaid, Den Leib far tins veri.uund''t, etc., (from the Easter Morning Litany). The body was identified by the clothing as that of Presser. 5 July 19, 1756, her fate was publicly announced at Bethlehem, when reliable information brought by Joachim, a baptized Indian, who had been up on the Susquehanna, confirmed previous reports. She was taken first to Wyoming by the savages, and almost perished from cold on the way. There several of the colony of baptized Indians, who had withdrawn the previous year from Gnadenhuetten, and were living there yet in the turmoil, recognized her 1755 1756. 317 Those who succeeded in reaching the dormitory in the garret closed and secured the trap-door, so that their pursuers could not force it open. This remnant of the household were Gottlieb Anders, his wife Johanna Christina and their infant daughter Johanna; Susanna Louisa, wife of George Partsch ; Anna Catherine, wife of Joachim Sensemann ; George Christian Fabricius, George Schweigert and Joseph Sturgis. Sensemann's wife sank down upon the edge of a bed and simply exclaimed, ''Dear Saviour, this is what I expected !" The wife of Anders, with her wailing infant wrapped in her apron and clasped to her heart, expressed only a mother's anguish for her child. There they passed an awful quarter of an hour, listening to the yells of the savage troop and the shots fired at random through the window, the roof and the floor. One and another of the prisoners screamed for help at intervals, in the faint hope that rescuers might approach and hear that they were yet alive. Then there was a lull in the shooting; the yells ceased for a brief space, and no one was seen by those who peered out of the garret window. For the moment the attention of the demons was absorbed in their final most fiendish plan. Soon the crackling of the flames told the victims what they might now expect. Sturgis seized this opportunity to leap from the window, landed safely and got away. Susanna Partsch immediately followed him and also escaped. The third and last to make the attempt was Fabricius, as appeared from the discoveries made the next day. The window was now again watched, and he did not escape. The remaining four with the little child evidently perished in the flames. Susanna Partsch was unfamiliar with the surroundings, having been at the place a week only and did not know which way to take in the darkness. She secreted herself for some time behind a tree, at an elevated spot near the main building, where she could watch the movements of the murderers. She saw them set fire to one building after another; first the barn, then the kitchen and bakery, then the single men's dwelling, after that the store and last of all, with some difficulty, the main building containing the chapel — the Gemeinhaus . as a Moravian sister. The first was Sarah, the wife of Abraham the Mohican, who threw up her hands in consternation when she saw her. Another woman, Abigail, wife of Benja- min, was permitted to care for her wants in her own hut, until her brutal captor dragged her off to Tioga. There she passed her days in constant weeping and sank into a dazed con- dition of deep melancholy ; Joachim saw her and spoke with her, and had definite infor- mation of her death at Tioga. The Indian who led the attack on the Mahoning and took possession of her as his prize, was killed in August, 1757, by another Indian under the accusation of having acted as a French spy at the treaty in Easton. 3l8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The Store was first looted, then all eatables found in kitchen, bakery and spring-house were collected and the savages had a feast by the light of the conflagration. There were estimated to be about twelve of them. About midnight, as nearly as the trembling watcher could judge, they gathered up the plunder secured in the store and set out towards Wyoming. Then this almost distracted woman, left alone at the desolate place, made her w^ay down to the river where she came to a large hollow tree within which she took refuge until daylight, when rescuers arrived. Partsch had found his way during the night to a house in the Blue Mountains, where he fell in with Sturgis. Early in the morning they returned to the Mahoning with some rangers. He was nerved by a presentiment that his wife had escaped. When they got across the Lehigh, they suddenly came upon her, crouched in her place of concealment, almost benumbed with cold and fright. They went on to explore the scene of desolation. AH the buildings were burned down, and the charred remains of some who had there perished could be seen but not distinguished. Outside, in the square, they came upon the body of Fabricius, pierced with bullets, scalped and mutilated, and watched over by the only living friend that remained at the spot, his dog. The savages, after finishing their atrocious work, left a blanket with a hat and a knife stuck through them on a stump, as a defiant warning of more of the like to follow. Exhausted and sickened, Partsch and his wife and Sturgis set out on their sorrowful journey to Bethlehem. Amid the deserted cabins on the east side, only Shebosh remained a while to watch for any members of the Indian congregation who might yet be hiding near-by and, seeing him there, might venture to approach. On November 27, Anton Schmidt returned from the Mahoning where, with the assistance of some neighbors, he had hastily made a cofftn in which he placed the body of Fabricius, with such charred remains of the others as he could collect, and buried it in a corner of the garden, where the little cemetery of the place had been opened.^ 6 The foregoing narrative is compiled from a careful collation of all extant original accounts, correcting inaccuracies of some of the many jirhited accounts, supplying some points lacking in others, and giving all the authentic particulars that would be found by exam- ining all of them. This massacre ended Indian mission work there. The place lay neglected until 1 77 1, when it became the center of a white congregation, composed of n, embers of the two defunct congregations, Allemaengel (note 4) and Sichem, Duchess County, N. Y., 1755 1756. 319 The remaining weeks of that year were a period of much anxiety at Bethlehem and those who were at the head of affairs and respon- sible for the policy and measures adopted were under a severe strain. Each succeeding day revealed more clearly the great peril in which the settlement, with the stations on the Nazareth land, stood, especially the most exposed outposts, Friedensthal and the Rose Inn. At these Moravian places the dam would have to be built to hold back the devastating flood, if it was not to rush down unhin- dered over the entire lower country. Between this point and Phila- delphia there was not another place at which a sufficient population could be concentrated, with the same degree of order and self-pos- session, of unity and discipline, to make a stand and present a front against the savage on-rush. Above these places no power or even show of resistance remained. There was no rallying-ground for the people, no spot at which there was even enough of a compact mass of buildings to suggest the centering of any strength. When the reign of terror opened along the Blue Mountains, the people who escaped rushed, utterly demoralized and panic-stricken, down the country, and the Moravian places were the first at which there seemed enough prospect of being able to stand, to make it worth while to stop. Therefore, the extreme importance of baffling the the region of the original Indian mission which furnished the nucleus of Gnadenhuetten in 1746. In 1783 the first recorded formal attention was paid to the grave of these martyrs, when that white congregation gathered around it to observe the Easter matins. In 1786, the Rev. John Frederick Moehring, minister there, addressed the executive authorites at Bethlehem in reference to placing a memorial stone on the spot — a thing spoken of before. Finally, on December 10, 1788, the slab that yet lies there, with its simple but impressive inscription was placed on the grave. The monument at the head of it was provided through the exertions of descendants of Martin and Susanna Nitschmann, and set in place, August 7, 1848, the centennial anniversary of the first Indian interment at Gnadenhuetten. The credit for again rescuing the sacred spot from oblivion, more than thirty years after the dissolution of the white congregation of Gnadenhuetten, belongs mainly to the late Joseph Leibert, of Bethlehem, whose wife was a grand-daughter of the Nitschmanns. With brief biographical sketches of those martyrs appended to the Bethlehem diary for November, 1755, is a parentation or elegy in Latin, by Christian Wedsted, the companion of the gifted Fabricius, who went with him to Gnadenhuetten, June 28, 1754, to study Indian languages. The composition is entitled : In Fratres Sororesque beatae memoriae quos ut sacrificium pro nobis Salvator noster Deusque, T. O. M. Sibi Mahoniae offerri passus est, Die xxiv, Nov. cbbcclv. 320 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. savages at these points, which had now become the frontier posts, was reahzed. At Easton there was less at that time to inspire con- fidence among the panic-stricken refugees from the upper country, or to offer resistance. If the savages broke through the Moravian Hnes, there seemed to be nothing left, as some expressed it, but to "rush on before them into the sea, for the water was preferable to the tomahawk, the scalping-knife and the torch." And yet there were, at the time of the outbreak, probably not fifty guns among all the Moravians at Bethlehem and Nazareth combined. Some of the Moravian wood-men and farmers went hunting occasionally, not for sport — they had no time for that — but to supplement their provision- store in seasons of scarcity ; and guns were sometimes taken along on journeys through the forest to secure needed food. Beyond this they had no use for fire-arms. The people from the mountains who fled to the Moravians for refuge did not come supplied with arms and ammunition. They came empty- handed, hungry, many of them half naked — men without coats or hats, women and children who had rushed from their beds at dead of night, many with only the clothing" they slept in and blankets or quilts hastily thrown around them, some bare-footed. These people knew, furthermore, that the Moravians were "not fighting people," that they deprecated warfare and would have nothing to do with military drill. It was the talk of the country, and many a jest on the subject, at their expense, had excited merriment around the fires of back- woods cabins, even while the wicked stories about their secreting arms and ammunition for the use of the "French Indians" were discussed, without appreciating the inconsistency of laying these incongruous things to their charge at the same time. What course should now be pursued by the Moravian leaders in this dire exigency ? Here was a body of men trained only to peaceful thoughts and employments ; a large number of defenceless women quartered in several buildings ; a host of helpless, innocent children to be protected ; troops of terror-stricken people from the back country rushing in to seek refuge with them ; the fate of extensive regions in the lower country turning upon the question whether the fiendish hordes on the war-path could be kept behind Bethlehem and Nazareth or not. Either of two extremes could be taken. One was to abandon the principles they had been cultivating, cast their profession of trust in God to the winds under a severe test, as mere "fair-weather talk," and let the demoralized people about them 1755 1756. 321 conclude that there was nothing back of it at last, by turning Bethle- hem into a fort and centering the militia here as headquarters, and then perhaps go back to their principles when danger was past. The other extreme was to pursue the course of fatuous fanaticism; load no guns, adopt no measures of defence, post no guards, and simply say we are the Lord's people and He will protect us. Some expected and urged them to do the first. Others supposed they would do the second, because they regarded them as religious fanatics and could not understand their principles to mean anything else than this. The Moravians were too sincere and consistent to pursue the first course, and had better mettle than to be stampeded into suddenly turning the town into a garrison in the panic. On the other hand, they had too much sense to pursue the other course. They were not fanatics, but intelligent men who could combine religion and com- mon-sense. We are not "KriegcriscJi" (disposed to fight). We are not "Qudker- iscW (of Quaker mind). This in homely, laconic style, expressed their position at that juncture. They would not organize for aggres- sive activity against the savages, but, on the other hand, they would not fail to adopt every measure required to defend the town, and, if it came to the most desperate pass, would, of course, resort to arms to protect those who were dependent upon them. They thought, too, that, as things were, they would do all that could be expected in merely maintaining a defence. They were sufficiently clear and well- balanced in their conception of the relative importance of the several classes of religious scruples, principles and duties, to realize that singling out not taking up arms, as the one supreme standard, to be stubbornly held under all circumstances, could in some emergencies be regarded as not only fanaticism but criminal folly, as much as if a man refused to take active measures against a conflagration, out of religious scruples. They were, moreover, not housed in com- fortable homes, at a safe distance from the imperiled frontiers, as were most of those who in the Assembly were delaying the legislation needed to provide for adequate defences and, with exasperating calmness, saying, "I told you so," when the tales of horror began to come in ; or, what was yet more trying to the harassed people on the frontiers, as well as to those in Philadelphia who clamored for harbor defences, were, under the lead of astute politicians, employing dilatory tactics and quibbling about the formalities and technicalities of pro- cedure, in order to press concessions from the Proprietary govern- 322 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ment under the strain of this extremity, on quite other and more remote questions, while they and the Governor went on wrangling, each trying to make the situation of advantage against the other. The Moravians were facing the storm on the frontier with the men who were besieging the Assembly with demands for defence. They did not share the feeling, but had as much reason to as many who expressed it, that they would Uke to force the parties in the Assembly who were pursuing this course to move up on the frontier between their homes and the savages. Even in this matter, the Moravian blood that was shed on the Mahoning was a sacrifice for the public good, for it expedited the official action that was so urgently needed. On that very day, November 24, on which the massacre occurred, Governor Morris sent a message to the Assembly announcing a donation of £5000 from the Proprietaries in England for the benefit of Pennsylvania, sent upon the receipt of his communication to them in reference to the probable effects of the disaster to the British forces in July. With this announcement he said to the Assembly : "Upon this occasion, gentlemen, I must again recommend to you to lay aside all disputes and to grant such supplies in addition to what the Proprietaries have given, as his Majesty's service and the present exigencies of the Province require." The same day a remonstrance was addressed by the Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council of Philadelphia to the Assembly, urging them in the strongest terms to "postpone all disputes to a more seasonable time," and to grant the necessary supplies and "pass a reasonable law in order to collect and regulate the force of the Province for repelling the present cruel invasion." This donation from the Proprietaries did much to further action, for an equivalent in lieu of taxes on the Proprietary estates — the chronic subject of controversy — was now made available in a manner which enabled the Proprietaries to maintain, for the time being, their contention and constrained the Assembly to waive theirs. Yet the latter pursued a method humiliating to the Governor. They made the disbursement of funds voted by them so specific that the Gover- nor could not, as some professed to think he would, under the general head of the public service, divert any of the sum to salary and other expenses, which the Assembly was withholding in the quarrel. They also put the administration of such funds into the hands of Commis- sioners nominated by them and not into the hands of the Governor. The sensitive pride of the Governor might again have proved an 1755 1756. 323 obstruction, for he was disposed to withhold his signature from the Assembly's bill, appropriating i6o,ooo for defences, on account of this afifront to him as Proprietary representative. Just at this point, the blood of the martyrs on the Mahoning cried to him to let this pass and to occasion no further delay. Justice Horsfield's letter to Justice Parsons of Easton, Proprietary agent, announcing the massacre, forwarded by Parsons, with a pathetic appeal for help in the great distress, to Secretary Peters, came before the Governor and Council on November 26, at the very session in which they had the Assembly's bill under consideration. The offence taken at the mode of procedure and the form of the bill was noted, but, in consideration of the "distressed state of the Province" and "the imminent danger" it was concluded to suggest to the Governor to sign it without further ado, and through Peters, he signified to the Assembly his readiness to do so. He signed it the next day, and thus the important action, upon which the possibility to do anything for the defence of the frontier depended, was consummated three days after the "French Indians," by murdering those Moravians on the Mahoning, convinced the public that Bethlehem was not a "nest of conspirators" in league with them. The day on which the bill was signed, November 27, Bishop Spangenberg wrote to William Edmonds, the Moravian Assembly- man who had been elected in the place of James Burnside, deceased, presenting those features of the situation which called for the attention of the Assembly, as they appeared to him. He set forth the futihty of the demonstrations being made by the undiscipHned and excited rangers who "meant it well," but were accompHshing nothing. He said: "They don't understand Indian war, which is hunting of devils. They come in companies, beating of their drums and making a noise, that the Indians may hear it and so run away. They are, besides, ignorant of the woods, and the Indians, by their subtile arts, can draw them into dangerous places where they will surround them, and standing behind trees, will kill them, every one on the spot." Spangenberg further says in this letter, "We will stay where we are, for if we should give way, the whole county lies open before them, and there is not one place between here and Germantown where they will be stopped. The whole country knows this very well, and there- fore they think it needful by all means to stand in defence of Beth- lehem. The Indians, if they pass Bethlehem and Nazareth, can be followed and overtaken bv the Brethren, but if thev once have done 324 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. with Bethlehem and Nazareth, they will fall down upon the scattered plantations like a rapid stream. * * * I think the best way is to keep guard and proper watches day and night ; and besides that to search the woods and take up every fellow that under pretense of hunting, Hes skulking and watching the best opportunity of cutting people's throats, or of killing them with flames, guns, knives, hatchets, most barbarously, just as he can." He suggests three general ideas, as a plan of precaution, instead of the desultory roaming of the militia through the woods. One was the erection of a series of small stone forts, bullet-proof, with a garrison of about fifty men to range about each. Another was the concentration of people in the towns and villages, where, with a larger number together, a better system of watch, day and night, could be maintained by having enough men to alternate without exhaustion. The third was to build stockades at such places, within which to gather the women and children. Edmonds was asked to consult with Charles Brockden and others in an efifort to get an act through the Assembly "to erect Gnadenhuetten as well as Bethlehem and Nazareth into corpor- ations," in order to make all official regulations about an authorized guard, as recognized by the civil authorities, applicable to the three places. At the time of writing, he yet hoped to preserve the Indian mission houses of new Gnadenhuetten on the east side of the river from destruction, and, if a proper garrison, for which he had asked, were at once sent there, to be able to transfer the Indian congregation, now at Bethlehem, back to their village. In a letter written the next day to Charles Brockden of Phila- delphia, to the same general purport he says, "I can't but expect that you will do your utmost and use all your influence which you have in the world to assist us in a time so very critical. There is not one day nor night without most imminent danger, and the only thing we can do is to keep close to our Saviour." Of Timothy Horsfield he gives this testimony: "Br. Horsfield, who from morning till night is crowded with people — for all come to him, and I dare say that more than a thousand men have passed and repassed Bethlehem this week^acts like a man full of prudence and heartiness. I don't know what would become of the people (i. e., from the country) if they had not somebody to speak manUke to them. For they are not only almost frightened out of their wits, but are also without such commanders as the present circumstances seem to require." 1/55 1756. 325 The following day, November 30, an address to Governor Morris, drawn up for the Gnadenhuetten Indians who had fled to Bethlehem, rendered to them in their own several dialects — there were Dela- wares, Mohicans, Monseys and Wampanoags among them — adopted by them and attested with the tribal marks of thirteen of their principal men affixed to their respective written names, was sent by express to the Justices of Northampton County for approval, to be then forwarded to Philadelphia. In concluding the address, they declare : "None of us have any hand in the abominable murders lately committed by the Indians, but we abhor and detest them. It is our desire, seeing that we are persuaded that our lives will be principally sought after, to put ourselves as children under the pro- tection of this Government. We cannot say otherwise but that we are entirely devoted to the English Government and wish success and prosperity to their arms against their and our enemies. We hope that our Honorable Governor will give us a gracious answer to this our humble petition, and provide for our future welfare and security." In his reply of December 4, the Governor promised them protection and a fort at Gnadenhuetten — according to Spangenberg's sug- gestion — assured them that he did not suspect them of any part "in the late mischief," commiserated their losses and intimated that they were entitled to relief, stated his intention to have a conference with the friendly Indians, and desired them to remain where they were — to all of which he stood pledged under "the Lesser Seal of the Province." With this address of the Indians, Spangenberg had written a letter to the Justices, drawing their attention to the importance of holding these Indians together and protecting them, as men who at that time "could do the government the greatest service." He adds the following: "I cannot help letting you know that Gnadenhuetten is of as great importance to our government as Shamokin ; for if that place be not secured, not only all the settlers who live beyond the Blue Mountains must be going from their houses and farms, but the Indians can run down with freshes in a few hours into any part of the Forks ; yea, quite down to Philadelphia. If the Government should think well to build a fort there, we will give of the land we have there, ten acres, for that purpose, in a place which can command the Lehigh and a great way on all sides. If they choose our offer, they must needs keep a guard there, before the houses (on the east side) and mill are burned down ; which can be of great service to 326 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. them at first while they are building a fort." He then refers to the corn of the Gnadenhuetten Indians yet stored there, the undesir- ability of leaving it to the enemy and states that "twelve wagons, may be, would fetch it." This letter was forwarded to Philadelphia with an endorsement, urging the importance of the matters set forth, dated November 30, and signed by the Justices Parsons, Horsfield, Craig and Wilson. At the same time Spangenberg wrote to Secretary Peters, setting forth more at length the great importance of fortifying Gnaden- huetten, as follows: "I have considered that if Gnadenhuetten is emptied and left to the enemy, it may prove the rviin not only of all the settlements lying along the Lecha and Delaware, but also of Philadelphia. For troops may be marched from Wyomik to Gnaden- huetten in one day, and if they take possession thereof, they can run down with freshes in six hours to Bethlehem, and from thence to Philadelphia in one night. I have therefore mentioned this matter to the Magistrates of this County, and have represented unto them the great calamity which could be brought upon the whole country by the loss of that part of the Province. The situation of the hill which joins Gnadenhuetten is so extraordinary for a fort, that gentlemen of judgment who have seen it are of the opinion there could be no better. It lies on the road which comes from Wyomik, and commands not only the Lecha a great way, but all sides, up and down, before and behind. If the French once come and build there a fort, it will cost as much, if I am not mistaken, as the taking of Crown Point, to get it out of their hands. For if they put a garrison in the Gaps of the mountain, and make there also a fortification you cannot come at them at all with any great guns. But they can at pleasure come down, both by land and water, and over-run all plan- tations, not only on the other side of the Blue Mountain, but on this side also." Then he repeats the offer of land for such a fort and adds that there were "at least fifteen little habitable block houses," and that it would "be good to send up men before the enemy either burned or took them." When that letter reached Philadelphia, the first steps towards the defence of the frontiers had at last been taken, and the Commissioners were preparing to begin operations. Benjamin Franklin, the prin- cipal man among them, was satisfied, for the time-being, with the results of the diplomatic sparring with the Governor which he — then already, with far-sightedness planning to anticipate the decadence of 1755 1756. 32/ the Proprietary Government as an obsolete relic of feudalism — had mainly steered, using the anti-war and anti-Proprietor Quaker con- tingent of the Assembly as a constituency. Now he hastened to make good the dissatisfaction and even resentment occasioned by the delay, among the citizens of the frontier neighborhoods, by vigorously pushing the plan of defences. Bishop Spangenberg's strong presentation of the Gnadenhuetten plan bore fruit, for, as the Governor intimated in his reply to the Indians, that point was at once recognized as one of great strategic value, and selected as the site of one of the chain of forts to be constructed "along the Kittatiny Mountains, from the Delaware to the Maryland border." On December 19, P'ranklin, commissioned as Lieutenant General, with James Hamilton and Joseph Fox, two other of the Commis- sioners, arrived at Bethlehem, to proceed with this enterprise. They took quarters at the Crown Inn. They were followed by others, in the evening, with a large guard, in addition to that of fifty which earlier in the day had escorted the Bethlehem wagon from Phila- delphia, so that "about a hundred and fifty men were gathered at the tavern." It was high time for action. The savages had been growing bolder in their forays. The awful massacres at Hoeth's and the Brodhead settlements, December 10, had left that whole region desolate and almost depopulated. On December 12, Hors- field had sent to the Governor the accounts brought to Nazareth of these new horrors and forwarded from there by Nathanael Seidel and John Michael Grafif. Depicting the situation at Bethlehem, Horsfield said : "Although our gracious King and Parliament have been pleased to exempt those amongst us of tender conscience from bearing arms, yet there are many among us who make no scruple of defending themselves against such cruel savages. * * * * * But alas ! what can we do, having very few arms and little or no ammunition, and we are now, as it were, the frontier, and as we are circum- stanced, our family (Economy), being so large, it is impossible for us to retire to any other place of security." The condition of the refugees pouring into Nazareth and Beth- lehem was most pitiable. At the time when the massacre at Hoeth's and Dansbury took place, three wagons were on the w^ay to the latter place to procure grain for Bethlehem. Three miles from their destination they were met by Ephraim Colver and others with a company of half naked women and children. The men driving these wagons immediately took up the poor fugitives and returned to 328 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Nazareth. The record observes that this was a special Providence, for many of the children who were almost naked would have perished on the road. Even before that, evidences of the presence of savages had appeared at different places south of the mountain. Before the close of November, some of them had been seen spying about the outskirts of Bethlehem. The first such discovery was made in the evening of November 29, when, in the course of the evening service, notice was brought to Spangenberg that the Gnadenhuetten refugees quartered in the Indian House across the Monocacy, at the mill, had seen strange Indians prowling about back of their house. Threats had been made by the savages and renegades that they would begin their work at Bethlehem by butchering this company of loyal and faithful Indians. The service was immediately brought to a close and a consultation was held as to the course it would be best to pursue towards such strange Indians, if any made their appearance openly and with peace- able pretensions. The night-watch, as then organized, was doubled and posted at five corners. It was agreed that if any one detected the approach of Indians, he should give a signal by discharging his gun. The next guard would do the same and so on, around the circuit, in the order arranged. The intention was to merely hold the savages at a distance by this evidence that a number of men were on the watch, thus frustrating their attempt for the night and avoiding actual collision and bloodshed. It was confidently believed that, at that time, the savages had not collected in the vicinity in sufficient numbers that they would venture to storm the place, and by such vigilance and demonstrations, prowling bands of three or four could be baffled. Soon after the guard was mounted, the awkwardness or nervousness of one of the sentries occasioned the accidental discharge of his gun. It was taken for granted that it was a signal as agreed upon, and directly the successive shots were fired according to arrangement. A general alarm was given and all of the men who were appointed to remain up for an emergency ran in the direction of the first shot, with clubs, flails and such other rude weapons as were at hand. Although it was soon found to have been a false alarm, this episode, which caused nearly all of the men in Bethlehem to remain up the entire night, was afterwards regarded as Providential, for the next day Augustus the Indian reported having, at that time, seen several strange Indians again coming down the hill west of the Monocacy towards the mill-dam, who were evidently frightened away 1755 1756. 329 by the noise. This may serve as an instance of many an uneasy night experienced during the subsequent several months. While the presence of the Gnadenhuetten refugees added to the peril, on account of the vindicative determination of the blood-thirsty prowlers to make an end of them, they were, on the other hand, of value as watchers, for they were always on the look-out and, with the instinct and training of Indians, were able to discover evidences of strange Indians lurking about and give timely warning, when white men at the place did not suspect that any were near. This the Bethlehem people quickly understood, while the civil authorities likewise learned to appreciate their value as scouts, guides and messengers ; they being the most faithful and trustworthy residue of the Indians who had professed Christianity. The responsibility of those in control at Bethlehem and of those who kept guard increased continually during the last month of 1755, as the population gathered there grew almost daily until at the close of the year it comprised 400 souls, including the Indians of whom there were 70. One large influx, on December i, both stirred the hearts and braced the nerves of the men, and added intensity to the prayers of the women of Bethlehem during those anxious days and nights. After that first unmistakable evidence that savages were skulking about, it was determined to concentrate all the children at Bethlehem for greater security. On the above date, five wagons from Nazareth, conveying a most precious charge, drew up at the water-tower building in front of the Brethren's House. There were sixty-one quite young children, many of them barely beginning to speak and walk, and seventeen little girls a few years older — the nursery from the Whitefield House and the girls' school from the original log house next to it, with fifteen tutoresses, nurses and attendants, and the curator John Levering and his wife, all under the charge of the Rev. John Michael Grafif and his wife who were the general superin- tendents of the establishment. "Bag and baggage they came," says one record. "Like a flight of pigeons," says another. "The bees were swarming," says Grafif in his autobiography ; for he had a strange dream in the night of November 30. He saw, in his dream, his hives of bees swarming, although it was winter. The next morning when the sudden order came for this exodus to Bethlehem, he found in it the interpretation of his dream. While women looked on with tearful eyes and throbbing hearts and thought of the awful possibilities of the coming days, as these little ones were taken into their temporary home. 330 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. vacated for them by the men who had been occupying it, the children who were old enough to observe what had been done with them, were manifesting innocent delight at this sudden visit to Bethlehem, and eagerly enjoying the meal ready for them upon their arrival. Every effort had been made and was further made to keep all knowledge of the danger that threatened Bethlehem from the children. Not until the middle of January was any infor- mation given them. It was made necessary then by the remarks of refugees in the hearing of some children. Before that they had no thought about the militia who rode through Bethlehem but that they were "going hunting." Among them were several children of men and women who had perished at Gnadenhuetten. Of that mournful occurrence Spangenberg informed the children, with as much tact and caution as possible, on Sunday, the 7th of December, when they were all gathered at a children's service. The next day after the arrival of the children from Nazareth, two of the wagons were sent over to Salisbury with an escort to convey the boys of that school, with John Schmidt and his wife, who had charge of them, to Beth- lehem. These boys were quartered in a room in the Brethren's House. "Thus the population of Bethlehem was increased by 208 souls in eight days." The anxiety was intense until Christmas was passed, for definite information had been received that the savages proposed to make an end of Bethlehem and Nazareth and clear the region of white people by the time of "their great day" — Christmas. Therefore much attention was turned to preparation for such an attack, while, at the same time, the greatest care was taken to prevent a panic. Work was pushed on the stockade run along the more exposed sides of the central buildings — west and north — and on the construction of watch towers and bastions at the corners, on which later two swivel guns were mounted for a while. Many of the window^s of the houses were temporarily walled up ; those in the upper stories to the middle of the sash, so that light could enter and persons could look out, while the range of bullets fired up into the windows would thus be above the heads of all who were in the rooms. A regular system of armed guards and watchmen was gradually perfected. In the following months these guards, together with those appointed at the stations on the Nazareth land, were placed under the supervision of one general corporal ; the whole system and the single appointments being made subject to the approval of the Provincial authorities, and recognized as pertaining to their general plan of defence. 1755- •1756. 331 That dreaded Christmas was passed without disaster. The murder- ous plotters found themselves baffled in their intended attack. Their methods were adapted only to sudden surprises upon unprotected points, to guerilla raids where they were not expected, and to skulking assassination in the woods ; and their numbers were not sufficient at any one point to besiege a town with adequate watch and guard. Such was the excellent morale maintained, that on Christ- mas Eve, after an early evening service, the people, with the exception of the guards and the numerous reserve of watchmen, retired quietly, trusting in the strong arm and the never-sleeping eye of Him without whose keeping "the watchman waketh but in vain." At four o'clock on Christmas morning the music of trombones from the roof-terrace of the Brethren's House ushered in the "great day" so dreaded, the people arose and the night-watch went off duty. There is a tradition that the notes of that Christmas morning chorale, breaking the dead silence, was wafted into the startled ears of some lurking- savages on the hill-side, back of the Indian House, who were lingering near in the hope of yet applying a fire brand to some unguarded corner of the outer buildings before day broke ; and that the strange, sweet sound struck fear into their hearts, so that they slipped away into the woods in dread of some unearthly power guarding Bethlehem. Other Indians to whom the prowlers had spoken about this, afterwards told of it. Later in the day when the large company of children who slept in Bethlehem the pre*vious night without thought of fear, assembled in the church — the present "Old Chapel" — to enjoy a Christmas service and admire a Christmas picture painted for the occasion by Valentine Haidt, just as if no unusual conditions existed, some said the guardian angels of these children were our best Christmas watchers. TROMBONES WERE BROUGHT TO BETHLEHEM IN 1754. 332 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. New excitement and alarm marked the opening of the year 1756. A company of miHtia had shortly before been posted at Gnaden- huetten to guard the place. The houses on the east side and the mill on the Mahoning were yet standing. Several trips with wagons had been successfully made, bringing away grain and other things. On New Year's Day, twelve men with three wagons, each drawn by four horses, started from Bethlehem on the last such trip. When within two miles of their destination they were compelled to turn back, and the next day they reached Bethlehem again, bringing, not the remaining grain, but a number of wounded militia men. The savages had attacked the place, burned all that remained of it and overcome the guard there stationed, killing a number and wounding more. This completed the ruin of everything on both sides of the river that belonged to the Moravians. The property at Gnadenhuetten, East, now destroyed, consisted of the central mission-house con- taining the chapel, eighteen good log houses and twelve smaller Indian cabins. West of the river, the saw and grist-mill was now also burned.''^ The same day a foray was made, a little way to the west 7 The appraisement affirmed to before Justice Horsfield, February 4, 1756, by George Klein, Joseph Powell and Henry Frey, figured the total loss at ^1914. 19. 3. Pa. Of this sum, the valuation of the houses on the east side was £2'j(i, that of grain and other farm products on the Mahoning, ;i^i29. 4. 3, and that of the cattle, ^^141. 15. What would now be by far the most valuable single item of property undoubtedly de- stroyed there, November 24, but not listed in the appraisement, was a book, now so rare that, a few years ago, a copy sold for ;55i250. September 13, 1754, Jacob Vetter brought to Bethlehem, to be deposited in the library, a book, purchased by John Hopson and Marcus Jung for 15 shillings at a "vendue" at Lancaster, a few weeks before. It was the complete Eliot Indian Bible, Old and New Testaments with Psalter in metre, printed in small quarto at Cambridge, Mass., 1663, *'at the charge, and with the consent of the Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England." That it was the very scarce complete edition is clear from the full reproduction of the title page given by the Bethlehem diarist. It was the property, formerly, of Christian Ludwig Sprdgel, uncle of the wife of Wm. Parsons, presented to him by a friend in Holland. On the fly-leaf was the following entry, also reproduced in the Bethlehem diary : " Tot een Vrietidllyk Andencketi en tot een niltlig Gebruyk onder de Indianisse Volkeren vereert dit Boek aen synen Vriend Heer Lodwick Christian Sprdgel von Pensilvania, Amsterdam, den 9 April, 1717, Jan Hendrick de Hoest." It was taken to the Mahoning, October 7, 1754, for examination by the missionary stu- dents Fabricius, Roessler and Wedsted in connection with their linguistic work. The record states that Roessler was greatly pleased with it and found the language akin to the Mohican. There is no mention of its return to Bethlehem and it is not listed in the earliest extant cat- 1755 1756. 333 of Christiansbrunn, where seven farm houses were burned and some of the people were killed. The Commissioners had left Beth- lehem, the last day of the year, and gone to Reading. A messenger followed them to that place with a report of this new disaster. It occasioned another panic among the people and a new inrush of refugees at Bethlehem. There were over a hundred in the town and at the Crown Inn on January 2. It also caused more speed in the erection of the rude fort at Gnadenhuetten. It was completed, January 25, when, with the first discharge from the muskets of the garrison and the two swivel guns mounted on the bastions of the stockade, the Governor's flag was hoisted and the structure named Fort Allen in honor of Justice William Allen. Thus the first thing tangible towards the protection of the Lehigh Valley from incursions of savages through the Gap was achieved. The entire series of frontier forts along the Kittatinny Hills was completed and equipped by the middle of February. It would have been well for the neigh- borhood that was now pouring its half frantic population into Beth- lehem, Nazareth, Friedensthal, and the other Moravian stations, if more haste had been made in taking possession of that first point in accordance with Spangenberg's urgent request, before the savages had that opportunity on New Year's Day. It was fortunate for the sufferers that the sorely-taxed Moravians had more sympath}^ and patience with the panic-stricken people, crowding in upon them, than the honorable Commissioners and his Excellency the Governor had. While the latter were in consultation at Reading, the first week in January, when the report of the disaster at Gnadenhuetten reached them, the Governor wrote to the Council at Philadelphia: "The Commissioners have done everything that was proper in the County of Northampton, but the people are not satisfied, nor, by what I can learn from the Commissioners, would they be unless every man's house was protected by a fort and a company of soldiers, and themselves paid for staying at home and doing nothing." Franklin wrote to Governor Morris on January 14, from Bethlehem : "As we drew near this place we met a number of wagons, and many people moving off with their effects, and alogue of the Bethlehem library, made within 15 years after that, nor in any subsequent catalogue. It is therefore highly probable that it was destroyed November 24, 1755, and that the long-current supposition that it was stolen from the archives during the decades prior to 1861, when they were carelessly left at the mercy of unscrupulous relic hunters, is erroneous. 334 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. families from the Irish Settlement and Lehi Township, being terrified by the defeat of Hays's company (at Gnadenhuetten) and the burning and murders committed in the Township on New Year's Day. We found this place filled with refugees, the workmen's shops and even cellars being crowded with women and children, and we learnt that Lehi Township is almost abandoned by the inhabitants."^ Franklin himself shared the unsympathetic sentiments expressed by the Gov- ernor about the demoralized people of the neighborhood a little while later, when the measures of defence had been gotten better in hand and the operations of the savages south of the Blue Mountains were thought to have been checked. During the first panic, the authorities at Bethlehem were requested to care, the best they could, not only for the Christian Indians, whom the Government, as a matter of policy, sought to hold together under safe influence, but also for the white people who fled to them from stricken neighborhoods ; and they were given to under- stand that the accounts, properly presented, for the expense incurred, would be paid. When the condition of things seemed to the Com- missioners to have become more settled, and the funds at their com- mand began to run low, they manifested some reluctance to be at further charges on account of the refugee settlers. Ultimately they demurred even against paying further bills on account of the Indians, and this, in violation of their own explicit instructions and promises to the Brethren who had all the burden and inconvenience even of sheltering and feeding "friendly" Indians, at the request of the Government, who were not members of their Christian flock, but whom the Government wished to favor from motives of policy. As regards the white refugees, Spangenberg wrote to Franklin, Feb- ruary 25, 1756, wishing to know what the further desire and intention of the Commissioners was. A new panic had been occasioned by fresh outrages in the greatly harassed neighborhood of Allemaengel. Span- genberg writes in reference to the refugees yet on the hands of the 8 The records give the whole number of refugees received as 639 and the maximum num- ber at one time, in January, 1756, as 556. distributed as follows : Bethlehem, 205 ; Naza- reth, 134; F"riedensthal, 104; Christiansbrunn, 49; Gnadenthal, 44; the Rose, 20. An- other statement is that at the end of the month, there were 449 at the Nazareth places, 226 of them children, distributed as follows : Nazareth, 253 ; Friedensthal, 75 ; Gnadenthal, 52; Christiansbrunn, 48 ; the Rose, 21. The Whitefield House at Nazareth and the two log houses near by were entirely occupied by the refugees. The widows who were living in one of the latter when the nursery and girls' school were moved down to Bethlehem, were transferred temporarily to Gnadenthal. 1755 1756. 335 Brethren : "Some of them were removed again to their plantations, and others were upon going thither, but when the account came of the new mischief done lately by the enemy at Allemaengel, the latter did not care to stir, and the others came back again, some few excepted. Many of them are afraid of going to their plantations, not knowing what to do, if they find their houses either burned or robbed of all they left therein. We have supplied them who were in real necessity, hitherto, with meal and meat ; and the Brethren keep an account thereof, as you was pleased to direct them in a letter to me, a copy whereof I here enclose, because Mr. Edmonds tells me that you had mislaid yours. But as the many labours which took away your time when lately at Bethlehem, have no doubt pre- vented your giving further orders about this matter, this is humbly to desire you in behalf of my Brethren, who present their humble respect and duty to you, to let us know in a line or two, if you please, your mind." In a post-script he adds : "As I hear Mr. Horsfield had orders to pay the Brethren iioo currency, which also he hath done, and taken receipt for it, they will be glad to know whether this sum of money is intended to pay their new accounts since the last balance, or whether it is to be laid out for to buy meat and meal for the above-mentioned poor refugees." Franklin's reply, dated Phila- delphia, March I, 1756, is a follows: "As the Forts are built and the Ranging Companies in Motion beyond the Mountains to cover the Inner Parts of the County, I think the People may now very safely stay at their Places. The Government is at a great Expense to afford them this Defence; If they have no regard to it, but run away in so shameful and cowardly a Manner, every time an Indian or two appears in any Part of the Province, and abandon their Plan- tations, I believe the Government will not think it worth while to keep up these Guards merely to secure empty Houses and unculti- vated Fields, but will demoHsh the Forts, withdraw the Companies from your Frontier, and send them to other Parts to defend a better and more manly People. Of this be pleased to acquaint them ; and farther that the Commissioners desire no Allowance may be made of Provisions on Acc't of the Government to any Refugees at your Place after this time ; for some of them, as long as they can live in Indolence with you, and be fed, will think little of returning to their places, or of the duty of caring and laboring for their own Livelihood. The iioo advanced your Brethren was only to prevent your being in Advance for us : It is to be accounted for when we settle, and what 336 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Provisions you have furnish'd to the Poor, according to my Letter will be allowed. I am with the greatest respect," &c. Undoubtedly these animadversions, like those of the Governor, were merited in the case of many who, as Spangenberg himself had remarked, had become "frightened out of their wits," and of certain others who were disposed to accept charity as long as it was dispensed. At the same time, as many shocking instances until well on into the spring proved, some neighborhoods were far from being rendered as safe by those forts and rangers as the authorities, with their own persons and property at a secure distance, would have these afflicted people think. The jeopardy in which the execution of this threat on the part of the Lieutenant General would place Beth- lehem and everything that was recognized as dependent upon its security, does not seem to have been in his mind when he penned the letter. Perhaps he had been too greatly impressed by the ability of the Bethlehem people to take care of themselves and of others. In a well-known and oft-quoted passage about Bethlehem, in his famous autobiography, Franklin says : "I was surprised to find it in so good a posture of defence. The principal buildings were defended by a stockade ; they had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New York, and had even placed large quantities of small paving stones between the windows of their high stone houses, for their women to throw upon the heads of any Indians that should attempt to force into them. The armed Brethren, too, kept watch and relieved as methodically as in any garrison town." Referring to his surprise at their making use of arms, in view of their exemption from military duty by act of Parliament, and Spangenberg's explanation, which he undoubtedly failed to understand accurately, he makes this obser- vation : *Tt seems they were either deceived in themselves or deceived the Parliament; but common sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions."'' 9 Sufficient has been said in Chapter VII and in this Chapter on the position of the Mora- vians in this matter, to enable the reader to understand it and to discover, in referring to the passage from which the above quotations are made, wherein Dr. Frankhn misapprehended it. They were neither deceived nor deceiving, but were acting in perfect consistency ; for they were sane men and not the whimsical enthusiasts he at that time yet supposed them to be. Later, when he gave more attention to their principles, he learned to know them better. The alleged purchase of arms and ammunition from New York referred to was a misunder- standing. On December 20, some Brethren arrived from New York with these stores sent by friends there for the use of Bethlehem in the extremity that had come. It caused Span- genberg much perplexity, for he was doing his utmost to hold the more excited ones at 1755 1756. 337 The general confidence inspired by the "'posture of defence" in which Bethlehem was found was not caused by the sight of many guns, nor of military parade ; for of the first the people saw very few — they were not displayed — and of the second they saw none whatever on the part of the residents. The kind of measures adopted were not only those of men who were determined to exhaust every other means before armed collision became the last resort, but also of men who understood the Indians and knew their thoughts, habits and methods much better than did the honorable Commissioners or the majority of the men from the lower country and from New Jersey, who marched to and fro, and made random sallies through the woods. Nothing perplexed and baffled skulking Indians so much as the constant vigilance maintained and the plans adopted to let them know that there was no unguarded spot which they could approach, and no moment at which they could slip upon the people unawares and catch them napping. This simple principle of meeting their approach defeated every attempt to carry out the only kind of plans they had. Bishop Spangenberg, in his auto- biography, thus briefly and graphically presents the general method and principle of these systematic precautions : "At night the watch- men shouted one to another at intervals of an hour, so that the sound rang out loudly into the forest. We also built block houses and mounted them with guns, and when a gun was discharged it was a signal to the vicinity that hostile Indians w^ere near. Thus when the savages came spying at night, they always found us in readiness. Then I called all the Brethren together and begged them for Jesus' sake by all means to spare the life of every hostile Indian (shooting low if they were forced to shoot), and if one was, perchance, shot in the legs, we proposed to take him in for treatment and care for him with all faithfulness until he recovered. I fell upon my face and Bethlehem to the principles of the Church, persuading them to show the calmness and forti- tude of implicit trust in the Lord under this severe strain ; influence the panic-stricken neighborhood by this kind of moral strength ; use constant vigilance to thwart approaches by the enemy and prevent the necessity of violent collision as long as possible ; and to think of actually using firearms only as the last desperate defence. The sending of those arms from New York came nearer than any other incident, to breaking the internal, moral disci- pline at Bethlehem, and in a letter to the friends in New York in reference to their well- meant act, Spangenberg took pains to strongly present his position. That the cobble-stones in the windows were to be thrown down on the heads of Indians by the women was erron- eous information or supposition. This was merely the walling-up to protect from bullets mentioned in the text. 338 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. besought the Saviour to graciously prevent all bloodshed at our place, and, to Him be thanks, He heard our prayer." The disbursements by the Commissioners for the relief of white refugees had not amounted to much, and the burden their presence laid upon the Brethren was very hard to bear, along with caring for their own large number of dependent women and children, while feeling the effect of very short crops and the almost complete stoppage of industries at Bethlehem during those hard winter months. Five thousand extra bushels of grain had to be bought between New Year and the next harvest to cover their own needs, apart from what was furnished the refugees and only in part paid for by the gov- ernment. During January and February, 1756, it furthermore became necessary to borrow over £700. They were assisted in bearing the burden by some benevolent people of Philadelphia who, at the instance of Anthony Benezet, to whom Bishop Spangenberg had appealed in behalf of the refugees, sent considerable quan- tities of clothing and provisions for distribution to the needy. The donors gave instructions that the Gnadenhuetten Indians should also be helped out of the stores sent. Several wagon-loads of such supplies were likewise sent by friends in the lower part of Bucks County. Referring to this in his autobiography. Bishop Spangenberg says : "I appointed two Brethren and instructed them to make a list of all the things that came into our hands, and, not only to distribute the articles carefully, but to record each day to whom this and that thing was given. This was done, and we afterwards put the account of receipts and disbursements into the hands of our worthy Magistrate (Horsfield), so that all should be done honestly and orderly, not only before God but also before men. When afterwards a worthless individual came and accused the Brethren of appropriating these donations to their own use, the Magistrate defended us and at once stopped the mouth of the slanderer." Writing to FrankHn again, March 8, 1756, after the receipt of the latter's letter which reflected somewhat harshly upon the refugees ; Spangenberg said : "It might be good to buy for them now, what they will want till the harvest time ; for many of them having lost houses, barns, grain, cattle, horses and all, if even they should be willing to return to their respective places, they cannot live without being helped. What the Brethren have received for them by charitable hands, is, most part, given unto them, and what is left yet, will cheerfully be bestowed upon them and accounts kept, which either our Magistrates or any 1755 1756. 339 of the benefactors may examine at pleasure." In June, 1757, Spangenberg, writing to Anthony Benezet about the calumny, which seems to have grieved him deeply, says : "I have thought sometimes whether the said accounts should not be published. But considering that the Names of poor honest People must be exposed to the Public (and many poor honest People would rather suffer the greatest Hardship than see themselves in their Poverty exposed) in so doing, have thought it best to leave it in Mr. Horsfield's Hands for the use of all who want to see it."^" After the month of January,, 1756, had been safely passed, people began to breathe easier again at Bethlehem. The second week in February, it was thought safe to reduce the guard. By the middle of the month all but sixty of the refugees had ventured to return home or go elsewhere, even though reports of raids by the savages 10 Some writers have erroneously confused this matter with the objections raised in the Assembly against the accounts presented by the Brethren to the Commissioners for expenses incurred in behalf of the Indians. See Matthew Henry — History of the Lehigh Valley, p. 207-208. The accounts kept of these donations to refugees were not required by any one, but were kept voluntarily, just in order to guard against such gossip. The Commissioners had nothing to do with these accounts, and they never went before the Assembly. Mr. Henry takes singular pains to minimize the good offices of Spangenberg and the Moravians in this matter, and even speaks disrespectfully of Spangenberg, saying, e.g., that " he occa- sionally used flattery to the Governor in order to attain his ends." The " Obrigkeit^^ referred to by Spangenberg in his autobiography quoted by Mr. Henry from Risler, did not mean the Governor, but the local magistrate, Timothy Horsfield. He, and not the Governor, " spoke a good word for the Brethren." The accounts which some in the Assembly wanted to repudiate were those " for supplies and entertainment furnished to the Christian Indians who had fled thither after the massacre on the Mahoning ; and to Indians who sojourned there with the knowledge of Government, pending negotiations for Peace between it and Teedyuscung, King of the Delawares, 1756- 1757 " — published in Memorials of the Moravian Church, by Wm. C. Reichel, Philadelphia, 1870. The heaviest of those accounts were for supplies furnished to Indians who were not among the Moravian converts, were a burden and nuisance, and at times even a peril to Bethlehem, tolerated there at the instance of the Government and supplied by Govern- ment orders, April, 1756, to April, 1758. No objection was made to the first several accounts rendered by agreement of the Commissioners of the Assembly. The heaviest bills went in after large troops of Indians flocked to the neighborhood for the Council, on invitation of the Governor ; and he, on June 23, 1756, in a letter to Timothy Horsfield, specially author- ized the Brethren " to support and maintain them till they have my further ord-ers," and promising that " any expenses attending this service will be paid by the Government." This being an order by the Governor and not by the Assembly or its Commissioners, the Assem- bly objected in consistency with the relations between them and the Governor, each oppos- ing on general principles whatever the other said or did. The last of these accounts were finally paid in June, 1758. 340 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. in more distant regions continued to come in. New excitement was occasioned by the Governor's "declaration of war against the Dela- wares," April 14, 1756, and the proclamation of bounty for Indians killed or captured — the "scalp money" he was constrained to of^er at the instance of the Commissioners, under strong pressure from certain frontier settlers who proposed to have, at least, the grim satisfaction of turning the hazardous employment of hunting Indians, like that of hunting beasts of prey, to pecuniary account. Here was a new temptation to men in whose eyes one Indian was the same as another, to again turn sinister attention to the inoffensive Indians at Bethlehem. Spangenberg went to Philadelphia in April to have an interview with the Governor about attempting an embassy to the Indians up on the Susquehanna, with a view to negotiations for peace. He had consulted with Mr. Parsons about this project already in January, then with certain Assemblymen, and had also written to the Gover- nor. The result was that, at the end of April, three Indian deputies sent by the Governor arrived at Bethlehem to undertake this mis- sion, accompanied by Augustus, the most intelligent and reliable Bethlehem Indian for such an enterprise. They returned to Bethle- hem, May 19, coming down the Lehigh by canoe under convoy of a detail from the Fort Allen garrison, flying the English flag. From Augustus it was learned that three times the hostiles had planned a decisive blow against Bethlehem and Nazareth ; that Paxnous and Abraham had sturdily opposed all hostilities, and that the enemy were now willing to parley and to consider terms of peace. Two days later, when they were in Philadelphia reporting to the Gover- nor, a day of fasting and prayer was observed in the Province, in view of the formal declaration of war against France by the King of England, and, as a result of their report, the Governor, on June 3, declared an armistice, with the intention of trying such a council ; the proclamation of scalp-money and aggressive plans against the Delawares, as well as the general declaration of war against France and her allies, being thought of combined service, in disposing the Indians to come to terms more readily. Upon this, the gathering of troops of Indians from a distance at Bethlehem, which caused so much discomfort, annoyance, and, at times, danger, for more than a year, began ; and there was much correspondence with the government on this subject prior to the Council, which finally took place at Easton, the last week in July. 1755 1756. 341 An insight into this troublesome situation will be gotten from several instances. Two Indians, Nicodemus and Jo Pepy, who had been among the converts of Brainerd referred to in a previous chapter, and had then first affiliated with the Moravian Indians and finally joined the enemies of the Government, but now professed penitence, came, among others, on June 21, hearing of the amnesty proclaimed. Their presence excited particular resentment among some people in the neighborhood. Spangenberg was constrained to write to the Governor on June 26, and represent the particular embarrassment they occasioned. He says : "To tell your Honour the truth, I don't believe that either Jo Pepy or Nicodemus and their families can stay at Bethlehem. We have been obliged to put people out of the (Indian) house to make room for them. But this is not all. There is such a rage in the neighborhood against the said poor creatures, that I fear they will mob us and them together. For Jo Pepy having lived among the Presbyterians, and treacherously being gone from them, hath exasperated them in the highest degree. We have put two men with them to be their safeguard, but your Honour knows very well that this won't hinder the stream when it is coming upon us and them at the same time. They have told me the families which are inclined to come, and will come if they can, with New Castle" (the famous Indian messenger of the Government). "The most of them are well-known here to be good-for-nothing, and quite faithless creatures. I therefore humbly beg of your Honour to remove the said Jo Pepy and Nicodemus and their families, the sooner the better, to Philadelphia ; for they are in the heart of the country, and mischief may be prevented which could breed evil consequences." The next perplexity was presented in a letter by Justice Horsfield to the Governor, July 6. He writes : "We labour under much diffi- culty on account of these Indians — a son of Paxnous and three others from Tioga — wanting their guns repaired, and to have some powder and lead, which we cannot by any measure do unless we have your Honour's express commands for it ; if it be your Honour's pleasure it shall be done, or not, please to signify it. Your Honour shall be strictly obeyed." Governor Morris replied, July 9, with the approval of the Council as follows : "Tell him (the son of Paxnous) I wish it could have consisted with the circumstances of their families for them to have given me the satisfaction of seeing them here ; but as this does not suit them now, and they are in want of provisions, I have ordered you to supply them with as much as they can carry. 342 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and a small quantity of powder and lead, as much as may be wanted, for the present, to serve their necessities ; more I would give them, but it would be dangerous to themselves, if met by our enemy Indians, to have more." With this message the Governor adds privately to Horsfield: "I think three or four pounds of powder will be enough, and as much provisions as they can carry; how much that will be, must be left to your judgment, but they should by all means be sent very well satisfied. "^^ Again, on July 7, Horsfield addressed the Governor on the great peril involved in the tarrying of Indians in the vicinity, pending the delayed Council at Easton, under an amnesty which expired on July 3. In many cases it could not be known whether they were friends or foes. Embittered white people could take advantage of the expiration of the proclamation, to form a "scalping party" under the bounty- act and attack them, occasioning riot and bloodshed. Indians armed, and now not feeling bound to a cessation of hostilities, might perfid- iously attack Bethlehem and commit outrages in the neighborhood. It was announced that a deputation would visit the Governor to personally lay the situation before him. The crowded condition of Bethlehem was referred to — twenty and more persons compelled to occupy one room, in many cases, and seventy occupants in the Indian House of two rooms. The Provincial Council, on July 10, advised the Governor to extend the amnesty, and in view of the crowded state of things at Bethlehem, with no troops there for a defence, to order these Indians, waiting for the conference at Easton, to be transferred to that place where there was a guard. There at the county seat, they, as guests of the Government, belonged. Instructions were sent, the next day, to Mr. Parsons to make such provision, and so Bethlehem was relieved the following week for a season, of this large number of "strange Indians." At the same time Teedyuscung, the "Delaware King," whose name was now on all Hps and whose presence was dreaded by many, while many were inquisitive to see him, made his appear- ance with Captain New Castle and a large retinue. Then, to the dismay of the people at Bethlehem, the word came that the treaty " This matter of furnishing powder and lead from the Bethlehem store continued to be a very troublesome and risky one, for obvious reasons, and was continually made the subject of suspicious comment and groundless stories by ill-disposed persons ; just as it later was, under quite other circumstances, during the Revolutionary War. Hence the care taken to have government instructions. 1755 1756. 343 would be held here — a thing spoken of before, but thought to have been averted. Just as they had concluded to accept the inevitable and had begun, with heavy hearts, to prepare for it, instructions again came from the Governor, countermanding this. So, on July 24, the Council finally opened at Easton. It was the proper place, being the official center of the neighborhood. The long and prolix parley which there took place may be passed over. It was a disap- pointment to many who hoped for definite results. Horsfield, Nathanael Seidel, Shebosh and David Zeisberger went from Beth- lehem, by request, to join a large number of Friends from Phila- delphia, in trying to influence the issue in the interests of peace. The only definite result was the appointment of another council to be held in the autumn. The dreaded Teedyuscung lingered about Bethlehem several days after that, and there are references to "disagreeable visits" to the officials at Bethlehem by him. Sometimes he was sober, but more frequently not. But worse than this, very disturbing rumors of dangerous talk indulged in by him were soon rife. The latter part of August, several letters from Parsons, Horsfield and Edmonds, and one from Sir Charles Hardy, in reference to his suspicious conduct and treacherous utterances after the treaty, were considered by the new Governor, Wilham Denny, and the Council, with former Governor Morris present for consultation. This, and the dangerous outlook for the frontier from French movements at the time, with the weakness of the Pennsylvania Government, through the lack of good understanding between Governor and Assembly, were impressed upon the Bethlehem people by Spangenberg, on September 9, and the need of faith and prayer, loyalty and unity was impressed. CHAPTER X. To THE End of the General Economy. 1756 — 1762. During the first part of the year 1756, the condition of Bethlehem was one of much turmoil, when compared with its normal state ; but, when compared with that of the surrounding neighborhoods, the situation would have seemed to an onlooker from the outside, one of undisturbed order and unruffled serenity. The ordeal produced no demoralization. The principles, discipline, general tone and even, to a surprising extent, the common daily routine of the place were maintained through it all. It was fortunate that the deliberations of 1754, on the question of continuing or abolishing the existing system, resulted in the conclusion to make no changes at that time. A general toning up and strengthening of the Economy resulted, instead of steps towards a radical alteration of the establishment. If the latter course had then been taken, things* would have been in transition, disorganized and not yet properly reconstructed in other shape, when this strain came, and therefore not, by far, so well prepared to withstand it. Many features of the Economy organ- ization served, in this emergency, for the special measures that would under other circumstances have been instituted at such a time, with the additional advantage of long training in such ways and methods. Therefore it was Providential that the General Economy yet existed intact. Amidst the troublous conditions which continued, there was no thought of tampering with it. Hence it came that the arrangement ran on for six years longer. Not only the necessities of the situation, but also the wise purpose to keep men, as far as possible, occupied in natural and ordinary ways and to maintain all that could be of normal spirit and habit, prompted Spangenberg and those who were in counsel with him, to proceed with plans to start the wheels of industry moving regularly again in all departments, even when the town was overrun with refugees and the watch against surprises by the savages had to be 344 ^^ ^^ t, f r^rj V.J ' t^ t_ *^ ^^ f ^^ -^ , -^^ ^.-^ rt r~~t t^ ■* 1 a ■!1i^ j^)' 7^i.\- /^»~.-^ ^/;^ PLOT OF 1757 1756 1762. 345 preserved every hour of the day and night. Thus, already the middle of January, steps were taken to start up a saw-mill again at Bethlehem ; that at Gnadenhuetten, now burned down, having, along with that at Christiansbrunn, taken the place, for some years, of the first one built at Bethlehem. ]\Iaterial was gotten together, but it was not until the 9th of June that the masons went to work. It was completed in September and on the 21st of that month, the sawing of lumber at Bethlehem was reconmienced. At a general meeting, the end of March, the subject of building a new and larger pottery was discussed. The products of this estab- lishment were much in demand, so that it was one of the most profitable industries. At the same time the suspended tavern- building project was anew considered, but it was not deemed expedient to proceed at once with this undertaking. The grist-mill was kept running, and those industries which furnished material for clothing w^ere not permitted to remain idle, when enough order was restored to start them up again. All that could be done in the winter and early spring, to enlarge the cultivated area at Bethlehem, as well as on the Nazareth domain, was persevered in, even when men had to work under guard at clearing, grubbing and fencing. The Indians living under protection at Bethlehem were employed, to a considerable extent, at this kind of work for stipulated wages. Receipts for wages paid them, signed with the marks of the tribes and clans to which they belonged, are interesting mementos of those times still preserved at Bethlehem. On through the spring and summer they rendered valuable service in times of danger, as guards and rangers in the surrotmding w^oods, wdien men were plow- ing and sowing, and companies of women w^ere helping in harvest time, to get in the hay and the precious grain. More than one com- pany of women went out to distant parts of the fields and back, or to and fro between Bethlehem and Nazareth under the protection of such an Indian escort. The Indian women were, much of the time, busily engaged in making baskets, brooms, mats and other such articles, for which they received compensation. Thus they helped to supply things that were continually needed and that could be put on the market, and habits of industry, self-dependence and thrift were cultivated among them ; while the men, who had learned that it was no more of a disgrace for an Indian than for a white man to labor with his hands, w^ere, by object-lessons, teaching this to other Indians who came to Bethlehem. To the skill of these Indians at 346 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. its ka/rfC a/rciUf, A J(r7iatti{iTi. c? SIGNATURES OF INDIANS. 1756 1762. 347 bush-net fishing frequent important additions to the food supply- were also due. Thousands of shad and rockfish were thus caught by them in the Lehigh. When the refugees, for the most part, returned to their homes^ leaving the quarters they had occupied vacant, and the number of men continually needed as guards was gradually reduced, the workshops all resumed their customary appearance. On June 3, the nursery and girls' school of Nazareth were moved back to their quarters in the Whitefield House and the adjacent log cabin^ while the company of men, who had vacated the water-tower house to make room for these children, returned to their quar- ters. Apart from the Indians from distant places loitering about Bethlehem, as Government pensioners, little in the appearance of the village would have indicated that such times had been passed through and that the air was yet full of uncertainty and dread. Special efforts were made to keep the attention of the children in the large boys' school and in the boarding-school for girls engaged with their regular routine. On November i, when the time for the second large gathering of Indians at Easton was near ; when unruly bands of them, here and there, coming down the country, were com- mitting depredations, and even murders ; when a state almost of panic had again been aroused in some neighborhoods, and there was every reason for anxiety and dread at Bethlehem, a school exami- nation took place, as if the times had been the most quiet and peace- ful. A hundred and ninety-nine boys and girls were assembled in the present "Old Chapel." They were examined in spelHng and read- ing, both English and German, and in arithmetic. Specimens of pen- manship were on exhibition, as well as of spinning, knitting and sewing by the girls, while vocal and instrumental music was furnished by the classes under John Andrew Albrecht, then the principal teacher and leader of music. At that very time the symptoms of trouble were sufficient that measures were being taken to put Bethlehem in as complete a posi- tion of defence as the previous winter. The guard was restored to full strength, watch-houses were again constructed where several previous ones had been removed, and many windows and back doors of the large buildings were again walled up, the following week. On November 8, the second Council between the Governor of Pennsyl- vania and the grotesquely haughty Teedyuscung, with other chiefs and warriors and their retinue, opened at Easton. It continued until the 17th. The very day on which these exchanges of grandiloquent 348 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and evasive rhetoric, ostensibly in the interests of honest peace, began, the in-rush of refugees from the Blue Mountains at Nazareth and Bethlehem also began anew, while reports of outrages by some loitering savages in other directions were received. Even if Teedy- uscung, as a matter of expediency for the time being, was trying to prevent such things, it was clear that his word did not weigh with all the savages, and the fact that many repudiated his pretended author- ity and scouted his assumptions, was also appearing. Resentment awakened by the severe blow dealt the Indians, in the encounter at Kittanning, by Col. Armstrong, was leading some of them in the east to perpetrate petty retaliations. Perhaps, as some suspected, Teedyuscung had really instigated these simultaneous, cowardly assaults upon defenceless settlers at various points, in order to make the people he assumed to represent seem more dangerous just at that time. In any case, the reports of these outrages made the presence of so many Indians in the neigh- borhood a menace to the peace. Large numbers of men on both sides of the Delaware were stirred up to a pitch that might at any moment lead them to forget all prudence and precipitate an encoun- ter with them. It might be supposed that the anxiety at Bethlehem would have been sulBcient, at such a time, to divert attention from all but the most necessary things. Right in the midst of the Council, how^ever, with that Moravian spirit of the time which was so inscru- table to many, a number of the Bethlehem people went to Nazareth and engaged in the dedication of Nazareth Hall, on November 13, the day selected on account of its historic significance with which it was desired to have this structure — originally intended for a ''Jucn- gerhmts'"^ — associated. To add to the incongruity of the situation, the Rev. Melchior Schmidt, minister at Allemaengel, with his wife and forty people, arrived at Bethlehem as refugees from that afflicted neighborhood, that very day. Governor Denny and his suite came to Bethlehem after the Council at Easton closed, on the evening of November 17, and enjoyed the hospitality of the place over night. They were entertained with the best viands and the best music that could be produced, and the new Governor was given an insight into the principles and purposes, as well as the peculiar arrangements of the Economy. The next morning, when he left for Philadelphia, he was speeded. on his way I On this term and its application to Nazareth Hall see Chapter VIII, and particularly note 19. 1756 1762. 349 with benisons sung by the children, who had been summoned to pay their respects to the Chief Magistrate of the Province. On Novem- ber 19, various features of that Council with the Indians were com- municated at a general meeting in Bethlehem, together with the information — and this was the gist of the outcome — that they had been invited to come to another Council in the spring, in the presence of Sir William Johnson, the Royal Commissioner of Indian Affairs, then so influential and popular with the chiefs of the Six Nations. Now and again, during the next months, reports of incendiary and murderous assaults by the savages at different points, kept people in a state of uneasiness. In December, Bishop Spangenberg wrote that a careful watch was kept up, and remarked: "The savages are just like a nest of hornets : when it is torn open, they swarm and buzz and sting every one who comes in their way, regardless of whether he has done them an injury or not." On December 16, a familiar and welcome face, absent for more than a year, re-appeared in Bethlehem. Bishop Peter Boehler, who had gone to Europe the previous autumn on official business, leav- ing his wife in Bethlehem, now returned to assist Bishop Spangen- berg as coadjutor.- The latter was beginning to feel the burden and strain of his manifold duties in such trying times, and Bishop Hehl was to locate at the new settlement, Lititz, the site of which had been selected and plotted the previous June. 2 Spangenberg, as General Superintendent, bore the official title : Ordinarii Unitaiis Frai- rum Vicarius Generalis in Avierica. Zinzendorf, as General Superintendent of the whole, was simply Ordinarius. Spangenberg, as General Superintendent in America, was thus Vicar-General of the Ordinarius. Boehler, as his coadjutor, taking Hehl's place, now bore the title, Vice- Ordinarius over against Spangenberg. Hehl's superintendence was to lie at a separate new centre and to extend over an associated district of country charges. A com- parison of this to Antioch, the second separate centre of the primitive Church with Ignatius as its first distinct Bishop, is commonly taken to be the meaning of the peculiar term Sedes Episcopalis Ignatiana, applied by Zinzendorf to Lititz and used on the document deposited in the corner-stone of the original official building — Gemeinhans — of that place. Boehler arrived at New York on the Irene, December 12. She had sailed from New York, July i, for Europe with no Moravians on board but the captain, Jacobsen, and one of the sailors, Lambert Garrison. With Boehler came William Boehler who was connected some time with the Indian mission in some secular capacity and became proficient in the Delaware language, Christian Bohle, Adolph Eckesparre, a collegian in Deacon's orders, and Christian Gottlieb Renter, the surveyor and architect who eventually settled at Salem, N. C. They had sailed from London September 23, with a fleet of 60 merchant vessels under convoy of several men-of-war. Contrary winds detaining the fleet at the Isle of Wight, the Irene put out on the hazardous voyage alone. 350 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Another glimpse at the situation towards the close of the year 1756, in the matter of annoyance and worry about the straggling Indians harbored at Bethlehem at the desire of the Government — the expense of which, incurred by Government order, the honorable Assembly later objected to paying — is furnished by a letter written to Governor Denny by Spangenberg, November 29. On this sub- ject he writes: "We are at a loss how to act with those Indians that come out of the woods and want to stay at Bethlehem. They are very troublesome guests, and we should be glad to have your Honour's orders about them (i. e., new orders since the treaty). Our houses are full already, and we must be at the expense of building winter-houses for them, if more should come, which very likely will be the case, according to the account we have from them who are come. And then another difficulty arises, viz. : We hear that some of our neighbors are very uneasy at our receiving such murdering Indians, for so they style them. We, therefore, I fear, shall be obliged to set watches to keep ofif such of the neighbors who might begin quarrels with, or attempt to hurt, any of the Indians. Now we are willing to do anything that lays in our power for the service of the Province where we have enjoyed sweet peace for several years past. But we want your Honour's orders for every step we take, and we must beg not to be left without them; the more so because we have reason to fear that somehow an Indian may be hurt or killed, which certainly would breed new trouble of war. We had, at least, a case last week that some one fired at an Indian of Bethle- hem, but a Httle way from Bethlehem in the woods, I hope Mr. Horsfield will give your Honour a particular account thereof." With that letter Spangenberg sent the Governor, in accordance with the latter's request to Horsfield on November 17, a complete catalogue of the persons who belonged to the Economy, both resident and non-resident, accompanied with sundry memoranda deemed desir- able to give the Governor full information.^ 3 The principal items of this paper, presenting the situation at the close of 1756, are the following: 510 persons at Bethlehem besides 96 children, some orphans and others belong- ing to Brethren and friends not of the Bethlehem Economy. 48 men and women employed in missionary work among the heathen — North American Indians, Berbice and Surinam, South America, and the West Indies. 54 preaching and teaching among white people in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, New England and North Carolina. 62 instructors and attendants of children at Bethlehem and Nazareth. 45 single men and 8 married couples in North Carolina, "and 50 more here for that purpose to go there soon." 72 of the above "in holy orders," 4 Bishops, 12 Presbyters (Ordinarii), 56 Deacons; and "as many 1756 1762. 351 During the first part of the year 1757, until the next great Council with the Indians at Easton, official attention at Bethlehem was divided between Indian affairs and other important matters of a gen- eral character. Before Boehler left Europe, General Synods of the Church had been held, at which the foundations were laid for a better permanent organization of central direction, and particularly of financial administration, which was developed in subsequent years — rendered necessary by the financial crisis referred to in a previous chapter, the results of which now required a different system of man- agement from that followed before. In various ways, the steps taken by those Synods had a very important bearing on the situation at Bethlehem and on all the interests here centered. A Synod was held at the place in January, at which fundamental matters were dealt with, and on February 27, the Rev. Nathanael Seidel left Bethlehem for New York, whence, on March 4, he sailed for Europe* to trans- act business of the utmost consequence in connection with the prop- erty and finances of the Brethren in Pennsylvania. The external work at Bethlehem was pressed with energy in spite of many perplexities and disadvantages. With new building opera- tions in view, the re-estabHshed saw-mill was kept running very regularly, notwithstanding the difficulty of cutting logs and getting them to the place in such times. Preparations were being made to build the large and substantial barn which was so constructed that, in later years, it was converted into dwellings and finally became one of the old business quarters fronting on the east side of Main Street and standing entire until 1871. When the first foundation stone was laid on June i, 1757, it was described as being situated "over from the mill-dam and directly down from the store, fronting on the line which passed the house occupied by the boys' school." Its length along the front was 114 feet, and it was planned to con- Acoluthi who are preparing for the ministry and now and then are made use of like Dea- cons." 90 (about) of the children at Bethlehem and Nazareth '' have their parents abroad, mostly on the Gospel's account." 425 of the foregoing, under age. 82 Indians, besides several young Indian women in the Sisters' House "besides the sava- ges who are going and coming and slaying longer or shorter with us.' 4 He sailed on the Irene, commanded by Captain Jacobsen. He was accompanied by the sailors Jost Jensen and Andrew Schoute as passengers ; also George Ernest Menzinger who had come over in 1755 and now returned, and several other passengers not from Beth- lehem. This Moravian church-ship was the only vessel permitted to leave port after the embargo had been declared. She reached Dover in safety, April I, and, September 15, was back again at New York without passengers for Bethlehem. 352 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. tain dwelling apartments in the center for hostlers and teamsters, with barn space for grain and stabling below, on either side. Another enterprise that began to engage attention early in 1757, again concerned the Christian Indians living at Bethlehem. Soon after Boehler returned to Pennsylvania, bringing suggestions and plans from Europe about various matters, the question of perma- nently locating this residue of the Indian congregation began to be discussed, for their residence at Bethlehem was regarded as a mere temporary arrangement. It had been proposed to carry out Zin- zendorf's plan to establish an Indian village somewhere in the vicinity of Bethlehem. There were misgivings in the minds of some about the practicability of doing this. The uncertainty of the yet pending terms between the Government and the Indian tribes, the lack of hunting facilities for the Indians if settled down in the neigh- borhood — this being unfavorable for their contentment — and par- ticularly the aversion of the people in the near-by settlements to having Indians living in such close proximity, were all objections in the minds of some, like Mack, whose opinions were of value. Nev- ertheless, the disposition to venture the experiment of thus coloniz- ing Christian Indians in the midst of civilization, even at such an unfavorable time, prevailed. The matter was broached to the Indians in a conference with tl^em on March 10, and found favor. There- upon an address to the Governor was framed to be adopted, signed and sent by them, asking permission to so locate, and setting forth the reasons. It was forwarded, March 14, and on the 31st the Gov- ernor sent a favorable reply, after consultation with the Provincial Council. Reference was made, in his reply, to the lands in Wyo- ming and farther up on the Susquehanna, which, on the basis of the partial agreement at the last great Council in Easton, it was pro- posed to assign to the Indians remaining in the Province ; likewise to the ofTers that had been made them by the Six Nations, the accept- ance of either of which on their part would have been "very accept- able" to him. But such being not their wish, he says : "I shall with all my heart consent to your living with the Brethren, at the place proposed, provided that you do not thereby disoblige the Six Nations, nor the particular tribes you belong to." After admonish- ing them to live peaceably and give no offence to the neighborhood, the property in which was owned by individual people and not to be trespassed upon, he further says : 'T would advise you to com- municate vour intention and desire of residing at Bethleheiru to the ^y^afune^efj .X- -t* I Exp/rVaitan. 'ertcJre^ . ^' ■ - i^-u/rnniiote ^' - . . -3' Jl' - ■-?■--: .'^ . , - - - -^' - ^' - ^aife 'U*itMn/n . ,3' ,.^ ■cJ" 'f . -ncl Jl" . ■ ; -^!. .Jf" J5? -'j^/:/^ J72, m 76. /02, 20A .'S^ (91. m 09 /J3 4^ /?S do .P!-l| jym/''(. Fold-out Placeholder This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at future date. 1756 1762. 353 Six Nations, and any other Indians you may be connected with, that all may know and agree to it." He finally assures them of Govern- ment protection and of his disposition to do them "any good offices." This cautious proviso that the Six Nations and "any other Indians" should concur was a safeguard against any possible new offence to the assuming Teedyuscung, in anticipation of the next Council. As it later clearly appeared, this wily schemer, in whose vindictive heart the failure of his attempts to draw these Indians away from the influence of the Moravian missionaries rankled, attempted to con- strain the Government, as one of his conditions, to become his agent to force them away, and thus enable him to accomplish his purpose at last. He even represented these Indians as being held prisoners against their wishes by the Brethren, and intimated that the Gov- ernment would do a good service by aiding him in liberating his people. Thus, in keeping Teedyuscung in mind and preparing to meet any arraignment on his part, the proverbial "back door" of escape, so commonly characteristic of official communications and acts of this kind, was left open. If Teedyuscung or the heads of the Six Nations should, in subsequent negotiations, make this permis- sion given the Bethlehem Indians a new grievance, to delay the clos- ing of terms, the proviso on which it rested would then clearly leave the Government at liberty to recede from it and resort to the next best thing that might present itself as an expedient. In this, even more than in the implacable hostility of people to the location of the village, is to be sought the reason why the experiment of this Indian colony near Bethlehem could not result in permanent success. These dubious conditions of the Governor's answer did not deter the authorities at Bethlehem from proceeding with the undertaking. To the west of Bethlehem lay two tracts of land yet belonging to the Benezet estate, and steps were taken to purchase them. One, run- ning down to the river towards Solomon Jennings's place,^ and embracing several hundred acres of the finest land in the region, was had in mind as the site of the village which, in pursuance of Zin- zendorf's suggestion, was in advance given the name Nain. The pur- chase of the land was made in May. More than a year elapsed, however, before the project was consummated and the Indian con- gregation finally settled there. On June 14, following the purchase 5 The locality referred to is that known for many year"; as the George Geissinger farm on the Lehigh, later occupied by Owen Mack. 24 354 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of the land, a site for the village was selected and staked oflf. The clearing of the spot furnished a large part of the winter fuel for Bethlehem, for on December lo, eighty men cut fifty cords of fire- wood there. On January 9, 1758, another site was selected, because it was discovered that the new highway from Easton to Reading, to the partial laying out of which, in 1755, reference has been made, would pass quite near, and this was deemed undesirable. Operations at the new site were retarded by further doubts and fears caused by the machinations of the unspeakable Teedyuscung, and by the strong dissatisfaction of people in the upper part of the township. Some of the Indians of Bethlehem went under escort to attend the treaty at Philadelphia in July, at the request of the Government — because Teedyuscung, whom the authorities were yet dreading and humoring, insisted upon it, to make it appear that these Indians were with him — and returned with new assurance of Government protec- tion, both against Indians and white men, in building their village. The first house had been erected, the loth of the previous June. Finally, on October 18, 1758, the chapel was dedicated and the village cere- moniously taken possession of by the Indian congregation. Thus began, under clouds of uncertainty, the brief history of Nain, near Bethlehem, in pursuance of Zinzendorf's plan of 1742. At the time when negotiations for the purchase of this land were opened in 1757, a state of general alarm existed between Bethlehem and the Blue Mountains in consequence of fresh outrages by prowl- ing savages, just beyond the mountains "back of Nazareth," on Sun- day, May I. Friedensthal and the Rose were once more overrun by refugees. Among the victims was the widow of Abraham Mueller, formerly of Bethlehem, and, while the Friedensthal mill was being built, cook for the workmen. After her house had been burned before her eyes, she and her son were carried off by these "French Indians," who headed for the far north-west. She was killed on the way. Her son, after being taken almost to Niagara, escaped in the night with another captive lad and succeeded in getting back to Tioga, There he was helped on his further way back to Bethlehem, which place he reached on June 22. This is an example of numerous thrill- ing and harrowing incidents of those months, referred to in the records at Bethlehem. Right in the midst of this new consternation, the Brethren held a Synod in Nazareth Hall, with that quiet deter- mination, when at all possible, to go on in the even tenor of their way, which so puzzled and sometimes even exasperated people in 1756 1762. 355 the neighborhood, and served to keep the old slanders about an understanding with the French and savages alive in some quarters. May 5, 1757, Bishops Boehler and Hehl — Bishop Spangenberg had gone to Nazareth the previous day — started from Bethlehem to the Synod "with a caravan of a hundred and twelve brethren and sisters afoot, in wagons and on horseback, under a strong guard of holy angels," escorted, however, also by several of the appointed senti- nels and six Indian guards. This Synod was in session until May 9. Spangenberg took up his official residence for some months in the Hall and Boehler lived at Bethlehem, giving more attention to local details. The anxious feeling in the neighborhood increased during June and July, as the time for the third treaty with the Indians at Easton drew near, and the gravitation of bands from various points towards the Forks of the Delaware again set in. It seemed as if the region were a great mass of tinder and only a spark was needed to set it all ablaze. Therefore, what threatened to be the dropping of such a spark caused no little anxiety among all who realized the danger and the great importance of the issues depending upon this new Council, and greatly disturbed the Governor and the authorities generally. On July 8, the day which had been appointed by the Gov- ernor as a day of fasting and prayer, when the thoughts of all were particularly turned to the existing causes of uneasiness, an unoffend- ing baptized Indian, William Tatemy, son of the old chief, Moses Tatemy, was deliberately shot, on the way to Easton, without cause or provocation, by a reckless and foolish young fellow of the neigh- borhood, who evidently merely desired the glory of killing an Indian. He was not killed outright, but was severely wounded in the thigh. He was taken to the house of John Jones, east of Bethlehem, and Dr. Matthew Otto was quickly summoned. Col. Jacob Arndt, under whose escort he and other Indians were being conducted through the Irish Settlement from Fort Allen to Easton, sent a special message on this deplorable occurrence to the Governor. Dr. Otto was anxiously urged to spare no effort to save his life. With the atten- tion of whites and Indians alike fastened upon him, he lay at the Jones farm, hovering between life and death, when the great Council opened at Easton, on July 21, 1757. The doctor sent several special bulletins on the case to the Governor, at his request. On the 26th, Teedyuscung, who did not fail to make use of the incident, formally drew the Governor's attention to it and demanded that if Tatemy died, the perpetrator of the outrage be tried by due process of law. 356 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The Governor, of course, had to promise this. To the aged father of the wounded man he said "we have employed the most skillful doctor that is amongst us to take care of him, and we pray that the Almighty would bless the medicines that are administered for his cure." No wonder that Dr. Otto asked the people of Bethlehem to support his efforts with their prayers. The Council proceeded under the special tension which this caused, while five hundred troops were stationed within easy reach to quell any outbreak of vio- lence precipitated by either Indians or white men, it being equally likely to proceed from either side. The Council and the last inter- views came to a close on Sunday, August 7, the treaty of peace bind- ing all parties had been sealed and young Tatemy yet lived, when all dispersed. Then the attention and skill that had held his Hfe to that point served no longer against the inevitable and, on August 9, he died. At the earnest desire of his old father, his remains were interred, on the loth, with the rites of the Church, in the little ceme- tery on the south side of the river at Bethlehem by the Moravian clergy. The results of that Council brought, of course, a feeling of great relief to Bethlehem, as well as to many another place. On August 3, Anthony Benezet brought word from Easton that the deputies of ten Indian nations had joined in taking hold of the peace-belt and that reservations of land had been pledged them in Wyoming, at Shamokin and beyond the Alleghenies. On Sunday, August 7, the Governor came to Bethlehem and put up at the Crown for the night. Bishop Boehler went over to pay his respects and invite him to accept official hospitality in the town, but this time he preferred to remain at the inn. Bishop Spangenberg came down from Nazareth and early the next morning went across the river, before the Gover- nor started for Philadelphia, to request official directions in reference to the "strange Indians" who persisted in loitering about Bethle- hem, as well as to those who came at intervals to purchase eatables and other articles, and occasioned much annoyance. He received the promise that the matter should be laid before the Commissioners and the Assembly, and then the Governor left. That very afternoon more than a hundred Indians, on their way from Easton, halted about the tavern on the south side, and it was deemed prudent to double the guard in Bethlehem that night. Two days later, Teedy- uscung made his appearance with Paxnous, Abraham and others of prominence. Great relief was felt when finally, on August 12, all 1756 1762. 357 but a few of them took their departure. A striking instance of the disagreeable circumstances attending the travehng through of such squads of savages, apart from the matter of danger, occurred the last week in August. A band of Nanticokes who had been in Beth- lehem, the end of July, 1757, appeared again, returning to their country from Lancaster. They were friendly Indians and had brought a message of condolence on the Mahoning massacre and assurance that they had no part in nor sympathy with such outrages. Three of them were chiefs. During the interval between the two calls at Bethlehem these chiefs had died of small-pox. The rest of the band were bearing their skeletons with them for interment in their own country. The flesh of the small-pox victims had been scraped from the bones and these were carried along wrapped in blankets. This had to be endured by the people with whom they came into contact at Bethlehem. The outcome of the treaty at Easton by no means relieved Beth- lehem of undesirable Indian guests. Teedyuscung, in the conviction that he would be more comfortable, could maintain his apparent prestige better and conduct the negotiations between the Govern- ment and the Indian embassies from the near and remote tribes more advantageously by remaining in the vicinity, secured the con- currence of the Government to his establishing headquarters in the Forks of the Delaware. Then he sought and obtained the assent of the Bethlehem authorities to his plan of settling down for the winter at Bethlehem, on the south side of the river, where a cabin was built for him by the Brethren. Undesirable as this was, in view of his well-known sentiments about the dwelling of the "Moravian Indians" at Nain, and the dangerous influence he might exercise by living near, it was nevertheless concluded by the Moravian officials that, all things considered, he would be more easily held to the promises he had made at the treaty and be less likely to do serious harm here than in the Indian country. Thus, by understanding between Bethlehem and the Government, the "Delaware King" planted himself, for the winter, right at the place where his presence had been most dreaded. He was on his good behavior now, so far as his relations and influence in the fur- ther complications with yet dissatisfied Indians were concerned, and it was to his personal interest to do his utmost in these matters towards the estabUshment of peace. His personal vanity was also gratified, for now nearly every Indian deputation to the Government 358 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, passed Bethlehem and took counsel with Teedyuscung. His lodge thus became an objective point of pilgrimages from various tribes, even from those far off "on the Ohio." The other Indians who remained at and about the Crown Inn were, for the most part, a drunken, brawling and thieving lot, and sorely tried the good Breth- ren who were in charge of the inn and the other property on the south side. The final deliverance did not come until well on in the spring of 1758. May 7 of that year, Teedyuscung returned from one of his numerous journeys to Philadelphia with WilHam Edmonds and brought the word that now, by arrangement with the Govern- ment, all the Indians yet tarrying at the place would remove to Wyoming, where a town would be built for them. But he had to admit the failure of his final effort to accomplish his pertinacious scheme to secure the removal with them of the remaining Gnaden- huetten Indians through Government orders. On May 15, two Commissioners with about fifty troops arrived from Philadelphia, as an escort, and the next day the whole camp, with Teedyuscung, finally set out for Wyoming. Only three baptized Indians remained behind, with their families. By special permission of the Govern- ment and agreement with the Brethren, Nicodemus, mentioned before this, was permitted to settle near Nazareth, and Nathanael near Gnadenthal, while another, Jonathan, was ahowed to build a hut near Friedensthal. As the figure of Teedyuscung recedes from view, with the departure of this caravan, he may be dismissed from these pages. A strange blending of qualities is presented in the character of that extraordinary Indian whose spirit no force or artifice of white men could subdue, and who, at last, was conquered only by the power of the baneful "fire water" which he loved too well, assisted, perhaps, by the fire-brand of the treacherous assassin applied to his cabin when he was lying prone under the clutch of the alcoholic demon." None of the varying traditions concerning the further circum- stances of his end will ever be verified. Perhaps, as some hold, the heads of the Six Nations had a hand in it. Perhaps — and this is more likely — he was foully dealt with by jealous and revengeful associates who had resented his assumptions and superior influence. 6 The Bethlehem diary has this brief record on April 25. 1763 : " We heard from Wyo- ming that the Indian chief, Teedyuscung, had come to a miserable end through a fire which broke out in his house, and that thereupon the other Indians, who were all drunken, set fire to the whole town and laid it in ashes." 1756 1762. 359 or charged to his agreements with the Government, features of the settlements of 1757 which they repudiated but had to submit- to. There are indications that, after the second treaty at Easton, he feh the current of such sentiments towards him emanating from some who were not fully in accord with the settlement and on whom his hold was not strong, and that he did not feel his life entirely secure. Perhaps the fate of the Shawanese Indian who led the attack on Gnadenhuetten and carried off Susanna Nitschmann as a prize, and who was assassinated by one of his own people, haunted him ; and that the dread of a like end had something to do with his plan to spend the winter of 1757-58 at Bethlehem, until some tangible results of the third treaty for the benefit of the Indians of Wyoming should appear, to mollify those who were dissatisfied. There were qualities in his nature that made him a heroic figure. There were others that made him appear more as a mere blustering braggart. He was an astute diplomate, with whom the Government officials found it dif^cult to trifle. He cherished a romantic sentiment, as the champion of the name and claim of his ancestors. He was a forceful and eloquent orator. At the same time he was weakly vain in trifling things, and aflfected a mock state which appeared grotesque and has caused some to think of him more as a buffoon whom the Government had, by force of circumstances, to cajole. He was reUgious at times, but of very frail moral fibre. As men will always differ about the questions at issue between him and the Government, they will also take almost opposite views of Teedyuscung, some having him in mind as he is depicted by those who present only his worst qualities or purvey the ludicrous stories invented about him, while others exalt him to association with the heroic romance of the "Indian Rock" on the Wissahicon. At the Crown Inn, where host and guests had so long to endure the disagreeable proximity of these disorderly campers, some improvements were made to render the house more pleasant to genteel guests, although even before this, it was the best country tavern, according to current testimony, in all the region. The erection of the new inn on the north side was delayed longer than had been expected. Among other things, a better stable was built and a new well was dug, and at the end of November, 1757, the rope rigging for the ferry was substituted for the much slower process of poHng. Ephraim Culver, who had been burned out of house and home at the beginning of the Indian outbreak, had charge of the inn from 360 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. October 18, 1756, until June 3, 1757, when he removed to Nazareth. He was the third who had his troubles with those Indians. His predecessor, from April, 1756, Nicholas Schaeffer, and, before that, John Godfrey Grabs, who, in 1752, had followed John Leighton, the successor of Hartmann Verdriess, had both had their trying exper- iences with them, and likewise their burdens in quartering panic- stricken refugees. Culver was succeeded temporarily, in June, 1757, by George Klein, the former owner of the site of Lititz, with several assistants. September 15, 1757, Andrew Horn took charge, with two single men as assistants ; Peter Worbas, who had escaped from Gnadenhuetten, and who now gained some experience preparatory to his appointment as the first keeper of the new Bethlehem Inn, and August Hermann Francke ; these assistants being followed a year later by John Garrison, who principally served as ferryman, and John Lischer, who thus served an appreticeship at what became his chief business. He, in 1762, became one of the succession of regular landlords of the Crown, in 1765, succeeded Culver at the Rose and remained there until it was closed as a public house in March, 1772, when he became the first host of the Nazareth Inn."^ Horn was the landlord who had the gratification of seeing the last of these undesirable frequenters of his kitchen and tap-room depart, and of renovating the Crown for more welcome guests. The need of proper hotel accommodations at Bethlehem was becoming more urgent and at last, on May 25, 1758, the corner-stone of the "new tavern" on the north side was laid. Before June the cellar walls were laid up and much material for the building was gotten ready ; but then, in consequence of a variety of interruptions, the work moved very slowly, and it was well on in the autumn of 1760 before it was finished. It was opened, however, for public enter- tainment in the previous spring, when it was yet unfinished. Peter Worbas and his wife moved down from Gnadenthal and took charge on March 24, 1760. In July it was still uncompleted, when the local authorities were considering the matter of procuring a license from Court. A mere "permit" was at first taken out at the September term, when the name "The Sun" was given it, this name first 7 These items about those old time inn-keepers may be found of use by some, in tracing connections in other records, and, as regards the Crown, serve to correct some inaccuracies in print, in giving the succession. Sometimes allusions are made to a tavern, in journals of travel, by the mere name of the host, and it is often desirable, in tracing an itinerary, to be able to identify the public house thus referred to. mmi^': mwm I THE SUN INN, BUILT 1758 1763—1816 1816-1851 1756 1762. 361 appearing in the records, on September 26, 1760, in connection with reference to the appointment of a jury to improve the King's Road, on petition from Bethlehem, "from the Monocacy, where the Gnaden- huetten road passes it, to the new tavern called The Sun, and to the Lehigh a mile below Bethlehem." The inn was not entirely finished and fully equipped until the following spring. Then, on June 17, 1761, Matthew Schropp, Warden, made application to the Court for a regular license, Peter Worbas being vouched for as a suitable and trustworthy person to keep a public house. ^ The year 1758, to which many of the matters sketched in the preceding pages belonged, closed in Bethlehem with special services of praise and thanksgiving, in which the review of events in the country at large was combined with the remembrance of signal mercies and blessings experienced in the local situation. The decisive struggle between the English and French arms in the West, resulting in the abandonment of Fort Duquesne by the French in November, had settled the question of English supremacy west to the Ohio. Another great Council between the chiefs of the Six Nations and the Delawares, and the English authorities empowered to treat with them, had taken place at Easton in October. It had resulted in a more decided prospect of weaning the tribes that were at variance with the Government away from French interests than had before appeared. The Moravian missionary, Frederick Post, whose move- ments, as Government agent to deal with the western Indians, were followed with much anxious, prayerful interest at Bethlehem, had safely and successfully passed the supreme episode of his hazardous and inestimable service, when the most vital issues of the war seemed to be in his hands and involved in the fate of his person. The knowl- edge of this had reached Bethlehem before the close of the year." 8 Jasper Payne succeeded Worbas as inn-keeper, August, 1762, Worbas part of the time assisting him. besides Daniel Kunckler, who had been connected with the old store and the ferry; John Rubel, Peter Goetge and Jost Jensen, previously a sailor on the Irene. Payne was succeeded, at the close of 1766, by John Andrew Albiecht, the musician mentioned before this, who perhaps used his gifts in this respect as a special attraction. Jost Jensen, the sailor, followed on June, 1771. He was the landlord during the most eventful years of the Revo- lutionary period, to April, 1781, when he was succeded by John Christian Ebert, who had the honor of entertaining General Washington. The next landlord, from June i, 1790, to midsummer, 1799, was Abraham Levering. The next, at the opening of the new century, was John Lennert. June, 1799, to June, 1805. 9 The importance of Post's services, at a most critical period, is well-known to all who are familiar with the history of those times. They have often been enlarged upon by historians, and his journal of that momentous tour to the Allegheny River may be read in the Pennsyl- 362 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Right heartily did the people, therefore, observe the day of thanks- giving appointed by proclamation of the Governor, on December 28. In the review of the year, on December 31, a serious loss that had befallen the Church the preceding year, but had not become known at Bethlehem until May 18, 1758, was recalled. This was the cap- ture by a French privateer, ofT Cape Breton, November 30, 1757, and the sinking, on January 12, 1758, of the church ship, the Irene, which vania Archives, Vol III. In advance of the army of General Forbes, marching to attempt the reduction of Fort Duquesne, Post had succeeded in his mission to the Indians. This success demoralizing the French garrison, they set tire to the fort and retreated, before the English army had the opportunity to strike the blow. It was the pivot on which the whole struggle in America turned. Frank Cowan, in ^^Southwestern Pemisylvania in Song and Story." closes a verse which treats of the valiant determination with which the words of the dying Forbes, the " Head of Iron," inspired his army, moving to the intended conquest, with two lines on Post which sum up his part in the issue : " But the Man of Prayer, and not of boast. Had spoken first in Frederick Post." The inside history of Post's critical situation at the supreme moment, as related by him in a communication to his brethren, which reached Bethlehem after the close of the year and was read to the people, January 19, 1759, when he was on his way home, vividly pre- sents the situation at that juncture. Not being accessible in print or familiar, like the matter contained in public documents, it may be reproduced here, as given in the records in the third person from Post's account, to show under what precarious circumstances this Mora- vian missionary turned "the fortunes of war." ''In November, when the English army moved from Loyalhanning, he and his traveling companions were brought by a convoy of fifteen men to Kaskasking, the Indian headquarters, where the Indians, and especially the chiefs, were very glad to see him again. When the convoy set out on its return, he sent a letter to be given by the Lieutenant to the General. The convoy, while on the way, was attacked by the French, the Lieutenant was taken prisoner and Post's letter was rendered, with its meaning perverted, into the Indian language. Post was represented as having written to the General that when he had beaten the French, he should summon the Indians to a treaty and then massacre them. This alleged translation was sent by the French to Kaskasking and communicated there, and, while the chiefs refused to believe that he had so written, the young men were wrought up to such a pitch, that from the i6th to the 20th of November, at the advice of the chiefs, he did not venture out of his hut. (He was in the midst of Indians with no other white man near.) The chiefs finally insisted upon it that the French Commandant should produce the original letter, which he had to do. When the Indians got possession of it and — several being able to read English— found just the opposite in it, and made this known, their rage was changed to friendliness, and they accepted the propo- sals of peace which he brought them in the name of the Government. Afterwards, when the French also came with a belt, not a single Indian would accept it. The French were so frightened by this, that the next day, they abandoned Fort Duquesne. Upon this he could go his way in peace, after he had recommended to the Indians that they should first establish the outward peace and then he would bring them a yet greater peace " — the "Gospel of Peace." 1756 1762. 363 had brought so many of the Bethlehem people to America. She had sailed from NewYork, November 20, 1757, in charge of Captain Jacob- sen, on her fourteenth and last voyage. The first satisfactory account of this misfortune was received on June 8, through a letter of April 6, written from Bristol, England, by the Rev. L. T. Nyberg. Captain jacobsen, the sailors Hans Nielsen and Benjamin uarrison, with Henry Ollringshaw and William Schmalling, who had come over in April, 1756, and were on a return journey to Europe, were taken to France, while Andrew Schoute, the veteran sailor, also a passenger intending to remain in Europe, was left at Louisburg, sick, by the prize-crew, which through mismanagement ran the vessel on the rocks. On September 29, Schoute got back to Bethlehem and related his hard experiences and remarkable adventures. A letter was also received from London with the information that Nielsen and Ollringshaw had died in captivity, and that Jacobsen, Garrison and Schmalling were yet prisoners, the middle of June. Captain Jacobsen finally got back to New York, September 15, 1759, on the ship Concord, of which he had command until the fourth church ship, the Hope, was built in 1760. While there had been no arrivals from Europe since December, 1756, some new names appear in the records between that time and the close of 1758, of persons who figured in capacities of interest and importance. One of these who deserves mention was the old organ- builder John Gottlob Klemm, whose early history, in Germany, pre- sents interesting associations with Zinzendorf and Herrnhut. He had left that place with an alienated heart, come to Pennsylvania with a company of Schwenkfelders in 1735, and become a Separatist. Although some years later again on cordial terms with the Brethren, he now first returned to regular connection with their Church. The work upon which he entered at Bethlehem and Nazareth, in conjunc- tion with David Tanneberger, later, for many years, the best-known member of his craft in Pennsylvania, is among the most interesting industries in this Moravian hive of varied activities. Tilling the soil and some other employments might seem more important, but more interest attaches to the few notices found of men who in those olden times built organs for the churches in town and country, and thus, by their skill, helped to provide the means of cultivating the noblest of the fine arts among the people, in the service of religion, when the desire for something fine asserted itself amid conditions so largely rude and coarse. "Father" Klemm had been occupied at his handi- 364 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. craft in New York, where he stood in cordial relations to the Mora- vian minister and members. He wrote to Bethlehem at the end of September, 1757, expressing a desire to settle down and spend his declining days here. He was welcomed and, on November 25, arrived on the Bethlehem wagon from New Brunswick. He was soon busy- putting the Bethlehem church-organ into repair, and directly associ- ated with himself David Tanneberger, a skillful joiner, who had come over with John Nitschmann's colony in 1749. With him as an assistant, he went to Nazareth, March i, 1758, to build an organ for the chapel of the settlement in Nazareth Hall. Establishing their work-shop in the Hall, they also built a new organ for Bethlehem, which was set up, January 20, 1759. They had their organ-factory at Nazareth until the room was needed for dwelHng accommodations. Then they transferred it, August 6, 1760, to the Burnside house, up the Monocacy from Bethlehem. How long they continued to work there is not clear. They evidently built other small organs during those several years, but for what places does not appear. There are repeated references to excursions by Tanneberger to diflferent places in search of lumber suitable for organ-building. They had their shop in Bethlehem at the close of 1761, and on May 5, 1762, the old master of the craft departed this life, after imparting his knowledge to his skillful assistant.^" 10 November 17, I76l,the organ previously used at Bethlehem vv^as conveyed to Lititz, and Tanneberger went along to set it up. That was the organ brought to Bethlehem from Philadelphia by Klemm, set up by him in June, 1746, and put in repair in 1751 by Robert Harttafel, of Lancaster County, as noted in these pages. It has commonly been referred to by writers as built by Gustavus Hesselius, the Swedish organ-builder and painter connected with the Moravians in Philadelphia for a while, and spoken of as the " first organ-builder in America." Possibly he and Klemm were associated in this handiciaft at one time in Philadelphia. Hesselius died there. May 25, 1755. Harttafel, the third of this group of early Moravian organ- builders, passed the later years of his life at Lancaster and died there, April 29, 1802. Tanneberger, the best-known of them, who built organs for many churches in Pennsylvania, in New York — e.g., in 1767 at Albany — in Maryland and Virginia, and, as it seems, in other provinces, removed to Lititz in August, 1765, where he had his factory until his death. He was associated in later years with John Philip Bachmann who came over from Herrnhut in 1793, to learn the trade with him, became his son-in-law and, in November, 1799, went to Salem, N.C., to set up the organ they had built for the church at that place. Bachmann's son, Ernst Julius, also learned the trade of his father in the old factory at Lititz, but, the business declining, he gave it up and, in 1827, went to Lebanon to teach school. The last organ built by Tanneberger was one for the Lutheran church at York, Pa. While setting it up, he was stricken with paralysis, fell from a scaffold and died, May 19, 1S04. He had been negotiated with to build the organ for the Bethlehem church, 1756 1762. 365 In the spring of 1758, one who was greatly beloved at Bethlehem and held in reverence by all who knew him passed away. This was the patriarch of the place, David Nitschmann, Sr., conspicuously identified with it from the beginning, and at the time of his decease, the nominal owner in law of all its real estate. For a few years he had been living in quiet retirement, incapacitated by the infirmities of old age, for participation in the activities of field, workshop and garden in which he continued, however, to manifest great interest. A large part of his time had been given to prayer, bearing upon his heart all the people, old and young, all the concerns of the Church, and particularly the poor Indians rescued from savagery by the efforts of the Brethren; these being an especial object of his solicitude. To the Indians at Bethlehem and to the children Father Nitschmann gave more of the kindly sympathy with which his heart overflowed, than to any other persons. His peaceful end came on April 14, 1758, and on the i6th his remains were laid to rest at the spot in the Bethlehem cemetery where the httle slab now bears his honored name. His nephew. Bishop David Nitschmann, who at this time was sojourning at Lititz, helping in the opening of the settlement, started on a visit to Bethlehem to see the patriarch once more, having heard that he was very feeble. At Oley he was met with the tidings of his departure. Not being able, therefore, to see him or attend the funeral, he pro- ceeded leisurely on his way, calHng elsewhere meanwhile, and reached Bethlehem the following week. During the year 1759 various preparatory steps were taken towards the reconstruction of the system of administration and the methods of associate life and activity that would bring the General Economy to an end with ease and smoothness. The initiative was wisely taken some time in advance, in a quiet way, and the change was carefully prepared for by those who were in control when there was no special discontent nor striking evidence of decadence, instead of waiting until the pressure of dissatisfaction among the people might compel hasty action, or a state of internal weakness and inefificiency might be produced by the retention of methods that had outlived their useful- ness and no longer served their purpose. Stampeded measures, ill- digested plans and disintegration through neglect of vigilant control then in course of erection. The organ at present in the Nazareth Moravian church was built by him in 1793. It was rebuilt in 1898. That in the Moravian church in South Beth- lehem, the former Lititz church organ was built by him in 1787. It was transferred to South Bethlehem in 18S0. 366 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. were all to be guarded against in a situation which involved the welfare of so many souls, the interests of such an extensive work, and the safety of so much valuable property. Many of the preliminary steps were quietly planned by Bishop Spangenberg during the months when he had his headquarters in a partial retreat at Nazareth Hall, and his efificient coadjutor. Bishop Boehler, was devoting his attention to the affairs of the hour. Meanwhile a clear understanding was gradually being reached in reference to the eventual plans to be carried out when the time came, through correspondence with Europe, and such preparations as called for the attention of the general authorities there, were also being made while Nathanael Seidel was yet tarrying abroad. One of the features of those timely preparations was the modification, to such extent as was feasible, of the common housekeeping arrangements ; relaxing the almost military regime which the more adequate appointments that now existed made less necessary, and introducing changes, little by little, in the direction of a larger prevalence of distinct households among married people. This required the provision of increased dwelling accommodations for families. In November, 1758, the water-tower house which had been serving alternately as a home for the boys and for a number of the married men who had quarters there together, was turned into a tenement for as many families as could be accommodated ; while the former pottery building was converted into a dwelling for the widowers who had a home together. In the spring of 1759, it was concluded to use some of the apartments of Nazareth Hall for school purposes and to trans- fer the large boys' school from Bethlehem to that place. This school was left, at the last mention of it in these pages, quartered in the large stone house fronting on the present Main Street, as described in a previous chapter, where the Moravian Publication Office now stands. With this move, a series of other changes was planned and carried into effect in June. On the 5th of that month the little girls of the nursery at Nazareth were brought to Bethlehem and quartered temporarily in the Community House. The next morning the boys who were to move to Nazareth — there were a hundred and eleven of them, with nineteen tutors and attendants — took ceremonious leave of their house at Bethlehem. Drawn up in order in front of the building, they started in procession, headed by the orchestra of boys with their instructor Albrecht, for the pro- cession out of Bethlehem. After they had sung several hymns, they 1756 1762. 3^7 formed in line and marched, double file, towards the Nazareth road, while a farewell chorale was rendered by the trombonists stationed on the terrace of the Brethren's House. They proceeded, with their own music, "to the end of the lane" — the then eastern end of what is now Broad Street — where the smallest boys were taken into the wagons waiting to convey them farther. The rest of the company marched several miles beyond that point, and the oldest boys all the way to Nazareth. There they were formally received and distributed into room-companies. Thus began the school-history of Nazareth Hall, with Adolph Eckesparre, who had come to Pennsylvania with Bishop Boehler in December, 1756, as head-master, under the general direction of John Michael Graff who was yet stationed at Nazareth. At the close of the year 1759, John Christopher Francke, who had formerly been at the head of the school on the farm of Henry Antes and latterly had been serving as chaplain at Gnadenthal, took charge of the institution. When the boys were transferred to Nazareth, the house they had vacated at Bethlehem, which had been known for a few years as the "Boys' Institute," became the "Girls' Institute." On June 8, the boarding-school for girls — a hundred and three girls in charge of sixteen sisters — was transferred from the bell-turret house on Church Street to this building. In the parlance of the time it came to be spoken of as the new Kinderhaus, their former house being the old Kinderhaus — "Old Seminary." On June 14, the twenty- three little nursery girls brought from Nazareth on the 5th were domiciled in the second story of the bell-turret house, in which a room was also assigned to the company of "older girls" of Beth- lehem who were no longer school-girls. Finally on June 18, the thirteen girls of the little boarding-school on the Whitefield house premises at Nazareth were brought to Bethlehem and given another room of the old Kinderhaus. With this transfer of two hundred and forty-five boys and girls, the distinct school character of Bethlehem and Nazareth as seats of boarding-schools for girls and for boys respectively began to appear more definitely; for all the grades and divisions of girls were now at Bethlehem, while all the boys were at Nazareth, the little nursery boys being retained there in this plan. Considerable more space thus also became available for placing private families in parts of both of the buildings at Bethlehem as well as of those at Nazareth. One of the log houses next to the Whitefield house was now vacant for other use, while the widows continued to occupy the other one. Their cramped quarters and the distance from 368 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the place of worship for Nazareth, at this time no longer in the White- field house but in Nazareth Hall, led to the removal of some of the aged and infirm of these women to an apartment in the latter building, when the organ-builders removed their work-shop to the Burnside house, in the summer of 1760, as stated. On June 9 of that year, the project of building a large house, to be a home for widows, adjoining the Sisters' House at Bethlehem, as an important addition to the permanent central institutions of the place, with the increase and contemplated re-arrangement of the population in view, was discussed in a general Church Council ; but the way did not seem open to undertake it at that time, much as the crowded condition called for it.^^ Early in 1760, provision for Indian converts again claimed attention at Bethlehem, for it was becoming evident that another place besides Nain would have to be selected to colonize, at least some of them. On February 11, the missionaries Martin Mack and Joachim Sensemann went up beyond the Blue Mountains to inspect the proposed site of another Indian village, a few miles north of where the former village of Meniolagomeka had been situated, at a locality which had formerly been given the name Friedensthal — vale of peace — by some Moravian settlers from Philadelphia, but which in rude violation of this name, became the theatre of one of the appalling tragedies enacted by hostile savages in that awful December of 1755. In that devasted neighborhood the Church authorities purchased a body of very nearly 1400 acres of land that had been owned by the leader of those unfortunate people, Frederick Hoeth,^- and by his son-in-law. Christian Boemper, lying along the little stream that became known as Hoeth's Creek, which was then changed into Head's " A total of 1013 persons comprised the population of Bethlehem and the Nazareth places at the end of 1759. Bethlehem had 618, Nazareth 268, Gnadenthal 34, Christians- brunn 75 (single men and older boys), Friedensthal 15, the Rose 3. 12 Frederick Hoeth, Jacob Weiss — grand-father of him who founded Weissport, where the second Gnadenhuetten and then Fort Allen had been — and some other Philadelphia Moravians and their friends bought adjacent tracts of land in that neighborhood in 1750. Hoeth, the leader, and several others settled there. Weiss, it seems, did not. Hoeth's was the chief plantation. The massacre that occurred there, December lo, 1755, was spoken of as the massacre at Hoeth's. He and his wife were killed and three of their daughters were carried off by the Indians. Christian Boemper was also murdered during a subsequent raid. One of their daughters, Mariana, was forced by the imminent prospect of torture and death in the flames, to become the wife of an Indian. After many thrilling adventures and extensive wanderings with the savages, even as far as Pittsburg, she finally escaped and reached Bethlehem with her child, October 17, 1759, at the very time when steps were being taken to found this mission station at her desolate home. 1756 1762. 3^9 Creek. The Indians had called the neighborhood and the stream Wechquetank, from the name they gave to a certain willow that grew along its banks. There, in the midst of neglected fields, with the dismal ruins of farm houses, barns, blacksmith-shop, grist and saw- mill not far away, telling of Friedensthal laid waste, the Brethren hoped to again propagate the gospel of peace. April 23, 1760, Sensemann and Shebosh, with more than thirty of the Nain Indians and several who had been permitted to sojourn at Gnadenthal, went "up to Hoeth's place" to put in a crop and build cabins. On May 6, the first rude dwelling was erected for the accom- modation of the missionaries — Sensemann, minister, and Shebosh, warden. Other buildings soon arose and on June 26, the meeting- house was dedicated. They preserved the old Indian name associated with the neighborhood and called the village Wechquetank.^'^ Bishop Spangenberg who returned to Bethlehem May 22, after an absence of a year in North Carolina, went up with the missionary Schmick on June 12, to see the new Indian village. A week later Schmick took charge of Nain and Mack, relieved of that duty, went up, on June 24, to inspect Wechquetank. On October 17, the missionary Grube settled there to carry on the work while engaged with important linguistic labors. Thus there were again frequent journeys between Bethlehem and the mountains, and the countenances of men in the settlement between, who saw it, again grew dark, and again there were mutterings and threats. Little attention was paid to these, but as the year 1760 drew to a close, a new shadow of another kind fell upon Bethlehem. On December i, general dismay was occasioned by the discovery that small-pox had broken out in the Sisters' House and that twelve of the older girls, who occupied apartments there, were down with the disease. The records state that it was the first visitation of this dread malady in fourteen years. It is not hard to imagine what a serious matter such an epidemic was, with so many people living 13 Spelled also, and perhaps more in accordance with the sound, Wekquitank. The spot, on the eastern part of the 1400 acre tract, at which the village was built, on the north side of the creek, was about eight miles from the site of Meniolagomeka, northward, near the present village of Gilbert, a little way off from the road. The grave-yard was located about twenty rods from the meeting-house, farther up the hill. The exact site was not known for many years until, in 1899, discoveries by Mr. Frank Kunkel, of Nazareth, led him and other officers of the Moravian Historical Society to investigate further and ascer- tain the location quite definitely. 25 370 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ill close quarters in large companies. There was an absence of the customary Christmas festivities, it having been decided to merely have a quiet observance of the festival, separately, in the several insti- tutions where none were sick, and to omit that of the little nursery girls entirely. On December 30, the doctor reported a hundred and three cases, and the year was closed in anxiety and with much prayer. On January 12, seven rooms were filled with patients, a number having died. It is stated that at a certain stage of convalescence they were transferred to one of the "family rooms." At the end of January the whole number of cases had reached a hundred and eighty. Six children, but none of the adults, had died during the month. After the epidemic had run its course and the last patient had recovered, thanksgiving services were held on March 9 and the children were gathered together to have a special lovefeast instead of that missed at Christmas. But a week later it was learned that the disease had broken out among the older boys who lived at Christiansbrunn. From there it spread to the large school in Nazareth Hall where it did its worst during the month of May. When it came to an end, the latter part of June, special thanksgiving services were held there also. During the year 1761, Bethlehem was spared all danger, as well as all annoyance, from Indian disturbances, and throughout the regions that had been so greatly afflicted it could be said that "the land had rest." It was believed that the settlements at last made with the tribes west of the Alleghenies, and the unmistakable evidence that the French cause was waning in America, would prevent further trouble. Therefore the evacuation of the frontier forts along the Kittatinny Mountains was ventured. On January 20, the last troops at Fort Allen were paid ofif and discharged. Justice Horsfield and William Edmonds went up from Bethlehem, under Government instructions, to take an inventory of the ammunition. On April 27, Horsfield, by appointment, regularly declared its evacution on the spot and officially turned the property back into possession of the Brethren through the hand of Gottlieb Pezold who was commissioned to accompany him and formally receive it. Early in September, some excitement was caused by reports of outrages perpetrated beyond the Blue Mountains by Indians returning from the last general Council held at Easton in August, to settle terms regarding prisoners and to confirm the previous treaties. Justice Horsfield, by order of the Governor, investigated the matter and found that it was merelv a 1756 1762. 371 drunken revel which the white men, who had sold the Indians the drink and gotten them intoxicated, then exaggerated into riot, arson and murder; spreading alarming sensations through the country, much after the same manner in which, even yet, occasional stories of Indian uprisings in the far West are set afloat and telegraphed over the country by the men who had themselves been the aggressors and offenders. In connection with reference to the above-named treaty, it may be noted that on August 9, the Governor of Pennsylvania — the Hon. James Hamilton, serving his second term — visited Bethlehem and passed the night at the new Sun Inn. He was therefore the first of the Chief Magistrates of Pennsylvania entertained at that Moravian hostelry, which had been open only a short time, and was destined to be rendered particularly historic some years later. Many other visitors were at the place and numerous Indians passed through, but without tarrying to be fed and watched for days, burdening the resources and worrying the officials, as formerly. Among the visitors was one who has left a pleasing little sketch of Bethlehem and its people, in the shape of notes and observations of the kind which are only to be found in diaries and letters of visitors ; giving details that would be sought for in vain in official records or even in the personal correspondence of Moravians themselves, but which touch up the far off vision with some warm color and cause persons who, in the dry records, are little more than names to the reader, to suddenly step out as living men and women, imparting an idea of themselves. The notes are not those of one come quizzing to convince himself of the "false doctrines" there cherished, as some of the militant religionists of earlier years, nor of one who wishes to get a sight of the "Romish practices" or of the concealed French powder and lead for the use of the savages, which neighbors in the Irish Settlement had told about. Nor are they the observations of the cynic, or the dyspeptic, or the individual who is smart. They are the impressions of an evidently healthy, sensible, well-bred young woman who could be interested and find enjoyment, and who was not one of those who describe everything as very queer that chances to be different from what they have always been accustomed to. Such a glimpse of Bethlehem in 1761 relieves the sombre impres- sions gotten from the narratives of the trials and hardships of the previous several years. It is different, too, from the purely and intensely religious character given the softer and finer features of the 372 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. picture by the Brethren themselves, in the current records, in which they tell their own history and experiences. This visitor to Bethlehem whose notes, were a few years ago, put into print,^* as those of many other visitors receiving varying impressions have been, was accom- panied from Philadelphia by two other young women and two young men, one of them apparently her future husband. On August 26, they "set out for Bethlehem and the country adjacent." On the way they met Anthony Benezet, who had been busying himself in the interests of peace at the Easton treaty and was returning from Bethlehem. He told them of the alarm created by the reports about the Indians who had come down from the moun- tains, but expressed the opinion that they might safely proceed. In the evening, on the 27th, they reached Bethlehem. At the Crown Inn they "began to see the manners of the people, complacent, mild and afifable." Such persons, apparently, therefore were Andrew Horn and his good wife at the inn, and Daniel Kunckler, who had charge of the new rope ferry. The "pretty illumination" made by the imposing Brethren's House — "Colonial Hall" of the Young Ladies' Seminary — when viewed^ from the river, was observed. On their walk up to the Sun Inn they "passed by the stables which were struck by lightning last year."^^ At the inn kept by Peter Worbas they "had an elegant supper and diligent waiters." They were awakened the next morning "by one hundred cows, a number of them with bells, a venerable goat and two she-goats, driven in town by two sisters" — like the morning experience of many a traveler in an Alpine village. It is said to have looked very pretty. Nazareth was visited the next day — "a fine farm where the widows and boys reside." There Valen- tine Haidt's paintings were noticed in the chapel of Nazareth Hall, many details of the institution are described, and it is stated that "the great order, decency, decorum and convenience, is hardly to be 14 Extracts from the diary of Hannah Callender, by George Vaux — Pennsylvania Maga- zine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, pp. 432-456. 15 Not "last year" but July 20, 1761, the fine large barn, built in 1757, as men- tioned in the preceding pages, was struck by lightning and set on fire. Very great difficulty was experienced in extinguishing the flames. No horses nor harness were burned and the dwelling apartments remained unimpaired, but men worked all night with the burn- ing hay which had to be forked out and scattered. The near-by thatch roof of the cow stable and sundry stacks of grain added to the peril. This fright led to the organisation of better fire-fighting arrangements and to the steps which brought the first fire-engine in America to Bethlehem, several years after this, just too late for use when the first disastrous conflagra- tion occurred in the place. 1756 1762. 373 expressed;" although the wooden trenchers in the dining room of the boys were found to be "not so clean as all the rest." At the Rose, where dinner was eaten, they found several Indians, and "things carried a solemn aspect." Perhaps Ephraim Culver and his wife were less genial than many another old-time Moravian host and hostess, and if their terrible experiences of a few years before are remembered, it is not surprising that, with Indians about and the reports of new outbreaks that had just come down from the region of their desolate home worrying them, things wore that kind of an aspect. At Gnaden- thal again there were paintings "of the birth and death of our Saviour." There they were kindly treated to peaches by some women. At Christiansbrunn, "the residence of the younger single brethren," they admired the water-works, milk-house and fine oxen, walked down steps to the spring which "being walled in a sort of room was very nice and had a romantic air." There they "drank of the Castalian fount." They also "drank a dish of tea in the Guardian's room opposite the single brethren's chambers, who pleased and diverted themselves by looking at them." The next morning, at Bethlehem, the cows again and "the bell calling the sisters to prayers" attracted attention. Nicholas Garrison, Jr., and his wife Gracie — daughter of William Parsons — were encountered. She received them "with free- dom," and they met as former school-mates. Then the men of the company went their way while the writer and her companion were escorted by the polite Mrs. Garrison to the Sisters' House. There another school-mate, Polly Penry, whose unfortunate life was known to the writer, was found and the meeting was an affecting one. Rebecca Langly "whose ease, grace and afifability" proved her genteel bringing up is mentioned. The accomplished but somewhat eccentric wife of the yet more eccentric Henry Miller, printer, was another of the women met with. A stroll was taken "up the single sisters' walk, a quarter of a mile long, adorned with two rows of black cherry trees to the Monocacy Creek." Along the creek the wash-house, dye- house, bleaching-yard, saw-mill, etc., were observed. The visitor says: "Sister Garrison with good humor gave us girls leave to step across a field to a httle island belonging to the single brethren." They were now within the precincts of the present pleasure grounds of the Young Ladies' Seminary, and this was the "Wvmden Eiland" referred to in a previous chapter. The neat summer-house on it with seats of turf and button-wood trees around it, is mentioned. A children's meeting was attended, in company with "Nicholas and Gracy Gar- 374 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. risen;" also a lovefeast in the evening at which "small loaves of bread" and "a small cup of chocolate" were served. The next day at ten o'clock they "went to meeting" with "Sister Miller, Becky and Polly." The minister discoursed in English. His name, "Heyde" (Haidt) is mentioned, and it is stated that he was "their limner who executed all the paintings." Whatever unfavorable impressions these visitors received of one or another thing, and any adverse comments they may have passed have not been preserved in the extracts from that journal that have been published. They at least did not trouble themselves about the attitude of the Brethren towards the controverted points of school theology, or ask ill-mannered questions about this and that reproach which some grim divine or reckless sensation-monger had cast upon them in his book ; and they had not come to write a racy story about the customs of the Moravians in which the main object would be to make it readable and have it accepted for publication, with the question of the truth of the things written a quite immaterial consid- eration, as has been the case with so many a story in much more recent times. They apparently did not even undertake, from the knowledge gotten through a conversation of a few minutes with the ferryman, or the inn-keeper, or the woman who sold fancy-work at the Sisters' House, to explain the principles and regulations of the Economy for the information of the public. Undoubtedly those girls left with the good will of all the Bethlehem people with whom they had come into contact. That summer (1761) was a particularly fruitful one in field, orchard and garden, and the array of luxuriant growth, in well-kept condition, certainly enhanced the attractive appearance of the place, to which allusion is made by various people who visited it. Reference occurs in the records to the particularly abundant harvests of several years following the years of scarcity that had added to the trials of those dire times. It was therefore under cheerful circumstances that the first accessions to the population from Europe, since the arrival of the few with Bishop Boehler in December, 1756, were welcomed at Bethlehem near the end of October, 1761. There was now another church-transport afloat — the fourth, called the Hope. After the loss of the Irene, Captain Jacobsen made several voyages with the brig Concord, which he brought over from Europe after his release from captivity. His last arrival with this vessel, noted in the records, was on June 14, 1760. His only passenger mentioned was Augustus Schubert bound 1756 1762. 375 for the Moravian settlement in North CaroHna as physician. He started for his destination from Bethlehem early in September, 1760. Few details are on record about the building of the Hope. The busi- ness seems to have been left almost entirely in the hands of Captain Jacobsen ; so much so that it would appear to have been rather a private undertaking on his part, with perhaps others associated with him, than an enterprise started by the Church authorities, as in the case of the Irene. He served the Church, however, with this transport in the same manner, to such extent as was required. Henry Van Vleck, merchant, of New York, referred to before in these pages, a prominent Moravian and business agent of the Church authorities in that city, who had been one of the trustees of the Irene and at this time was acting for the others in final settlements on her account, made extensive use of the Hope for importing merchandise. Probably the enterprise was undertaken largely by his assistance and under his personal auspices. From several allusions it might almost be inferred that the vessel was purchased by Captain Jacobsen when in process of building at New Haven, and then finished and rigged under his direction. The first reference to the Hope found in the Bethlehem records is the statement in the diary on December 11, 1760, that, according to a report from the Moravian minister in New York, the Rev. Thomas Yarrell, Captain Jacobsen then had his ship calleld the Hope floated. Just before the close of the year the Captain himself reported to the board at Bethlehem that "his ship the Hope" was successfully launched on November 21, and brought safely to New York, December 9; and expressed his expectation that she would prove to be a good sailer. He stated also that he intended, shortly after New Year, to put off with her for Charleston, South Carohna, to take on a cargo for London, as none was to be had in New York. The vessel was registered on January 10, 1761, at New York, by Jacobsen and Van Vleck. She was recorded as "plantation built," of a hundred and twenty tons burden, carrying four cannon and a crew of thirteen men. On January 16, when lying in the harbor ready to sail, she came near being damaged by a great mass of ice causing her to drift to a dangerous place. On the 17th, "the day on which George HI. was proclaimed King in the fort and in the city," the Captain set sail for South Carolina, but put back on account of heavy wind and the ice, and sailed again on the 19th. He sailed from Charleston, S. C, under convoy, February 23, for England, and reached Portsmouth, March 28. Letters reached Bethlehem, August 3/6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. 27, stating that the Hope, three weeks after leaving London, was lying off Portsmouth with sixty-nine souls on board — passengers and crew — waiting for a convoy. She finally sailed from Spithead, August 4, with a fleet of four men-of-war and eighty other craft, arrived at Sandy Hook, October 18, 1761, reaching her dock the next day. Nathanael Seidel, returning after an absence of more than four years, was a passenger with his wife. He had dviring his absence been married to Anna Johanna Piesch, the grand-daughter of Father Nitschmann, who had been in America nine years before. He had also been consecrated a bishop on May 12, 1758. During this long absence he had not only participated in the successful consummation of a mass of legal transactions, to establish more securely the title to the estates of the Church in America, to which reference has already been made, but had engaged in several conspicuous tours and special labors in company with Count Zinzendorf who had now passed away from the joys and the toils of his earthly mission. He died at Herrn- hut. May 9, 1760, and the tidings of his decease reached Bethlehem, August 19. Seidel had also during that interval made a protracted and arduous official visit to the West Indies, and, after his return to Europe, had undergone a surgical operation for an ailment that had been brought on by the strain and exposure to which he had been so continually subjected during the years of his previous labors in America. He returned to Bethlehem to become the successor of Bishop Spangenberg as President of the Executive Board ; Span- genberg's counsel and assistance being desired in the General Governing Board of the Church in Europe with the important and difficult task of a new epoch before it. Seidel furthermore, after the death of Father Nitschmann, became the nominal Proprietor of all American properties of the Church — those in North Carolina excepted — under the arrangement explained in a previous chapter. The most important immediate duties before him were those connected with the abrogation of the General Economy which was now to take place, and the thorough re-organization required, from the supervision of all the settlements, churches and missions down to the management of single farms and branches of industry that had belonged to the Economy. He was accompanied by the Rev. Frederick William von Marschall and his wife, Hedwig Elizabeth, who was a daughter of Hans Christian von Schweinitz. Being a man of high official standing, distinguished ability and large experience in affairs, Marschall had been chosen to eventually become General Superintendent of the work of the Moravian Church in North Carolina. 1756 1762. 377 Meanwhile he was to assist in the capacity of General Warden in the work of re-construction at Bethlehem. Nine other ordained men were with the company, two of them accompanied by their wives, two of them widowers and the rest single men. There were, in addition to these, twenty-one single men in the colony and ten women, one of them a widow and the rest single women. ^*' The name of the veteran ship steward David Wahnert appears for the last time in this list. He died at Herrnhut in 1765, after a life of more faithful and valuable service than many another about whom more has been said and written. A strong body of men was added to the force at Bethlehem and in the work generally by the arrival of this colony ; so that the loss of Bishop Spangenberg the next year, with Bishop Boehler remaining yet for several years during the time of transition, did not affect the situation at that critical stage as seriously as it might otherwise have done. Very busy weeks followed their arrival. Many preparations had yet to to be made for the introduction of the new order of things. There were many details with which Seidel had to familiarize himself, because he had been absent a long time, and the situation had to be 16 Nearly all of the ordained men of this company subsequently rendered conspicuous and important service at Bethlehem. They were Abraham von Gammern who went to North Carolina, and Paul Muenster, a Moravian refugee, who for thirty years was identified with the collegiate pastorate at Bethlehem, for a while with the wardenship and for a few years with the General Executive Board ; these two being married men. The two widowers were Andrew Langaard, whose labors closed at Emmaus, where he died, and John Frederick Peter, who also served at Bethlehem, the first of the name who appears in the records. Ordained men, single, were John Arbo who, as warden of the single men and in other offices, filled a prominent place; Jeremiah Dencke, long one of the most prominent minis- ters and officials; Ferdinand Philip Jacob Detlmers, for many years the able and faithful warden at Bethlehem and Lititz ; Amadeus Paulinus Thrane, who from his arrival to his death in 1776, was connected with the pastorate and was the principal preacher at Bethlehem; David Zeisberger, a cousin of the better-known missionary of that name, who served a while at Bethlehem, but much longer at Nazareth. Numerous trades were represented by the other young men of the colony. Individuals of particular interest among them were Immanuel Nitschmann, son of Bishop John Nitschmann, the secretary and musician mentioned in a pre- vious chapter; John Francis Oberlin, the store-keeper of Bethlehem in Revolutionary times; Matthias Tommerup, the bell-founder who cast various bells of historic interest. Among the young women were Anna Dorothea Nitschmann, a grand-daughter of Father Nitsch- mann ; Maria Dorothea Bechtel, a daughter of John Bechtel, late of Germantown, who had gone to Europe in 1753; Anna Seidel, a sister of Bishop Nathanael Seidel; Elizabeth Broksch, Maria Agatha Hammer and Elizabeth Kannhaeuser who rendered conspicuous official service among the single women ; Juliana Esther Wapler, long a teacher in the girls' school at Bethlehem, and one of the last before its reorganization in 1785. There were 18 other single men, one widow, and two other single women. 378 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. carefully studied by von Marschall, particularly the finances and the numerous industries of the Economy which he, as General Warden,, would have to re-organize. Besides this, the affairs of the other existing congregations, the important new settlement of Lititz and the Indian missions claimed careful attention. At Old Nazareth, at Nazareth Hall, where the new Nazareth arose later, at Gnadenthal and Christiansbrunn, and at Friedensthal and the Rose, each a little center with distinct industries to foster and features of organization and communal life to re-adjust under the new order, there had to be particular inspection, conference and conclusions, as well as at Beth- lehem. These "upper places" remained more closely combined under the new order, with Nazareth as headquarters. The separation that took place lay in those changes which made Bethlehem one center and the Nazareth group another in local organization and the supervision of the various industries. In all this, furthermore, the status, avail- ability for service, in one way or another, and personal welfare of more than eleven hundred souls, ^' old and young, had to be considered, for the whole situation had to be studied from two points of view. On the one hand, the people were here for the benefit of the establishment and its objects. On the other hand, the establishment also existed for the people who had built it up, and those who were in control and responsible for the new order insti- tuted, owed consideration to the people. To make the changes in such a way that due consideration would be shown in both direc- tions, and satisfaction secured throughout, as far as possible, was the problem. Six elements entered into the situation, when analytically consid- ered, a correct apprehension of which will be conducive to clear- ness in understanding what had to be done and what not. The first was that of relations to the general government and adminis- tration of the Church. In this matter there was nothing that the dissolution of the General Economy in itself altered. What alterations 17 According to the exact census of December 31, 1761, there were 1140, including 62 — 54 adults and 8 children — absent on journeys. Therefore there were 1078 at home. Of these, 669 were at Bethlehem and 409 at the several places on the Nazareth land. Of those at Bethlehem, 262 were males and 407 females. At the upper places there were 312 males and 97 females. The male population consisted at Bethlehem of 62 married men 13 wid- owers, 120 single men, 42 older boys and 25 younger boys down to infancy; at the Naza- reth places, of 61 married men, 6 widowers, 64 single men, 37 older boys and 144 younger boys. There were at Bethlehem 62 married women, 138 single women, 74 older girls, 133 younger girls ; at the Nazareth places, 61 married women, 23 widows, 13 younger girls. All the single women and older girls lived at Bethlehem and all the widows at Nazareth. 1756 1762. 379 took place in this general government subsequently affected in the same manner all the settlements and congregations. The relations of the general administration to Bethlehem had not been unique even if the organization of the latter was. Therefore nothing new had to be instituted in this respect. The next element was that of ownership in property. In this matter, what would have been the most formidable task was eliminated entirely by the fact that the people did not own any of the real, personal, or mixed estate of the Economy ; and that the dissolution of this Economy did not involve any purchases or sales, transfers or conveyances of real estate. It was not a stock company, not a co-operative association in the sense of jointly purchasing and holding property. No process of liquidation in this respect was required. There had been no community of goods, but merely one of labor with a "common house-keeping" in that all labored for the common cause and received sustenance from the common store. No private property rights or interests were merged. This has been explained in a previous chapter. No person had or pretended to have any claim on the property, by reason of his mem- bership. Those who had made loans of money stood secured in the same manner as in like transactions between any other persons elsewhere, and this had nothing to do with the dissolution of the Economy and the re-adjustment of terms between the estabUshment and individual members. The third element was that which lay in the operation of the farms, industries and handicrafts that had been estab- lished. In this matter an important settlement with individuals had to be made in two respects. The further carrying on of these concerns to the best advantage of the organization and its objects, on the one hand, and so as to give all who had been employed an opportunity to further obtain a livelihood by means of them if they so desired, on the other hand, had to be provided for; while any possible trouble that might arise, after all were no longer taken care of en masse out of the common store as a matter of course, through demands for back wages or questions of indemnity, had to be guarded against. As to the first of these problems, the plan which was adopted divided the concerns into two classes. One class, some of the farms, the taverns — Crown and Sun — the store and several other establishments, continued to / be carried on under the direct control of the authorities by men employed on terms and conditions agreed upon; the other class, especially the various handicrafts, were carried on by individuals who purchased the stock and fixtures and leased the buildings on 380 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. premises which remained church property. This property was not owned by the local organization or even by any general organization in the American branch of the Church, but by the entire Unity as such, and was managed by its central financial organization which was called the "General Diacony," of which the men at the head of this business at Bethlehem were the agents. Special "Diaconies" were instituted by the single men and other choir organizations, and the agricultural, mechanical and other operations carried on in con- nection with the several choir-houses, were managed by their several diaconies which then dealt, as if they were individual lessees, with the General Diacony. The other point of settlement with individuals, touching questions of back wages or indemnity, was covered by a release signed by every male adult in which all such supposable claims were renounced, in consistency with the terms and conditions all had signed as members of the Economy.^'^ While great results had been accomplished in opening up and improving the lands, erecting buildings and establishing industries through the combined labor of the people under the system no\v terminated, so that what existed at Bethlehem and the Nazareth places was the product of their toil, it would be a misapprehension of the facts to take the view that they were simply left with nothing for all the time and strength they had devoted to the cause — left to start in for themselves empty-handed, many of them far past middle life with strength on the decline, to look back upon the work of years as pure benevolence on their part. In this light the case presented itself to some who viewed it from the outside, and there were people in the neighborhood who so represented it to some of the farmers, mechanics and laborers at Bethlehem and Nazareth, trying to stir 17 There was reason enough to expect that an effort would be made by persons inimical to the Brethren to induce some to attempt to legally present such claims, especially some who had left before this in a disaffected mood or had been given the consiluim abeundi. One such test case occurred. In March, 1763, a certain shoemaker, Jacob Musch, who left in disrepute in 1759 and settled at Easton, took legal steps to collect an alleged claim for work to the amount of ^^525. 13. 9. Bishop Boehler and Warden Schropp had papers served on them. Von Marschall laid the case before Benjamin Chew and secured a legal opinion, which sustained the position of the Church authorities. The case was watched with much interest and caused the Brethren no little anxiety, because if it turned against them, it would become the precedent for similar attempts by others like Musch, and possibly even by some " of the baser sort " who had not left Bethlehem. It went before the Supreme Court, and in October, 1766, that body decided the case in favor of the Brethren. The law being thus shown to be on their side no further like attempt was made. 1756 1762. 3^1 up discontent, telling them that by rights all these things belonged to them and even intimating that certain ones had profited richly out of the products of their toil. Nothing could be more natural than that this latter supposition should find a place in some kinds of minds and be recklessly gossiped about the country by those whose studied practice it was to say what they could against the Moravians. The men and women who labored for the Economy had been fed and clothed and cared for, during those years, with no responsibility resting upon them but to behave themselves and faithfully do their work. Shelter and food and clothing for themselves and their child- ren were not dependent upon their own ability to manage. Those of them who, if left to themselves, would have been incompetent, shiftless and improvident, were not put to the test of providing for themselves. When failure of crops and times of scarcity came, and thousands of bushels of grain had to be bought to feed them, it was paid for by mortgaging property which had cost them nothing, and not a man of them ever had to stand for a single farthing of such debts. When the dissolution of the Economy came, a home and employment were provided for every one who wished to avail him- self of it, and those who preferred to leave were quite at liberty to do so, just as they had always been. Very few did so, for it was generally believed that those in control would deal in good faith with them, and that it was to their advantage to remain at their posts. A fundamental principle of the system now instituted was to enable every person who remained in connection to gain a livelihood. Eventually, too, all of the people who had borne the burden and heat of th^ day under the Economy were regarded as of right pensioners of the Church. If they were without resources when they became old and infirm, home and keeping were provided for them, not as a matter of benevolence, as towards paupers with no claim, but as a recognized obligation. Their posi- tion became rather an honorable one than one that hurt their self- respect. They had as little reason to be ashamed of it as the man who has lost an arm or a leg or had his health ruined in the service of his country in war, has reason to be ashamed of the pension he receives from the Government. A pathetic interest attaches to the references found in subsequent years to the care of the old Economy people — "Alte Oeconomisfen" — in the financial records of the Church. Another element of the situation to be dealt with in these changes was the practical difficulty of finding separate dwellings for families 382 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. when the camp-like arrangements, which had yet continued to some extent, were abolished. This was, however, not as formidable as might at first thought be supposed. A considerable number of such private dwelling apartments had been provided in various buildings, after the removal of the boys' school to Nazareth Hall. Various other places were fitted up as a makeshift until, after some years, the increased number of regular dwelling-houses relieved this diflti- culty. The number of girls from other places connected with the boarding-school was before long greatly reduced, and when, in the course of further shiftings, this institution was again fully accom- modated in the first seminary — the bell-turret house on Church Street — the large stone house on Main Street, into which it was moved when the boys were transferred to Nazareth, became entirely a building for private dwellings, and then got the third of its succes- sive names — the "Family House." When later its population came to consist for some years mainly of such superannuated Economy people pensioned by the Church, the fourth name came into vogue — the "Economy House." A substi- tute for this, brought into use at a later time by some in flippant dis- regard of what they, as comfortable denizens of Bethlehem, owed those old Occonomisten, was "the poor-house" — a term applied, in like manner, to the Whitefield house at Nazareth, which for a consider- able period was devoted to the same use. This objectionable term, as applied to both structures, was handed down and used long after the last Economist had been gathered to his fathers, and many a one who kept the name alive, together with the staple stock of ludicrous stories, probably many of them were more humorous than true, about the eccentricities of some of the old people, was enjoy- ing in ease and opulence, the fruit of their toil from which he witli little toil had waxed fat. Returning from this digression, it may be observed also that, so far as Bethlehem was concerned, it was at the time a question of providing separate dwelling-rooms for only about fifty married couples who had been yet living in the former fashion — the men and the women respectively occupying separate large apartments in com- mon, while eating together at one table. The single men and the single women were organized in their respective large houses and were thus cared for. This remained as it was, with merely a more independent establishment of their several institutions financially and some reconstruction of their general management. 1756 1762. 3^3 Yet another element of the problem to be solved was the par- ticular one of caring for and educating the children. Proper school facilities had to be maintained, under any circumstances, for the resi- dent population. To some extent, a house had yet to be provided for children too young to join the households of older boys and girls, under separate care and supervision, for the dwelling arrangements of many of the families were so scant in room that the children had to be yet cared for in apartments together, as before. The institution for the very youngest children, known as the nursery, gradually came to an end, for it was finally limited to the case of people who had to be absent in missionary service. But the children of missionaries, from the time that they could be put in the care of others than their parents until the close of their school years and apprenticeship, were regarded as a special charge to be provided for as one of the foremost obligations. The very generous terms on which, before this, children of members in the country congregations had been admitted to the institutions, both for girls and for boys, could no longer be continued ; and due notice was given at all such places, of the terms and conditions under which children would further be admitted. It was plainly stated that, in the absence of any special source of revenue for the schools — School-Diacony — to provide for which some time would be required, those in control could no longer be as generous as before. The withdrawal of most of the children from such country places, whose parents were glad to have them educated and trained at Bethlehem so long as it cost them little or nothing, explains the gradual diminution of the numbers, both in the boarding-school at Bethlehem and in Nazareth Hall, in the course of the following years. While the attendance of pupils sent from other places, not only by Moravians, but also by others under special arrangement, never ceased entirely, yet, for some years prior to the re-organization of those institutions in 1785, their boarding- pupils were chiefly children of ministers and missionaries. It must be borne in mind that in 1762, when with the dissolution of the Economy the practically gratuitous education of numerous boys and girls from outside places, as a branch of home missionary activity and with a view to training useful recruits for the ranks of mission- aries and teachers, was modified for financial reasons, the Moravian Church was carrying the enormous load of debt referred to in a previous chapter. Therefore, even if it was not hoped to make the 384 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. schools a source of revenue, it was of importance that they should not be a serious drain on the heavily taxed resources.^^ Finally, the sixth element of the case to be considered was the revision of rules and regulations, covering declaration of principle and aim as a whole; general statutes in reference to the conduct of trades and industries; privileges and obligations of house-holders; relation of all classes to the various authorities and officials ; the life and walk and conversation of individuals. In all of these respects definite articles suitable to the changed situation had to be framed, agreed to by all and signed, as a covenant or brotherly agreement, superseding that of 1754. In this task the statutes in force at Herrn- hut and those which had been drawn up and approved by Zinzendorf for the new church settlement, Lititz, which was founded at once after the Herrnhut model, into conformity to which the hitherto unique organization of Bethlehem was now to be brought, were utilized as a guide. It is of interest, therefore, to note that the earliest statutes of Lititz, as a regular church settlement on the European plan — Ortsgemeine — are older than those of Bethlehem. All the prehminary arrangements had been made with such care that the transition from the old to the new system was effected expe- ditiously and smoothly. The achievement is surprising and can be rightly appreciated only by one who has made a thorough study of the situation and of the varied details involved. Public announce- ment of the intended changes was made on January 17, 1762, by Bishop Spangenberg. January 31, at a Gemeintag^^ service, when many from other places were present, the new school-regulations were published. At a general meeting of communicant members on February 23, the details of the change, as then settled, were explained, so far as they concerned all of the people. Meanwhile, the last Synod before Spangenberg left for Europe intervened. It was held at Lancaster, May 12-16. There the announcements relating to the general organization and direction of 18 The public announcement made was that, from the beginning of 1762, the charge would be ;^io Pa., annually for each child, "to be paid quarterly in advance to Christian F. Oerter, book-keeper." For this sum board and lodging, light and fuel and constant attend- ance were included with tuition. The parents or guardians had to furnish clothing, and the expense of nurse and medicine in sickness was extra. Music, to a certain extent, and in- struction in some manual employment were also included without extra charge because in these lines the pupils could, after they became somewhat proficient, render some service in return for their instruction. 19 On Gemeintag see note 4 of Chapter IV. 1756 1762. 385 affairs were made, and all those points settled in which the relations between Bethlehem and the other settlements and congregations had to be re-adjusted. On June i, the books of the General Diaconate were opened, and the new basis of business relations, with a new system of accounts between the whole and all of the parts, was established. Inside of three weeks every man who had belonged to the Economy, had signed the release which was equivalent to a final settlement and receipt in full of all claims and accounts. On June 20, the new statutes, which had been approved by all voters of the place, were read at a public meeting, in their final shape, and the taking of signatures to these commenced. The General Economy was at an end and a new epoch in the history of Bethlehem opened. Bishop Spangenberg's work in America was now done. On June 22, he and his wife took final leave of Bethlehem and went to Philadelphia,, whence on July i, they sailed for Europe. COMMUNION SERVICE USED BY THE CHOIR OF SINGLE SISTERS, 1762. 26 CHAPTER XL The Decade to the Second Reorganization. 1762 — 1771. At the beginning of the new period which opened when the General Economy was aboHshed in 1762, some others besides Spangenberg, who had long been prominently connected with affairs at Bethlehem, and with various activities elsewhere under the direction of its author- ities, disappeared from the scene, to be mentioned no more. On April I, the Rev. Gottlieb Pezold, one of the most devoted and efficient men, long the superintendent of the organization of the single men, the chief promoter of the work in the Maguntsche neighborhood — Salisbury Township — which resulted in the settlement and church of Emmaus, and one of the most valuable members of the central board at Bethlehem, died unexpectedly at Lititz. He had gone there on official business, was taken sick in consequence of exposure on the way, and there ended his days greatly mourned by all. On April 20, the Rev. John Michael Graff left with his wife and some other persons for Wachovia, North Carolina, where the rest of his life was spent; he being the first bishop (1773) of the Moravian Church, or any other church, in that part of the country. On May 18, the veteran missionary Martin Mack left Bethlehem — he sailed from New York, June 27 — for St. Thomas, to become the superintendent of the oldest mission field of the Moravian Church in the Danish West Indies. With Bishop Spangenberg sailed for Europe on July i, the Rev. Andrew Anthony Lawatsch, who had been one of the most important men connected with the direction of affairs at Bethlehem. He was a widower. His wife Anna Maria Demuth, who had suffered tribulation for the gospel in Bohemia and, with others of her family, fled to Herrnhut — a peculiarly gifted and noble woman, and one of the most notable engaged in official work at Bethlehem — had died January 20, 1760. They were accom- panied also by the Rev. Jacob Rodgers, son-in-law of William Parsons "the father of Easton," at whose funeral, on December 19, 1757, he had, at the dying request of the deceased, conducted the last 386 1762 1 77 1- 387 rites. Rodgers was also now a widower and was returning to England after twenty years of varied activity in America. David Wahnert and his wife also returned with them to Europe, to cross the ocean with Moravian colonies no more. On the other hand, some new names, besides those of the recently arrived colony, come into prominence. One, particularly, may be mentioned here, because of the distin- guished missionary career that had its beginning, early in 1762, with the first conspicuous reference to a man later so well known. In the summer of 1761, the restless, roving and adventurous mission- ary Post, by agreement with some western Delawares, had built a cabin on the Tuscarawas River in Ohio, not far from the site of the present town of Bolivar, where he proposed to found a new mission. He returned to Bethlehem in February, 1762, to seek a companion and fellow-laborer from among the young men. John Heckewelder, although not yet of age, was the person he selected. Heckewelder desired to enter the missionary service but hesitated about this proposition. Bishop Spangenberg was yet in Bethlehem. An interview was had on the matter, encouragement was given him to try it. This encouragement by Spangenberg was supported by that of Zeisberger, who just then was sojourning at Bethlehem. The hesitating young man came to a decision and said "here am I, send me." Spangenberg announced this to the people at a public meeting on February 23. Preparations for the journey were soon made, for in those days it did not take such men long to get ready. Hecke- welder started with a traveling companion afoot through the deep snow on March 9, for Lititz, where he was to meet Post, who mean- while had gone to Philadelphia. He reached Lititz on March 12, the day on which he became twenty years old. There he was again warmly encouraged by his beloved friend and spiritual advisor Pezold, who gave him his dying blessing at the beginning of his new under- taking, and from Lititz he and his veteran companion set out together for the West. Thus began the missionary life of John Heckewelder, and, although nothing came of that first attempt, on account of the unsettled state of things in the Indian country — Heckewelder was back in Bethlehem, the end of November — that was the beginning of work by the Moravian Church in the historic Tuscarawas Valley of Ohio, in which later so much of Heckewelder's valuable service to the Church, the State and the General Government was rendered. In the summer of 1762, the institutions of Bethlehem, its adjunct 388 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Indian village of Nain, its missionary and other enterprises generally were again the objects of inspection and inquiry on the part of a number of prominent men. Another of the numerous almost farcical treaties with the Indians, held at Easton in June, 1762, brought many persons to the neighborhood. Among those who visited Beth- lehem were Governor Hamilton, Sir John Sinclair, and the famous Sir William Johnston. The Governor dined at the Sun Inn on June 29. The peculiar connection of Bethlehem with the Indians made the place particularly interesting to such men at that time. The customary tour of the various official buildings and industrial establishments was made by some of them. The state of things probably did not reveal the important reconstructions and changing of hands that were then in progress, for no disturbance of the regular routine took place. An imaginary tour with visitors might be taken among the industries of Bethlehem at that interesting beginning of a new period, and something noted of the concerns then being operated. In the Brethren's House, for the enlargement of which preparations were being made — the corner-stone of the eastern extension was laid on August 31 — they found, besides the large bakery yet being oper- ated there, a number of handicrafts carried on that could be accom- modated in one and another of its rooms. Besides tailors, shoe- makers, saddlers and other such craftsmen, they came upon a corps of men in one room busily writing. From three to six men were continually occupied at this work. Looking out of the windows at the north-west corner, clusters and rows of buildings, log and stone, of various sizes appeared, with the grist-mill and the Indian House just across the creek from it, in the background to the left; the group of structures in the grain and stock-yards, about the original log cabin of Bethlehem, in which the overseer of that depart- ment lived, in the central backgrovmd, while to the right and due north, along the line of the present Main Street, they saw, beyond the log house with the water-tower at the end of it where the church now stands, the dwelling and laboratory of Dr. Otto ; above that the large stone house of various uses, then occupied mostly as a dwelling, with the weavers busy in the basement ; farther up, and in a line with it, the large barn and horse stable containing the dwelling of the men in charge, and beyond that on the same line, the Sun Inn. The nearest of these buildings, almost under the shadow of the Brethren's House at the north-west corner, on the slope of the hill. 1762 I77I- 389 where the present Main Street makes the turn, was the log house built in 1742 for the carpenters and joiners, connected with the first Httle log cooper's shop. In the new one farther north at this time John Heckewelder was learning to make cedar tubs. The first was now used by the turners under the direction of "Father" Bechtel, for the joiners had moved to other quarters. There spinning-wheels were made in considerable numbers, there being a constant demand for them throughout the surrounding country, and many being needed for the Sisters' House and for the use of the girls in the school in those days of much spinning. Possibly, if a brand or trade- mark had been put upon these wares, more than one ancient spinning- wheel preserved as a reHc would be found to have been made in that little log shop on the premises now known as the Abbott property. There also, on the slope of the hill, just north of that, stood the log house which was fitted up in the first years of the settle- ment as the primitive hostelry, mentioned in an earlier chapter, before the Crown Inn was built. Near it, on the hill side, Ludwig Huebener built his first oven and in a corner of that house, for a while, set up his first rude wheel to turn out pottery for the use of the settlement. A more pretentious building of stone near-by, thirty-two by thirty-five feet, built in 1749, and constituting the first structure of the more permanent row from the Brethren's House corner towards the first house of Bethlehem — the line from the bend in Main Street to what is now called Rubel's Alley — was at this time the pottery, where a thriving business was carried on, and when the Economy was abolished, was taken over by Huebener. Large demands for the useful earthen-ware there produced, came from the Durham furnace where the Brethren bought much iron, and from farmers about the country, and some orders, even from Philadelphia, were filled, while, as can be readily understood, much had to be made for the use of the spring-houses and larders of Bethlehem and the Nazareth places. Some dwelHngs were fitted up in the second story of the pottery building, to which an addition was built in 1756, and at the time of the dissolution of the Economy, the thirteen widowers living in Bethlehem had their common room and dormitory there. This was the property where now a modern structure is to replace the old landmark at the corner, on the south side of the road leading from Main Street down to the mill. Next to it, on the opposite corner, stood the second stone house of the row — it is yet there — built in 1750. An extension had been 390 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. built to the east in 1761 and a second story was added to the whole in 1763. There work in iron was done. The blacksmiths were occupying it, their first shop, built in 1743, having stood just back of it on the hill-side towards the spring. There the locksmith also had his stand, and there, for a while, the first wrought-iron nails were made at Bethlehem. In 1754, however, the nail-smith took possession of the log house first used by the potter, already mentioned. Another log building standing on the slope in the rear of the stone smithy, adjoining the east end of its rude predecessor — both of these log houses stood in a line with the first house of Bethlehem — was that used by the wheel-wrights and wagon-makers. There the stock of freight-wagons, carts, plows, harrows and lighter farming utensils was supplied and kept in repair. In the above mentioned first smith- shop the primitive battery was in operation. What shape the blocks had which turned off the "wool hats" of that time is a question not to be settled now, but it may be assumed that it did not vary often in punctilious conformity to changing styles of the season. The straw hats worn in summer were plaited by women and girls in the Sisters' House. This branch of female industry, which in subsequent years continued to be of some importance, had been introduced in 1755, under instruction given by Jacob Boerstler's wife, of Oley. From those log houses behind the stone smithy it was but a short descent to the grist-mill, with its double run of stones, at some seasons rumbling day and night under the red tile roof and on the red tile floor that rested upon the solid masonry, rebuilt in 1751, of stone quarried from the brow of the hill, later named Nisky by Captain Garrison, across the Monocacy from the saw-mill. The whirling of these stones did not jar the massive walls erected in the manner in which Henry Antes had his workmen build mills, nor crack the smooth plastering of the interior spread upon laths from the little saw-mill at Christiansbrunn. No doubt those distinguished visitors stepped into the mill and had a friendly word with Abraham Andreas, the miller, who had taken charge of it under the new arrangement. Connected with the grist-mill, to the west, was the full- ing-mill, rebuilt of stone in 1759, and started up on October 19, of that year, with its four beaters working excellently, as the record states, and "capable of running through three hundred yards of stuff at once." This, with the adjoining room for the clothiers and at the west end the dye-house, presented a front of a hundred and eight feet from the eastern end of the grist-mill towards the Monocacy. It is not unlikely that there they crossed the creek and looked into the 1762 I77I- 391 PLAN OF BETHLEHEM, I758. 392 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Indian House, an establishment that would probably interest Sir William Johnston. Moving southward from the mill, on the road by which the laden wagons came and went between that point and the ferry, they were in the heart of the cluster of structures which they had surveyed from the windows of the Brethren's House. Just south of the grist-mill, on the east side of the tail race, in the small frame building of 1743, to which several others were added, tanning, tawing and currying had been undertaken on a small scale, and soon became an important industry. A large stone building commenced on the other side of the race in May, 1761, had been completed and the new tannery was being rapidly gotten into order for work on a more extended scale. It became, and for many years continued to be, the most lucrative business at Bethlehem. In the rear of the tannery stood the slaughter-house, near the bank of the creek, pre- empting a locality to be the place for the shedding of much innocent blood and the dressing of much meat, even down to the present day, when man is no less carnivorous than a century and a half ago. A little farther down was at that time the oil-mill, where the seed from the many acres of flax that furnished the linen of the place was converted into a profitable article of export to the cities, with the little mill for grinding tan-bark adjacent. But at this point, a piece of important mechanism which interested all visitors more than anything else, attracted attention. The enlarged and improved water-works of Bethlehem were just being gotten into final working order, for on July 6, 1762, the first flow began. The surprise and admiration elicited by this enterprising and ingenious achievement — for the like of it was not then to be found anywhere in the colonies — perhaps led to an inspection of the remarkable spring from which the water was pumped, and around which all of these establishments had arisen. There, about two hundred and forty feet from the old water-works, was the milk house, cool and shady, with the over- flow stream from the spring-house running through it, after passing through another apartment, in which meat and butter were kept, and at the end the heavy log structure, that enclosed and covered the place of gushing water, was entered — the whole primitive, but neat and scrupulously clean. In those days there was no reason yet for the dread thought of contamination to be associated with that remarkable water supply in the mind of resident or visitor.^ I After this cursory survey of the principal establishments of the place — there were sundry other minor ones — as they existed at the dissolution of the Economy, there will be less ref- erence in these pages than hitherto to such matters in detail. In general, the plan of merely 1762 1771- 393 For a year after the new era opened, the course of life at Bethlehem ran smoothly and quietly, but in midsummer of 1763, signs of approaching trouble again began to appear. Apprehending new Indian raids upon the frontiers, nursing the old dislike for Beth- lehem and particularly for Moravian missionaries and a sullen resent- ment that became fanatical in its unreasoning intensity towards the Christian Indians living under Government protection at Nain, some people in the Irish Settlement again began to threaten both Nain and Wechquetank with summary destruction, and even to intimate that Bethlehem would suffer, so soon as the first occasion occurred for again taking up arms on account of the Indians. Pontiac's savage dream of effectually checking the further advance of the white man, taking shape in the deep-laid plan of attacks upon frontier settlements from the easternmost Indian borders to far-ofif Fort Detroit, had begun, already in May, to bear its fruit. Startling evidences of this bloody conspiracy began to send a new thrill of terror through one region after another, widely separated. Reason enough was there for alarm as far down as the Forks of the Delaware. But even under circumstances that created a panic of fear and stirred up the utmost exasperation, the mournful lesson of Gnadenhuetten and the shelter, food and protection these people had shared at Bethlehem when they fled Hke frightened sheep before the dogs to seek refuge with the Moravians, should not have been forgotten so soon. It might also have been expected, at least of those who professed to be enlight- ened and even Christian men, that they would have learned to under- stand the difference between this Httle residue of really Christian Indians whom the Moravians had rescued from the ruins of the missions, and merely "friendly" Indians, so-called, who were never- theless yet heathen and savages in ideas and practices, and whom men could not in such times be blamed for not trusting. It might also have been expected that by this time, all the people of the ■sketching leading features and incidents will be followed after this point, more than in the preceding chapters. The period to the end of the General Economy was the more heroic period of Bethlehem, in which the most, both externally and internally, that is of permanent historic interest in connection with the town, originated. With two exceptions, to be treated of yet at the proper place, all the important historic buildings of Bethlehem dating from the eighteenth century, were erected prior to 1762. That being, furthermore, the period to which most of the things pertain which are regarded as " peculiarities" of Moravian princi* pies, operations, customs and experiences, so much written about from differing standpoints, and with varying degrees of understandin;.; and correctness, there is more to be explained, from the beginning of Moravian work in Pennsylvania up to 1762 than after that. 394 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. neighborhood would have learned to understand that the traveling of Indians from Wyoming and beyond to Wechquetank and Nain and back again, was not necessarily to be taken as evidence, that any of the Christian Indians at these places were in league with the savages. It had become clear enough in the former Indian war that emissaries from the hostiles tried, of course, in every way to entice the converts to join them; that they also shrewdly lurked about and went to and fro to produce the impression upon observers that these were their allies ; and that, when they failed to move them they plotted to wreak vengeance upon them by murdering them, the same as white settlers. It was the common practice for men who, either in the vicinity of the Christian Indian villages or farther off in the Indian country, observed the movements of such Indians coming and going, to apply the term "Moravian Indians" quite indis- criminately, not only to those who dwelt at these stations and the few faithful ones who lived in the Indian country, but also to the apostates who had once been connected with the missions but were now with the hostiles in their plots, and even to many who had merely been known to have stood in some association with the converts formerly or were visitors at their villages, but who never had any connection with the missions. These two unfortunate mistakes of misinterpreting the going to and fro, and of accepting reports about the movements of "Moravian Indians" with the term thus applied to many who had no connection with the missions and over whom the missionaries had no influence whatever, gave rise to all the statements that were reproduced in current reports, official corre- spondence and public documents of the time, casting serious reflections upon that little band of loyal and inoffensive converts, and even upon the devoted missionaries, so groundless and unjust.- The threats thus made on every side led the Indians at Nain and Wechquetank, the latter part of July, 1763, to address Governor Hamilton with an appeal for protection. This was promised them, and, by arrangement between the Government and Justice Horsfield, 2 In view of the wild excitement and fierce resentment against all Indians whatsoever which the terrible experiences of so many along the borders had aroused, and the utter ina- bility of such men as many of those Scotch-Irish frontiersmen were, by nature and training, to understand or sympathize with missionary efforts, it is easier, after the lapse of many years to condone their blind injustice in this matter, and even the retaliatory acts of barbarity, quite equal to that of the savages, which some finally perpetrated, than it is to read with patience the pages of some modern historians who continue to reproduce those unmerited imputations, as if they were established facts. 1762 I77I- 395 certain careful regulations were adopted, drawn up by Horsfield and officially communicated to the settlers in the surrounding country, to which strict compliance was promised and observed by the converts, respecting their movements, dress, manner of meeting and greeting white men, method of carrying and handling their guns, and other details, so that they might easily be distinguished by people from savages or even from strange Indians in civilized dress. This was done at the Governor's suggestion. It had little effect, however, among the kind of men who were making threats, for they had no desire to avoid disturbing the Indians, but were rather planning to make an end of them, or, at least, to force their removal. Zeisberger, who had again been trying to accomplish some good in Wyoming, and had on June 26, baptized the noted Monsey chief Papunhank, a genuine convert, but had been officially recalled to Bethlehem towards the middle of July when the danger around him became serious, went up to Wechquetank some weeks later to see how Grube and his Indians fared. He returned on August 15, and reported that several hostile Indians who had been prowling about, evidently bent on mischief, had been called to account for their actions by an old Indian at the mission, named Petrus, and sternly admonished by him to forsake their evil ways, to return to their homes and to commit no depredations on the way, lest they help to bring calamity upon themselves and their country; and that the strangers had thereupon gone their way crest-fallen. In Wyoming, which region the Indians still claimed as their own, the melancholy death of Teedyuscung, on the 19th of April, charged by his partisans among the savages to the instigation of the Six Nations, the assuming lords of the Delawares and Shawanese, led those who were disposed to co-operate with Pontiac's conspiracy, to urge disre- gard of the message that was sent them with a belt by those lords, in July, commanding them to remain quiet and not take part in the war. The receipt of this message was reported by peaceable Indians as a re-assurance to the converts at Nain on July 29, and again at Bethlehem by some others on August 10. They stated that the Six Nations would not permit attacks to be made "this side of the Susque- hanna." Even if this policy on the part of those chiefs was seriously meant, the turbulent and discordant elements in Wyoming could not thus be restrained. There again the reckless fatuity of white men helped to precipitate what it was hoped might be averted. In the night of August 20, three peaceable and unoffending Christian Indians, 396 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. a man and two women, with a little child, on their way from Wechque- tank to their place of abode on the upper Susquehanna, were sleeping at a place on the Pocopoco Creek where Captain Jacob Wetterhold and his company of militia were lodging. These Indians had put themselves under the protection of the troops and, taking their promise of security in good faith, lain down to sleep. The militia fell upon them in their defenceless situation and, in cold blood, put them all to death. Such an occurrence showed clearly how the disposition of some white men was not a whit better than that of the savages, while they could surpass the latter in the blundering folly of some of their deeds. They were recklessly throwing the fire that all were dreading into the straw. The treachery of the act gave the same excuse to the Indians for concluding that no white man could be trusted because some could not, that many white men found for class- ing all Indians together and declaring that none of them could be trusted. The cowardly nature of the act was quite characteristic of the kind of men who went blustering about the neighborhood, threat- ening to "lay Bethlehem in ashes" on account of Indian outrages ; then when the savages took them by surprise, ran panic-stricken to that same Bethlehem to seek shelter and eat the bread of the maligned Moravians, and after the scare was over, went out and denounced them anew with the same braggart threats. A careful study of all the evidence leaves no doubt that this deed was intended to goad the In- dians at Nain and Wechquetank to some overt act or threat that would afiford a pretext for attacking them, and they could be attacked with more convenience and less peril than the fierce, painted warriors farther olT who did not pretend to be followers of Jesus. The brothers of the unfortunate Indian who was killed by the militia lived at Wech- quetank. Thither these militia, joined by others, then went, with a view to destroying the place, presuming that some alleged move of retaliation could easily be put forward as a reason. Twice and thrice such demonstrations were made, but without even inducing the con- verts to make any show of special preparation to as much as defend themselves. The patient heroism of the missionary Grube and his noble wife, sitting there through these ordeals, while 011 the other hand treacherous spies of the savages lurked about to the peril of the place, most of the time alone, single-handed and unarmed, encour- aging the little band to remain quiet and trust in God, was sublime. At any moment, the Indians might, upon a word from him, have gathered up their effects at night and fled to the forest and made their escape, and he could have slipped off with his wife and found \ - 1762 I77I- 397 his way to a place of safety. Far more reason and right had he to flee to Bethlehem than many of his maligners from the settlements who did so. When explanations and declarations of the missionaries, appeals to the Government protection that had been assured and expostulations by Horsfield as Magistrate, availed nothing, threats to lodge formal complaint against Wetterhold before the Governor for the unprovoked, unsoldierlike and cowardly act of August 20, for lawless disturbance and contempt of orders promulgated under the Government seal, had the effect of restraining these rangers from further menacing Wechquetank just then. Ere long, shocking retri- bution came upon some of them and their Captain by the hands of savage avengers, for the occurrence of August 20, soon became known in the Indian country, and what they brought upon them- selves as the result of their folly, caused the spark they had kindled to burst into a flame, for others had to suffer with them and an extensive region was again terrorized. On October 7, 1763, Captain Wetterhold and some of his men were in night-quarters about nine miles from Bethlehem at John Stenton's tavern, which stood a little more than a mile from the site of the present village of Howertown in East Allen Township. Some savages had determined to avenge the killing of those Indians, against whdm they had no grudge because they did not live at the mission but in the Indian country, and to base upon this their first new incursion in the Lehigh Valley. They made an attack upon the tavern at night, mortally wounded the Captain, killed several of his men and also Stenton and a servant. This deplorable affair was reported at Bethlehem early the next morning, as well as other acts of violence at several places. The Bethlehem diary says the road from the Irish Settlement was thronged with refugees to Bethlehem. "They were received with willing hearts and, as far as possible, housed and cared for. At noon several brethren were sent to bring in the wounded, who were how- ever, with the bodies of the dead, already on the way. They arrived in the afternoon. The dead soldiers were buried on the Burnside farm." The unfortunate Captain was carried to the Crown Inn south of the Lehigh, where a number of terror-stricken people had gathered. He died there the next day, October 9, and was buried in the little graveyard on the hill nearby.^ October 10, word came 3 In The Crown Inn, appendix 2, page 131, the Rev. \V. C. Reichel gives the burial of Captain Wetterhold as the last in that little cemetery. Five more, at least, look place — cases specially pathetic and strikingly similar. It is recorded that on October 19, 1763, a young 398 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. from Grube at Wechquetank that his Indians had received notice, the previous day, that the blood-shed would be avenged on them. It was now decided that he and his wife with their Indians should be transferred to Nazareth, and David Zeisberger, Sr.,* was sent up with several others to deliver this message and aid them in their exodus. They left at once and all reached Nazareth safely on the 12th. When they took their departure the "well-known" triumphant shout of the savages and gun shots were heard in the vicinity. Later infor- mation revealed that at that time Indians, as well as white foes, were plotting the destruction of the place. Meanwhile, on the 17th, Justice Horsfield had sent a special report of these developments to the Governor. On that day a panic spread in the Saucon Valley and many people rushed together at the Croiwn Inn. On that and the following days, several companies of militia rode through Bethlehem bound for the Irish Settlement. Tidings of the atrocious massacre of New England settlers in the Wyoming Valley, October 15, 1763, reached Bethlehem three days later. The diary states : "We at once informed our neighbors in the Irish Settlement of this, so that they might be on their guard." Several families, among them "Mr. Lawrence^ of Fort Allen" arrived as refugees in the afternoon. woman shot in the body in the recent Indian attack, and brought to Bethlehem, died and was buried there, leaving an infant, her first-born, four months old. An earlier case not mentioned in The Croivn Inn list was "the young wife of Solomon Davis," one of the refu- gees from the neighborhood, during the first Indian raid, who died at Bethlehem and was buried in that south-side cemetery January 26, 1756. Her infant, bom two days before, died and was buried there January 31. Another case was that, on June 15, 1769, of a Mrs. Gender who with her husband " had come from Virginia to visit relatives near Lynn "—for- merly Allemaengel in Lynn Township, work abandoned December, 1770, and minister tians- ferred to former Gnadenhuetten — had taken lodgings ai the Crown where a child was born June II and baptized, receiving the name Elizabeth, the mother's name. The child died the next day and the mother on the 15th and both were buried in that graveyard. Possibly missing links of ancestry may be discovered by some one in this note, and traced to un- known graves in that now obliterated place of burial. 4 After another David Zeisberger was in Pennsylvania, the famous missionary is frequently referred to in records as Senior, to distinguish him. In the early days of Bethlehem he was Junior when his father, whose name was also David, was yet living. Further references to him, as the better-known man, will be without any distinction, and if Zeisberger of Nazareth is mentioned he will be distinguished as Junior or otherwise. 5 He is occasionally mentioned in the records in previous references to Gnadenhuetten. He occupied one of the houses of Nain for a while, after the removal of the Indians to Philadelphia. There one of his children, a daughter, died and at the request of the parents 1762 I77I- 399 On October 19, a very different view of the presence of the Chris- tian Indians at Wechquetank, from that taken in the Irish Settlement, came to Hght, as held by people in the neighborhood of that mission who were better qualified to judge and who had more to fear if their presence had been dangerous. The diary of Bethlehem states : "A petition to the Governor at Philadelphia was taken through here from the people living near Wechquetank beyond the Blue Moun- tains, in which they very greatly deplored the removal of the Indians from Wechquetank, inasmuch as those same Indians had hitherto been their only security, they having put more reliance on them than on a few soldiers ; and praying the Governor, therefore, to either have the aforesaid Indians return to their former place if possible, or send an adequate force for their protection, without which they would no longer consider themselves safe at their places." Those people evidently were not imbued with "border ruffian" spirit, and they probably did not share the animosity of some others against Moravians, nor share the ideas of a religion which held that the Indians were simply the heathen to be exterminated to the glory of God. There is noi doubt about it that, while the reckless militia rangers — in whose exploits many had Httle confidence as a defence, of which there is abundant evidence — were bent upon killing the Indians at Wechquetank, these Indians were, by their vigilance and dissuading counsel, when Indian scouts from Wyoming came near, holding back the arm of violence raised against the neighborhood. This is the secret of the shout of exultation and the jubilant shots from the savages hidden in the woods, when they saw these Indians leave the place. Now the state of things had become so precarious that it was resolved, at a general meeting of citizens, October 25, 1763, to put Bethlehem in a position of defence, as in 1756. The strong guard was again organized, stockades were constructed as before, on sev- eral sides of the buildings, where the women and children lived, and around the barn-yard and stabling, where the most danger from incendiaries was to be feared, and watch-houses were again built at the same corners as before. During the subsequent weeks the chief alarm at Bethlehem was caused by the burning of the oil-mill was buried at Bethlehem, on the hill back of the Indian House, December 9, the Rev. Jacob Friis having charge of the funeral. Why that spot was selected does not appear. There was no cemetery there. During the Revolution that hill became the burial place of soldiers who died in the hospital at Bethlehem. 400 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. on the night of November i8, the same day on which information was received that the vacated houses of Wechquetank had been burned "by parties unknown." The conflagration at the oil-mill, which was later ascertained to have been the work of white despera- does of the county, was the nearest approach to the execution of the repeated threats to burn Bethlehem to the ground. Four days after that, the first experiments were made with the fire-engine that had been brought from London by Captain Jacobsen, in accordance with the decision of the previous year, but which reached Bethlehem too late to be of service at that perilous fire, which greatly endangered the water-works and, therefore, the water supply of the town, for use in possible further conflagrations as well as for other purposes. That the torch was applied first at that point, in view of this, revealed an intelligent plan in that act of dastardly wickedness which would not have governed the attempts of wild Indians." V2]|B 11 1~l i-1 \ IT MI"] ■■jfi"^ "^^^^ i IIB ?^ ^ {" ^*^ THE PERSEVERANCE FIRE-ENGINE, With Modern Environment. Built in 1698. 6 This ancient engine, old already when brought to Bethlehem, subsequently repaired and improved several times and long used, is now preserved as a relic in the museum of the Young Men's Missionary Society. At its first trial, November 22, 1763, it sent a jet of water over the roof of the Brethren's House. In April, 1773, after being repaired, it threw a stream twenty feet above the terrace on the roof of that building, and its flow was 78 gallons a minute. Its cost in London was ;!^43 12 s. It was brought on the //o/>e, which reached New York October 21. Captain Garrison and his wife returned after an absence in Europe of seven years, to pass their remaining days. Here for a season he did service as cicerone. He died in September, 1781, and his widow, Mary Ann, m. n. Brandt, in March 1790. Other passengers were the Rev. John Fromelt, called as general superintendent of all the organizations of single men ; Paul Tiersch, first co-director of Nazareth Hall school, 1/62 I77I- 40I Meanwhile the move against Wechquetank having been frustrated by the departure of the missionary with his Indians, the hostile attention of those who were more intent upon retaliation for the murder at Stentons, at some point where it would be easiest and least dangerous, than upon aiding the public defence in a proper way or rationally guarding their own houses against savages, was cen- tered upon Nain. The widow of Stenton became the agent in the next move, by professing, under oath, to identify a young Indian of Nain, by the name of Renatus, as having been with the murderers of her husband. Doubtless, in the excitement of the hour, and being of those who refused to regard this as, on general principles, improb- able, she believed it. It was not the first nor the last time that inno- cent men have been thus "identified" in such cases, and many an innocent man has in this way lost his life at the hands of an infuri- ated avenging mob, as at one time threatened to be the fate of Rena- tus. The men who had been persuaded in October, by a just and cool-headed neighbor, probably John Jennings, Sheriff of North- ampton County, to refrain from a proposed attack upon the Indians at Nain, now eagerly availed themselves of this new development to spread bitterness against that peaceable and loyal band. Renatus was formally arrested under a legal warrant from Philadelphia on October 29, 1763, by George Klein, of Bethlehem, deputy of John Jennings, Sheriff. The missionary Schmick, at this time stationed at Nain, was appointed by Klein as further deputy to take him to Philadelphia. Renatus was a son of old Jacob, "the patriarch of Nain," the only survivor of the first three converts baptized in 1742 by Rauch at Oley. This old Indian accompanied his accused son to Philadelphia ; Klein, von Marschall and others following. The excitement was intense and, whatever might be the result of the trial, it was evident that the end of the sojourn of the Indians at Nain was near. At Philadelphia, where they arrived, October 30 — the day of the earthquake and of the arrival of young John Penn to take the Governor's seat — the best legal counsel was secured to insure the accused man a fair trial. No less a man than John Dickinson under- and in 1771 ordained and transferred to Wachovia, N.C.; Susan von Gersdorf, called as spiritual overseer of the single vi'omen at Bethlehem ; Anna Salome Steinmann, called as spiritual overseer of older girls ; Maria Wilhelmina Werwing, who became spiritual over- seer of the widows ; also the following single women : Justina Erd; Maria Barbara Horn, cook in the Sisters' House ; Dorothea Loeffler, stewardess of the Sisters' House ; Fredericka Pletscher and Elizabeth Seidlitz. 27 402 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, took the defence. Renatiis, after sitting in prison in Philadelphia for seven months, was brought to Easton, where Ivis final trial took place, the third week in June. The evidence examined was so liimsy and the impression of his innocence and of the unrighteous animus of those who had started and were pushing the prosecution was so overwhelming, that in the face of all the turbulent clamor, he was quickly and easily acquitted, on June 21, 1764, and then, when his life was manifestly in danger at the hands of men as lawless and infuriated as the savages, he was taken back to Philadelphia a few days later, under guard, for safety; for all his fellow-converts from Nain were there under the protection of the Government, excepting his aged father and his wife, who, with more than fifty others, had fallen victims, in the inter- val, of small-pox. Directly after his arrest, an effort was made by influential men at Philadelphia to have special measures adopted by the Government to secure the Indians of Wechquetank and Nain by their confinement under guard and restrictions at the latter place, with a small allowance for their support in lieu of the privilege of hunting and fishing, from which they would be cut off by being thus kept close within their village, as in a fort. This proposition was voted down in the Assembly, and it was finally resolved to have them all brought to Philadelphia in order to meet three ends ; to keep the Government pledge of protection, to have them under the eye of the Government and cut off from all communication with other Indians in order to satisfy those who suspected them of treachery, and to end the turmoil which their continued presence in Northampton County caused there. This measure, of questionable expediency, caused more serious disturbance, perplexity and expense than the first plan would have involved. The order for the removal of the Indians reached Bethlehem on November 5, 1763. It was communicated to them the next day, when, upon demand, they surrendered all their guns and then commenced to pack together their effects for the jour- ney. November 8, Grube arrived from Nazareth with the forty-four Indians from Wechquetank. In the afternoon they joined those from Nain, on the south side of the Lehigh, seventy-seven in num- ber. Wagons were in readiness to convey the aged, the infirm women and the children, with the wives of the missionaries, who heroically accompanied the caravan, while their husbands went afoot with the rest of the Indian men and women. A sheriff and guard were on hand to escort them, and thus they set out for Philadelphia, 1762 1 77 1- 403 where they arrived in the forenoon on November 11. Their destina- tion was the barracks that had been constructed in 1755 in the "Northern Liberties." Their first experience was to face the fury of a mob, to the indignities and menaces of which — the soldiers at the barracks joining with the frenzied populace — those noble women, as well as their husbands, were subjected, with the Indians. The authorities were compelled to change their plan, and from the bar- racks they were taken, amid the hootings and cursings of the rabble, to Province Island, where they were quartered. The missionaries Grube and Roth, their wives and David Zeisberger were with them, and in December, when Zeisberger returned to Bethlehem, Schmick took his place. It would lie outside the scope of these pages to fol- low their trying experiences in detail. All features and all versions of what ensued have been often narrated, from every standpoint ; from that of the Government and that of the mob ; that of the city and that of the country ; that of the Moravians, of the Quakers and of the Scotch-Irish people of the frontiers who had mainly led the crusade, from its beginning, against Moravian missionaries and their converts and against all compromise with Indians of any kind. The extreme movement in this crusade, by men among whom this sentiment had developed, under the great provocations of the time, into fierce and lawless fanaticism, brought on the most critical epi- sode in the experiences of these Indians and their missionaries at Philadelphia. This was the well-known descent upon the capital by the Paxton rangers early in 1764, with the intention of exterminating the protected converts on Province Island, after these desperate men had, in the previous December, rivaled the deeds of the savages by slaughtering the peaceable Indians of Conestoga Manor. This attempt to get at the Moravian Indians in February, 1764, which, for a while, threatened to make the city of Philadelphia the scene of riot and carnage, but was averted by the show of armed resistance in which even young Quakers, in the dire emergency, joined, and by the dissuading influence of leading citizens, was the most con- spicuous event in Pennsylvania at that time. All that remained of Moravian missions among the Indians was embodied in that band of hunted fugitives on Province Island. Around it, for the moment, were concentrated in a boisterous climax — affrighting at the time, pathetic so far as that mission residue was concerned, ludicrous in some aspects, when looked back upon — the chronic antagonisms of contending political parties, incompatible races and creeds, divergent 404 A HISTORY OF I5KTHLEI1EM, PENNSYLVANIA. views of policy, competitive local interests, all bearing upon the one question of the hour — the Indian problem. In the subsequent Sep- tember, Pontiac's war came nominally to an end and, early in Decem- ber, peace wi^h the Indians was proclaimed at Philadelphia. The good tidings reached Bethlehem, December 7, 1764. Quiet had been restored in the neighborhood, the sensation connected with the trial of Renatus had subsided, the last of the two hundred refugees who had again found shelter at Bethlehem had long returned to their homes, and strict vigilance was no longer considered necessary, when the good news was communicated to the congregation. In the meantime another important personal change had taken place at Betiilchem. The man who was the pioneer leader in the Forks of the Delaware, and next to Spangenberg had stood pre- eminent — Bishop Peter Boehler, had taken final leave of America and returned to Europe, lie and his wife left Bethlehem on May 7, 1764, the day on which, twenty-four years before, he first came to the neighborhood. They sailed with Captain Jacobsen on the Hope on May 16? On April 26, prior to his departure, he had held a Synod at Beth- lehem, at which the scope and plan of the boarding-school at Naza- reth Hall were elaborated to embrace not only training for mis- sionary service, but a "pacdagogium" course in different branches of knowledge, with a view to other pursuits. Things had again assumed a sufficiently normal condition that there was encouragement to plan for the future, and even in the matter of missions among the Indians, the outlook was not considered hopeless. Boehler took occasion to caution the people against participating in political discussion and party strife. This was then rampant under the new Lieutenant Governor, John Penn, inexperienced, unfamiliar 7 Besides Bishop Boehler, his wife and two children, there were four other passengers from Bethlehem: Anna Rosina Anders, John and Mary Antes and Dr. John Michael Schmidt, who had come to Pennsylvania with Spangenberg in 1754. He is a somewhat mifamiliar person. He seems to have remained in New York until March, 1755, when he came to Bethlehem with Boehler. In November, 1755, he went to Lancaster County, with George Klein. He married Anna Elizabeth Smouth, widow of justice Edward Smouth, of Lancas- ter. She died in October, 1757. He seems to have had an apothecary's shop there which after the death of his wife he transferred to LiUtz for a while. Subsequently he came to Bethlehem, where he assisted Dr. Otto and looked after patients at Nazareth. He also served as one of the organists at Bethlehem during his last sojourn. His name deserves a place among the medical practitioners of olden time in the Lehigli Valley. He was called a doctor when he came to America, and was then a widower. He was Ijorn September 28, 1697. 1762 I77I- 405 with the situation, assuming- office under great disadvantages at such a time, and lacking both strength and tact to deal with the growing movement to overthrow the Proprietary Government and have an executive appointed directly by the Crown, which was being fostered by Franklin and other strong men of the Province. Agitation was rife, and the Indian question with others, on which parties were again quite differently divided, complicated matters. The position of the Moravian leaders was that of conservative loyalty towards the Pro- prietary Government, as well as towards the Crown as supreme. This was, with them, a matter of general principle as well as policy, in connection with what they held to be the calling of the Church, as an international Unity of Brethren, propagating the gospel in many lands and under different governments. Their calling, as they viewed it, was not to help make and unmake governments, but to use the privileges and opportunities which the existing government, what- ever it might be, afforded to pursue the one chief object which was the same everywhere, and to seek the peace of the places where they dwelt. While, in consistency with this standard there is no dicussion of the great questions of the time in Moravian records, there is occasional reference to the discord and excitement on occasions like that of the election of an Assemblyman in September, 1764. Indirectly the effects of the efforts being made in that, and the following years by the British Government, burdened with the debts of protracted war, to press more revenue out of the colonies, were felt in thei struggles at the polls on such occasions. It was not long before the question of taxation without representation, the obnoxious Stamp Act and the "Declaratory Act" which followed the repeal of the other (1764-66) were topics of conversation, at least among English speaking people, in all corners, even of the back townships, where men gathered at the mills or at the Squire's office and heard matters expounded by some one who was better informed or who regularly read a newspaper. At Bethlehem there were more men of education and general information and more men who read the newspapers and often got away from home than could probably have been found in any other town of its size in Pennsylvania. They were, moreover, near the county-seat, where Court statedly met, and there was constant contact with men who went to and fro on such business. Further- more, there was not a point at the same distance from Philadelphia so much visited by people from that city, and, with few exceptions, 406 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the visitors were of the intelligent classes, very many of them persons of prominent position. That the men of Bethlehem had little to say on the public questions of the time was by no means an evidence that they knew and thought less about them than those who continu- ally "talked politics." The favorite popular idea in modern times, that Bethlehem, in those days, was a secluded hamlet cut off from the world, a kind of large, quiet cloister around which men traveled^ wondering what was inside, is a very great fallacy. It was, amid its surroundings of that time, even less so than, by comparison with other progressing towns, it was, half a century later, when things elsewhere were moving and Bethlehem was self-centered and stagnant. The year 1765, which brought general restoration of orderly life and activity and renewed vigor in trades and industries, also brought the end of what may be called the Indian history of Bethlehem. Under the settlements and arrangements which followed the termin- ation of the Pontiac War, so far as Pennsylvania was concerned, the Moravian Indians were released from the barracks at Philadelphia to be removed in a body to the Wyoming Valley. On March 22, in the midst of a heavy snow-storm they arrived at Bethlehem. They left about sixty of their number behind them, buried in unmarked graves. There were now eighty-three souls belonging to the mission. With them were a number of other peaceable Indians who had surrendered themselves, secured the protection of the Government and latterly occupied the barracks vdth the Moravian Indians. They were under the responsible escort of Major Thomas Apty, Govern- ment Commissary, with a small guard. They were taken to the houses at Nain to rest a few days. Their arrival awakened much sympathetic interest at Bethlehem. The inclement weather continued during the following days. On Sunday, March 24, the snow lay two feet deep, and such a high wind prevailed that no paths could be opened and services had to be omitted. At the evening service on March 26, the letter of thanks sent to the Governor by the Indians, before they left the barracks, was read to the congregation. March 31, a farewell service was held at Nain which is described as a deeply touching occasion. April i, William Allen, Jr., arrived from Philadelphia, as a representative of the Governor, to give personal attention to their secure passage through the country between Beth- lehem and the mountains, because it was learned that an attack upon them had been threatened by vindictive men. 1762 ^7T^' A^7 The next day he had a consultation with the Justices of the several Townships in reference to this matter, and arranged for the time and manner of their departure. April 3 — Wednesday of the Holy Passion Week — they set out on their journey to the Indian country, accompanied by the missionaries Zeisberger and Schmick, and escorted by Major Apty, Lieutenant Hundsecker, Sheriff Kichline and Justice Moore. Passing through Bethlehem, they again thanked the people for all the kindness they had experienced and were warmly commended to the Divine protection. A brief halt was made at the Moravian outpost, the Rose Inn, where they were again speeded on their way by words of good cheer and benisons from a number of persons, gathered there to greet them in passing. The next day they reached the ruins of Wechquetank where they built temporary huts of bark and remained until after Easter. Then they continued their journey through the wilderness, a journey of great hardship, and reached Machwihilusing (Wyalusing) on May 9. There a village was laid out, with gardens and fields, and there a new mission was founded which received the name Friedenshuetten — Habitations of Peace — like the temporary Indian village of twenty years before, at Bethlehem. They were permitted to remain there in peace for seven years. Then came again the call to move on, and in 1772 the one hundred and fifty-one people to which this Indian congregation had again grown had to leave their beautiful Friedenshuetten in the Wyoming Valley, and with the fifty-three of the Schechschiquanunl^ mission which had arisen west of the Susquehanna, proceeded westward to Ohio, to make the Tuscarawas Valley historic. Thus, with the departure of those Indians from Bethlehem on April 3, 1765, Moravian Indian missions in the Lehigh Valley came to an end. The houses of Nain had been sold at auction, on March 30, to citizens of Bethlehem. April 13, they were taken down and removed. Six of them, among which was the chapel of the village, were set up again in Bethlehem and made use of for many years.* During the summer and autumn of 1765, numerous visits by persons of prominence are alluded to in the diary of Bethlehem. The conspic- uous connection of the place and its people with the dealings between the Government and the Indians had attracted the attention of some of these who otherwise would have taken little notice of the Moravian 8 One of them remains standing at the south-west corner of Market and Cedar Streets. The old chapel, until 1868, stood a little way above that, on the same side of the street, on the site of the present " Chapter House." 408 A HISTORY OK IJETHLEMI<:M, PENNSYLVANIA. ^ town. The weekly trips now made by the "stage-wagon" which George Klein, in vSeptcmber, 1763, put on the road between Beth- lehem and i'hihulel])hia made travel more convenient, and the Sun Inn had already acquired the reputation of being by far the best house of entertainment outside of Philadelphia and its immediate environs. The fact that such a hotel was to be found so far up the country added inducements to many to visit the picturesque region of the Lehigh Valley, nt)t merely with a view to investments in land farther up where desirable purchases could be made, but also in mere search of recreation and for the purpose of hunting and fishing ; Bethlehem being a convenient point from which to make tours into the back country in various directions. Here and there men of wealth were selecting spots at which to erect a "forest lodge" or a remote country-seat within a day's journey, to and fro, of Bethlehem. One such place quite near, that became the nucleus of a city, now the most populous center in the I.ehigh Valley, appears upon the scene at this time. It was the comitry-seat of the Aliens on the Jordan Creek which received the name Trout Hall. Already in December, 1763, the diary of Bethlehem refers to a party with "young Mr. Allen," who were on a hunting trip and passed the night at the Sun. On June 6, 1764, the first mentit^n is made of "Northampton Town," at that point up the river. ]n July, 1765, Governor John Penn, who was a son-in-law of Chief Justice William Allen, was here with his brother and young Mr. Allen, and they were guests at the Inn. They ]:)aid a visit, as it seems, to that place. In October and November. "Mr. Penn, brother of the Governor," and other men from Pliiladel])hia, were again here at intervals, some of them engaged in hunting, as it appears, and on December i, the Governor himself was again in the neighborhood and stopped over night at the Sun. Their movements indicate that they came and went between Bethlehem and "Northampton Town," and perhaps plans in reference to the pros])cctive town were combined with the enjoy- ment sought by sportsmen on these occasions. During the following summer (1766) there were again many per- sons of note, in connection with public afTairs of the time, among the visitors at Bethlehem. One of these, in September, with a party from Philadelphia, was Sir Thomas Stirling, captain of the Royal Highlanders, later prominent in the Revolution, who had in the pre- vious months accomplished a march of over three thousand miles with his troops. 1762 ^77"^' 409 In the autumn of 1765, however, a visitor had arrived from Europe whose presence was of far more interest to the people at Bethlehem than that of such persons. This was Bishop David Nitschmann, Jr., often officially styled the "Syndic." He was sent by the central board in Europe to make a thorough inspection of things, to announce and explain the enactments of the important General Synod of 1764, at which the foundations of a proper constitutional church government were laid to take the place of the system that had existed to the death of Zinzendorf in 1760. Nitschmann was a member of the board that had been administering the government of the Church under the ad interim plan, and now was a member of the General Board of Syndics which administered constitutional affairs and represented the government of the Church over against civil and ecclesiastical authorities and the public generally." He was accompanied by his wife and reached Bethlehem, November 28, 1765, having come over on the Hope with the Rev. Joseph Neisser and his wife. Their visit gave great pleasure to the people and was regarded as of much importance. Bethlehem was at this time the center of a body of Moravian work embracing, besides the local con- gregation, those on the Nazareth land and the new settlement of Lititz, fourteen congregations and five preaching-places in Pennsyl- vania, New York, New Jersey, the New England States and Mary- land, together with the transplanted Indian mission. Nitschmann visited the most of these places and convened a Synod which was in session at Bethlehem from May 30 to June 4, 1766. One of his tasks at Bethlehem was a thorough examination, assortment and arrange- ment of the archives. Much of the accumulated manuscript matter was filed to remain at the place, some was taken by him to Europe and some was destroyed." He remained until September, 1766. 9 David Nitschmann, Jr., was a younger man than Bishop David Nitschmann — since 1760 living in retirement at Bethlehem — who, with his uncle, Father David Nitschmann, founded Bethlehem. This official visitor of 1765 was, with his senior namesake, among the three David Nitschmanns who, with Zeisberger and Toeltschig, were called " the five Moravian Churchmen" of 1724. The General Synod of 1764 instituted the General Boards in control : the Directory, in general oversight ; the Board of Syndics, as stated above ; and the Board of Wardens, in charge of the finances. >o The oldest extant catalogue of the Bethlehem archives was compiled by him at this time. In 1769, he was appointed General Archivist of the Unity, this being considered a post of much importance. Zinzendorf once said " Die Archive gatizer Kirchen giebt man in keine uturcivaschene Haetide." 4IO A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. On the 1 6th of that month he embarked at Philadelphia, with some others who accompanied him, to return to Europe. A general toning up of things and a revival of cheerfulness, zeal and harmony, after the disturbing experiences that had again been passed through, resulted from his visit. Various matters, in external affairs, were gotten into better order and simplified. It was decided^ among other things, to lease the farms of the place to individual ten- ants, as a more business-like and profitable arrangement, and less troublesome. There was a large increase during 1766 in the demand for wares from the Bethlehem manufactories, so that the most of them were decidedly profitable. Towards the end of 1765, a very substantial stone building^^ had been erected in the place of the oil- mill that was burned down in November, 1763. At the time when the rafters were set up, in October, 1765, it was referred to in the records with some pride, as one of the most solid and durable struc- tures in the covmtry. It was equipped with two water-wheels in the center. One was to drive the machinery of the oil-mill, with the hulling and stamping machines and the fan in the loft. The other one was to operate the bark grinder and other appurtenances of the tannery, a hemp-stamper, "of the kind in use on the Rhine," in the first story, and a rubber or grater for hemp in the second story. The active inception of a larger and eventually more interesting building enterprise comes into view at this time. It was the erection of a home at Bethlehem for the widows, projected some years before. This constituted one of the subjects of deliberation at the Synod in June, 1766, while Bishop Nitschmann, Jr., was in Bethlehem, for it concerned all the ministers and missionaries present and, to some extent, the membership of other congregations ; for, through various circumstances, many a woman from Lititz and the Nazareth places and even from other points would be likely to become an inmate of such a home. The cramped and uncomfortable quarters in the log house at Nazareth were commented upon and it was remarked that it was a hardship for women, after the death of their husbands, to be compelled, for want of a "choir house" for widows at Bethlehem or other suitable quarters, to move up to that house. An earnest appeal for support in this undertaking was written by Sister Wer- wing, the superintendent of the widows, and was communicated at Bethlehem on June 19, 1766. On December 2, the site was selected in the garden opposite the girls' school ; the original idea of build- " The building in which the present water-works of Bethlehem are contained. WIDOWS' HOUSE VIEWS 1762 ^77^- 411^ ing it at the east end of the Sisters' House having been abandoned because an extension of that estabHshment was now had in view. On January 8, 1767, the final plans were adopted and the work was soon commenced. The corner-stone was laid April 27, with solemn and impressive services. The widows had all come from Nazareth and were present, together with three who lived at Bethlehem on account of duties in which they were engaged. The building was not entirely finished and ready to be dedicated and occupied until October, 1768. After a farewell service at Nazareth on the previous day, the whole company of widows who had been living there came to Bethlehem on the morning of October 12. A ceremonious recep- tion was accorded them and on that day their new home, with its chapel, was solemnly dedicated in the manner customary in those days. An addition, commenced in 1794 and finished the next year,, was built at the east end.^^ Another project for the benefit of widows of the Church began to be discussed when the important end of providing them a suitable home had been reached. This was to institute a fund for their benefit, so that those who were left without resources would by this means be assured of something towards meeting their needs. An association for this purpose had been in existence a few years in England, formed by men who, by paying a certain sum, acquired membership and thereby secured for their wives, if they survived them, a share of the income from the interest of the capital thus created. The matter was deliberated upon at the General Synod of the Church in 1769, and the formation of such associations at Beth- lehem and elsewhere was encouraged. A modest beginning was made in 1770. It is referred to in the records of the time as "the founding of a society for the sustentation of poor widows." At a meeting of the Elders of Bethlehem on September 3 of that year, the constitution of the English society and a draft of a similar one for Bethlehem were considered and a committee was appointed to work out this draft and report. On September 15, at a meeting of married men of Bethlehem and other places who had joined, the articles 12 The generous provision by which this historic building was devoted to its present laud- able use is a matter of recent history. In 187 1 the late John Jordan, Jr., of Philadelphia, made a gift of ^10,000 to maintain it as a home for widows and daughters of Moravian ministers, and other women who have been engaged in church service, under terms and conditions set forth in an agreement between him and the executive authorities of the Church, made in due form of law. In 1S89, through the munificence of the same kind donor, the commodious annex to the rear was built. 412 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. reported were adopted and six trustees were elected to develop the details of organization. Before the close of the year there were more than a hundred investors. The first general meeting was held, Janu- ary 2, 1771. The number had then reached a hundred and ten. Six "stewards" were elected to take care of and administer the funds. This, in brief, was the beginning of "The Widows' Society of Beth- lehem," probably the oldest existing beneficial society in America, which since that beginning has disbursed more than $177,000 in small annuities to the widows of deceased members, and is yet pros- pering in its unpretentious work. During the year 1767, when the building of the Widows' House was in progress, the dwelling accommodations for families in the village were enlarged by the erection of other houses. With this gradual increase of separate households and development of a more ordinary village life, more attention had to be given to perfecting the system of ordinances and regulations needed to meet these changing conditions. Thus on the last two days of June, what was styled a general Polizei-Tag — a kind of town meeting, was held, at which a revised and improved code of rules was communicated, with various connected matters, duly expounded and impressed. On the first of those days the general statutes embodied in the Brotherly Agree- ment, which all male residents who were voting members had to sign, were taken up. On the second day the fire regulations par- ticularly engaged attention. Such a Polizei-Tag was periodically appointed during those years, and in subsequent times, to refresh the memories of the people and to bring necessary matters to their attention ; for there were some in those days, as well as in modern times, who forgot the ordinances and the statutes, and even some who violated the rules and needed to be admonished. During this year some reconstruction of local school arrange- ments again took place. In 1764 a separate day-school for girls, in addition to the boarding-school, and a day-school for boys had been established, because it was not practicable to continue the complete consolidation which had existed for a while. The girls' school became unwieldy and the boys could not all be sent to Nazareth Hall after they outgrew the nursery or infant school, which was yet maintained at Bethlehem, like that for girls, both on a small scale. This day-school for boys was now moved into a room in the finally completed addition to the Brethren's House on September 25. Thus at the close of the period embraced in this chapter, the 1762 I77I- 413 schools at Bethlehem consisted of the infant schools, in which quite young children of missionaries lived, the day-schools for boys and girls and the boarding-school for girls. The arrangement that had been decided upon to put the several farms in charge of tenants was also carried into effect at the end of March, 1769. Conrad Ernst was the first tenant of "the new farm,"^* that at the Crown Inn, including the fields and improvements of the former Ysselstein place. Marcus Kiefer, blacksmith at Shamokin when the Indian ravages commenced in 1755, took the "Weygandt Farm"^* on the south side. William Angel took the "Burnside Farm," up the Monocacy, and the Bethlehem Farm continued to be operated on the old basis by Frederick Boeckel. It may, in this connection, be mentioned, on account of interesting associations about to be referred to, that at this time the household organization, yet maintained at Friedensthal, ceased. Dorst Alleman leased the Friedensthal farm, while Herman Loesch yet continued to run the mill for the general treasury under the existing arrangement, as it had before been run for the General Economy. When the Friedensthal organization was dissolved, the Rev. John Brandmiller, its chaplain, retired to Bethlehem. His connection with it had added a historic feature to the associations of the spot that was of peculiar interest. Being a printer by trade originally, he there, in that secluded Gemeinhans on the Bushkill, set up the first Moravian printing-press and conducted the first Moravian printing office in America, from 1763 to 1767. His printing-press was that used in the establishment of the Church in Lindsey House, Chelsea, London, and brought to America on the Hope, in the autumn of 1761. At Friedensthal, prior to November, 1763, he printed portions, at least, of a translation into the Delaware language of Lieberkuhn's Harmony of the Gospels and a collection of hymns in that tongue, the work of the Rev. Bernhard Adam Grube, while he was stationed at Wechquetank. In 1767, he printed the collection of daily texts of the Church for the year. Beyond these and two odes, one for 13 This was last known as " The Luckenbach Farm." John Lewis Luckenbach, son of Adam Luckenbach, the school-master of Goshenhoppen, who, already in 1742, was a visitor to Bethlehem, but never a member of the Church, was the successor of Ernst. It was sub- sequently operated successively by his son John Adam, his grandson John David, and finally, after 1845, by his great-grandson Thomas David Luckenbach. 14 This farm, later in charge of John Christian Clewell, John Hoffert and his son Samuel Hoifert, successively, was last known as the " Hoffert Farm." 414 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Christmas Eve in 1766, and one for Great Sabbath in 1767 — this being probably Brandmiller's last work — no imprints of that Frie- densthal press are known or referred to in records. On March 19 of that year, the printing outfit was transferred to Nazareth Hall and the next day Brandmiller removed to Bethlehem. It seems strange that it was not brought to Bethlehem by him and further •operated. Its subsequent history is enveloped in obscurity. ^^ Among the men prominently and actively connected with official work at Bethlehem, one re-appears upon the scene who had begun his American career in 1754 in Pennsylvania, but for a few years had been stationed in North Carolina. This was the Rev. John Ettwein, who returned to Bethlehem with his family on September 20, 1766, and entered upon a long term of service. In the Bethlehem pastoral force and general local management, as well as in the directing board for all the churches and missions, particularly during the Revolution, and eventually bishop and president of that board, he was in many respects the most conspicuous, forceful and widely- known man. Times and circumstances were approaching in which a man like Ettwein was needed at Bethlehem. In September, 1768, he, with Dettmers, the Warden of the Congregation ; Arboe, the Warden of the Brethren's House, and Oberlin, the store-keeper and superintendent of traffic with Philadelphia, became naturalized citi- zens of Pennsylvania. Now and then, several men or groups together availed themselves of this privilege as circumstances rendered it desirable. At the beginning of Ettwein's new term of service at Bethlehem he was thrown particularly into contact with many lead- ing men in various public offices and walks of life. He was one of those who had acquired the ready use of English and was adapted in other ways to intercourse with all kinds of people. There were not many native-born Englishmen among the men in official posi- tion at Bethlehem at this time, and Bishop Nathanael Seidel was absent in Europe on official business from March, 1769, to May, 1770. 'S It is singular that a printing-press did not figure among the numerous industries of Beth- lehem in those days. There is reference in the records to a proposition, in the spring of ^755. to purchase a press in Philadelphia, but in June, Brandmiller, after examining it, found that it would not suit and the matter was dropped. Printing was done for Bethlehem by the .Saurs, of Germantown, and at one time an agreement was made with the Ephrata Brother- hood to have a hymn-book printed there, but for some reason they threw up the contract. The most of the Bethlehem printing was done, for some years, in the office of Henry Miller, in Philadelphia. 1762 ^77^- 4^5 The Governor of Pennsylvania and his suite were in Bethlehem again from April 27 to May i, 1768. He examined the various industries of the place with special attention, was particularly impressed by the singing of the girls in the boarding-school, watched the process of bush-net fishing in the Lehigh with much interest, took a drive to "Allen's Town" — so called, as well as Northampton, at this time in the diary — made careful inquiry into Moravian doc- trines and principles, stating afterwards that he had been given erroneous information on this subject, and studied a copy of the printed Acta Fratrum Unitatis in Anglia containing the various points in which the Church had given an account of itself in connection with the Act of Parliament in its favor in 1749. On June 16, following. Lord Montague, Governor of South Carolina, and his lady, with suite, arrived in Bethlehem. He, in like manner, made a careful study of everything of importance and interest, and expressed the wish that a Moravian settlement might be founded in his colony also. The names of Justice Lawrence, Dr. Shippen, Jr., Dr. Harris and the Rev. Jacob Duche, of Philadelphia, are mentioned among the visitors during that summer. Another Moravian visitor from Europe, whose errand was of inter- est, arrived at Bethlehem, November 26, 1768. This was the Rev. Christian George Andrew Oldendorp, who had been spending the previous part of the year and much of the preceding year in the Danish West Indies, studying the geography, fauna and flora of the Islands, the history and language of the negroes — in which latter task he was greatly aided by the Rev. John Boehner, one of the Beth- lehem pioneers, and at this time the patriarch among the West India missionaries — and particularly the history of the mission work, and its condition at the time, preparatory to writing an exhaustive treatise. He came to Bethlehem principally to collect further material from the mass of West India diaries, reports and correspondence in the archives. The results of his labors remained in more than three thousand pages of manuscript, from which, in 1777, an extract was prepared by the Rev. John Jacob Bossart, professor in the Moravian Theological Seminary at Barby in Saxony, and put into print in a volume of over a thousand pages, which is one of the most interest- ing and valuable early contributions to Moravian missionary litera- ture. Oldendorp remained in Bethlehem until the end of March. 1769, and on April 17 sailed with Bishop Seidel for Europe. He had brought with him to Bethlehem a considerable collection of natural 4l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. curiosities from the West Indies which he presented to the Single Brethren's House, where they were classified and arranged for exhi- bition. That collection of Naturalia brought by Oldendorp from the oldest mission field of the Moravian Church constituted, therefore,^ the nucleus of the first museum at Bethlehem, adding to the things to be seen by people who were ''shown about." There were again many such visitors during the summer of 1769, and old Captain Gar- rison, courteous, widely-traveled, well-informed and familiar with four languages, was now doing the honors as cicerone of Bethle- hem. Among the visitors of that season was again the Governor of Pennsylvania, from April 24 to 29, with his wife and others from Philadelphia. While here they went to Allen's Town on the 26th. Another, the first week in June, was Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, with his wife "and a certain Mr. O'Donnel." The New Jersey Governor "promised all favor to the new settle- ment" in that Province. This was the settlement later called Hope, on the land of Samuel Green, referred to in a previous chapter. The land having been purchased and the founding of a settlement having been determined, Peter Worbas, the first keeper of the Sun Inn, removed to the place in April, 1769, to oversee the erection of a first house, which was finished and occupied in September. On October i, the first sermon was preached there by Ettwein, who was most energetically interested in fostering the enterprise, which stood in such intimate connection with Bethlehem while it existed. Worbas was accompanied, on April 3, by several officials of Bethlehem and by Frederick Leinbach, who soon after became the leading man of the new place in secular affairs and keeper of the store opened in 1771. Christiansen, the famous Bethlehem mill-wright, also went along to take the first steps in his important part of the founding. The Hope grist-mill acquired celebrity, is referred to with interest in the writ- ings of various notable travelers, such as the Marquis du Chastellux, of LaFayette's stafif in the Revolution, and played an important part as an institution of the region in those years. A number of persons who had figured in various positions at Bethlehem and Nazareth became identified with the fortunes of Hope at one time or another. The place was first given the name Greenland, when the deeds were executed, January 23, 1771, after that of the former owner of the land. It bore this name until after the resolution of the General Directory in Europe to establish a regular church village there, like Lititz. This was in 1774, on November 25 and 26 of which year, the 1762 I77I- 41/ village was laid out and in February, 1775, received the name Hope, which, during the subsequent decades, appears as frequently in the diary of Bethlehem as the name of Nazareth. In June, 1770, after Bishop Nathanael Seidel returned from the General Synod held in Europe the preceding year, a process of re-organization began at Bethlehem which was completed in Novem- ber, 1 77 1, and marked an epoch as distinct as that of 1762. It was so intimately related to the constructive work of that period in the constitution and government of the Moravian Church as a whole, or the Unity of the Brethren as it was then constitutionally called, that some idea of this broader constructive work is necessary in order to understand the situation that was produced at Bethlehem. There wxre several distinct stages. The first, that of preliminary and pre- paratory measures, opened ten years before the death of Zinzendorf, when the beginning of the financial troubles treated of in a former chapter, occasioned the first steps towards some kind of economic administration besides the primitive personal one which he and his wife had been exercising like heads of a large family. It extended to his death, when some form of government quite independent of his unique personal relation to affairs was first possible and at the same time became necessary. The second stage was the ad interim system, already referred to, which was then introduced until a Gen- eral Synod could be held to proceed with the establishment of con- stitution and government such as was required. It was during this period, 1760 to 1764, that the dissolution of the General Economy and the first re-organization at Bethlehem took place, and therefore the arrangements then instituted were regarded as also ad interim. Then followed the formative constitutional stage, from 1764 to 1775, embracing the work of three General Synods. While the first two, 1764 and 1769, are considered pre-eminently the Constitutional Synods, the formative work, afifecting not only the whole but each church settlement in all the particulars of its organization and various activities and interests, continued until 1775. The synodical legislation of that year established a balance between opposite ten- dencies in some points, both of principle and method, that had pre- vailed in 1764 and 1769; correcting what the test of experiment proved to be defects of both in some measures, particularly in economic and financial policies. It also brought the church settle- ments in America into a more complete incorporation, with the 28 4l8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. European settlements, in the organic Unity, they being governed entirely like those in Europe in all particulars. The feature of all this which chiefly requires attention in this con- nection, is that the Unity, represented by the General Synod, con- sisted of a group of European and American church settlements, along with a few other associated congregations not so organized, and that the whole was under the direction of a board, during the intervals between meetings of this Synod, which was elected by and responsible to the Synod. The legislation of that Synod and the direction exercised by that board, called, after 1769, the Unity's Elders' Conference, are not to be had in mind as restricted to purely ecclesiastical matters, for in this case they would have only incident- ally had a bearing upon the life and doings of Bethlehem. Their enactments and administration concerned a group of villages, as such, in all particulars ; their local organization and government, their property and finances, their trades and industries, their educa- tional institutions and all the features of their communal Hfe, as well as their doctrine and cultus and the missionary activities they prose- cuted jointly. Therefore, as regards Bethlehem, the General Synod and the Unity's Elders' Conference had to do not only with what are now distinguished as its church matters, but with its land and build- ings, its farms and mills and workshops, its schools and its village government. As the entire Unity, consisting of the aggregate of these church villages, was thus directed by a general Elders' Confer- ence, so each village was likewise governed by a local Elders' Confer- ence. This body consisted entirely of ordained men, together with their wives, who also occupied a defined official position, and the several women who had the oversight of the Sisters' and Widows' Houses and were thus regarded as belonging to the pastoral corps of the village. The share taken by women in official oversight was a feature that anticipated the most advanced and liberal modern ideas, so far as the mere matter of having women participating in official counsel was concerned, but it was far from being the result of advanced views among the people thus asserting themselves under an elective system. These "Elders of the City" were not chosen by the people, but consisted ex officio of the corps of min- isters who, under the system carefully and minutely worked out by the General Synod, were placed in each village by the Elders' Conference of the Unity to have charge of the different departments of ministerial work, together with the Warden of the village, who also was an ordained man. 1762 I77I- 4^9 The people of the village were represented by the Village or Con- gregation Council — Gcuicinraih — which, at different times, varied in make-up and in the process by which its personnel was chosen. Under all the varying arrangements, however, this was the body that represented the people over against the Elders' Conference in whose selection they had no voice. They had an opportunity to express their choice by electing persons to it even when its membership was most restricted and included the largest number of ex oMcio members, although the persons thus elected were subject to con- firmation by lot, and the election was thus only a nomination of persons from among whom the number to make up the Council was drawn. According to a very carefully adjusted scheme, all the divis- ions (choirs) of the congregation were represented in the personnel of the Congregation Council, but in such a way that the requisite number of candidates from each was chosen jointly by the whole body. In the course of the varying size and composition of the Council, as successive Synods revised and amended the regulations,, there was one period when it became most democratic and consisted of the entire body of adult communicants, thus most fully covering the principle once enunciated by Zinzendorf, and referred to in the General Synod after the constitutional foundations had been laid, that in the church villages there must always be a Gemcinrath to represent the l^ox Populi. Just at the time now under review — after the General Synod of 1769 — this principle came into fullest force. The Congregation Council consisted of all adult communicants, and was therefore a larger and less restricted body than it had been before or ever was after 1775. The system put into operation for the whole and for each church village by the Synod of 1764 was understood to be only tentative in many respects, to be tried for five years and then subjected to revision. At that time strong emphasis was laid upon the Unity conception and some provisions were made, with the common interests of the whole in view, which encountered disfavor on the part of many who thought the local rights and interests of the several church villages had not been sufficiently regarded. In 1769, a reaction from that strong centralizing idea made itself felt, and this tendency affected the legislation of that year. One of the efifects was apparent in the size and make-up of the Congregation Council. The measures of 1769 being found, after a trial of six years, to be also defective and unsatisfactory in these respects, in going too far in the direction of the tendency of that year, they produced 420 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. another reaction towards centralization. This made itself effective in many particulars in 1775. Central control in the Unity and com- munity of interests among the church settlements and their several choir divisions and their departments of service and industry, based on the principle "each for all and all for each," were established more firmly than at first, and became permanent. While subsequent Synods made alterations here and there, the system then established was practically the same that remained until the modern demands at Bethlehem and the other American church settlements, to have it modified, began in the second decade of the nineteenth century, and led eventually to the total abolition of the exclusive church-village plan in this country. The further principal features of -organization established after 1769, at Bethlehem, as at all the other settlements, were the following: With the Elders' Conference was associated in deliberations on some classes of subjects a body called the Helpers' Conference. It was a large committee culled out of the whole membership of the Congregation Council which, as stated, then consisted of all adult communicants. For a time there was a larger and a smaller Helpers' Conference. Secularly viewed, they may be regarded as a Common and a Select Council chosen from the whole town meeting. The conspicuous use of the term "Helper" was a peculiarity of the revised system worked out in 1769. The minister who stood at the head of the pastoral corps of the village and was ex officio the Presi- dent of the Elders' Conference, was called the Gcmeinhelfcr — the local Helper of the General Elders' Conference of the Unity. These officials in the several American church settlements, with certain other general functionaries, made up a Provincial Helpers' Confer- ence which had the general oversight of all the work in this country, under the Unity's Elders' Conference and responsible to it ; all of its members being appointees of that board. Its President, a bishop particularly appointed by the Unity's Elder's Conference to that position, and in some cases specially sent over from Europe for that purpose, was for some years spoken of as the Provincial Helper. Thus the U. E. C. had a General Provincial Helper, and in each church village a special Helper at the head of the congregation. The Provincial Helper had these Congregation Helpers associated with him as a kind of cabinet. Each of them in turn had the Elders' Conference of the Congregation associated with him as a cabinet, with his Helpers' Conference selected from the membership of the .Congregation Council as an additional advisory body. In consist- 1/62 ^77^- 421 ently working out this Helper idea, the Synod of 1769 decreed that the ordained men and the appointed women in subordinate pastoral charge of the several choir divisions, were likewise to be called Helpers in their respective departments — the Choir Helpers, associ- ated with the Congregation Helper as the Elders' Conference of the village. These spiritual superintendents of the choirs had before been called PUcgcr — Fosterers or Curates. Later the term Helper was, in their case, dropped and they were again called Piiegcr. It was retained, however, in connection with the Head Pastor and the Provincial Board until the abolition of the whole system at the middle of the nineteenth century. When the Elders' Conference of a church village was completely elaborated there were associated with the Head Pastor, as the Helper of the U. E. C. in the Congre- gation, not only the Helpers or PHeger, men and women, in charge of the several choir divisions, but an associate minister who was called simply the preacher, because the particular function of public preaching more largely fell to his share of duties. He was usually also the Inspector of the school work of the village. That very important functionary, the Warden of the Congregation, was also a member of the Elders' Conference. A special Warden was asso- ciated with the Helper or PUcgcr of the single men, because their choir house and general establishment involved considerable business operations. He was at some periods called merely the Steward. Finally, in the general organization of the church village, another board existed, which in course of time acquired the most dominant importance and, in the later days of the system, came to be looked upon as the laymen's board over against the clergy of the Elders' Conference. This was the Aufscher CoUeginm or Board of Super- vision in externals, the successor of the Richtcr Collegium, as explained in a previous chapter. This body elected by the voting membership was associated with the Warden much as the Elders' Conference appointed by the U. E. C. and the Provincial Board was associated with the Head Pastor. This board was at liberty, however, to elect its own President. Sometimes this was the Warden who as well as the Choir Wardens and Stewards was, ex officio, a member of it. Sometimes, however, care was taken to not choose the Warden as President, according to the circumstances, the personality of the Warden and the temper of the board ; for under that old system the presidency of those boards meant much more than to merely occupy the chair, listen to the discussions, put the question on motions and conduct the business of the meetinsf. The function of this board was 422 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to supervise manufactures, trades and business generally. It was expected to prevent irregularities, impositions and all doings in business that were inconsistent with the established principles and discipline, or likely to give offence, sully the good name of the Breth- ren or injure any person; to carefuly regulate the sale of wine and spirits at the inn and prevent excess or scandal in this respect ; to prevent the manufacture or sale of all articles that were not supposed to be tolerated in a Moravian village. As a board advisory to the Warden, it had to do, after the Congregation acquired property with which it could deal independently of the Warden's Department of the Unity, with matters of sale and purchase ; investments, loans and deposits of money and the general care of property. Eventually its functions lay more clear-cut and restricted in the two classes of duties which, after the incorporation of the Borough in 1845 ^^^ ^i the Moravian Congregation in 1851, were performed by the Town Council on the one hand and the Trustees of the Congregation on the other. It may be added that under the system of 1769, in accordance with which Bethlehem was re-organized in 1770 and lyyiAheAiifseher CoUcgiiiiii had to render regular reports to the General Wardens of the Unity, organized as a department of the Unity's Elders' Confer- ence, but their reports had to pass through the hands of the Elders' Conference of Bethlehem. This was one of the many features that reveal the nice adjustment of things in this compact organization. All of these boards worked under a code of general directions formu- lated by the General Synod which were the same in all of the church villages. The Synod of 1769 decreed that new^ elections to these var- ious conferences and boards, in so far as their personnel was elected by the Congregation Council, should be held in all of the villages, in carrying out its new system. This took place in Bethlehem in June, 1770. Then, little by little, the various other new regulations were introduced in all the details which were under the control of the different general boards. The reconstruction did not, however, consist merely in these changes. Other new measures, fundamental and far-reaching, fol- lowed in the matter of property, productive industries and general financial arrangements. The enormous burden of debt under which the Unity had been struggling since the financial crisis of 1753, and was bravely laboring to pay off, necessarily brought financial legisla- tion into prominence in its Synods, and made the handling of its properties in Europe and America and the management of its sources of revenue of very great importance. One step after another was 1/62 I77I- 423 taken to simplify the situation and to devise successful ways and means to bear the heavy burden and at the same time meet current expenses. The main source of income had been the Zinzendorf properties. After Zinzendorf's death, a settlement was made with his heirs whereby, at a great sacrifice, in loyalty to the interests of the Church for which their father had been ready to surrender every- thing he had, they accepted $90,000 for their interest in these estates and released them to the Unity, which became their owner. The real estate at Bethlehem and elsewhere in Pennsylvania was also the property of the Unity. When the General Synod met in 1764, more than $550,000 of its debt had been extinguished, but more than $770,000 remained. This load pressed so heavily and the involved condition of finances in many places, among others at Bethlehem, caused such difficulties in the effort to get these places properly established financially, to bring clearness into matters and to secure for the burdened Unity every available source of income from its estates and release from every needless drain, that it was decided, in 1769, to bring about a division of estates and sources of revenue be- tween the Unity and the Congregation. This was in a line with the tendency that manifested itself at the Synod of that year, and which, in the matter of finances, even went so far as to agitate the idea of dividing the debt of the Unity between the different church settle- ments in Europe and America and letting each one then struggle with its portion of it as it could. While six years later, when the Synod met again, this decentral- izing tendency, thus applied also to finances, gave way, as already stated, to that of community of interests more strongly enunciated than ever before, it meanwhile gave impetus to the plan of division and settlement at Bethlehem, which was of much importance at that time. Three men were deputed by the Unity's Elders' Conference to come to Pennsylvania and re-organize the finances of the Church at Bethlehem, as well as at Nazareth and Lititz. and carry out their commissions. They were the Rev. Christian Gregor, later Bishop, the well-known Moravian musical composer and hymn-writer, and the Rev. John Loretz, both members of the Unity's Elders' Confer- ence, and the Rev. John Christian Alexander de Schweinitz, who came to remain at Bethlehem as Administrator of the property of the Unity, of which Bishop Nathanael Seidel, as stated in a previous chapter, was now the nominal Proprietor ; and in this capacity to act as an ex officio member of the Provincial Helpers' Conference. They arrived at Bethlehem, November 16, 1770, and set about their task. 424 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. A great mass of complicated details had to be gone through and settled with the boards at Bethlehem, with the whole body of adult members in council assembled and with the Provincial Board. All was finally cleared up and arranged satisfactorily before the end of May, 1771. The finances of the Unity and those of Bethlehem were separated and Bethlehem was placed, like the European church villages, on its own financial basis. A Bethlehem "Congregation Diacony" was instituted on a new footing. This purchased of the Unity, represented by the "General Diacony," to which reference has been made, very nearly four thousand acres of land — not exact figures, but round numbers are given, as in references to the Unity's debt — at £2 Pa. per acre, besides those buildings and industrial establishments of the place which were owned by the General Diacony. The value of the whole purchase was figured at £29,000 Pa. This amount, about $87,000 of the debt of the Unity, was then assumed by Bethlehem. It was arranged that a "Sustentation Diacony" for the American branch of the Church should be established, as had been done in Europe ; also a special "School Diacony ;" both to be controlled by the Provincial Helpers' Conference and managed by the Adminis- trator. The purpose of the first was to pay the expenses of the Provincial Board, to provide help for ministers at needy posts, and especially to pension superannuated or disabled ministers and widows of ministers and old people who had worked for the Economy. Later other obligations were added. The object of the School Diacony was to provide resources for the education of ministers' children. ^^ It was agreed that Bethlehem would contribute to the Sustentation Diacony two-thirds of the profits of the industries it controlled and that any surplus accruing at any time, beyond the combined needs of the Congregation and Sustentation Diaconies, should be applied to the work of Church Extension, or Home Missions in America. Many details were also arranged in connection with the manage- ment of the various industries and concerns, the finances of the "choir-houses" and the support of the day-schools of the village. Tuition fees were fixed at six pence per week for each child. It was 16 The term Diacony was used for many years for the different financial systems and treas- uries. " The Pennsylvania Sustentation Diacony," as it was long called, was what is now known as the Sustentation Fund of the Moravian Church, with which the former School Diacony was consolidated more than fifty years ago. The Sustentation Diacony had no endowment, and a Sustentation Fund could not be spoken of until such an endowment was provided by the Bethlehem and Nazareth congregations about fifty years ago. 1/62 I77I- 425 stated that the rate was put within the reach of all so that the question whether they could afford to pay should not arise. The trifling income from tuition was to be supplemented by an appro- priation made by the Congregation Diacony to provide the meagre salaries paid the two men who taught the boys and the one woman who taught the girls of the village in one of the rooms of the board- ing-school. There was a re-organization of this latter institution, as well as of Nazareth Hall, which restricted their scope more than previously, as a matter of financial retrenchment ; because, for the most part, the boarding scholars from elsewhere were there on a basis that was not financially profitable, and this could no longer be afforded. All of the accounts of the previous General Diacony, as well as the special accounts of the choir houses, the schools and the various establishments were audited and closed on May 31, ^jyi, and on June i, the new books of the Unity's Administration, the Sustentation and School Diaconies, the Bethlehem Congregation Diacony, the several Choir Diaconies, and of all the concerns doing business were opened. Thus the new period began financially. In the course of these protracted settlements and arrangements several special new building and other enterprises were decided upon. The most conspicuous was the erection of a needed addition to the Sisters' House, to which the concurrence of the several boards concerned, and of the people of Bethlehem in Congregation Council assembled, was asked and received by the managers of the Diacony of that choir. This was the large eastern section of that mass of buildings which completed them as they now stand. It is stated also that a new farm was opened and a dwelling house built on it in the course of the year "back of the Burnside land" and occupied by a tenant ; and that the site of Nain, with the land belonging to it, was constituted a separate farm and rented. Thus began the history, as farms, of what have so long been known as the Geissinger Farms. Finally a complete new code of statutes and ordinances for the village, after passing the approval successively of the Elders' Con- ference, the Board of Supervision — Aufschcr Collegium — and the large Helpers' Conference, were adopted and signed by the entire adult male membership, November 21, 1771. This completed the re-organi- zation and fully opened the new period in the history of Bethlehem. Its population consisted at the close of that year of 138 married people, II widowers, 32 widows, 115 single men and older boys, 169 single women and older girls, 35 boys and 60 girls under thirteen years of age — total 560 souls. CHAPTER XII. Into the Depths of Revolutionary Trouble. 1772 — 1778. Several peaceful and prosperous years followed the re-organization of 1771- Under the new order, arrangements were much simplified, were better understood by the common people of Bethlehem and therefore very generally had their intelligent and cordial concur- rence. The new basis established in the management of industries and in the matter of property and finances, awakened a feeling of local individuality — a kind of town spirit — that was needed for the best interests of the situation, at the stage which had been reached. People began to feel less like a camp of pilgrims amid foreign sur- roundings and more like a body of citizens with common local attachments, duties and aspirations. The influx of large colonies with the pilgrim feeling inculcated and sympathies clinging to that which had been left behind, or at least not located at Bethlehem, had ceased. There was also less shifting of persons than previously between Bethlehem and the places on the Nazareth domain. The general re-organization had laid the foundation for a more distinct local development there also, in accordance with the decision of the General Synod of 1769, that a regular church village on the Herrn- hut plan, like Lititz, Salem, N. C, and Hope, N. J., should there be laid out, as had been had in mind from the beginning. This village was to lie spread out at the base of Nazareth Hall ; not farther up the hill to the west, where Gnadenhoeh was to have been built, with the original cemetery crowning the highest point back of it, nor where Gnadenstadt had been laid out to the north-east. The six hundred acres of land surveyed for the new village of Nazareth^ embraced what now came to be called Old Nazareth, together with J January 19, 1771, the Provincial Helpers' Conference resolved to proceed with laying out New Nazareth. The next day, the sites of the first buildings were staked off. March 7 its first code of statutes and ordinances was adopted. The first dwelling was built that summer and the inn was finished, January, 1772. 426 1772 177«- 427 the Whitefield house premises, to which later generations gave their present name Ephrata. This was without adequate liistorical reason, and it gave some excuse to persons with nebulous ideas about the Moravians for occasionally confusing them with the Sabbatarian, Mystic Tunker fraternity of Lancaster County, whose settlement bore that name which survives in the flourishing town of Ephrata. There- fore, in 1772, Nazareth was no longer an affiliate of Bethlehem in an indefinite stage of transition from the old General Economy relations to autonomy — the last vestige of the old order, the common house- keeping at Old Nazareth was not abolished until 1764 — but was now a distinct church settlement, with Gnadenthal and Christiansbrunn as its affiliates. There were, furthermore, far fewer at Bethlehem than formerly who engaged by turns in local duties and in missionary work. There was less continual itineracy among the country congregations and preaching-places and the Indian missions were now established at a greater distance, with less traveling to and fro. Thus, in all these respects, there had been a gradual formation of a settled citizenship at Bethlehem, identified with those interests which were local. The end of Indian complications within the Forks of the Delaware caused the most conspicuous feature of the primitive and unsettled condi- tions to disappear from the scene. Those elements of the neighbor- ing population which had caused Bethlehem so much tribulation on this account, now had to leave the Moravians in peace until some- thing else that did not meet their approval, besides missionary work among the Indians, or some new pretext for manifesting ill will should again give occasion for hostile agitations. They did not have to maintain this irksome peace and quiet long, as the sequel will show. On the other hand, a better understanding, a more friendly feeling, greater mutual respect and the recognition of more interests in common had issued out of the turmoil of the preceding years between the Bethlehem people and the more orderly, peaceable and tolerant part of the population of Northampton County. There was more of the natural and ordinary kind of intercourse in matters of business and in general neighborly relations. People who had stood far apart began to be accustomed to each other's ways. The Bethlehem population, consisting now, for the most part, of persons who had lived some years in the country, felt less shyness towards people of the surrounding region than formerly, could deal with them in a more unconstrained manner and were better able to recognize 428 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. personal worth and even sincere piety where they existed under racial characteristics, ecclesiastical traditions and social customs so different from their own. People of the neighborhood who went in and out at Bethlehem no longer looked upon its institutions and customs as oddities. They also manifested less of the common dis- position of rough back-woodsmen, to resent what they regard as pretentiousness on the part of people who venture to introduce any refinements amid prevailing rudeness. They gradually ceased to regard the religion taught at Bethlehem — without knowing anything about it — as something subversive of Protestantism and the State, for the blatant, rabid pulpit-controversialists who in former years stirred up ignorant prejudice, were no longer such influential men up and down the country as they once were. If the political situation of the time had been a settled one, with. peace ahead, instead of one that was bringing on a mighty struggle, to arouse — as one of its inevitable concomitants — such intolerant passion among the kind of men whose zeal was more fierce and riotous than heroic — for Bethlehem had ample opportunity to learn the difference between the high-minded, chivalrous patriot and the coarse, blustering zealot reveling in havoc for its own sake — the har- monious growing together of the missionary town and its surround- ings, which was arrested and retarded by the Revolution, would have proceeded with smooth rapidity after the local Indian problem was out of the way. It had even come so far that there was discussion, on common ground, of proposed public improvements, in which the people of Bethlehem, Easton, Allentown and the surrounding neigh- borhoods were jointly interested, with diverse opinions, as on all public matters. The Government of Pennsylvania had commenced to move in the direction of making inland waterways available for the development of traffic. Thus, on March 9, 1771, a bill had been made law by the signature of the Governor and the seal of the Prov- ince, entitled "an act declaring the rivers Delaware and Lehigh and a part of the Neshaminy Creek as far as Barnsley's Ford, and of the stream called the Lechawaxin, as far up as the falls thereof, common highways, and for improving the navigation in the said rivers." Projects for realizing results in the line of this move, so far as the Lehigh was concerned, were agitated along its course as matters which concerned Bethlehem and other places alike. It is true that the chief attention to this subject was awakened during that summer by events which were not peaceful, when the sending of men with 1772 ^77^- A~9 provisions from Easton up to Wyoming, to relieve the garrison in the "Block House" during the first outbreak of violence in the boundary disputes between the Proprietaries and the New England colonists, gave special cause to discuss the matter. Then, when the boat-building facilities at Bethlehem were called into requisition to further such transportation, this remote connection between the Moravian town and a scene of strife was turned to account by some veteran fabricators of slanderous fiction, to impHcate the Moravians even in the contention of the New Englanders to the detriment of Pennsylvania. It may be added in this connection, that when more serious trouble in that boundary dispute was at its height, in 1775, the favorite old story of powder and lead shipped from Bethlehem to aid the enemy was carried about the country by men who pro- fessed to know whereof they spoke, for did they not live along the way between, where they could watch the Moravians ? Those powder and lead stories, as ridiculous as they were rascally, had been found by their inventors formerly to take so well among the credulous and unreasoning, that they brought them out anew with no fear that now they would fall flat. That before, it was to the French army and then to savage Indians and now to British subjects of another colony that this imaginary ammunition from Bethlehem was thus secretly supplied, did not disturb the faith of some who heard the tale. It even caused dignified of^cial inquiry, and it does not seem to have occurred to any one to raise the question where the Moravians could possibly have procured all those quantities of powder and lead which certain men in the Irish Settlement saw them conveying through the country for several decades to so many different kinds of enemies of the State, in one war after another. As to improvements in the Lehigh River, those which ruined the fishing were at that time yet things of the distant future. If the modern disposition to be incredulous about "fish stories" had then existed, it would have taxed the courage of the Bethlehem chronicler to record that a catch of shad in the Lehigh at Bethlehem, in the spring of 1772, amounted to more than five thousand. These large fishing exploits were among the things of interest that attracted the attention of the numerous visitors, and helped to supply the tables of the Sun Inn where many notables of the time dined on the fat of the land. Doubtless many of these, like "summer guests" of subsequent years, who found Bethlehem such an attractive point for rural jaunts, would have preferred to see all "improvements" suppressed perpet- 430 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ually, which would, in any way, interfere with either fishing or romantic scenery along the charming Lehigh. As a rule they had more regard for enjoyment at the place than for the prosperity of business enterprises with only utiHtarian designs in connection with its waters and its banks. There was only one sentiment among visitors of that time in regard to the general appearance of Bethlehem and its environs, so far as their testimony has been preserved in diaries and correspondence. Remarks about the people of the place, its institutions and social arrangements and even its celebrated inn, so greatly superior to any then to be found about the country, vary somewhat. In some cases this difference is evidently due to the variety of temperament and disposition possessed by the guests, although, of course, things were not seen by all under the most favorable circumstances, the meals at the inn were naturally not always up to its best standard, and not every one who visited the place happened to encounter the most agreeable and intelHgent of its people. One visitor, probably a slightly captious bachelor with little angularities and a contracted city horizon, whose observations have been pubHshed,- refers to "Jost's" — ^Jost Jansen, inn-keeper at the Sun — as the only inn at the place, as if many were to be expected in a village of that size in those days, and his first comment was that the dinner was "bad." The supper, however, was "pretty good," the wine and the punch were also good, but the beer was "indififerent." The evening service which he attended was "solemn and devout." Captain Garrison and his wife, who escorted the company about, "behaved with a great deal of politeness and were very obliging." On August 17, the day of the festival of the little girls, he saw the "female children at dinner" (lovefeast) and remarked the neatness and great decorum. He visited Christiansbrunn and Nazareth, and found Nazareth Hall "a. neat, plain building" with "some tolerable paintings" in it, but did not consider knitting "fit work for boys." At Easton the dinner was indifferent, the wine not good, the supper "pretty so so," and "a neat court house the only thing worth remarking." Hunting and fishing excursions about Bethlehem were indulged in. At the Sun Inn there was a considerable company of people, among them several "sprightly agreeable Quaker girls" who evidently found him a good subject to be teased, for he mentions some tricks served him by "the merry little rogues." He finds the 2 Anonymous journal of a tour in August, 1773, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. X. BETHLEHEM 1767 1734 1772 1778. 431 Moravians "an industrious, inoffensive people, much addicted to particular forms and in some respects resembling the Roman Cath- olics." Animadverting on the domestic and social arrangements — the single men and women living in separate houses and having nothing to do with each other — he ventures the opinion that such a plan is not in accordance with the "design of the wise Disposer of all things." When he and his company left for Reading, they stopped on the way at Allentown, "at the Sign of the King of Prussia," where he encountered such bad odors that he could not stay in the house. He says "Allentown is a pretty situation but seems to be a poor place." During the summer of 1772, the last considerable building erected in Bethlehem for the space of nearly twenty years was commenced. This was the large eastern section of the Sisters' House which it had been decided the previous year to build, but which was not completed and formally occupied until October, 1773. The corner-stone was laid on May 4, 1772, the covenant day of the Single Sisters. Christian Gregor who with his fellow-deputy of the Unity's Elder's Conference, John Loretz, was yet in Bethlehem, officiated on this occasion. Having finished their labors, they left on May 6, to return to Europe. John Christian A. de Schweinitz who came with them had entered upon his duties at Bethlehem as Administrator of the estates of the Unity, and as a member of the Provincial Helpers' Confer- ence. He was also chosen Vice-President of the village Board of Oversight — Aufseher Collegium — of which John Ettwein was Presi- dent. Dettmers, the Warden, was transferred to Nazareth to assume the difficult duties of that office in connection with the organization of the new village. His place as Warden at Bethlehem was taken by Jeremiah Dencke who filled this office during the Revolution. Another new of^cial of importance who appeared upon the scene after New Year, 1773, was John Herman Bonn, the Warden of the Brethren's House during the Revolution. He was the successor of the eminently capable John Arbo who died, December 11. 1772. Some time before that, the most historic figure had disappeared from among the old men of Bethlehem. This was Bishop David Nitsch- mann, the first bishop of the Renewed Church, one of its first two missionaries to the heathen, it first bishop in America and the founder of Bethlehem. His associations in the service of the Church had ranged from the presence of kings and queens, the palaces of dukes and lords and the council chambers of great ministers of state, 432 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to the backwoods cabin, the Indian's wigwam, the hut of the negro slave and the companionship in toil of rustic laborers, clearing the forest and tilling the soil, and of mechanics working in the carpenters' shop or building houses at the new settlements of the Church. His official labors had extended over various parts of Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, into Livonia, through England and Wales, besides the Danish West Indies and the short-lived settlement at Savannah, Georgia ; to all the fields of Moravian activity in Pennsyl- vania and New York including the various Indian missions prior to 1756, and the settlement in North CaroHna; and his travels embraced at least fifty sea-voyages. After 1761, when he returned finally to Bethlehem from Lititz, he had been living in retirement, in the utmost simplicity and plainness, and out of protracted sufferings, was gath- ered to his fathers on October 8, 1772. Early in 1773, another important man who had rendered very great service at Bethlehem, especially during the Indian troubles, departed this life. This was Justice Timothy Horsfield, who died, March 9 of that year. His successor in office, the third magistrate appointed at Bethlehem and the last under the Colonial Government, was John Okely, who received his commission, March 21, 1774. He filled this trouble- some position until the change of government during the Revolu- tion. The Horsfield house, treated of fully in a previous chapter, was purchased by Henry Van Vleck, merchant, of New York, who retired to Bethlehem and, in February, 1774, took up his residence in that building. The cemetery near by, where the remains of these men were laid to rest was, with each passing year, becoming a place of more rev- erent and tender interest to the people of Bethlehem. In 1773 special attention was bestowed upon it. The record which tells of the neat new fence which was built around it that year, and of its enlarge- ment that had become necessary, states that at that time the bodies of four hundred and eleven persons reposed there. The death-rate at Bethlehem was not as high at this period as it had prevailingly been during the first two decades. Less hardship and exposure had to be endured and the enlargement of dwelling accommodations, with other changes in the mode of living, were conducive to better health. Among occasional epidemics, small-pox among the children had again to be contended with in 1773. In connection with this new spread of the scourge, inoculation was first introduced in Bethlehem by Dr. John Matthew Otto. He proposed in an official conference 1772 1778. 433 on September 13, that the process be tried. It being a new thing at the place, it was deemed better not to proceed with the experiment without the concurrence of the whole body of parents. This was " given at a consultation with them two days later, and on September 18, it was first tried on a little son of William Boehler and his wife, who were the first who expressed their willingness to have the experi- ment made in their family. The disease was soon gotten under con- trol and such a disastrous spread of it as had occurred on several previous occasions was prevented. The year 1774 was a flourishing one in the numerous industries of Bethlehem, as well as a year of good crops and of general good health, so that the records, in summing up its local events and experi- ences, express acknowledgement of particular blessings to call forth the gratitude of the people. It was also a year notable for unusually many visits by persons of distinction from many and distant points. Among them was Baron von Repsdorf, the Danish Governor General of St. Croix, a warm friend of the Moravian missionaries on that Island. John Dickinson, the eminent jurist, and "the Swedish Herr Probst" are referred to among persons from Philadelphia who had not before been visitors to Bethlehem. In May the Sun Inn, once more before the Revolution, entertained a Proprietary Governor of Pennsylvania, who was destined also to be the last such Governor. It was John Penn, now serving his second term as Governor — or, strictly speaking. Lieutenant Governor — having been succeeded in 1771 by his brother Richard, who was also in Bethlehem this same month, and, according to current statements, was a more popular man than John, who resumed the office in September, 1773, when the complications that brought on the great conflict were rapidly becoming acute. A little more than a month after their visit, the diary of Bethlehem refers to a conference with WilHam Edmonds, the former Moravian Assemblyman from Northampton County, at this time again serving in that capacity, who, with John Okely, the other Moravian delegate, expected to attend the convention called for July 15. The new peril threatening the Indian mission which, as stated in the preceding chapter, had been removed in 1772 from Wyalusing in the Wyoming Valley, to "the Ohio country," was the principal sub- ject of this particular conference with Edmonds; for the spirit which had animated the attempts against Nain and Wechquetank was relentlessly pursuing the work of the gospel into the western 434 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. wilds, where it was hoped it might be carried on in peace, at least for a while. At the same time, the precarious condition of affairs which caused that famous convention, called independently of the Governor, was referred to, and the advantage that was being taken of the issues on which public opinion was so much divided, by inimi- cal parties in the county to embarrass the people of Bethlehem in the position they were disposed to assume, led to a meeting of the smaller, or Select Council of the place, on July 7, to consider what course it would be best to pursue. The terms Whigs and Tories, in use in England, applied respectively to those who opposed and those who supported the position of Parliament, were beginning to be made use of in Pennsylvania also, and to be carried into the interior regions, with meaning broadened to embrace, respectively, all who were either for or against violent rupture and revolution. Thus, before long, the word Tory came to include, in the language of the impetuous, not only royalists, but also patriots who urged further struggle against oppression by constitutional methods in preference to precipitating war. Right in Pennsylvania this conser- vative element of the first Congress of Deputies from the colonies, held in September, 1774, in response to the proposition of the July Convention, and of subsequent meetings, was strongest, for here there were, among the leaders, more men than elsewhere of English legal training and conservative habits of thought who deprecated a hasty breach. They had back of them in the Province a large mass of people who, from various standpoints, were loath to see an open rupture, so long as it seemed possible to reach a peaceable solution of the momentous questions, and who shrank from the thought of rushing into the hazards of violent resistance. Most conspicuous and numerous among these conservative masses of Pennsylvania were, of course, the Quakers. With them were also the adherents of those several German sects which were opposed to war on general principles and were disposed also to accept the powers that be as ordained of God, and even if these powers subjected them to oppres- sion and tyranny, to make the best of it ; having no mind for the idea that the people might take the law and the government into their own hands and thus endeavor to right their wrongs. As to the Moravians, their position was not identical with that of the Quakers nor with that of the Mennonites, the Schwenkfelders, and other such German bodies. Still less were they to be placed in a mass on the same footing with those royalists who either openly or secretlv oper- 1772 1778- 435 ated on the side of the King and Parliament against the aims of the colonists. After excitement ran so high that the term Tory became an offensive one, equivalent in the common mind to traitor, and was applied indiscriminately to all who did not see their way clear to favor revolution at the time when this step was believed by others to be inevitable, and to all who held non-combatant principles, no matter how innocent they might have been of any conspiracy or even sympathy with efforts inimical to the rights of the colonists, the Moravians, of course, came under the odium, in the minds of the hot- headed and precipitate, of being, in a body, Tories. That class of men in Northampton County who cherished the old prejudice and grudge against them belonged to the sort who were ever ready to rush into violent collision on any kind of a question and now eagerly seized the new opportunity to proclaim them enemies of the patriot cause and in secret conspiracy with the English Government, just as they had before proclaimed them as enemies of this Government in conspiracy against it with the French. It is not surprising, there- fore, that so soon as the first authorized move was made in the count}- to associate, arm and drill for the coming conflict, every available measure was advocated by such to coerce them into partici- pation. That this, on the part of some petty officials, was not so much the vehement impulse of patriotism as a mere desire to harass the Aloravians, soon became so clear that it did not admit of a doubt. Reasonable and temperate men among those in control of militia organization who were disposed to show such regard for their posi- tion and principles as the circumstances permitted, found it very diffi- cult to restrain this tendency. It is not surprising, either, that when the first bodies of troops from distant places began to march through Bethlehem, many of these men, having no personal acquaintance with the place, its people and their traditions, and receiving their information about them entirely from bitterly prejudiced persons, should have been possessed of the idea that Bethlehem was a place full of dangerous Tories that deserved no kind of regard. That under these circumstances, amid the wild excitement, many of these men being undisciplined and impetuous, the Moravian town was, on the whole, treated with so much respectful consideration, is a mat- ter of astonishment. More than one such body of recruits approached the neighborhood with loud threats, but were restrained from turbu- lent demonstrations by the mere force of the impression which the appearance and general atmosphere of the place made upon them. 436 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The common modern supposition that the Moravians at Bethle- hem, Nazareth and elsewhere all stood together as a unit in their views and sentiments either at the beginning of the Revolution or later, is quite erroneous. There were decided dififerences of opinion among them on the main question of seeking independence, on the various involved questions and on the successive measures adopted by the Congress of the colonies, just as there were among people else- where. They were, as a rule, men of too much intelligence to all hold certain ideas or prejudices as one man, on such questions. There were, moreover, not only Germans and Englishmen and natives of other European countries, but also native-born Americans among them, and there was to some extent a corresponding variety of sym- pathy, sentiment and traditional habit of thought on political subjects. These subjects did not enter into the platform on which they had been culled out and brought together into a fraternity. Therefore, unanimity in this respect did not exist either by virtue of selectioii or of indoctrination. That there were Tories among them, in opinion and sentiment, just as there were in other communities, cannot be denied. That there were those who sympathized with the struggle of the colonies is certain. There were also, as in every other commu- nity, many who at first did not appreciate the righteousness of the struggle ; many who failed to rightly apprehend the issue ; many who had no conception of its magnitude and did not dream of its far- reaching results, who later saw into things better and whose views underwent a complete change. Not every man elsewhere who at the first signal was ready to shoulder his gun and march, clearly dis- cerned the real problems of the hour, and as few of the boisterous zealots who thought the Moravians should all be compelled to join the militia as of these Moravians looked out through the mazy future with the eye of a seer and foresaw all that a few years later became so plain. There was also wide difference of opinion among the people of Bethlehem on the question of adhering to the old principle in the matter of bearing arms in active warfare and engaging in military drill. Some made this an essential as much as did the Quakers. Others merely took the ground of consistency with the original mis- sionary purpose of the settlement, in pursuance of which the Church had sought and obtained exemption from such duty for its member- ship, with the understanding that they would do their duty for the maintenance and protection of the State by paying such sums as i7;2 1778. 437 might be required of them in lieu of bodily service of that kind. Such were more ready to recognize emergencies in which it might become their duty to also shoulder a musket. Yet others, especially among the younger men, if they had been left to act individually, would have followed the call to arms — some because they believed this to be a patriotic duty, some to escape the odium and petty per- secution to which they were subjected, some also because their scruples on this point were not as strong as their objection to pay- ing the exorbitant fines imposed upon them, one time after the other, when this process had been gotten into systematic operation in the county.^ When it was finally concluded to all stand together in this matter, to all decline to engage in active military service and all pay the fines, however unreasonable the amounts demanded, and all help each other to bear the burden, this conclusion simply meant that 3 Bishop Nathanael Seidel, in May, wrote a letter to Dr. Franklin, congratulating him on his safe return from England, and setting forth the straits they were in at Bethlehem in con- nection with military drill. In reply he received the following letter from Franklin : Philada. June 2nd 1775. Reverend & Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your kind congratulations on my Return ; and I rejoice to hear that the Brethren are well and prosper. I am persuaded that the Congress will give no encouragement to any to molest your people on account of their Religious Principles ; and tho' much is not in my Power, I shall on every Occasion exert myself to discountenance such infamous Practices. Permit me however to give a little hint in point of Prudence. I remember that you put yourselves in a good Posture of Defence at the Beginning of the last "War when I was in Bethlehem ; and [ then understood from my very much Respected Friend Bp. Spangenberg, that there were those among the Brethren who did not hold it unlaw- ful to arm in defensive Warfare. If there be still any such among your young Men, perhaps it would not be amiss to permit them to learn the Military Discipline among their Neighbors, as this might conciliate those who at present express some resentment ; and having Arms in Readiness for all who may be able and willing to use them, will be a general Means of Protection against enemies of all kinds. But a Declaration of your Society, that tho' they cannot in conscience compell their young Men to learn the Use of Arms, yet they do not restrain such as are disposed, will operate in the Minds of People very greatly in your Favour. Excuse my Presumption in offering Advice, which indeed may be of little Value, but proceeds from a Heart filled with Affection and Respect for a Society I have long highly esteemed, and among whom I have many valuable Friends. I am with great Regard & Veneration, Rev'd Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. 438 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. whatever the personal opinions and sentiments of one and another might be, all would cling together consistently on the ground form- erly taken. Those who had no such scruples engaged to stand by those who had, and, as for differing views on the great struggle, these did not then assert themselves to the extent of causing an open breach in the bond of brotherhood which held them together. There can be no doubt that the resolution to thus make common cause and stand together was, under Divine Providence, what saved Beth- lehem through all the critical ordeals that came ; for there were times when, if it had been a house divided against itself, it would not have stood. The higher and better class of minds among both the civil and military authorities became convinced that no danger to the patriot cause was to be feared from the Moravians. In the dire dis- tress of the most critical times the resources derived from the place were no mean consideration, and were perhaps of more real value than the full quota of armed men from Bethlehem would have been. The men who insisted that the Moravians should be compelled to do military duty were not those upon whom the responsibility for finding ways and means rested, and they were not inclined, therefore, to appreciate the value of what was derived from them, as from other non-combatants and "Tories,'* in other ways.^ Even a little act like the contribution of a quantity of linen rags by the women of Beth- lehem for dressing the wounds of soldiers was considered deserving of formal record and thanks, as early as May i, 1776, by the Com- mittee of Safety at Philadelphia. When, furthermore, the value of Bethlehem as a place of refuge for so many sick and wounded of the patriot army, and the readiness of its people to do what they could for the sufferers in the great extremity became clear, and even the Continental Congress found a retreat there and discovered it to be almost the only spot in reach that was not utterly demoralized, and visions came to Congressmen and Generals of further possible use to which the fine place, with its commodious buildings, its mills and work- shops and its sober, steady-going people running them might be put if preserved intact, the highest authorities of the new-born Nation became its champions and protectors against the riotous fanatics who would have found satisfaction in the mere spectacle of its destruction, even if no good whatever, but rather harm to the Nation's cause, had been the result. 4 Eminent authority of the time (Dr. Rush) has been cited in support of the estimate that " three-fourths of the taxes by which the war was supported in Pennsylvania were paid by non-combatants or Tories." Pa. Mag., XV, p. 1 6. 1772 1778- 439 In further pursuing these preliminary remarks on the attitude of the Moravians and the position of Bethlehem during the Revolution, it may be added that the differences of opinion which prevailed among the people, the same as at all other places, did not run with any particular differences of class or station. Some who have writ- ten on the subject have represented that the clergy, as a class, were Tories and held such of the people who took that side by personal influence or under the threat of expulsion.^ Some of the clergy were decidedly opposed to the Revolution in the beginning, but adopted quite different views later. The most striking instance is that of John Ettwein, who became the most conspicuous and important man in Bethlehem long before he was made a bishop, was generally the representative of the place and of the Moravian Church in dealings with the civil and military authorities during the war, was more widely known among public men than any other Moravian and, not- withstanding his outspoken disapproval of revolutionary steps beiore he was politically converted, commanded the general respect and confidence of high officials by his stalwart honesty, dauntless courage and unassuming simplicity of deportment. Among the Moravian ministers generally, the most decided Tory of whose utterances the records of the time preserve specimens, was the Rev. Gustavus Shewkirk, pastor of the New York Church and later a missionary bishop in the West Indies, whose diary is probably one of the most complete chronicles of conditions and events in that city during the period it covers, to be found in any one source. Other ministers at Bethlehem and elsewhere, while preserving their characteristic quiet caution in reference to public questions, and endeavoring to hold the people, so far as possible, to the old position of orderly subjection to the authorities of the time and non-participation in pohtical agita- tions, and then, when war actually came, to consistency with the avowed principles of the Church in the matter of bearing arms, by no means spoke against the struggle undertaken by the colonies. Some were disposed to recognize the hand of God stretched forth in the clouds to overrule and direct events for the higher good of the country, and to believe, from the beginning, that He was on the side of those who were struggling against oppression. As a rule 5 So Matthew S. Henry in his History of the Lehigh Valley. Mr. Henry could not have found any contemporaneous documentary evidence in support of this version which reflects sentiments towards the Moravian clergy, as a class, which were not uncommon among some, at the time when his history was written, and which the author seems to have shared, as appears in other parts of his work. 440 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. they considered it incumbent upon them, as representatives of a Church which formed one Unity compactly bound together, with its congregations and missions in many places under British dominion, and enjoying peculiar guaranteed privileges under that govern- ment, not, in any hour of revolt in one of these countries, when the issue was very uncertain, to suddenly renounce that allegiance to it which their brethren in other lands faithfully maintained. It was not possible for them to view the situation as men viewed it who did not consider, and were not supposed to consider, any kind of con- nections or obligations outside of those which presented themselves to their minds as citizens of their respective colonies. This, their peculiar position, brought on the most serious tribulation of all that fell to the lot of the Moravians, when the ordeal of the several test acts came to be applied. Men found it hard to understand the refusal of so many of them to "take the test," coming after their insistence upon their scruples against bearing arms, to mean anything else than a compact in Toryism, pure and simple. In the first stage of the conflict there were some among the busi- ness men of Bethlehem who gave unguarded expression to adverse sentiments and opinions which were remembered against them. Sometimes the unfortunate remark of one man, heard at the tavern, shop or mill, was carried about the country as the talk of all the Moravians. Few of them, however, were such rabid and indiscreet Tories as John Francis Oberlin, the store-keeper, a valuable but crochety and often troublesome man, with whom the authorities of the place more than once came into unpleasant conflict about various matters, and who is credited with saying that he had rope enough in his store to hang the entire Congress. A speech like that repeated about the neighborhood could do not a Httle harm, for much more attention was paid to it, as coming from a Moravian, than was given to similar and even harsher utterances by hundreds of other men. When the first agitation in the direction of raising a company of troops in Northampton County commenced, soon after the news of the battle of Lexington, in April, 1775, the Brethren appealed to the exemption from bearing arms granted them by the act of Parliament in 1749. Matters had not yet progressed far enough for them to realize that this would be treated with contempt and could not be expected to avail them in any wise under circumstances of revolt against that Government. It soon became clear to them, however, that this was of no use and that they had to meet the question on a 1772 1/?^- 441 new basis on which there was as yet no authoritative declaration or provision to meet their case. It is stated that on May 22, a meeting of the County Committee was held at Easton, at which it was vehem- ently insisted upon that they must either turn out and drill or appease the people by a public declaration of their principles. A week later a deputation waited upon Justice Jacob Arndt with the statement, to be made a matter of official record, that while they desired the good of the country and had no intention to place them- selves in opposition to the course of events, they claimed the liberty given them in all countries of exemption from military service, but would willingly bear their part of the public burden otherwise. On June 16, a declaration of principles, such as had been demanded, was adopted by a committee of the Common Council of the village, signed in behalf of that body and put in the hands of John Okely to be sub- mitted to the County Committee. This Committee resolved, on June 22, that, while they did not propose to force any one to drill, those who had scruples about it must nevertheless appear at the drill-ground or each time pay a fine in cash. An act of Assembly, providing for fines in lieu of military duty, had, meanwhile, been passed, and therefore those members of the Committee who had favored coercion were, in so far, thwarted, and more than that reso- lution set forth could not be demanded. Thus the first perplexity was met and the ground established on which the matter of militia duty was adjusted, if all should conclude to regularly pay the fines rather than drill. The excitement of the people in the neighborhood was intensified by the sight of numerous troops marching through towards Boston, during July and August, 1775. With few exceptions they touched Bethlehem, for it lay right in the line of march, on the highway of travel from the lower parts of Pennsylvania and from regions to the south of this Province up into New York. The first such company, one from York, Pa., came on July 8. Three companies of mounted rifle- men arrived on the 21st and halted several hours. Several of their officers remained over night and attended the evening service. On the 24th came two more such companies. The diarist of Bethlehem notes that one of the privates was expelled in disgrace for gross mis- behavior. In the evening a company arrived from Virginia, in com- mand of Captain Morgan. They remained over night and, by request. Ettwein preached a sermon to them in the evening. The chronicle states that they were so quiet and orderly that it was 442 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM. PENNSYLVANIA. hardly perceptible that there were soldiers at Bethlehem. The next day, soon after they left, a company arrived from Maryland under Captain Thomas Price, a cousin — says the diarist — of Alary Tiersch, wife of the Rev. Paul Tiersch, a former Assistant Principal of Naza- reth Hall and, in 1771, the first minister at Salem, North Carolina. They also attended service in a body in the evening and listened to an English sermon. On the 28th, another company of mounted men arrived from Virginia and proceeded on their way, after a rest of several hours. An August 10, a body of riflemen passed through, followed, on the 13th, by a company from Bedford County, all bound for the center of disturbance, about Boston. Then there was a lull in these first manifestations of incipient war, breaking in upon the peace of Bethlehem, until December i, when several of the British oflficers captured by General Montgomery's little army at St. Johns, Canada, arrived on their way to Philadelphia. They were fol- lowed on the 5th by two hundred soldiers of their command. These prisoners of war were quartered partly at the Sun and Crown Inns and partly in the large stone house of many names and uses, on Main Street — site of the Publication OfBce — which has been fre- quently referred to, spoken of at this time as "the former Institute." The next day another body of prisoners followed, so that about four hundred in all passed through. They only remained several days, and the record states that there was no cause for complaint about their conduct while they sojourned at Bethlehem. They were fol- lowed, January 30, 1776, by many of their wives and children, under guard, in four sleighs. Their distress awakened much compassion, as the cold was severe and their clothing insufficient. Extra cloth- ing, blankets and other necessities were furnished them for the remaining journey. The next day came upwards of twenty wagons, loaded with prisoners and luggage. They proceeded on their way, the day following, after John Okely, as Justice, had, in accordance with official instructions, pressed every available wagon into service for their further transportation. It seemed as if there would be no end to this caravan, for on February 3, upwards of fifty more passed through, followed the next day by several officers. Again on Feb- ruary 14, another company of prisoners, this time mostly French troops, arrived, and the next day went on to their quarters at Bristol. These men attended a service held for the children and purchased a considerable lot of needle-work and other goods in the Sisters House. After that there were no further visits of a militarv char- 17/2 17/8 443 444 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. acter until in July, excepting the passing through to New York of one company of riflemen, the first week in April. The conditions that existed at Bethlehem led the authorities of the place to increase the dwelling accommodations in every possible way. Some apart- ments were fitted up temporarily in various buildings, and several structures were converted from their former uses into permanent dwelling-houses. One of these was "the old stone stable on the former farm" of Bethlehem. This was the stone cottage yet stand- ing near the site of the first house, on Rubel's Alley, of various sub- sequent associations. It seemed as if this move to increase dwell- ings had resulted from a premonition that ere long emergencies would come upon Bethlehem when every habitable spot in the place would be called into requisition. Among the incidents of those months were two deaths that have interesting associations in different ways. The first, on March 7, 1776, was that of Christian Froehlich, the last of the Bethlehem pioneers living at the place. He had been engaged in his former occupation, as a sugar refiner, in New York, for twenty-four years, and had, shortly before his decease, come to Bethlehem to spend his declining days. The other, which caused much sorrow, was that, on April 19, of the Rev. Amadeus Paulinus Thrane, the gifted, eloquent and greatly beloved preacher and asso- ciate pastor {Ordinarius) since 1761. This position was now assumed by Ettwein, in connection with his other duties as assistant to Bishop Seidel, President of the Provincial Helpers' Conference. The latter also tilled the position of Head Pastor (Gcmcinhelfer) at Bethlehem, assisted by the Rev. Paul Muenster as subordinate pastor of the married portion of the Congregation. The Rev. Andrew Busse, an unmarried man, and chaplain of the Brethren's House, had the partic- ular pastoral charge of the single men, assisted by John Frederick Peter and Immanuel Nitschmann. Ettwein, at the same time, was yet filling another important office, as President of the village Board of Supervision in externals, assisted by de Schweinitz the Adminis- trator of the American property of the Unity or Church General. These, with the Rev. Jeremiah Dencke, the Warden of the Congre- gation, and the Rev. John Herman Bonn, the Warden of the Brethren's House, as previously stated, together with the Eldresses and Deaconesses of the Sisters' House and the Widows' House, made up, principally, the official personnel of Bethlehem in that historic year. The course of local affairs, on to May, 1776, suffered no disturb- ance traceable to the effects of the Revolution that had commenced, 1772 1778- 445 excepting some unsettling of prices which the doughty store-keeper, Oberhn, was taking advantage of, contrary to regulations, to make more profit than the village fathers thought was proper. A "painful deliberation" on the subject took place in the Elders' Conference in May. It was clear that he was overcharging the people of the place, as well as outside customers who would blame the village authorities. It was decided that Bishop Seidel should speak to Oberlin about this. The store-keeper had trouble enough later, on account of the scarcity of many commodities and the enormous prices that had to be paid, but at this time the advance was only speculative, as yet, and the business principles which then prevailed in Bethlehem did not permit specu- lation on prospective stringency, even in dealing with customers who came from the country to hear Tory talk and perhaps to get a glimpse of the alleged British powder and lead stored in the cellar of the village store, where the imaginary French ammunition was supposed to have been kept formerly. Many people from near and distant places were in Bethlehem during those weeks and the store, as well as the inn, undoubtedly did a thriving business. On May 6, John Penn again came to Bethlehem from Allentown, where he had probably been in consultation with Andrew Allen, and remained until the next day. He was perhaps contemplating the prospect of soon having to write Ichabod under the Penns' Arms that crowned the back of the Governor's chair. In January of the pre- vious year, the Pennsylvania Convention had approved the pro- ceedings of the first Continental Congress held in September before that. This had proven the entering wedge towards shattering the old Pennsylvania government. At the meeting of the decrepit Assembly in June, following that Convention, when the "Committee of Safety" was appointed, the temper of the subsequent "Associators" made itself felt in a fashion that boded little good for the old pro- vincial machinery; for this Committee, which represented the senti- ment at variance with the conservative party that was now the only strength of the old government, took matters largely into its own hands for the next twelve months, and, in May, 1776, the time now under review, the further existence even of the Assembly of Pennsyl- vania was rendered precarious by the resolution of the Congress^ recommending to the colonies to institute a government adapted to the needs of the hour. This action was communicated by Assembly- man Edmonds, in a letter to Bethlehem, and on May 28, a meeting of voting citizens was held to consider what, if anything, they, as 446 A HISTORY OF RETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. part of the people of one of the counties, should do in view of the "repudiation of the Assembly" by those in control, and the proposi- tion "to aboHsh the existing government" of the Province. It was observed at the meeting that everything was then turning on the question of declaring independence of England or not, and that those in Pennsylvania who were in favor of so doing would needs have the old Assembly out of the way. It was finally decided not to take any action in a distinct capacity as Moravians, but unite with other conservative inhabitants of the county in signing a proposed petition to retain the old government, provided such petition contained nothing contrary to their conscientious scruples. Nothing came of the petition. The futile effort was made by those who tried to preserve what they beHeved to be the proper legal method of pro- cedure, to have the proposed Convention called through the old Assembly, as then yet constituted. This action, though initiated, was not consummated. The Committee of Correspondence which had called the conference of the County Committees in Carpenters' Hall, in July, 1774, summoned them to another such conference which met on June 18, 1776, and took the initial steps to bring about a Con- vention for the formation of a new Provincial Government. The Assembly subsequently had several sessions, and a last meeting, feebly protested and then died. The current of events was irresistible. Before this Pennsylvania Convention assembled, the supreme hour had come when the new Continental Congress, convened on May 10, took the decisive step that necessarily ended Pennsylvania's Proprietary Government without further formalities, when the delegates of all the colonies signed the immortal document that introduced a new Nation to an astonished world, and made the Fourth of July, 1776, forever historic. On that very day the diarist of Bethlehem recorded how, when they had seen in the newspapers that the Congress had resolved to declare the Colonies free and independent States, their hearts were melted and they were exhorted by "Brother Nathanael" — Bishop Seidel — to remember the situation of things before the Lord. They then knew of the memorable resolution introduced by Richard Henry Lee on June 7, and, after protracted debate, voted on, July 2 — all approving excepting Delaware and four of Pennsylvania's seven delegates — that the "United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States ; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally 17/2 1778. 447 dissolved." Then again, on the 8th of July, when the public reading of the Declaration of Independence, signed in final form with the statement of reasons on the 4th, took place in Philadelphia, and the election of delegates to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of the 20th was held in all the counties, the diary of Bethlehem refers to both things ; but without comment, beyond the remark that, in the Northampton County election, the Brethren remained away, that the Associators carried everything, and that five German and three Irish farmers were elected. In the excitement of the hour, the Morav- ian leaders, like so many others in Pennsylvania who thought the steps taken premature and precipitate, came under the odium of being enemies of the Country because they favored upholding the Proprietary Government, against which, not many years before, the same class of men in the county who now^ denounced them for this reason, had persistently tried to prove them the secret conspirators. That they, as well as the few eminent public men who held and advocated this view and the large body of citizens w^io stood with them in it, were in error, as to the best policy of the hour and as to the Divine Providence in the events that were to work out the grand destinies of the Nation, of course, became clear before many years, and in due time was recognized by them. Meanwhile, however, every hasty and vehement man who happened to have placed himself on the right side of the question, considered it his privilege to decry them all in a body as the foes of the Country ; for it is always difficult, when feeling runs high and controversy is rife, for advocates of radical measures for reaching a desirable end to refrain from regarding every one who differs from their ideas about the methods and policies as, ipso facto, an opponent of the ultimate end sought. The lower down in combined intelligence and character men stand, the more violent and intolerant they naturally are in such issues ; and so those on the popular side who belonged to the rabble were the surest that it was their duty, as patriots, to despoil all who had indis- criminately been made odious as anti-revolutionists, no matter how innocent of any act or intrigue to the detriment of the cause, or even if they were more highly patriotic than themselves, but unfor- tunately thought the rights of their Country ought to have been longer struggled for in other ways. So it came to pass that while some troops who passed through Bethlehem, as already remarked, behaved respectfully, were willing to believe that the Moravians w'ere not dangerous people, and in 448 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. some cases even embraced the opportunity to attend Divine service in a body — for there were men who associated lofty and sacred ideas with the stern duties of the time that had called them to arms — a few other companies came with howling and cursing against "the Tory nest" that "ought to be burned down" and their officers found it difficult to restrain them, had to take measures to protect property, and had to place guards at the doors of the Sisters' House. So it came also that, throughout all the complications and embarrassments of their situation, the Moravians always met the most friendly, considerate and understanding treatment from the chief men who led the Revolution both in thought and action, and who bore its foremost responsibilities, both in the counsels of the Nation and the State and on the field of battle. Time and again, emergencies of a trying character were safely passed, by appeal from the perse- cution of some petty official of the county or subordinate in the army to the higher authorities. During the weeks that followed the Declaration of Independence a second season of slight hubbub came for Bethlehem, when some of the activities of war again touched the place. On July lo and ii, about twenty army wagons with numerous prisoners from Canada passed through. On the 15th, the wagon from Bethlehem, which made stated trips to Hope, N. J., was stopped, after it started from Easton on the return to Bethlehem, by several county militia officers and searched, under suspicion of containing ammunition for secret deposit. To their chagrin, they merely found several barrels of flour. On the 23d, Col. Kichline came from Easton to collect all the fire- arms at Bethlehem. Some yet remained stored at the place from the time of the Indian war. He would have taken every gun, but was induced to leave several, upon representation that the village should not be left utterly without a gun, so that "there would not even be one about to so much as kill a mad dog." He was followed on the 29th, by Col. George Taylor to make a further search for arms. On the 30th, a company of 120 men marched through from Allentown, bound for the Flying Camp in New Jersey. The urgent calls that now came to the militia of Northampton County to march to the field of action, produced the singular combination of results that, among many of them, there was, of a sudden, a marked disinclination to do so, some calling into question the authority that ordered them and some claiming to be only committed to home-guard duty ; while at the same time when such thus shrank from this first test, a new outcry 17/2 1778- 449 was raised against the Moravians for not turning out to drill. The latter had, on July 28, 1776, for the first time, omitted the mention of the King of England in the petitions of the Church litany, and sub- stituted special prayer for the Country. During the month of August, troops were continually marching through the place en route for the Flying Camp in New Jersey. The diary notes in reference to them reveal the variety of spirit in which these men went out to face the reahties of war. Some of them, when halting at Bethlehem, requested that religious services might be held and sermons preached for their benefit. In one case the officers are quoted as saying that it might be the last such opportunity of their lives. Ettwein usually officiated on these occasions and preached. In other cases they did not seem to take their situation, duties and prospects, so seriously. Several times the buoyant temper and gala- day manner of the militia were noted, as they came into the place with cheers and ringing martial music. Then again there was merely a quiet, plodding air — hilarious bravado, patriotic enthusiasm and serious emotion being all absent. The most of these companies were from Berks and Lebanon Counties, representing the various elements of the Pennsylvania rural districts, but mainly recruited from the sturdy German yeomanry of the region ; men with little brag and bluster and no blatant threats against the Tories, but with the making of good soldiers in them, all the more, who could be depended upon when it was rather a matter of work than of talk. Mention is occasion- ally made of particular individuals, mainly among the officers ; Cap- tain John Old, from Reading; Captain George Will, also of Berks County, who is referred to as a shoemaker and a native of Stettin, whose father, when a young man, had lived at Herrnhut ; Captain Daniel de Turk, of the family at Oley, where the first Indian converts of the Moravian Church were baptized in the barn of one of them ; Captain George May, from Reading, who, it is stated, was from Lan- gendiebach in the Wetterau and had, as he informed the ministers at Bethlehem, once worked at Herrnhaag, the abandoned Moravian settlement of that region. Two members of the Moravian Church," 6 It may be noted here that the strict compact to all refrain from participating in active military service did not extend beyond the exclusive church settlements, where it was believed that the maintenance of the theoretical character and purpose of these villages, so organized, required the taking of this position. A number of Moravians of the ordinary town and country congregations joined the militia. 30 450 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Sturgis and Guenther, are mentioned as among" the five companies from Lebanon who arrived on Augnst 17, and as having been shown special fraternal hospitality at Bethlehem. On Sunday, September i, Col. Balthaser Geehr, with his com- mand, the Fourth Battalion, from Berks County — about 400 men — suddenly arrived and the morning service was interrupted. At four o'clock they filed into the church — the present old chapel — filling the place, and Ettwein preached a sermon. It is stated that they all listened attentively and that the occasion was a very impressive one. Then, as the month of September advanced, some militia several times passed through in the other direction, having served their time and preferring to return home. An occasional straggling deserter put in an appearance. From such the first news of the disastrous battle of Long Island was received at Bethlehem, and on September 18, the word came that the British had occupied New York City and that the American forces had been defeated at Ticonderoga. Families connected with the Moravian Church in New York began to arrive and on the same day Col. Gruenewald with the Lebanon battalion again passed through the place on their return from Jersey. At the end of September, the diary refers to the completed work of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, to the last sessions of the old Assembly and to its vain resolutions in protest against the acts of the Convention which had legislated it out of existence. A new General Assembly was provided for, as the legislative body, and a Council of twelve as exec- utive, with a President chosen each year by joint ballot of the Assembly and the Council ; while a Covmcil of Censors, consisting of two from each city and county, was also provided for, as part of the proposed future governmental machinery of the State. The diary of 1776, in briefly noting the end of the Convention and the last acts of the Assembly, refers to the vain resolutions of the latter to ease the situation of non-Associators, and, on October i, observes that the annual election of Assemblymen went by default. On October 19, there was a consultation of those men in Bethlehem who according to an act of the old Assembly would now have to pay £3, 10 each, and it was decided to address the new authorities in the hope that relief might be secured from the new Legislature. None from Bethlehem attended the election of Inspectors and Committee- men on November 2, because they understood that the Associators would hold the election "according to battalions," and no non-Asso- 17/2 1778. 451 ciators would be permitted to vote without first taking the oath prescribed by the Convention. In November there were again deHberations on the subject of prices. On the 4th, a consulation was held with the masters of trades and the workmen, on the mooted question of raising both the price of wares and the wages. It was decided to do nothing in the matter before New Year, and the workmen agreed to this. On the 19th, the price of fuel was under discussion, people of the neighborhood having greatly increased this. It was resolved to fix the price of hickory wood at twelve shillings and that of oak wood at nine shillings per cord, and an understanding to this effect was had with all concerned. Now the sky began to grow darker and storms filled the air. On November 20, 1776, the news of the capture of Fort Washington reached Bethlehem through Col. Taylor, who came from Easton to get certain fire-arms yet deposited in the ofBce of John Okely, the Justice. A week later. Lieutenant Cleveland and Col. Preston are mentioned in the records as in Bethlehem, followed by many other ofhcers, and a report came that British prisoners from Reading and Lancaster were to be brought through Bethlehem. "From Phila- delphia we heard nothing but dread and fear," says the diary. New excitement was occasioned in the neighborhood by an emergency call for the militia of the county yet awaiting orders. As a soft note, char- acteristic of normal Bethlehem, in the midst of the discordant sounds of those days, drops in the record, on November 30, that David Tanneberger had set up the new organ in the Brethren's House. Then, like a sudden clap of thunder from a bolt sent down bv the gathering storm upon that very house, came in the afternoon of December 3, the announcement that the General Hospital of the Con- tinental Army was to be at once moved to Bethlehem and was on the way. In the evening Director General of the hospitals, Dr. Wil- liam Shippen, and Surgeon General John Warren arrived, after Dr. Cornelius Baldwin, who had prelceded them, had announced his instructions to make preparations.' Ettwein and the Warden Dencke assured them of the readiness of the Brethren to put all the avail- 7 Two official missives were received at Bethlehem that afternoon ; one from Dr. John Warren, Surgeon General and Acting Director, and the other, supplementary to it, brought by Dr. Baldwin from the Committee of Northampton County. They were the following : Easton, Decem'r 3d 1776. Gent'n. You will see by the Letter herewith sent, that the General Hospital of the Army is ordered to be at Bethlehem. We therefore request you that you would be aiding and assist- 452 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. able room at their disposal, but begged for such arrangements as would not, if possible, demoralize the accustomed routine. This was promised. It is observed in the record that this move was evi- dently pre-arranged, for it was known at large in Philadelphia before it was announced at Bethlehem, "whether with good or evil intent God knows." It is furthermore remarked that the prevailing feeling at once was to submissively acquiesce ; if there was evil intent on the part of those who first planned the arrangement, to overcome it with good, and to take encouragement in this good from the daily text of the Church, which very significantly was the passage in the Saviour's parable relating to bringing in the poor, the maimed, the halt and the bhnd. As to the plan, whatever part any county officials may have had in first drawing attention to Bethlehem, as a desirable point for a hospital, and whatever thought they may have entertained of thus giving the Moravians something to bear in addition to paying fines in lieu of military service, it was not unnatural that the Medical Com- mittee, or whoever, primarily, had the responsible selection of such sites in charge, should have had an eye upon this place, with its large buildings located outside the zone of disturbance. It was not unreasonable, either, to expect the Bethlehem people to bear this kind of a burden in the extremity, for this did not call for any viola- ing to Doct'r Baldwin who waits upon you with this, and who is come for the purpose of procuring suitable accommodations for the sick, to furnish him with such proper accommo- dations as Bethlehem can afford. By order of the Committee, Abraham Berlin, To the Rev. Nath. Seidel, Chairman. Bethlehem. To the Committee of the Town of Bethlehem, or others whom it may Concern : Gentlemen : According to his Excellency General Washington's Orders, the General Hospital of the Army is removed to Bethlehem, and you will do the greatest act of humanity by immediately providing proper buildings for their reception, the largest and most capacious will be the most convenient. I doubt not, Gentlemen, but you will act upon this occasion as becomes Men and Christians ; Doct'r Baldwin, the Gentleman who waits upon you with this, is sent upon the Business of Providing proper Accommodations for the sick; begging therefore that you will afford him all possible Assistance, I am Gentlemen, Your most obedient humble servant, Hanover Gen'l Hospit'l. John Warren, December i, 1776. GenU Hospifl Sitrg'n and P. T. Direct. 1772 1778. 453 tion of scruples about bearing arms or taking oath, and appealed to the sentiments of humanity in a way regarded as quite in accordance with their professed character and mission. They at once so viewed it, and the readiness with which the preparations were commenced for receiving the hospital in the Brethren's House — in every way the most suitable of the large buildings — manifestly gratified, and pos- sibly surprised the hospital authorities. Whereas, at first the intention had been to bring right to Bethlehem the entire number of patients destined for the Forks of the Delaware — -half of the thousand then in the Morristown hospital — it was now concluded not to unduly burden the village and leave the neighboring places, which had also been had in view as possible sites, undisturbed. Therefore, it was decided to assign to Bethlehem, for the time being, a quota of about two hundred and fifty and to quarter the rest of the five hundred, to be conveyed across the Delaware, at Easton and Allentown. It appears that eventually the whole number brought to the three places was less than five hundred. Doubtless some were found to be beyond the possibility of removal from Morristown and others probably succumbed on the way, for two died in the wagons after they reached Bethlehem, before they could be carried into the house. Several dwelling-rooms and other apartments in the Brethren's House had been vacated and gotten into readiness, the next day, and on December 5, the wagons began to arrive with their freight of poor, suffering men. Yet more came the following day. Their pitiable condition, aggravated by the cold weather and the hardships of the journey, awakened the deepest commiseration at Bethlehem, and all possible effort was made to provide them with the first necessary comforts. The stores for the hospital did not arrive until three days after the first patients reached the place. While the hospital was being estabhshed, a number of officers and straggling squads of militia passed through, who had come from Ticonderoga. On this occasion the village had its first sHght exper- ience of disorderly conduct, for they were of the rougher element, were in a demoralized and reckless mood and ready, upon the slightest pretext, to create tumult. Ettwein observes that, in connection with this episode, the presence of the army hospital with the body of officers and escorts attached, proved, at the very beginning, to be a safe-guard for Bethlehem, making amends for the burden its presence occasioned. The single men were not compelled to vacate the entire building. Some apartments in several other houses had to be fitted up for the 454 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. reception of special cases ; there being several minor officers and at least one commissioned officer among the suffering caravan. This was Col. Isaac Reed, of the Fourth Virginia Regiment, who had sent a surgeon in advance of his arrival to secure him private quarters, which were furnished him over the store in the Horsiield house. Word was, furthermore, received that many additional sick were to be brought from Trenton. Some of these arrived on the afternoon of December 8, but remained on the south side of the river. They were temporarily quartered at the Crown Inn, or one of the near-by structures. The inn, which, in the financial settlements of 1771, had become the property of the Bethlehem Diacony, had been leased to August Henry Francke, a member of the Pezold colony of 1754, who at this time had charge of it. Two of these unfortunate men died while lying there. There is no reference to their interment, and their names are not known. Perhaps they wjere added to those whose remains reposed in the little cemetery of the south side, on the hill. The previous day, December 7, the first two men died in the hospital. A spot was selected for their interment on the bluff across the Monocacy, back of the Indian House. There, subsequently, hundreds of graves were filled by the bodies of unnumbered and unregistered patriot dead. On December 10, Ettwein commenced the duties of a chaplain in the hospital, by official arrangement, in addition to all the other cares and responsibilities he had to bear which were onerous ; Bishop Seidel being in failing health and incapable of vigorous leadership, and the other men associated with him in the pastorate not being adapted to the extraordinary duties of such a situation, or not sufficiently conversant with English. As regularly as possible he made semi- weekly visits to all the wards, praying beside the rude pallets of suffering and dying men, comforting the hearts of those who were professors of Christian faith, pointing those who were not to the Friend of sinners, and statedly preaching sermons, as the circum- stances permitted. Now, in addition to the turmoil already prevailing, the panic in Philadelphia was causing many of the persons who had fled from the city to make their way to Bethlehem, as others from New York and the adjacent parts had been doing; while various officers and the wives and children of others arrived. Among these was the family of Dr. Shippen, whose little son, William Lee, died at Bethlehem and was buried in the cemetery of the place. Among those who arrived on December 15, was General Horatio Gates, then 1772 1778. 455 the ranking Division Commander under Washington. His presence was of vakie to Bethlehem during the following days of great confusion and even of peril at one time, from the danger of a stampede upon the place by a great horde of impetuous and crude soldiery. About noon, on December 17, word came that General John Sullivan with several thousand troops was on the march towards Bethlehem and desired to have a supply of bread baked for his men. With the resources of the place already taxed as they were, this was not possible. General Gates sent an Adjutant to meet them and tell them to cross the river and camp in the Saucon Valley. This was not heeded, perhaps by reason of conflict of authority and some of^cial jealousy between Gates and SuUivan at that time. In the evening three or four thousand of these troops camped near Bethlehem, but beyond burning up nearly all the fencing on both sides of the river to keep warm on that cold night, and foraging for hay, they made no inroads upon the property of the place, and the next day they marched on. General Gates took various precautions to obviate dis- turbances that night. Among other things, he posted guards at all the doors of the Sisters' House. There were reasons for such meas- ures. The main body of these men were those who had before been under command of that unprincipled military ruffian, General Charles Lee, of questionable fame, who had lately had himself captured by the British, and whose command had been turned over to a more worthy successor in General SulHvan. Lee had made rough boasts of what he would have his men do to the Tory town of Bethlehem, and had even made a wicked allusion to the Sisters' House as a special attraction, thus fostering among the troops not only entirely erroneous ideas about the place, but even base designs upon it. Instead of all this, the men, under another General, left everything untouched, beyond — as stated — burning the fences around them while in camp, with no kind of shelter, and appropriating some food for the horses, neither of which things were censurable under the circumstances of war. Their commander, accompanied by thirty other officers, instead of rioting at the place, spent part of the even- ing sitting quietly in the church, listening to sacred music. Among men of high rank in Bethlehem at this time the records mention, besides the names of Gates and Sullivan, those of Arnold, Glover and Sterling. The Sun Inn was crowded with officers that night, December 17, 1776. Twelve were lodged in the old Community House, which had become the Clergy House of the place, for, with 456 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the exception of several rooms, all of its apartments were now occu- pied by the families of ministers employed in various capacities. Ettwein records that between five and six hundred men of the army and connected with the hospital were under roof in Bethlehem that night, besides the thousands of troops bivouacking in the near-by fields. General Gates left with the troops he had under command on December 19, but the next evening a company of about a hundred and fifty arrived from Albany and spent the night. They left the next day. Gradually the condition of Bethlehem became more quiet again for a season. Christmas Eve services were held as usual and nearly the entire hospital staff was present. Dr. Shippen and most of the surgeons left for the army on Christmas Day, in response to a sum- mons from headquarters. Dr. John Morgan, another prominent hospital physician, with several others, went away to New England soon after New Year. Dr. James Houston, whom Ettwein praises as the most skillful and attentive of the whole staff, remained, with several assistants, until the middle of March. During those weeks the regular round of services was maintained through all the turmoil with but few interruptions, showing the determination of the people not to give way to demoralizing influences if possible. On New Year Eve they gathered quietly at ten o'clock to hear the memora- bilia of the year, according to custom, and even held the usual vigils at midnight without any unseemly interruption. During those exciting weeks, carpenters and laborers of the place were busily employed in making coffins and digging graves on the hill across the Monocacy; for disease, with the effects of exposur^ and hardship, was working sad havoc among the sufferers in the hos- pital. According to the count kept by Ettwein, sixty-two died dur- ing December, and when the last inmates were removed on March 27, 1777, and the hospital was closed, the number had reached a hun- dred and ten. They were all buried at that place. Besides this work that was done gratuitously by the workmen of Bethlehem, certain of the single men who continued to occupy quarters in a part of their house voluntarily lent much assistance to the hospital stewards, in their unpleasant and trying duties, with the desire to help alleviate the misery of the patients as much as possible. On one day, Sunday, December 22, five deaths occurred. Among the men in that long list of the Nation's unnamed martyrs, three are referred to by Ettwein as special objects of his solicitous attention near the close of Decem- 1772 1778. 457 ber. Their names were Preuss, a Tyrolese; Nathaniel McNee and Thomas Powell. During the first three months of 1777, Bethlehem was several times in quite serious danger from undisciplined and lawless militia who had been stirred up against the place by the agitation of embit- tered men and the wild stories set afloat, which in such times found ready credence among excited people who were not in a position to know the facts of the case. During those months, the guard of upwards of a hundred men left at the place while it was occupied by the Continental Hospital, having their barracks near the saw-mill, on the Sand Island, were of great value as its protectors against depredation and its defenders against calumny. They were disci- plined and trustworthy men and had learned to know the principles, motives and character of the Bethlehem people. Grateful acknowl- edgement of their services in this respect is made in the records. It is not much to the credit of some of the people who, during the Indian war, had made Bethlehem their place of refuge, when they were panic-stricken, and had experienced treatment as kind as if they had never been anything but friends, that instead of remembering that and having better feelings towards the Moravians than they had been cherishing before that, they were now, with their boys, who had grown up to be men, principally the people who fostered this vindictive spirit wherever their influence extended. From the town- ships to the west of Bethlehem the militia who planned those preda- tory sallies upon Bethlehem mainly hailed. The latter part of February, 1777, a new experience came, when a large quantity of continental stores were brought to Bethlehem for temporary deposit under guard. This was thought by some, at first, to increase the danger of the place ; but, on the contrary, it enhanced its importance as a point to be protected by both civil and military authorities. At the same time, however, small-pox broke out among the soldiers, and a general inoculation took place among them and among the children of Bethlehem. During April and May, various prominent officers again visited the town, and on May 9, Lady Wash- ington was expected at the place by a mounted guard sent to escort her to Philadelphia, but she had pursued her journey down the coun- try from the Delaware by another road and did not, on this occasion, pass Bethlehem. During the spring, the names of Generals John Armstrong. Philip Schuyler and Joseph Reed appear in the records, as visitors who had not before been at the place, and on June 25, 458 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. General Thomas Mifflin, who in 1790 became the first Governor of Pennsylvania under the constitution, arrived to make better provi- sion for guarding the continental stores, and to establish arrange- ments for the arrest of deserters from the army who ventured into the neighborhood. Quartermaster Robert Lettis Hooper, now on duty in Northampton County, received these orders at Bethlehem. The latter had caused a slight panic on May 12, by the statement that Bethlehem was listed as one of the interior points of rendezvous for the Continental Army, in the event of repulse and retreat. On July 25, consternation was produced by the announcement that the army was really in motion towards the neighborhood, and a demand for all available boats and wagons at Easton was sent through the country. But three days later it was learned that its crossing-place was farther down the Delaware. Before this call for boats and wagons, already the middle of May, there had been a collection of blankets for the army. The quota to be furnished by Northampton County was 167. Bethlehem supplied 27 of these, a number declared satisfactory by the Commissioners ; and they were gotten without the necessity of any search or compulsion, such as was required in some other parts of the county. During the summer of 1777, members of Congress from the New England States, on their way to Philadelphia, visited Bethlehem and looked about the place with much interest, for it had acquired associations in connection with the experiences of the preceding year that made it an object of curiosity to many public men who before had given it no thought. One interesting person who appears upon the scene at this time is the loyalist soldier-preacher. Captain Thomas Webb, often styled "the Father of Methodism in America." He came to Bethlehem from Philadelphia on May 31, 1777, as a pris- oner of war on parole, with his family of seven persons. His per- mit restricted him to a radius of six miles about Bethlehem. He remained until February 22 and his wife until August 12, 1778. They were given quarters in "Lindemeyer's rooms" and when these were demanded in September for quartering officers among the British prisoners of war, they moved into the "William Boehler house." During the months of his sojourn he occasionally preached to pris- oners and every Sunday at the house of the Widow Cruickshank, on the south side of the river. He also officiated at her funeral on November 26. A sojourner to whom the Bethlehem people had become personally attached was the brave and patient sufferer Col. 1772 1778. 459 Isaac Reed, of Virginia, who, as already stated, had arrived with the hospital caravan in December, and been given a room "over the store." On June 22, he was carried by some Bethlehem men down to the ferry and, accompanied by tw^o of them and his physician. Dr. Alexander Skinner, and Mr. Sutton, paymaster, was conveyed in a sedan chair to Philadelphia. His death there, on August 21, is referred to in the Bethlehem diary. He was of much service at Bethlehem through his counsel and influence with guards and offi- cers of militia companies, in preventing both inadvertent disorder and wilful annoyance. During the summer of 1777, the hardships of the Test Act began again to press heavily upon the Moravians, as upon so many others in Pennsylvania who declined to take the oath. The Congress, in June, made the demand more stringent than before. This had become a stern necessity, for the obstacles put in the way of the patriot cause by the machinations of its open and secret enemies were felt keenly. Many members of Congress, even some of those who favored the most drastic measures with such persons, would, as they repeatedly declared, have gladly so discriminated as to spare people like those of the Moravian settlements — from whom they were convinced no danger was to be feared — from feeling its rigors. But it was not possible to pass different acts for dififerent classes of people who had not abjured the King and taken the oath of allegi- ance to the United States ; and even if this had been possible, it would not have been feasible, as was pointed out, on account of the fierce resentment it would have aroused in some quarters, as among those in Northampton County who really wished to see the Mora- vians at Bethlehem, more than any other class or kind of non-Asso- ciators, feel its weight, and who now took advantage of the new Act to institute a process of petty hounding and harrying, more relent- less than before. It far exceeded anything such persons had engaged in during the crusade against the Indian missions, for more was now possible and more would be publicly condoned. The Act, as it now stood, left them with practically no protection or redress at law. and with nothing to fall back upon but such measure of good will as they might enjoy and the overruling Providence of God. Under these circumstances, when the darkest time of the Revolution drew on, towards the close of 1777, the presence of disciplined and trustworthy soldiers on duty at the place became, instead of a hardship, their best human safeguard. 460 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Whether the Brethren were justified in thus standing so stoutly by their principles and scruples in this matter and endeavoring to hold all who might have yielded, together on this ground, may well be questioned ; for the time was past when further loyalty to the King could fairly have been regarded as a religious duty, and the provision that affirmation might take the place of an oath, in formally trans- ferring allegiance, removed the scruple about taking oath. That under the increasing tension and the exasperating struggle against Tory intrigues, becoming almost desperate, so many who were in the thick of the fight or laboring under the tremendous responsibili- ties of the time continued to have unshaken confidence in them and to view their attitude leniently, is remarkable. That some leading men in the county who respected them and had been personally their friends, began to lose patience and make less effort to restrain the hot-headed zealots and the rabble, is not surprising. Many Mora- vians at other places took the test and remained just as good people as they were before. In view of all this, it is a matter of astonish- ment that they passed through the ordeal unscathed, beyond the frightful bleeding to which they were unmercifully subjected in the matter of miUtia fines. It stands as a notable instance of how inno- cence of evil intent and sincerity of motive are often taken care of by the unseen hand. As the autumn of 1777 drew on, Bethlehem again began to feel the effects of a new excitement and apprehension. Early in August, Philadelphia was in a panic in consequence of the movements of the British fleet, off the Capes of the Delaware. On August 4, came an impressment of wagons — two hundred from the county, of which number four were taken from Bethlehem — to convey women and children from the city. A week later it is noted that about three thousand wagons had been collected there. Those from the neigh- borhood of Bethlehem were returned, August 12. As an instance of the price to which some indispensable commodities had risen, with the continental currency steadily depreciating, it is noted that a bushel of salt cost at this time $22. One of the Bethlehem wagons brought along a supply purchased at this price. Frederick Beitel, the wagon-master at Bethlehem, was, at this time, continually on the road in the continental service and participating in the turmoil of travel and transportation. Now it was to transport sick officers, then official baggage or continental stores, and again British pris- oners of rank, that he was called out for. 1772 ^77^- 4^1 On August 23, General Nathaniel Green and General Henry Knox, who with some other officers had ridden into Bethlehem to enjoy a few hours of quiet, were hastily summoned by an express to return to camp, for the British were landing south of Philadel- phia. Two days after this sensation, twenty British officers passed through from Reading as prisoners of war, and on September 2, before daylight, a messenger brought the announcement from there that, by order of the Board of War, 260 British prisoners were to be brought to Bethlehem to be kept here under a strong guard. Late in the afternoon came Quartermaster Hooper, Sheriff Jennings and County Lieutenants Wetzel and Deshler to select quarters for them. These County Lieutenants were supposed to have been instrumental in bringing this upon the place, as a kind of grim irony, giving the Moravians some of the King's troops as guests. Wetzel in particular — himself once a member of the Moravian Church, grad- uated from that early school for naughty boys in the Long Swamp and then on the south side at Bethlehem — was the most relentless in harassing the Moravians. He was a man of surly and dogged dispo- sition and, moreover, like several of the neighboring squires appointed by the new Assembly, such as Morey and Hartman, who were also particularly diligent in over-officiously worrying Bethlehem about the test oath, was greatly exalted by a sense of the authority with which he was dressed. The next day, the oft-mentioned large stone house — former "Anstalt," now "Family House" — was selected. Protests avaiHng nothing, an appeal was sent by express to the Board of War at Philadelphia. The answer received three days later left nothing to do but to make the best of it.^ The water works became barracks for the guard. Three families had to vacate their apartments in the large house ; the Administrator, deSchweinitz. who moved into the old Community House with the other clergy ; Cap- tain Webb, who was occupying the Rev. Henry Lindemeyer's rooms. War Office, September 5, 1777. 8 Gentlemen : The Board have received a representation from you in behalf of the inhabitants of Bethlehem. They are extremely sorry that any inconvenience should arise from the execu- tion of an order of theirs relative to the prisoners to be stationed at Bethlehem. But the necessity of the case requires the measure, and the good people of your town must endeavor to reconcile the matter as well as they can. If the guards or persons employed deport them- selves improperly, any grievance the inhabitants complain of on this account will be im- mediately redressed ; and as soon as circumstances will admit, the prisoners will be removed. Richard Peters, Secretarv. 462 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. into William Boehler's house, as already stated, on the present Mar- ket Street, between the store and the present Main Street, and old Thomas Bartow, who, like many others, had moved to Bethlehem for rest some time before, took the room over the store, lately vacated by Col. Reed. On Sunday, September 7, at noon, 218 of these prisoners, consisting largely of Highlanders, arrived. The scene between the Brethren's House and the Sun Inn was one of turmoil, with a constant din on that Sunday afternoon, as the records state, while much apprehension was caused by the sound of distant cannonading at the same time. Four days later, came the collision on the Brandywine Creek, which resulted adversely to the patriot forces. On the evening of the 13th, the report came to Bethlehem that General Washington had to fall back upon Philadelphia. On the i6th, Major General Baron John de Kalb, while considering the flattering proposition of the Congress, in reference to which he had misgivings on the ground of possible slight to his chivalrous and brilliant friend, the young Marquis de La Fayette, with whom he had come over to aid the American cause, visited Bethlehem. Wliile here, examining the institutions of the place, he wrote a letter on September 18, in refer- ence to his position, to Richard Henry Lee, which reveals his high- minded and honorable sentiments.'* He was accompanied to Beth- lehem by three French officers. On the same day John Okely, who served for a while as an Assistant Commissary in Northampton County, received an ofificial letter from David Rittenhouse, member of the Board of War and State Treasurer, communicating the instruc- tions of General Washington to transfer the military stores to Beth- lehem. With this message, thirty-six wagons arrived from French Creek, laden with such stores. They were followed the next day by thirty-eight wagons. These supplies were deposited at the lime kilns near the Monocacy, a little to the north of the town, under a guard of forty troops. September i8th, a continual train of army wagons came into the place. A troop of raw and unruly militia came from Easton, bringing some Tories who had been arrested. Their character, the nature of their errand and the general confusion led 9 This letter from Bethlehem, preserved in the Dreer collection, was first published in 1890, by Dr. J. G. Rosengarten in The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States. Baron de Kalb fell in battle for the American cause in August, 1780. His presence, as an aid to the Revolutionary movement, seems to have particularly attracted the thoughtful attention of Ettwein. He, like von Steuben, Pulaski, and others of that notable group of foreign officers, manifested special interest in Bethlehem. 1772 1778. 463 them to indulge in unrestrained boisterousness, shooting in all directions, and causing general uneasiness. On the iQtli, other wagons arrived, bringing more dangerous freight — quantities of ammunition and material for the preparation of more — which was temporarily unloaded near the oil-mill. In the great variety of things transported from Philadelphia during those days were the bells of Christ Church, other church bells, and especially the now so sacredly historic State House bell that had pealed forth the announcement of independence. These — at least some of them — were conveyed, September 24, to Allentown and secreted in the cellar of Zion's Church. Somewhere, towards the descent to the mill, in the large open space in front of the Brethren's House, then spoken of as 'Wrr Plats" or the Square, ^^ the wagon conveying the "Independence Bell" broke down and this piece of freight, then already considered precious on account of its associa- tions, had to be unloaded for a while.^^ 1° Its boundaries were the house of the Single Brethren, now the middle building of the Young Ladies' Seminary, the line of the water-tower house, where the Moravian Church now stands, the apothecary's house and shop, now Simon Rau & Co., and the large stone Family House above it ; the line of the stabling to the north, where now the Eagle Hotel stands, and to the west the row of industrial establishments, where the present row of buildings on Main Street, west side, extends from the hotel down to the Seminary corner. II The "Liberty Bell," visited Allentown November 3, 1893, on its return from the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, was honored by a patriotic demonstration and permitted to remain over night in remembrance of its sojourn there, as commonly supposed, during the darkest days of the Revolution. The next day it was viewed and cheered by a throng in the rain at the railway station at Bethlehem, whence it was taken back to Philadelphia. The fortunes of war, which in September, 1777, brought these Philadelphia bells to the square in front of the Brethren's House of Bethlehem, at the same time terminated the history of a bell-foundery in the cellar of that house, when they converted it, the second time, into a military hospital. Matthias Tommerup, brazier and bell-founder, mentioned in a previous chapter, a native of Holstebroe in Jutland, Denmark, who came to Bethlehem in 1 761, established his handicraft in the basement of the house in which he and his fellow bachelors lived and wrought. His first product was probably the small prayer and refectory bell of the house, with, perhaps soon after that, April 5, 1762, a heavier cast, a bell for Bethabara, the first Moravian settlement in North Carolina. The Widows' House was furnished with a small bell similar to the first. July 29, 1768, he cast a more pretentious bell of 236 pounds for the Easton Court House. Then, in 1769, he turned out another, which, for many years, was the Allentown Academy bell. It bore the legend : " Matt. Tommei-iip, Bethlcheni,fuer Leoti. Harbatel n. Salome Berlin, ijdg.''^ It seems to have been first used on Zion's Church. Perhaps those persons were the donors. The bell is now in possession of Mr. Joseph Ruhe, of Allentown, who purchased the old Academy property, and whose residence, north-west corner of Eighth and Walnut Streets, occupies its site. Tommerup's last bell, doubtless — he moved to Christiansbrunn, September, 1777, and died 464 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. But more important and productive of more consequences than any of these arrivals was a letter^^ from the Director General of the Continental Hospitals brought to Ettwein by Dr. Hall Jackson on the evening of September 19, 1777. A second time Bethlehem had to furnish hospital accommodations, and for a much longer period, with far more of misery and havoc than the first time. Steps were imme- diately taken to put the Brethren's House, and this time the whole of it, at the disposal of the hospital authorities. The awful situation of the time was recognized as one that called for unhesitating co-operation in every effort to mitigate the distress of the suffering. The next day, September 20, the single men vacated their house. Some of them were given quarters in various dwelling houses of the village, others removed to the Brethren's House at Christiansbrunn and to Nazareth. Meanwhile, one caravan after another of soldiers came streaming into the place, in consequence of the exodus from Philadelphia, when it was clear that it would fall into the hands of the British, and Bethlehem became a scene of wild confusion, as never before. Dr. William Brown, of the hospital staff, arrived on that day and inspected the building turned over for their use. there, February 22, 1778 — was a recast, July 26, 1776, a little more than a month before the first hospital invasion — after two unsuccessful attempts, and after overcoming the difficuhy with the old and added new metal by throwing in some silver — of the largest of the three bells cast in 1746 by Samuel Powell and hung in the little bell turret of the, at present, so- called Bell House on Church Street. In the recasting, its weight was increased from 116 to 228 pounds. That historic bell, distinguished through all the years by having a succession of women as its ringers, hangs there yet, its tones, so familiar to six generations of Bethle- hemites, yet calling children to school and telling the organist when to begin playing at the evening services in the adjoining Old Chapel. Its long service as "quarter bell," 11.45 a.m., to cheer the laborer by daily announcing " dinner soon," ceased in March, 187 1. 12 My D'r Sir : It gives me pain to be obliged by order of Congress to send my sick and wounded Soldiers to your peaceable village — but so it is. Your large buildings must be appropriated to their use. We will want room for 2000 at Bethlehem, Easton, Northampton (Allentown), etc., and you may expect them on Saturday or Sunday. I send Dr. Jackson before them that you may have time to order your affairs in the best manner. These are dreadful times, consequences of unnatural wars. I am truly concerned for your Society and wish sincerely this stroke could be averted, but 'tis impossible. I beg Mr. Hasse's assistance — love and compliments to all friends from, my d'r Sir, Your affectionate humble Serv't Trenton Sep. 18, 1777. W. Shippen, D. G. John Christian Hasse referred to in the letter was accountant, scrivener and Notary Public at Bethlehem. 1772 1778. 465 Four members of Congress came in the evening, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Cornehus Harnett and William Duer. The next day, Sunday, the 21st, Henry Laurens arrived, who in Novem- ber following became President of Congress. His favorable dispo- sition towards the Moravian settlements and his relations of intimate personal friendship with Ettwein, proved of inestimable value to Bethlehem and to the interests of the Brethren generally. On that day and the next came other Congressmen, John Hancock, Samuel and John Adams, Nathan Brownson, James Duane, Eliphalet Dyer, Nathaniel Folsom, Joseph Jones, Richard Law, Henry Marchant and William Williams. General William Woodford, who became a particular friend of the Moravians, and General John Armstrong are also mentioned as arriving on that day. Another came, to whose personality and sojourn at Bethlehem a special interest and some- what of romance attached. This was the brave and gallant young French nobleman, the Marquis de La Fayette, whose devotion of himself and his fortune to the cause of American freedom remains one of the finest features of the sublime struggle. Wounded in the bloody conflict at Brandywine, which sent such a ghastly train to Bethlehem, he came with a suite of French officers to seek medical care at this place. From the Sun Inn he was taken to the neighbor- ing house of George Frederick Boeckel,^^ superintendent of the Bethlehem farm. There he was attentively nursed by Boeckel's wife Barbara and daughter Liesel, and pretty little stories with varia- tions, connected with his sojourn under that roof, were current among the local traditions many years afterward. While at Beth- lehem, he occupied some of the tedious hours in reading Cranz's His- tory of Greenland and the Moravian missions in that country, in which he became much interested. He remained until October 18. The wounded soldiers began to arrive on September 21, and, day after day, they came, besides many sick, until when, on October 22, a final train of wagons arrived with their loads of groaning sufiferers, they had to be sent to Easton. The surgeons refused to receive any more. There were then over four hundred in the Brethren's House and fifty in tents in the rear of it, besides numerous sick officers in other buildings. At first it was proposed by the surgeons to have the Widows' House or a part of the Sisters' House also devoted to hospital uses when the building they were occupying became crowded. Then the presence of the members of Congress proved 13 The site of the present confectionery of John F. Rauch, on Main Street. 31 466 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. <^^/^^^^ ^/^^/i^Cc.^^^ ^^SlX^Crc^^ ^^^/^^■^^ ^^a^^::^^^^ ^^^yA^-*^^^^^ ^'^p^C^^^^^^^^r^.^^rr /f^x^f^t^-de^d^- ^4^ <^v <-*-«. ^^^''^^--cfV yVa^^<^^l/^u1 Vs Si / / -- 1778. 48i Ettwein, who did not fear to resist what was clearly an assumption that could not be sustained. Some of the hospital physicians had their mess-room, during the winter, in the residence part of the full- ing-mill, leaving very contracted quarters for the master-fuller, James Hall, and his wife. In that part of the building Dr. Moses Scott, of the hospital staff, with the aid of John Okely, had secured lodging also for a certain invalid civilian, William Carr, and his wife, of Philadelphia. Carr eventually died and was buried in the "stran- ger's row." The reason for the interest taken in them by the mili- tary officers at Bethlehem does not appear. The wife of Hall, the fuller, was taken seriously ill ; the room occupied by the Carrs was sorely needed, and they were asked to vacate. Carr appealed to Dr. Samuel Finley and he to Col. John Cropper, who had succeeded Col. Wood in command at Bethlehem. Col. Cropper issued instructions that Carr was not to be removed until he gave orders. Ettwein's spirit was stirred within him by this arbitrary attempt to exercise jurisdic- tion over Bethlehem property, not under military control, and denied the Colonel's right to issue such orders, declaring that the room was needed and Carr — for he did not belong to the army — must move at once. The result was that he was taken into the hospital by the doc- tors. ^'•^ Perhaps, in taking this peremptory stand and manifesting 19 An interesting souvenir of the case has survived among documents of that time in the Bethlehem archives, in the actual written communications that passed, all on one small sheet of paper that did service for the three parties to the correspondence. The notes — original autograph — on this sheet are as follows : (1) Sir : The bearer, Mr. Carr, is in possession of a Part of a House near the Fulling Mill, the owner of which wants him put out. He has applied to me for leave to stay until he is sufficiently well to shift for himself, as he is to all Intents and purposes an invalid. I have told him it was not in my power to do anything in his favour. He then desired me to write to you for advice and assistance, for if he is turned out he has no chance for having his cure completed. I am with respect your very humble serv't, Bethlehem, Jan. 6, 1778. Samuel Finley. Col. Cropper. (2) "In complyance with the request af's'd, these do certify that Mr. Carr is not to be moved until my orders. Given under my hand at Bethlehem 6th Janu. John Cropper Lieut. Col." (3) " Col. Cropper has none to command in Bethlehem but his soldiers. Therefore we cannot receive his orders Mr. Carr does not belong to the Hospital : we want the place where he is, and he must move without delay. John Ettwein." (4) At the bottom of the sheet in Ettwein's handwriting : " N.B. Was directly fetched away by Mr. Finley into the Hospital.' 32 482 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. little sympathy for the Carrs, Ettwein acted on knowledge of circum- stances connected with their being there which caused the Colonel and the doctors to recede, and that are not alluded to in the reference to the incident, in the records, for all kinds of people were then in Bethlehem. The preparations for the removal of the hospital advanced slowly, but, at last, early in April, 1778, the welcome word came that now it would take place without further delay. General Lachlin Mcintosh, a Georgia ofificer, was commissioned to superintend the transfer. He arrived in Bethlehem just before Palm Sunday, April 12, for this pur- pose. It is recorded that he and sundry other officers attended the services on that day. The removal of the remaining sick began at once, and on Tuesday of the Passion Week, April 14, the last of the invalids was taken away. The building which had harbored so much suffering, wretchedness and squalor was closed and left standing, gloomy and silent, in battered, feculent desolation, until June i. when the army authorities released it back to its owners. Then much time and labor, and considerable money were expended, to make the premises habitable again. The actual expenses thus incurred made up the bill of damages presented to the Government and paid.-*' The 2° The memorial presented to the Continental Congress in behalf of John Bonn, Warden, by his attorney, Lewis Weiss, Esq., of Philadelphia, October 23, 1779, with the vouchers showing the items of expense, is yet in existence. The petition was read in Congress* October 26, and referred to the Board of Treasury and, November 6, it was passed over to the Chamber of Accounts, with directions to adjust the accounts and report. The petition draws attention to the fact that no claim for rent and no damages incurred by the 115 single men through the long stoppage of the various trades carried on in their house, was included in the accounts. These, as summarized, were the following : z:^ s. d. J. C. Pyrlaeus, painting and glazing 188 15 6 H. Gerstberger, mason work and whitewashing. . . 76 5 J. Y. Gebes, scraping and scavenging 45 John Thomas, joiner work 21 George Schindler, carpenter work 6 7 6 Anton Schmidt, locksmith work 9 Ludwig Huebener, potter, 8 new tile stoves 12 Total in Penna. currency, 358 8 o The entire amount of war-claims known to have been presented by Bethlehem amounted to about ;^i75o Pa. The main items of other accounts were 17000 fence rails, 200 posts, 594J cords of fire-wood, 22 acres of buckwheat, some corn, hay, flax and other farm pro- ducts used by the army or destroyed. It would be interesting if the large sums paid out in militia fines and for substitutes could be definitely ascertained. They would be so much that these damages would seem a trifle by comparison. 1772 1778- 483 final cleansing of the house, after the repairs were finished, took place June 16 and 17. On June 27, the single men moved back into their house and, the next day, a service of thanksgiving and re-dedication was held. Then, gradually, the various trades were resumed and the building was restored to its former character, as nearly as the circumstances of the time permitted. CHAPTER XIII. Through the Revolution to Another Re-organization. 1778-1785. The removal of the Continental Hospital in April, 1778, ended the period of greatest turmoil at Bethlehem. After that the village wit- nessed less of the parade as well as of the misery of war than during the preceding two years. Troops continued to pass through, from time to time, for several more years, but not in such large numbers, as before, and the danger of being overwhelmed by a turbulent in-rush gradually diminished. Once more a sensation was caused by rumors of an intended winter cantonment of troops in the vicinity and of another quartering of British prisoners of war upon the place, but neither of these things came to pass ; and the theater of opera- tions did not again shift in such directions that there ever appeared any likelihood that the Forks of the Delaware might become a battle- field or be laid waste by the enemy in either a general advance or retreat. Throughout the entire year 1778, however, Bethlehem continued to be frequently visited by persons conspicuous in the scenes of the time, both in military and civil office, and by distinguished foreigners, in official position as well as tourists and adventurers. Thus in Jan- uary, and again in May, General Gates and his wife spent a few days at the place, accompanied the second time by the famous Col. Ethan Allen, who had just returned from his English captivity and whose niece, Anna Allen, was subsequently a pupil in the boarding-school and died at Bethlehem in 1795. In January one of the visitors was the amiable and much-admired wife of General Green, whose two daughters were also placed in the Bethlehem school, in 1789. In February mention is made of the presence of General Thomas Con- way, notorious as the leader of the plot, with Gates and others, to displace General Washington at a time when the Congress was most discordant, demoralized and weak. General Edward Hand was also a visitor in that month and received the thanks of the Aloravian 484 1778 1785. 485 authorities for kind assistance given the missionaries in connection with their work in Ohio. Another guest at that time was the Ger- man General Frederick von Steuben, whose services were of much value to Washington. Besides these military officers, various promi- nent members of Congress and other men of importance enjoyed a sojourn of a few days at Bethlehem, from April to July. One of these was Chancellor Robert Livingstone, who on that occasion offered the Executive Board at Bethlehem five thousand acres of land to open a Moravian settlement on the Upper Delaware ; a renewal of the former project in Ulster County, which had fallen through. Others specially mentioned were Samuel Adams and John Han- cock again, and Governor Morris. With the name of the latter, gos- sip had associated a published address to the "Quakers and Bethle- hemites," says the diarist, and adds that this was the first time they had been publicly so styled and distinctly classed with the Tories. It would have enhanced the picturesque confusion of ideas about the Brethren if some romancer had given them that title after the hos- pital epoch opened at Bethlehem, and sprung the theory that now the problem of their origin and character had been solved in the supposition that they were an offshoot of the Franciscan Father deBethencourt's Hospital Order of the previous century, given that name with its insignia bearing a picture of the Nativity at Bethle- hem. It would have afforded a yet wider range for the imagination that has produced so many wonderful modern stories about the Moravians. It would also have apparently vindicated the conclusion of those early north Hibernian settlers in the Forks, that they w-ere Papists because they celebrated Christmas in a religious manner and even according to the new calendar. Such a theory about the "Beth- lehemites" would, moreover, have harmonized with that ideal of the Sisters' House of Bethlehem, under the erroneous impression that it was a convent, which, nearly forty years later, was put into beauti- ful verse by the beloved American poet Longfellow, while a youth of eighteen years, when his fancy was stirred by reading an incident associated with the presence in Bethlehem of another gallant foreign officer whose career in the American Revolution enters into the poetry of the sublime struggle, and around whose sojourn in the Moravian town a yet more romantic glamour has been cast than about that of LaFayette. On the afternoon of Maundy Thursday, April 16, in the spring of 1778, Count Casimir Pulaski came into the church where the congregation was assembled to hear the read- 486 A HISTORi' OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ing of the second lesson of the day, the scene in Gethsemane. He was accompanied by "the well-known Col. Kobatsch." The latter is mentioned in the diary, January 24, as "a Prussian officer of Hussars who had long been living in retirement," but at that time was endeav- oring to raise and equip a troop for the Continental service and hoped to negotiate with the saddlers, glovers, founders, and other artisans of Bethlehem, to furnish him the necessary accoutrements, but found that in consequence of the lack of materials at the time and the demoralization caused by the occupation of the Brethren's House by the hospital, they would not be able to do it. He is mentioned again on July 31, as passing through from Easton "en route for Baltimore" with his troopers, equipped and armed. ^ His connection with Pulaski seems to have commenced when the latter was, before this, preparing to recruit his legion, mainly, as some writers state, about Baltimore. On May 15, Pulaski is men- tioned again as coming to the church with some of his staff in statelv I This name is found spelled Kowatz and Kowats in public documents of the time. The Moravian diarist, more familiar with the orthography of such East-Prussian and Polish names than American civil and military officers, who often quite changed their form, prob- ably spells it more correctly. So the name of Pulaski is spelled in the Moravian records Polasky and Pulawsky, either of which forms is probably more in accordance with the correct pronunciation and the original spelling than the current one. The pronunciation of these forms is somewhat as if spelled Pollotschky — like that of the more common modern name Palacky — or, the second, Pullofschky. When the Indian incursions in July, 1778, began to endanger the frontier of Northampton County, the Government of Pennsylvania, on consultation with the Board of War, appointed " Col. Kowatz " (Kobatsch) to guard the region, he having " under his command a small company of horse" at Easton. [Col. Jiec.,X.l, 531.) Robert Levers, Esq., writing from Easton, August 25, 1778, to George Bryan, Vice-President of the Execu- tive Council, represents the appointment of Kobatsch as an " unhappy choice " because he was "totally inadequate to the important task of conducting military operations in an Indian country or in a country into which the savages may make inroads and devastations, he being as perfectly unacquainted with the country liable to be exposed to Indian ravages, as he is to the nature of the Indian manner of fighting." He says, " Col. Kowats in the Legion to which he belongs and for the service it is immediately raised may doubtless dis- tinguish himself," but fears the people in the upper part of the Minnisinks " will soon feel a heavy blow from the enemy," and adds : '-That part of General Pulaski's Legion which remain with Col. Kowats at his headquarters at Fort Penn I humbly am of opinion cannot possibly render any service to the public in that very broken country but by way of ex- presses, and this is needlessly distressing that unhappy country to a very great degree." Pa. Archives, VI, 719. From all this it appears that in July and August, Kobatsch, instead of having proceeded to Baltimore, commanded that detachment of Pulaski's cavalry which ranged and guarded the Minnisinks. 1778 1785. 487 procession to attend the English preaching. He was in Bethlehem again later, during the time when a detachment of his legion was assigned to duty in near-by parts of New Jersey, before he went south to join the campaign in Georgia. It is stated elsewhere that he had previously visited La Fayette while the latter was lying wounded at Bethlehem, but the records of the place do not menton him at that time. Several times when there appeared to be danger of unruly troops disturbing the seclusion of the Sisters' House, this chivalrous son of Poland detailed members of his stafif to guard its doors. The meagre references to him in authentic original records are tantaliz- ing. He carried with him from Bethlehem a handsome silk guidon which fluttered from the upright lance at the head of his legion when he fell at Savannah in October, 1779. It was embroidered in the Sisters' House. Tradition has it that the banner was tendered him by the sisters in grateful recognition of his gallant concern for their protection. This, however, is nowhere stated. The probability is that when examining the fine specimens of embroidery and other fancy work in the Sisters' House — where at that time such work of a high order was produced in abundance — and making purchases, as many another officer did, he specially arranged with those in charge to have such a guidon made. So much of sentiment may have attached to the transaction that he fancied the idea of having a ban- ner that had been made at that place ; and it is not beyond the bounds of probability that this Polish patriot, said to have been a nephew of Polish royalty, may have had some knowledge of the old heroic his- tory of the Unitas Fratrum associated with former struggles of his fatherland, and was aware of the historic connection of the Brethren at Bethlehem with that ancient Church. Some such associations with the person of Pulaski may possibly also have entered the minds of the gentle women who designed and executed the work, and there is at least no evidence against the conjecture that, even if he asked to have it done for him and proposed to pay for the work, they may have declined the compensation and begged him to accept it as a token of appreciation in view of his manifest concern for their safety. The tradition that makes the idea to have originated with these sis- ters, credits Susan von Gersdorf, their Eldress or superintendent, with proposing it. Rebecca Langly, who had brought fine needle- work at Bethlehem to its highest point of excellence, is said to have designed the pattern. She was a young English woman of genteel breeding, good education and formerly opulent family. With the 488 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. work of embroidering the pattern the names of her sister, Erdmuth Langly, Julia Bader, Anna Blum, Anna Hussy, Maria Rosina Schultz and Anna Maria Weiss have all been associated. - 2 What is known about the banner is given in Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revo- lution, from which all writers since have gotten their data, apart from what is stated above. Lossing says : " Pulaski visited La Fayette while that wounded ofiicer was a recipient of the pious care and hospitality of the Moravians at Bethlehem. When it was known that the brave Pole was organizing a corps of cavalry in Baltimore, the single women of Bethlehem prepared a banner of crimson silk, with designs beautifully wrought with the needle by their own hands, and sent it to Pulaski with their blessing. This banner was used in the procession that welcomed La Fayette to Baltimore, 1824, and was then deposited in Peale's Museum. Mr. Edmund Peale presented it to the Maryland Historical Society in 1844, where it is now (1850) carefully preserved in a glass case." [It is still in the possession of that society.] " But little of its former beauty remains. On one side the capitals U. S. are encircled by the motto, ' Unitas Virtus fortior'' \ on the other, the all-seeing eye of God, in the midst of the thirteen stars of the Union, surrounded by the words, '■Non alius regit.' These designs are embroidered with yellow silk, the letters shaded with green. A deep- green bullion-fringe ornaments the edges. The size of the banner is twenty inches square. It was attached to a lance when borne to the field." Mr. Lossing gives a drawing of it. It is stated by other writers that when Pulaski fell in battle at Savannah, October 11, 1779, the banner was rescued by his First Lieutenant and given to Captain Bantalon, who even- tually took it with him to Baltimore. In reference to Longfellow's " Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem at the Conse- cration of Pulaski's Banner," written before he knew that the Moravian sisters were not nuns, and when he supposed the banner to have been a large flowing flag, there has been published the following note written by the poet, in reply to an inquiry addressed to him by Gen. W. E. Doster, of Bethlehem, when the latter was a student at Yale : Cambridge, January 13, 1857. '' Dear Sir : The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns was written in 1825 and was suggested to me by a paragraph in the N'orth American Revieiv, Vol. II, p. 390, 'The standard of Count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the attack on Savannah during the American Revolution, was of crimson silk, embroidered by the Moravian nuns of Bethlehem, Pa.' The banner is still preserved; you will find a complete account of the matter in Lossing's Field- Book of the Revolution. The last line is figurative. I suppose (in the poem) the banner to have been wrapped about the body, as is frequently done. Truly yours, Henry W. Longfellow," There is an accurate pictorial representation of the banner in colors, reduced size, in the Moravian archives at Bethlehem. A reproduction of it was carried, for the first time, at the head of the procession, followed by numerous historic flags and banners, by the Pennsyl- vania Society of the Sons of the Revolution at the unveiling, June 19, 1897 — anniversary of the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British in 1778 — of the bronze tablet placed by them on the front of " Colonial Hall " — the old Brethren's House — of the Seminary for Young Ladies, at Bethlehem, to commemorate its use as a general hospital by the Conti- nental army, 1776 to 1778. 17/8 1785- 489 In Februan' of that year the diarist mentions a visit by the French litterateur Mons. de La Bahn, who was collecting material for writ- ing American history. He made particular inquiry into the teach- ing, principles and institutions of the Moravian Brethren and the organization and establishments of Bethlehem, with which he was much pleased. His frequent response to statements and explana- tions was simply ''bonT Early in October, another foreign General in the continental service is mentioned as a visitor, the Chevalier de La Neuville, Army Inspector under General Gates. But more inter- est and importance was attached to the arrival, on November 25, of the first accredited Minister Plenipotentiary from France to the United States, the Chevalier Conrad Alexandre Gerard. He had arrived at Philadelphia, July 8, with the French fleet under Count d'Estaing. Silas Deane, who with Arthur Lee had been engaged with Dr. Franklin in securing the important treaty of February 6, between France and the United States, which was a turning point in the fortunes of the Revolution, and who had also arrived from France with that fleet, accompanied the Ambassador to Bethlehem. With them came also that courtly-mannered Spaniard, Don Juan de Miralles, unof^cially representing his nation, which was then assuming an uncertain position towards the American cause. He was commissioned by the Governor of Havana to gather information and impressions, in order, as was supposed, to help the home gov- ernment to conclusions. Congress, although apparently a little dubious, felt constrained to show him all honor that was safe, and to make favorable impressions upon him in every way. This desire, with that of showing every possible distinction to the representative of the young Nation's new-made ally, who himself had taken a lead- ing part in shaping the treaty and had oflficially signed it, caused men at the head of affairs to take special pains to impress upon the Bethlehem authorities the importance of these persons and the desirability of treating them with marked respect. It was wished that they should appreciate all this and act accordingly, so that the visits of these men to this conspicuous and famous inland settlement, ill-spoken of by some minor public men, might be properly enjoyed. The letter written by Henry Laurens, President of Congress, to Ettwein, announcing them, reveals this desire.^ 3 " My Dear Friend, Mons'r Gerard, the Minister Plenipotentiary of France will be, provided he meets no obstruction on the Road, at Bethlehem on Wednesday the 25th inst about midday. This 490 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. That the French minister enjoyed his stay of three days and found the place and its institutions, and the neighborhood generally, inter- esting, was strongly testified, and was confirmed by the fact that he made another visit in June, 1779. Meanwhile, on January 5 of the last mentioned year, another party of a different kind, but of some note, arrived at Bethlehem, followed at intervals, on to the end of the month, by others on like footing. These were paroled ofBcers of the British army captured at Saratoga, October 17, 1777, mostly of the Brunswick corps. On the 5th came General Frederick Adolph Riedesel, with his noble and devoted wife, who was sharing all the vicissitudes of camp and march and battle-field with him, and their three children, accompanied by their regimental chaplain, John August Milius. Madam Riedesel brought a letter of introduction from Gen- eral Gates, then inactive at Boston.* They were followed on the nth by General William Phillips, Burgoyne's famous artillery commander, who has been praised as a "brave and honorable soldier," and on the other hand criticised for "haughtiness and irritability." He was accompanied by several subordinates. Both the amiable and the worthy character merits regard from all the citizens of these states, an acquaintance with him will afford you satisfaction, and I am persuaded his Visit will work no evil or incon- venience to your Community. Don Juan de Miralles a Spanish Gentleman highly recom- mended by the Governor of Havana will accompany Mr. Gerard. The whole suite may amount to six Gentlemen and perhaps a servant to each. I give this previous intimation in order that preparaticms suitable to the occasion may be made by Mr. Johnson (Jest Jansen) at the tavern and otherwise as you think expedient. My good wishes attend you all." (Then a few lines about other matters.) " Believe me Dear Sir to be with sincere respect and very great affection, Your friend and most humble servant, Philadelphia 23 Novem. 1778. Henry Laurens." Boston, Novemb'r 177^. 4 " Dear Sir, This letter will be delivered to you by Madame Riedesel, the Lady of Major General Riedesel, to whom I entreat you will show every mark of Civility and Respect in your Power. Wise reasons have determined Congress to direct the march of the Army under the Convention of Saratoga to Charlottsville, in Virginia. General Riedesel, his Lady and little Family, accompany the troops of their Prince. It is a painful and fatiguing journey at this season of the Year. I doubt not your Hospitable Disposition will render it as pleasant as possible, and that without my Recommendations, you naturally would indulge the senti- ments which influence the Gentleman and the Citizen of the World I am Dear Sir Your affectionate Rev. Mr. Ettwein Humble Servant, of Bethlehem Penna. Horatio Gates." 17/8 1785. 491 ^Zci^ ty^^ ^^^^ -^/u^. lyyo ^ v^H^uviyn' c^'^/rU' K^^Tt^niy 44/}^^pCo€y '^ru-Z^n^i/^^^fi/^t.^nr ^/i#*-«W*^^ u/- 492 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. harsh sides of his character are revealed by incidents of this time. His heart was so won by the httle girls in the boarding-school at Beth- lehem that he dealt out five guineas in solid gold to them as a present. On the other hand, after the second stay of the party at Bethlehem, when they had to turn back for a third sojourn because negotiations for their exchange were suddenly interrupted, he had to be reproved by Madam Riedesel for the indiscreet rage to which he gave expres- sion amid dangerous surroundings. Then, on January 26 and the following days, came a body of Brunswick officers of General Riedesel's corps and were furnished lodgings at the request of Quar- termaster Robert Lettis Hooper. The diarist of Bethlehem mentions by name Major Just von Maibaum, Captain August Frederick Dommes, Captain Schlagenteufel, Lieutenants Vreda, Meyer, Bach, Goedecke, two young gentlemen, von Rantzau and von Boenicke, Captains of Horse, Stutzer and Schlagentruft and Chaplain Melz- heimer. They had several musicians with them and, not only engaged in much diversion among themselves, but gave the villagers the benefit of frequent serenades in appreciation of the comfortable and agreeable situation into which the fortunes of war brought them as prisoners. On the other hand, they, as typical Germans, did not cast away the religious traditions of their fatherland. By courtesy of the authorities, their chaplain conducted a service and preached a sermon for them in the chapel of the Brethren's House on Easter Sunday. They had also attended the services of the congregation on Palm Sunday and taken Communion during Holy Weel<. A little romance was also associated with their sojourn at Bethlehem, in that, on May 10, their Chaplain, Milzheimer. became the husband of one of the Bethlehem maidens.^ The middle of May, these paroled Brunswick officers left for Lan- caster. The end of November, 1780, certain of them came to Beth- lehem again from Reading and on December i, finally left for New York. General Riedesel and his party, after a stay of only two days, started for Virginia, followed, on January 22, by General Phillips and other officers. On September 25 and 26, they were back in Bethlehem 5 He married Agnes Mau, a daughter of Samuel Mau, whom the Brethren at Bethlehem in 1742 released from service as a Redemptioner. Her mother was Anna Catherine Kremper, who in 1742 came to Bethlehem from Souih Carolina with Abraham Bueninger. Another daughter became the wife of David Bischoff, of Bethlehem, in 1781. Some of the Bruns- wickers, among them probably the chaplain, had their quarters at the home of this family. Remote family connections not expected, might be traced back to this marriage link, welded under such peculiar circumstances. 1/7^ 17^5 493 again on their way to New York, expecting to be exchanged. Pro- ceeding on their journey, they were stopped at Ehzabethtown by orders stating that Congress had not confirmed the proposed terms of exchange. On October lo they once more came to Bethlehem and remained until November 22, 1779, when they again left and finally got to New York. In connection with the sojourn of this party at Bethlehem, the Moravians again had to pay the penalty of being written about and having their institutions and arrangements described as the several writers understood and viewed them, or were disposed to represent them.^ 6 The memoirs and letters of General and Madam Riedesel are well known and the passages relating to Bethlehem have been often quoted. Their statements about things are, in the main, more correct than those of many other writers, and the spirit of their reminis- cences is prevailingly a kindly and appreciative one. Madam Riedesel, however, must have received some singular information, not from Moravian sources, which led her to state, in referring to the " well cultivated section inhabited by the Moravian Brethren," that "one place is called the Holy Sepulchre and another district goes by the name of Holy Land in which is a town called Bethlehem." Not fully realizing the enormous prices to which all commodities had risen, she thought they were exorbitantly charged at the Sun Tnn. Treat- ing of their last sojourn when they had to turn back from Elizabethtown in October, 1779, she says : "We now returned to Bethlehem where my husband and General Phillips were allowed by the Americans to remain until the particulars of the exchange, which was yet unfinished should be settled ; and as our former landlord at this place had treated us with kind hospitality, we, all of us, remained to board with him — sixteen persons and four house servants, the latter receiving money to pay their board, also about twenty horses. Our host would make with us no definite agreement (probably on account of fluctuating finances) about the price, and as none of us had any money, this was very convenient, as he would cheerfully wait for his pay until we received some. We supposed him to be an honest and reasonable man, and the more so as he belonged to the Community of Moravian Brethren, and the Inn was one patronized by that Society. But how great was our surprise when after a residence of six weeks, and just as we had received permission to go to New York, we were served with a bill of ^32,000, that is to say American paper money, which is about 400 guineas in actual money. Had it not been for a royalist who just at this time happened to pass through the village seeking the purchase of hard money at any price, we should have been placed in the greatest embarrassment and would not have been able by any possibility to leave the town." (16 persons and 20 horses 6 weeks, furnished the best to be had, for 400 guineas, was a little over $3.25 per day for man and beast, which was reasonable as prices then ran.) Madam Riedesel says that in the Sisters' House at Bethlehem " they made magnificent embroidery and other beautiful handiwork," and that they purchased various articles. She refers to the numerous manufactures, a leather dresser who produced work " as good as that of England and half as cheap," states that the gentlemen of the party bought a quantity, and speaks of the good cabinet-makers and workers in metal. She says, " while at Bethlehem we often went to church and enjoyed the splendid singing. The wife of the minister died while we were there (wife of the Rev. Paul Muenster). We saw 494 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. It is surprising that Jest Jansen, the Bethlehem host, was able to keep the hotel up to the standard commonly described by guests, and to so frequently entertain persons of quality in a fitting manner, in view of the scarcity and high price of so many articles that were constantl}^ required. References are made in the records occasionally to the deplorable condition of public finances and to the market prices. In July, 1778, wagon-master Beitel, who had conveyed a load of sugar from Boston to Philadelphia, brought to Bethlehem from the latter city twenty-six gallons of Communion wine for which he paid £125. January 11, 1779, flour was quoted at $20 per cwt. January 18, two paroled British officers, a quartermaster and a paymaster, who had spent ten days in Bethlehem, are reported to have sold from four to five hundred guineas at $35 Continental currency per guinea. Before the close of 1779, one dollar in specie was worth thirty-seven dollars in paper. On October 8, it is recorded that several men returning from Philadelphia reported the following prices in the city : Flour, i6o Pa. per cwt.; Tenerifife wine, £20 per gallon; tea, £iy per pound ; salt, £80-90 per bushel ; "a silk neck-cloth that formerly cost six shillings," $100. It took £120 to purchase One Half Joe, i. e., 40 to I. (In 1784 this coin could again be had for £3 Pa.) It might have been expected that the rates at the inn for guests who wanted whatever was to be had at any price, would have been higher than those that astonished Madam Riedesel. On June 15, 1779, a flutter of excitement was occasioned by the arrival at this famous hostelry, of a body of more than twenty Amer- ican officers from Easton, not worn and weary, nor with uniforms her laid out in a separate enclosure with bars, waiting for burial ; for here they never keep a dead body in the house." Another account of Bethlehem at that time which found its way into print and has occa- sionally been reproduced, is that of Lieutenant Aubury who was at the place when Gen. Phillips and his company tarried the first time in 1778. He praises the tavern highly, like all who laid chief stress on good living, and refers to General Phillips as being so delighted with it that the good accommodations caused him to turn back to Bethlehem when not per- mitted to go on to New York. He speaks of the fancy and ornamental work and the numerous musical instruments in the Sisters' House. He says, "the women dine in a large hall in which is a handsome organ and the walls are adorned with Scripture pieces painted by some of the women who formerly belonged to the Society. This hall answers the pur- pose of a refectory and chapel, but on Sundays they attend worship in the great church (Old Chapel), which is a neat and simple building." Some of his remarks about the life of the place are singular, and those about the manner of arranging marriages belong to the canards with which so many have been imposed upon who have innocently taken the state- ments as true. 1/78 1785- 495 dust-covered and torn, from the field of battle or from a long journey through the country, but, no doubt, attired in their newest and finest, and assuming all the pomp and circumstance they could muster. They were gallantly escorting to Bethlehem a plainly dressed and unpretentious but more illustrious lady than any who had yet been a guest at the place. It was the wife of General Washington on her way to Virginia. She had passed the previous months at the Middle- brook Camp, where the Commander-in-Chief had sojourned during the winter, with his headquarters in the "Wallace House"'^ in Som- erset County, New Jersey, where now the town of Summerville is. That famous winter camp was breaking up. Washington set out for West Point on June 14, and his wife started with an escort for her home. Where she passed the night of the 14th does not appear. General William Maxwell, with his staff, was honored by being her special escort. They were joined at Easton by General John Sullivan and General Enoch Poor. She was escorted about Bethlehem to see everything that interested her, and was present with her attendants at the evening service when Ettwein discoursed in English and the choir and orchestra furnished their best music. The diarist records that the next morning Lady Washington, well-pleased with her visit, left for Virginia. The previous evening all of the officers, excepting those who were to accompany her on the remainder of her journey, returned to Easton. General Sullivan had his temporary headquarters there, preparing for his famous autumn campaign against the Indians in Wyoming and beyond into New York, who, at the instigation of British emis- saries and with the assistance of base and ruthless Tories, had, the previous year, commenced their barbarities in those regions. During July, 1778, Bethlehem had been reminded of the former Indian wars by the down-rush of terror-stricken refugees from beyond the Blue Mountains, when a general raid was expected. On July 9, the Rev. Edward Thorpe, the Moravian minister at Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoning, wrote that about three hundred refugees, mostly widows and orphans, had come to his place well nigh famished and almost naked, and on July 11. the Bethlehem diarist records "about four hundred New England men" reported massacred. From the 15th to the 17th, many refugees from Shamokin and along the west branch of the Susquehanna passed through, empty and destitute, on their way to their former homes in New Jersey and New York ; having 7 Andrew G. Mellick Jr. — The Story of an OIJ Farm, p. 455. 40 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PEiNNSVLVANIA. abandoned their crops and lost all that they had. One woman from the Long Island in the Susquehannah reported that the Indian Renatus, whose sensational arrest and trial as an alleged accompHce in the murder at Stenton's tavern in 1764, has been treated of in a previous chapter, had spent the preceding winter with his wife and two children at her place of residence and had behaved very decorously; and that suddenly in the spring he and his whole family had been killed by persons unknown. The attitude of the Indians who had now been inveigled into these outrages to harass the colonies was such that no word deprecating the most drastic measures against them appears in the Moravian records. It was felt that the condign punishment meted out to them by General Sullivan in the autumn of 1779, was deserved and was an awful necessity. It is rather remarkable that at this time the usual story that the Indians were supplied with ammunition by the Moravians to commit murder with, does not seem to have been started. Perhaps the kind of men who had on former occasions circulated this favorite tale, were at this time finding other ways of worrying them more interesting. Some of these presented themselves in connection with the application of sundry stringent, but crude and, in some cases, impracticable acts of Assembly in the hne of coercion brought to bear upon Tories, and of financial experiment in the desperation of the time. Every rigorous law thus enacted, with a view to meeting pressing necessities, could be and was used by such minor officials as were so disposed, to harass and persecute people who were in their disfavor in petty ways that were not intended and that accomplished no good whatever for the public. Some instances of such proceedings against men in Bethlehem are referred to in the diary. Thus, in connection with the regulations about the price of leather, Charles Weinicke, the Bethlehem tanner, was made the victim of a little conspiracy, in June, 1778, to get a Moravian indicted as a law- breaker. He was summoned before one of the most ill-disposed squires of the time, Jacob Morey, of AUentown, on the charge of defying an Act of Assembly in refusing to sell a shoemaker leather on terms demanded. This shoemaker, as was afterwards ascertained, had been sent to the tanner for this purpose, with the knowledge of the aforesaid squire. The tanner knew that the regulation appealed to had been changed, for the tradesmen of Bethlehem kept them- selves very carefully informed about such matters. Under the slow, official process that prevailed in the disorder of the time, his honor. 17/8 1785. 497 this doughty Justice, could declare that he had not received formal official notice of the new law, although he knew it quite well, and imposed the penalty, thus getting a Moravian on his docket as punished for violation of law. Another exploit was in connection with the very natural objection not only of Moravians, but of all other people including all members of the Assembly as well as all county lieutenants and squires, to accepting depreciated currency that might go down twenty per cent, more before they got rid of it, if they could get specie or its equivalent in other shape, in trade. The last issues of Continental currency not having been made legal tender in Pennsylvania, and people not being, therefore, compelled to take the new "Congress money," the Assembly, on March 24, I779> resolved, "that any person who shall refuse such Bills of Credit emitted by the Hon'ble Continental Congress, as have not been made a legal tender in Payment of any Debt or Compact, in which the Continental Bills of Credit, which have been declared legal tender, might be legally tendered, such person is and ought to be considered as an Enemy of his Country and a betrayer of the Liberties thereof." Then the common course pursued in making a bargain was to adjust terms by understanding beforehand what kind of money was to be used. On June 29, a certain Gallagher, clerk of John Wetzel, County Lieutenant, of Macungie, came to Abraham Boemper, of Bethlehem, and bought two watches at a price set on the basis of coin. After the fellow had put the watches into his pocket he took out Continental currency to pay the stipulated sum in that medium saying "this is the money I trade with." When Boemper refused to accept it he left with the watches and the money. When Boemper and another man went to Allentown to recover the watches or get redress, they found that the squires were privy to the matter and refused to do any- thing, and the story went out that Boemper was a transgressor under the above act. But a strange retribution came to the instigator when, soon after that game, this same Gallagher absconded with £11,000 of paper money for which Wetzel was accountable. In November of that year, a different kind of a sensation was created at the cost of two men in Bethlehem, the store-keeper Oberlin and a young man, Siegmund Leschinsky, who had just arrived from Europe. They were arrested for having in their possession and passing counterfeit paper currency, which some miscreant had brought to Bethlehem and imposed upon Oberlin and others. Wliile these men were, of course, both victims and not evil-doers, the circumstance caused 33 49^ A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. much Stir and no end of gossip. It gave new occasion to those who were disposed to find satisfaction in seeing the names of two more Bethlehem men figure on a criminal docket as alleged conspirators against the Government. In the midst of all the turmoil caused in Pennsylvania, during the years 1778 and 1779, by the various acts of Assembly in reference to militia service and the oath of allegiance, the efforts of those func- tionaries who were particularly inimical to the Moravians ran in two general directions. One was this attempt, by whatever kind of means that might offer, to shake public confidence in their character and to persuade men at the head of the Government who regretted that laws made for active enemies of the cause should have to oppress people from whom nothing was to be feared, and who refused to believe the Moravians guilty of any designs or acts against the Commonwealth, that this was misplaced confidence, and that there w^ere treacherous and dangerous men among them, and men who spurned the laws. The other was to break, if possible, the compact made at Bethlehem and Nazareth, and stampede the men who were feeling the weight of the double tax and the high price of substitutes so grievously, into taking the test in order to have peace. As to the first of these designs, notwithstanding the constant espionage to which the Moravians were subjected, and the snares of all kinds laid to entrap the unwary among them, they do not figure in any of the long lists proclaimed under the Act of Attainder, passed by the Assembly in June, 1777, and, under the strong pressure of the dire times, made actively operative during 1778. None had the satisfaction of seeing a row of Moravian names on those lists of persons attainted as traitors, enemies of the country and operating against it. With a view to bringing this about and to creating a panic among the men at Bethlehem, County Lieutenant Wetzel put forth his boldest stroke early in April, 1778, when he finally brought to pass the arrest of twelve Moravians, with some others, and their lodgement in prison at Easton, on trumped-up charges which the diarist of Bethlehem unhesitatingly pronounces "a tissue of false- hoods." The arrests were not made at Bethlehem nor even at Nazareth, but in Wetzel's own neighborhood at Emmaus, where it could be done more easily and with less likelihood of immediate interference from higher quarters. They were marched like criminals with much show of guard and restraint, through Bethlehem, as an object-lesson. Sick soldiers in the hospital looked out of the windows 17/8 1785. 499 and jeered as they passed, until they learned that they were Morav- ians, and then this ceased. The procession was made long, in order that it might be more imposing. The guards, acting under instruc- tions, tried at first to prevent all communication with them at Beth- lehem, but had to give way in this particular and permit them to be served with dinner, which the guards, of course, shared, and doubtless esteemed more highly than Wetzel's orders. One of the charges was that one of them had shot at the constable sent to arrest him, and had wounded him. It was soon ascertained that the shooting was done by another man in the neighborhood who had no con- nection with the Moravian Church. Accusations, as absurd as the old stories about sending powder and lead to savage Indians, were brought against others. Wetzel and their other accuser failed to appear against them when the trial was set. When the second attempt was made to try the case, he and Jacob Miller appeared and swore to the platitude that they were dangerous enemies of the State, and they were bound over. At the end of April, they were permitted to go home, but were threatened with another arrest if they did not take the test. Less than a week later, they were sum- moned before Squire Morey, at xA.llentown, to take the oath. Event- ually the most of them were worried into doing so. One of their number, against whom Wetzel had a grudge on account of a private quarrel, was left sitting in jail at Easton. Finally, after an appeal to the Supreme Court proved fruitless — for, as the law was framed, nothing could be done — he took the oath, paid the costs and was released. A revised and very stringent test act had gone into effect on June i. Before that, in May, many of the Moravians had vmited with the Schwenkfelders in an urgent petition for relief, addressed to the Assembly. It resulted in nothing further than is indicated in the following, written. May 22, 1778 — the day on which Thomas Wharton, President of the Executive Council, died — by George Bryan, Vice-President, to County Lieutenant Wetzel: "The Morav- ians and Schwenkfelders have been very urgent with the Assembly to relax the Test and free them from the abjuration part. The claim of the King of Great Britain forbids anything like this being done at present. When that prince shall renounce his claim, it will be time enough to reconsider the Test. However, as these people are not to be feared, either as to numbers or malice, it is the wish of Government not to distress them by any unequal fines, or by calling them, without any special occasion happens, to take the oath at all." 500 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. On May 25, Wetzel, not knowing yet of President Wharton's death, wrote to him, evidently somewhat stirred by the hint given him to desist from measures unnecessarily harassing. He had reason to feel on the defensive in this respect and a little uneasy, over against his superiors, for there had been numerous complaints about his harsh and overbearing ways, even by militiamen who had taken the oath and were doing service, and from other county officers. In his letter of May 25, he says : "I perceive that the Moravians and Sinkfelders have been busy with their petitions for redress of Griev- ances, which I am sure, Sir, were never inflicted on them in this County, more than on other people of different denominations, or more than the laws of this Common Wealth justly directs." He then disclaims all intention of distressing any one, sets forth the great trouble with "disafifected men" in the County, stating that one-tenth of them had not taken the oath yet and adds "nor do the}^ ever mean to do it." He goes on to refer to the bad behavior of "those in particular who had some time ago been committed to Easton Goal," that merited "no lenity." Then follows this: "Notwithstanding, I have treated them and will ever endeavor to treat mankind in such a manner as no part of my Conduct shall or may be looked upon as rigorous, or my actions ever deserve the name of persecution ; on this foundation. Sir, I shall ever Act whilst I live, and whilst I have the honour to be in Office under so respectable a Body as the Hon- ourable Supreme Executive Council of the Common Wealth of Penn- sylvania." Notwithstanding this specious and grandiloquent defence, he had to be summoned before the Executive Council in February, to answer complaints of oppressive acts and irregularities, brought, not by Moravians, but by the enlisted and organized militia of the county. Shortly before that, the Council, in their address to the Assembly, intimated that "the abuses of the process of attachments and replevins which are taken out upon the estates of attainted Traitors and upon seizures for fines and other public demands call for some wholesome restraints." In the preceding August, when fourteen men from Bethlehem, under one call for militia of the first four registered classes, had to each pay £8. 16. for substitutes — such payment always sufifiiced only for the particular call in question, so that it might come an indefinite number of times — it was clear that the proportion had been manipulated so as to mulct as many Morav- ians as possible. Then a new enterprise was inaugurated. Suddenly, on Sunday,. September 7 — this was yet in 1778 — Constable Jost Walp, who 1778 1785- 50I had, before that, been sent about by the Squires Jacob Morey and Frederick Limbach at Allentown, to worry quiet, inoffensive Mennonite farmers in the Saucon Valley, appeared at the Crown Inn armed with notices from these squires to be served upon all of the men at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gnadenthal and Christiansbrunn, to appear before their Honors on the 14th, to take the oath or take the consequences. No new act of Assembly, no new exciting cause in the neighborhood and no pressure from the Government to aggressively proceed with such measures occasioned this move. It was a business enterprise, for it meant many fees for the squires. Ettwein, hearing of the constable's presence, went across the river to see him, invited him to dinner, talked the matter over with him and persuaded him to refrain from trying to execute his rather compre- hensive commission, and, instead of undertaking to serve the notices on the individuals, to go away with the following certificate, signed by Ettwein, to be returned to the squires : "This is to certify that Yost Walp, Constable of Upper Saucon, has summoned Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gnadenthal and Christiansbrunn to appear before Jacob Morey and Frederick Limbach at Nicholas Fox's at Allentown, on September 14th inst. Witness my hand," &c. Constable Walp seemed glad to get through his wholesale service with this farcical formality, and left to make his returns accordingly. The next day Ettwein went to Easton to consult with sensible men among the county ofificers and with Col. Arndt, as to the best course to be further pursued. At the suggestion of Arndt — who also wrote to the squires that their action was unwarrantable — he proceeded at once to Philadelphia to take counsel with the executive heads of the State Government. Accompanied by William Henry, he returned on the 13th with the assurance that the enterprise instituted by the Allentown squires was unauthorized, illegal in method and an imper- tinent assumption; and with the advice to pay no attention to the summons. William Henry and John Okely went to Allentown on the 14th and informed the waiting squires, who had been meanwhile advised to retract their summons but were now stubborn, that they need not expect any of the summoned men. They were furious, because the result was so different from that which had attended their measures among the poor Saucon farmers, and if this ambitious stroke, to which they were emboldened by success among men less able to help themselves and more easily intimidated, had likewise succeeded, it would have proved a profitable day's work for them. 502 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. They were particularly enraged by the discovery that Ettwein had gone to Philadelphia about the matter. Rising to the full height of their affronted official dignity, they issued a summons for Ettwein and sternly declared that if he did not appear before them on the 15th, and that too at ten of the clock in the forenoon, they would "have him fetched." On that morning Ettwein took his hat and walking-stick, declined the anxious offer of some to accompany him, and leisurely went to Allentown to face the irate squires. After a colloquy of three hours, they abandoned the idea of issuing any more warrants for whole towns to appear before them, and arranged to come to Bethlehem on April 18, to take the oath of those who w^ere willing. William Henry persuaded them that this was what they had better do. It must be borne in mind that from the time when Okely's com- mission as a Justice lapsed, with the decease of the Proprietary Government, there had been no Justice at Bethlehem. None was sought or desired for some years. It was thought that under the circumstances of the time, the place would be better off without one. This remained so for many years. Not until the election of William Henry, of Nazareth, December 22, 1787, was there a squire again in Bethlehem Township — it then yet included Nazareth — and it was still later before one again resided at Bethlehem. In spite of this, the place managed to get on fairly well. In October, 1778, following that fiasco of the Allentown squires, another special appeal, at the suggestion of influential public men, was signed by citizens of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz, and pre- sented to the Assembly. The belief was expressed by some leading men that another such a petition from the Moravians, speaking only for themselves, might help to influence that body to modify the act then in force, which prudent men were convinced was both needlessly oppressive and impolitic. John Bayard, Speaker of the House, referring to this, said, "we have made a sharp weapon and madmen have gotten it into their hands. We must try to get it from them again." Timothy Matlack had written to Ettwein on September 11, that none of them must obey such a summons as that of the two squires, for if they did, its validity would thereby be recognized, and this must not be. It subsequently became known that the real instigator of the whole process was again John Wetzel, and that during the interview between Ettwein and the squires he was a surreptitious listener, concealed in an adjoining room. A man from 1778 1785- 503 Lancaster named Sutton, connected with the Moravian Church there as a society member, had appeared in Allentown with Ettw^ein. His presence mystihed the squires and made them uneasy. They feared that he was present for the purpose of hastening to Philadelphia to report their proceedings. x\fterwards, when twitted with not executing their blustering threats of what they would do with Ettwein when they got hold of him, their excuse was, "he has too many friends in the Assembly and Council." The failure of this effort broke Wetzel's influence. Later, after several consultations at Bethlehem and Nazareth, at which the most decided difference of opinion prevailed that had yet become manifest, it was agreed that, under the circumstances, it should not be regarded as a breach of faith towards those who were more tenderly and narrowly scrupulous, and might moreover be advisable, if certain classes of men, such as merchants, millers, tavern-keepers, physicians and others engaged in any kind of public business, took the test oath if they felt consci- entiously at liberty to do so. Some of them did then take the test. At Nazareth there was more unanimity in favor of maintaining the previous position. Still more w-as this the case at Lititz. where the people were more secluded, lived more in the atmosphere of sur- rounding Mennonite and Tunker sentiment, so strong in the neigh- borhood, and had not felt the influencing touch of the more enlight- ened and elevated currents of the revolutionary spirit that had been flowing through Bethlehem. Most of these good people, like some at Bethlehem, held decidedly narrow views of the great struggle of the times and clung to their old position in a manner that became open to the charge of being fanatical and stubborn, even though the danger that any of them would in any way lend themselves to Tory intrigues was so remote that the supposition was absurd, as all public men who were best acquainted with them knew quite well. William Henry, at this juncture, strongly urged the men at Bethlehem to no longer hold out against taking the test and declined to believe that the dreaded schism would mar the peace of the place to the extent which some apprehended. Several men in the Executive Board inclined to the same view, notably de Schweinitz. Ettwein's senti- ments had been undergoing a change on the general question of the Revolution, and he no longer refused to recognize the ground taken by the colonies as justified. But his keen dread of internal dissen- sion among his brethren, if gradually a party that had taken the oath and one that had not should be formed, induced him to urge 504 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. maintaining- the compact that had given them union and strength in the ordeals which had been passed, and would enable them to worry on through those which might yet follow, believing that noth- ing worse could befall them than had already been endured. Taking this position, he engaged to put forth every effort that was possible and to employ every influence he could set in motion, to secure relief from those disabilities and penalties of the test laws which were imposed to cover the case of real traitors and actual conspirators, in league with the enemy. The test laws were amended by the passage of a bill, on November 26, which became law on December 5, 1778. The penalties of non- abjuration were removed, excepting disability to hold office under the Government, to vote at the election of public officers and to sit on juries. The relief sought by the Moravians was secured by the terms of this act and, although the embarrassments and financial burdens in connection with militia duty continued, they were no more harassed about taking the oath as before. The civil disabili- ties under which they now stood did not distress them. New uneasi- ness and discussion were occasioned a year later, when the party in the Assembly which had advocated drastic laws, again acquired the ascendency in the passage, October i, 1779, of a sup- plement to the act of the previous year. It did not revive the severe penalties of the former acts, but specified some additional disqualifications, not more grievous, but of wider range, and provided that those who did not take the oath required by the act of December 5, 1778, within the fixed time should be perpetually debarred from the privilege and disfranchised. This latter was the most serious part of the amendment. The question was now discussed whether the time had not come when all who felt so inclined should take the test, in protection of person and prop- erty, and again there were wide differences of opinion. Ettwein stoutly maintained that such an act of Assembly would not stand permanently, that the pendulum would swing back again. Others lacked this cool confidence. Again Ettwein went to Philadelphia and had interviews with the most able and reliable leading men ; found that the act was regarded by them as only a temporary vic- tory of an extreme wing; received renewed assurances of friendship from the most influential quarters, and returned the last day of Octo- ber to still the troubled waters. But some were not satisfied, and when Ettwein, in pursuance of other duties, went to Hope, N. J., JOHN ETTWEIN 1778 1785- 505 •de Schweinitz was commissioned by those who had favored another memorial to the Assembly, to go to Philadelphia and ascertain what prospect there would be for a hearing. The final conclusion was that "there was nothing to be done but to remain patient and quiet.'" Meanwhile those who wished to do so were, of course, at liberty to take the oath within the specified time. Thus the matter rested dur- ing the remainder of the Revolutionary period, and the subject of the test acts, as they afifected Bethlehem, may be dismissed. They were modified in 1784, but not entirely repealed until 1789. As regards the militia burdens, an instance of their weight appeared not long after this renewed excitement about the test. On December 14, 1779, Sheriff Jonas Hartzel came to Bethlehem, with many expressions of regret and sympathy, to collect six months' forfeit of men enrolled in the first class. The amount that had to be paid was £42.6, by each man. After the visit of Martha Washington, in June, 1779, there are fewer references in the records to the presence of prominent people at Bethlehem than previously. One visit, noted on July 28, is of some interest. It is stated that three Virginians arrived, on their W'ay to camp, one of them, "a certain Washington, nephew of the General," and that Ettwein escorted them to Christiansbrunn and Nazareth. This must have been Col. William Augustine Washington, the only relative of General Washington at that time active in the Continental service. * That comparatively quiet interval at Bethlehem, the spring and summer of 1779, was distinguished by an important official visit which revived the interrupted connection of the Moravian settlements and congregations in America with the general directing board of the Church, the Unity's Elders Conference, in Europe. Much con- cern was felt by that body for the case of the American Moravians. Bishop Spangenberg, its President, was fully capable, through his long residence in America and his thorough acquaintance with American conditions, of appreciating their situation. He under- 8 Bushrod Washington, the General's well-known nephew, who visited Bethlehem in Oc- tober, 1804, was at this time (1779) only seventeen years old. Histories and works of ref- erence mention Col. Wm. Washington, not as a nephew, but merely as a relation of George Washington. Madam Riedesel, describing the sojourn of her party at Philip Van Home's, in .Somerset County, New Jersey, in October, 1779, just before their return the last time to Bethlehem, says they " found there a nephew of General Washington and a number of other American officers." This was evidently the same Washington who had passed through Bethlehem less than three months before. 506 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Stood the responsibilities, cares and trials of those who had to bear the brunt in leadership at Bethlehem, and could realize what devolved upon Ettwein when the enfeebled condition of Bishop Nathanael Seidel became known and his desire for relief from official duties was considered. The question of the proper attitude to be assumed by the authori- ties of the Church over against the great struggle in America, as this was viewed by them from the standpoint of a European country, other than England, occasioned grave deliberations. Naturally, let- ters from Bethlehem reached them at long intervals only, and the few they did receive had to touch affairs of the time with caution and reserve, for obvious reasons. Deep sympathy for their Ameri- can brethren and the felt need of another strong and wise man to communicate such official messages and institute such measures as the exigencies of the time required, and to step in and help guide afifairs, led to the decision that a protracted official visit should be undertaken by a competent member of the governing board, in the hope that the precarious situation of war times might not prevent his effort to reach Bethlehem, and from there, the other Moravian places. This important and critical mission was entrusted to Bishop John Frederick Reichel. Not only his wife, but a number of other per- sons, accompanied him. Among these were the superintendent, Frederick William von Marschall, of Salem, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter. He and the Rev. David Zeisberger, Jr., of the Nazareth pastorate, and his wife, had been detained in Europe since the General Synod of 1775, which they attended. Zeisberger remained yet longer. Others who made up Bishop Reichel's party were John Jacob Swihola, who became pastor at Emmaus during the latter part of the Revolution ; Dr. Christian Frederick Kamp- niann, sent over as physician at Hope, N. J. ; Siegmund Leschinsky, who became connected with the management of the affairs of the Single Brethren's House at Bethlehem ; Jacob Van Vleck, son of Henry Van Vleck, the former New York merchant, now a resident of Bethlehem, who had been pursuing his studies in the Theological Seminary of the Church at Barby in Saxony; and Anna Dorothea de Watteville, daughter of Bishop John de Watteville and grand- daughter of Count Zinzendorf, to be married to the Rev. John Chris- tian Alexander de Schweinitz, whose first wife, a daughter of von Marschall, had died at Bethlehem in 1775. The whole party reached 1778 1785. 507 London, October 9, 1778. There they secured the necessary pass- ports and safe conducts from the British Government, for use so far as these might serve, which it was hoped would be at least as far as New York, then in British possession. They left London, the end of October, and on Christmas Day they set sail at Ports- mouth with a fleet of more than seventy-five craft bound partly for New York and partly for the West Indies, under convoy of upwards of twenty English war vessels of various sizes and descriptions. After a further delay at the naval rendezvous of Tor Bay, they finally put out to sea, January i, and reached New York, March 26, 1779. Their arrival was announced at Bethlehem on the 31st. De Schweinitz immediately started for Hope, N. J., to proceed from there to Elizabethtown for the purpose of ascertaining how passes through the lines to Bethlehem might be had. April 2, William Duer, of New York, member of Congress, then in Bethlehem, advised Ettwein to write to President Joseph Reed, at Philadelphia, and offered to speak with General Washington and Governor Liv- ingston, of New Jersey, about the matter. Henry Van Vleck went to Philadelphia on the 7th to apply for such good offices as Presi- dent Reed could render, which he secured without difficultv.^ His 9 Two papers issued by him are preserved in the Bethlehem archives. The first reads as follows : Philadelphia, April 8th, 1779. " Sir. The Bearer hereof, Mr Van Vleck has applied to me in behalf of a Mr Marschall, his Lady and 2 Daughters, (one and de Watteville's daughter) the Revd Mr Reichel and his Lady, Mr Jacob Van Vleck, Mr Campman and Messrs Leshinsky and Swihola, all of the Society of Moravians. These persons are now at New York and are desirous to proceed to their Friends in this State at Bethlehem, for which they have my free Consent and Permis- sion so far as the same may be consistent with your convenience and the good of the Service. If therefore there is no Difficulty on that Account, you will be so obliging as to favour their Views by permitting them, their Servants and necessary Baggage to pass the Lines. I am with much Regard To Brigadier General Maxwell Your most humble Serv't Comand'g Officer Jos. Reed." at Elizabethtown. Another, probably written to the Commander-in-Chief — the address is torn off — is the fol- lowing : Dear Sir. The Bearer hereof, Mr Van Vleck is a respectable Member of the Moravian Society and a Gentleman of amiable Character. Some Concerns of the Society as well as of a private 508 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. testimonials and requests were honored ; the whole party was passed through the American hnes and reached Bethlehem, x\pril 17. One of Bishop Reichel's first consultations with the executive board — Provincial Helpers' Conference — at Bethlehem related to the position recommended by the Unity's Elders' Conference over against the Revolution and the new Government. It struck a middle course between the stand taken by those who thought that former favors from England obligated them to loyalty, so long as the issues of the war were not concluded in the recognition of American independence, and that taken by others who held that the inability of the British Government to any longer protect them in the former privileges, released them, not only from all such allegi- ance, but also from standing together in declining to take any oath or to bear arms in active warfare, regardless of differing individual sentiments ; a position which, as had been formerly urged, they were considered under obligation to take, because exemption from these things was the special privilege they had sought and received. The principle he advocated was that of recognizing the powers that be de facto, leaving the question whether de jure or not out of account, so long as their claim was not yet recognized in terms of peace by their enemy, the former Government. On this basis they should endeavor to pursue their old calling to seek the peace of the places where they dwelt, and to seek the peace they desired of the existing Government in continuing to plead for the previous exemptions ; but, so far as was in their power, to render the taxes and other duties demanded in lieu of the service from which they sought exemption. If these duties should become onerous, under the stress of war, to the extent of spoliation, they should regard this as they would view suffering which might come upon them through other kinds of calamity. They should exhaust every means to secure exemption from oath, while exerting themselves just as strongly to prove, by word and conduct, that this did not signify a position of hostility to the new Government. If the pressure became extreme, so that it would be a matter of taking the oath under duress, for those whose Nature may make it necessary for him to wait upon your Excellency. If so I beg Leave to recommend him to your favorable Notice, being assured he has no desires but what are per- fectly consistent with the Interests of America. I am with the greatest Respect and Regard Dear Sir Your most obedient and Philadia April very humble Serv't - 9th 1779. Jos. Reed. 1778 1785- 509 scruples were strongest, such persons could not rightfully expect others who did not share their scruples to this extent to go with them into a kind of martyrdom on this account, and should not insist on applying their own conscience to other men's conduct to such an extreme. Then it must become a matter for each indi- vidual to settle for himself. Those who preferred to take the oath before such a point was reached, must have liberty to do so without reproach. Those who preferred to stand by their convictions to the last, must examine their hearts and be sure that it was really a pure matter of conscience. The latter must not charge the former with violating faith. The former must not charge the latter with mak- ing themselves burdensome to their brethren. Each must bear with the other. In any case, if there arose such a division, it must not be on the ground of differing attitude towards the Government, but purely on that of conscience in the matter of oath. Meanwhile it was urged that those who were for abandoning the old position in a body should, for the sake of others, not needlessly precipitate this issue within the Congregation. One of the important things Bishop Reichel did during his stay of more than two years was to introduce a body of articles, called a Brotherly Agreement, which all of the so-called city and country congregations adopted and signed, as a uniform covenant. The stat- utes of Bethlehem and of the other exclusive settlements, although a different body of articles, were in entire harmony with it in every declaration of principle. It was adopted by a conference of thirty ministers held at Bethlehem, April 26-28, 1781. It was substantially the same as the Brotherly Agreement at the present time issued by authority of the Northern Provincial Synod of the Church in America, as the covenant to be adopted by every new congregation organized. The seventh and eighth articles of that compact read as follows: "We will cordially subject ourselves to the government that is in power over us, and will conform to all human ordinances of the land in which we live ; and we will by no means evade the payment of the taxes required of us for the support of our State or County. Being called to maintain peace, and being by grace children of peace, we will follow after peace with all men, and in no wise will permit ourselves to become entangled in political agitation or controversies, but, if such take place, in the Providence of God, will strive to approve ourselves as orderly and quiet citizens." The significance of these articles of the covenant — for no such 5IO A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Brotherly Agreement had before been adopted and signed by the people in the city and country congregations — was that they were introduced at this particular time, when the war was yet in progress and its result uncertain. They recognize an existing government, confess their obligation to it and promise subjection to it, while, on the other hand, avowing determination to keep aloof from politics. They refer expHcitly to State and County. This means, therefore, due recognition of both general and local ordinances and officials. It is worthy of attention that at that time the Moravians were undoubtedly the only religious body in Pennsylvania which, as such, bound all its membership in its central church covenant, signed by all, to such a formal and explicit recognition of dutiful subjection to the Civil Government in its first experimental stage, with its armies in the field, fighting to establish its right to begin to exist. Some other bodies among those who objected to taking the test oath deemed it their duty to withhold recognition from the new Government. The adoption of these articles, at that time, shows the general drift of Bishop Reichel's policy, which meant that of the general authorities of the Moravian Church in Europe. It indicates their probable belief in the successful issue of the struggle for inde- pendence, and reveals that they did at least not view it as an unrighteous revolt. If they had strongly believed in the probable success of the British arms, or had strongly disapproved of the Revolution, they would hardly have favored the introduction of any kind of reference to civil government in the Brotherly Agreement, at a time when the end of the conflict was not yet in sight. It is not unlikely that the influence of the statements and masterly achievements of Dr. Franklin in the interest of the cause while in Europe, particularly his securing the important French alliance, affected their opinions in this respect ; especially those of Spangen- berg, who, like that eminent Moravian of England, James Hutton — although the latter was hard to convince — was a personal friend of Franklin. That Franklin found time and considered it worth while — for he had much intercourse with Hutton, personally and in writing — to bring some weight to bear upon these men's minds, in view of the interests with which they were connected in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, is not unlikely. Bishop Croeger states in his history, doubtless on the authority of official records, that Bishop Reichel, when he started on his journey to America, was commended to Franklin's good offices by Spangenberg and Hutton. 1778 1785. 511 When Reichel assumed official charge, both in general, which required visits to all Moravian fields, including that in North Carolina, and locally at Bethlehem, Ettwein, actually, although not nominally the leader before, withdrew for the time being from his difficult post. Besides visiting various places to assist in getting the Brotherly Agreement properly introduced, he devoted his particular attention to the affairs of Hope, New Jersey, where he took up his residence for a while. During the first week in June, 1779, Reichel effected some reconstruction of boards at Bethlehem, in accordance with modifications that had been decreed by the General Synod of 1775. The general tendency of these modifications was in the line of reaction, to some extent, from the plan of organization fixed for the whole Unity and all of its parts, in 1769, towards a more compact federalism and a stronger central government — as intimated in a previous chapter, in elucidating some principles and features of organization. The Gcmcinrath or Common Council of the village no longer consisted of all the' voting members or citizens, but of a representation from its different classes or choir divisions. There was a noticeable increase in the relative number of ex-ofUcio members in the various official bodies ; and in the case of those who were elected by the people, the employment of the lot to select from candidates chosen, was regulated in such a way that its check upon mere majority choice was more strongly felt. The paramount position of the Elders' Conference, or Board of Elders, representing the connection of the Congregation with the central Unity's Elders' Conference, became more distinct and effective. It opened an era of compactness and fixedness, under strongly centralized control, that marked the most stationary period of the whole Moravian Church and of all its exclusive villages and its congregations. In its practical working, so far as Bethlehem was concerned, this tendency was, at first, perhaps salutary under existing circumstances. It was like making things fast and going into snug winter-quarters for the vicissitudes of an inclement season. The unfortunate feature of it appeared at a later period, resulting from the fact that every- thing was left there too long, when greatly changed conditions called for opening up and relaxation of arrangements. During Bishop Reichel's stay, various changes in the official personnel at Bethlehem took place, bringing some new names into prominence, while some of the officials of 1776, referred to in the preceding chapter, were transferred to positions elsewhere. After 5^2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the death of Thrane, there mentioned, the Rev. John Andrew Huebner of Niesky, an important seat of Moravian educational work m German}', was selected by the Unity's Elders' Conference to' become their Helper, at the head of the Elders' Conference at Bethlehem. On account of the disturbances of war, his coming was delayed. He finally sailed, with his wife, from Hamburg for England m March, 1779, and from Portsmouth, the latter part of October reachmg New York, February 27,, 1780. David Zeisberger, Jr., of Nazareth and his wife returned to America on the same vessel. They were accompanied also by several other persons ; John Michael Kern Jeppe Nielsen, bound for Salem, N. C, and the widow Barbara Martens, who became superintendent of the widows. Huebner formally entered upon his duties at Bethlehem on April 3, 1780 For a while he was also the principal preacher of the place.' He had the assistance, in general pastoral oversight, of Paul Muenster and, after October, 1784, of John Frederick Peter, Sr. Jeremiah Dencke continued to fill the important office of warden at Beth- lehem, with Christian Frederick Oerter as general accountant, until October, 1784, when Paul Muenster assumed the wardenship Andrew Busse continued to be chaplain of the Brethren's House and pastoral overseer of the single men until July, 1781, assisted, after May, 1777, by Jacob Friis, who passed the remainder of his days, to 1793, in that establishment, meanwhile diligently preachino- for some years at various places about the country. July 23 i78r Jacob Van Vleck, who had been had in view for the position from the time of his return from Europe-being a voung man far superior in abihty and attainments to those who preceded him— and had been acquinng preparatory experience in the little Brethren's House at Christiansbrunn, became chaplain of the Brethren's House at Beth- lehem and special pastor of the single mtn—BruederpHeger. His services were also utilized as secretary for the General Board and in writing fair copy of the Bethlehem diarv. Those who have occasion to search the records of that time, particularly the diary o the Brethren's House, have reason to bless his memory, like that of Immanuel Nitschmann for the manner in which he wrote them when compared with some other penmanship that causes so much sighing, or even worse than sighing. He was also one of those diarists— for they differed greatly, not onlv in penmanship-who had some historical instinct and some idea of what would be of future interest, and enough intelligence to use some discretion in the 17/8 1785. 513 insertion of interesting details and incidents, even when writing under tlie strict instructions about records which reduced the diaries of some other men to a monotonous chronicle of dry routine, scarcely of any use after the governing board had examined it to see whether regulations were being complied with, and then filed the manu- script.^*^ Siegmund Leschinsky held the wardenship of the Brethren's House from his arrival in April, 1779, to September, 1785, assisted by various young men as stewards, several of them filling the wardenship itself ad interim at different times, as substitutes, and assisting the chaplain of the house in the conduct of services and in pastoral oversight ; these positions being filled usually by men in training for larger service at Bethlehem or elsewhere. Several such became prominent officials at Bethlehem, while others entered the ministry and labored at various places. Thus John Schropp became steward in the Brethren's House in April, 1780, and served until March, 1782, acquiring training for his future wardenship of the Congregation. Other such assistants were Abraham Reinke, Jr., during part of 1782, more prominently Abraham Hessler, December, 1782, to September, 1784, followed by John Frederick Schlegel until April, 1785, when John Christopher Pyrlaeus, Jr., who had occasion- ally been doing subordinate duty, became steward and first assistant to the warden until September. In April, 1785, John Gambold, another candidate for service in the country ministry, became an assistant, both to the chaplain and the warden of the house, remaining in the position five years. In the Sisters' House and the Widows' House a superintendent and a stewardess with minor assistants had charge of their respective establishments. The indus- trial activities together with the orchard, garden and other appur- 10 It may be remarked here that towards the end of the century a period of — although punctiliously regular — -very barren and uninteresting diaries, as a rule, began, which con- tinued for nearly half a century ; consisting almost entirely of mere schedules of services from day to day, with painfully faithful mention of who officiated at one and another. Ac- tual history seems, to a great extent, to have been kept out of the congregation diary and recorded in the official minutes of boards, but principally in those of the Provincial Helpers' Conference, or, as it came to be called for a number of years, by the ponderous title. ^'•Heifer Conferenz irHsgame der Fennsy.vanischen unci tunliegeftden Gemeinen und Posten,'^ — the title growing as the work shrank. It may also be remarked that examinations of the Sisters' House diary are at all periods very disappointing. It was restricted throughout to such momentous routine and to petty domestic details. Excepting that of the Widows' House, it is the least satisfactory, as a source of information, of all the official records. 34 514 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. tenances of the former, constituted a considerable body of affairs to be overseen, and called for some administrative ability on the part of the stewardess. There was, furthermore, connected with each of those households — the single women and the widows — a curator. Under the arrangement made in 1779, William Boehler was curator of the former and George Huber of the latter house. The village Board of Supervision — Aufschcr Collegium — as then organized, con- sisted of seven of the elected men drawn by lot from the body of can- didates chosen by ballot ; three from among the married men, three representatives of the single men and one to represent the widowers, together with six cx-ofUcio members, the several wardens and cura- tors and the local magistrate, if there had been one. Thus the general organization and the official personnel ran to the end of the period embraced in this chapter. Bishop Reichel and his wife left Bethlehem for New York, August 6, 1781, preparatory to their return to Europe. In order to secure the necessary passports, he had to give satisfactory assurance that he would not return to the country again so long as the war con- tinued. At New York he visited and endeavored to strengthen the much-demoralized congregations in that city and on Staten Island. The vessel on which he took passage had to wait long for a convoy, and did not sail until the beginning of December. He took with him the ten-year-old son of de Schweinitz, Christian Frederick, and as companion and attendant for his wife, a young woman, Anna Maria Yarrell. They were accompanied also by the veteran store- keeper of Bethlehem, John Francis Oberlin, who, with his wife and four children, returned to Europe. After eighteen years of ser- vice, he had been succeeded in the charge of the village store, on Ferbruary 26, 1781, by Christian Renatus Heckewelder, a brother of the missionary John Heckewelder ; he having accompanied Bishop Reichel on his return from North Carolina to Bethlehem for this purpose. Soon after this change in the store, the inn of the place also changed hands. Jost Jansen, who was in charge during the most stirring times and entertained so many worthies and notables, retired from the position and was succeeded by John Christian Ebert. who was inn-keeper until 1790. Among the public men wdio visited the place during the last months of Jansen's incumbency were, early in October, 1780 — escorted by a squad of cavalry — President Joseph Reed, who made another visit in June, 1782; Speaker John Bayard, 1778 1785- 515 \\ho came again in September, 1782, and State Treasurer David Rittenhouse. Among foreign celebrities and military officers are men- tioned, in January, 1781, the Marquis de Laval Montmorenci and the Count de Custrine, who took pains to investigate the institutions and arrangements of the place; and on April 5, the Count de St. Maine and Captain de St. Victor, who attended services. At the beginning of July, the new landlord, Ebert, had among his guests a number of English and German officers. To one of these the Bethlehem diarist makes particular reference. This was Captain David Zieg- ler, connected with the Pennsylvania Infantry. It is mentioned that he was a German soldier who had served in the Russian army in the Crimea, whom "Br. Mueller had met in St. Petersburg, who had visited Herrnhut," and who had subsequently come to Pennsylvania. This was the Captain Ziegler^^ who later served in Indian campaigns in the West, became a resident and the first Mayor of Cincinnati, in 1 801, while living there, showed courtesies to the Moravian mis- sionaries, Kluge and Luckenbach, on their way to the Wabash River, and died there in 181 1. In 1782 not many new names appear in the references to noteworthy visits. In April and October, John Dickinson is mentioned and the retired Governor John Penn, with a party, once more in April. In mid-summer of that year (1782), however, Bethlehem was vis- ited — but without any pomp or circumstance — by a more illustrious man than any one who has yet been mentioned. July 25, 1782, the diary contains the following entry: "Quite unexpectedly and very quietly, his Excellency, General Washington, arrived here, accom- panied by two aids de camp, but without escort. Brother Ettwein and other brethren immediately went to pay their respects to him. After partaking of a meal, he inspected the choir-houses (Brethren's House, Sister' House and Widows' House) and other objects of interest in the place, and attended the evening service, at which Bro. Ettwein delivered a discourse in English, on the text: 'In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God,' etc. (II. Cor. 6:4), and the choir rendered some fine music, both at the beginning and at the close. The General manifested much friendliness, and the pleasure and satisfaction which the visit afiforded him were clearly to be inferred from his utterances." The diary of the Breth- ren's House, written by the same person, Jacob A^an \^leck, repeats. "J. G. Rosengarten, The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States, second edition, p. 124. , 5l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. substantially, part of this record and particularly mentions his visit to that house, his partaking of refreshments there while listening to music performed on the organ by Van Vleck, and the impression made by his imposing and agreeable personality. He passed the night of July 25 at the Sun Inn, occupying the principal "guest- room," as the house was then arranged. The record of July 26 states that "at a very early hour he proceeded on his journey by way of Easton," and that "Bro. Ettwein, who had expected to go to Hope, N. J., accompanied him to the first-named place and then (while the General apparently tarried a while at Easton) rode on ahead to make some preparation for his entertainment at Hope, where he dined and looked about the place with pleasure."^- 12 The above translation of the diary notes was furnished, in 1 891, by the writer of these pages for that part of the " Itinerary of General Washington from June 15, 1775, to Decem- ber 23, 1783," by Wm. S. Baker, which appeared in Vol. XV, of the Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog. This was Washington's First and Only Visit to Bethlehem. Numerous confusing, contradictory and erroneous statements on this subject have appeared in print. Some writers have treated of two supposed visits. This tradition undoubtedly arose out of the visit of the "nephew of General Washington" on July 28, 1779. Matthew S. Henry's History of the Lehigh Valley has, on page ill, the following : ''General Washington passed through Easton during the year 1778. The Bethlehem recollections are that he arrived at that place accompanied by one of his aids, where, after partaking of a dinner, he hurried on to Easton." On pp. 215-216 of the same work stands the following : " Washington was here (Bethlehem) in 1778 and was introduced into the various rooms (Sisters' House) by Bishop Ettwein, (Bp. 1784) where finding in the room the mother of the writer, who among others was at work, he remarked, ' Ladies, I am pleased to find you all busy at work.' Ettwein replied to him, ' yes, it stands written in the Bible, those that do not work shall not eat.' The General purchased several pair of knit hose for himself, and the sisters presented him with a dress pattern of ' blue stripe ' for his lady which he said she should wear." The statement follows that " he was received with music on the trombones from the belvedere on the Brethren's House " when he entered the village. Then is mentioned also the recollec- tion of some old inhabitants about the odd appearance of the short Ettwein walking between the tall General and his apparently also tall adjutant. Continuing, Mr. Henry says : " In the spring of 1778, Washington again passed through Bethlehem on his way to Easton, but did not stay longer than was necessary to get some dinner for himself and aid and feed for the horses." The author, writing at Easton and preferably for Eastonians, makes that town the objective point of both those alleged visits of 1778, and the impression might be gotten from the reference to the second, that Washington sought to avoid a second contact with Bethlehem people and to get out of the place to Easton as soon as possible. It may be ac- cepted as certain that Washington was neither in Easton nor in Bethlehem nor in the neigh- borhood in 1778, or at any other time prior to July, 1782. To that visit, which he really did make to both places, Mr. Henry makes no allusion although it is a matter of plain official record at the time and not of mere current tradition or "oldest inhabitant's'' recollection — always an uncertain source. The incident in the Sisters' House, which Mr. Henry relates, which various other writers have gotten from his book and reproduced, could then only have 1778 1785. 517 Other new visitors of interest, up to the close of the period cov- ered by this chapter, may be mentioned in this connection, so that this feature in the picture of Bethlehem life during those years, pre- served in various extant records, need not be again adverted to. The next visit of special note, because it produced one of the inter- esting published descriptions of the place at that time by a distin- guished foreigner, was that of the Marquis Francois Jean de Chas- tellux, who had entered the American service under Rochambeau. He came to Bethlehem, December 10, and remained over the next day. He asked many minute questions about things, says the diarist, and, as a result, he devoted some space in his famous narrative^^ to 13 Voyage i/a/is P Ameriqiie septentrio)2ale dans les annees. 1780-82, Paris, 1786 — ''translated by an English gentleman who resided in America at that period, with notes by the transla- tor." The English translation, under the title Travels tit A'orth A/nen'ca, 1780-82, was published in London in 1787. The anonymous translator, who was eventually concluded to have been one George Grieve, a Northumberland attorney, in America several times between 17S0 and 1783, was evidently also in Bethlehem and reveals some knowledge of Moravian people and things. occurred in 1782. Washington was at that time on his way from Philadelphia to his head- quarters at Newburg-on-the- Hudson. If he had been in Bethlehem twice in the early part of 1778, it would have been while the hospital was yet at the place. That two visits by the Commander-in-Chief to the place under those circumstances would not be alluded to by himself or any public official in any extant public records, any journals or correspondence is not supposable. The statement Mr. Henry makes about the second alleged visit, if 1779 were substituted for 1778, would jiartly apply to the visit of the "nephew," but the latter went fiom Bethlehem to Nazareth. That Washington was greeted on entering the village by the music of trombones from the belvedere, or roof terrace, of the Brethren's House, was only an unfounded local tradition embellishing the story. He appeared in the place sud- denly, not expected by any one. That compliment was sometimes paid in olden times to prominent Moravian visitors or to particular dignitaries of state. Even if there were no other circumstantial or negative evidence that General Washington was not in these parts prior to 1782, any one who has examined the Bethlehem diaries of those years and noted how the presence of all the prominent generals and civil officers who visited the place is regu- larly recorded, will take the absence of all reference to a visit, by the greatest of them all, as convincing evidence that he was never among them. Mr. John Hill Martin, who assiduously gathered up local traditions and oldest inhabitants" recollections for the Historical Sketch of Bethlehem (1869), incorporated several in connection with Washington, which also reveal the confused and uncertain character of such sources. That Ettwein was conspicuously a Whig among Tory clergy (p. 29) is an instance of erron- eous tradition. That "nearly all the sisters sided with the Whigs," will not be taken seriously by those who know how much Moravian sisters of that time indulged in pronounced political sentiments. The Rev. C. F. Seidel, there quoted, who came to America in 1806, first settled at Bethlehem in 1817. Ettwein hardly spoke German to Washington (p. 30), and 5l8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Bethlehem, giving previously also an interesting account of his visit to Hope, N. J. Bearing the reputation of a somewhat llippant French aristocrat, not much in sympathy with Christian piety, it is the more striking that he treats the institutions and customs of Bethlehem with so much respect. His first remarks, as usual, are about the tavern. Some misunderstanding or misinformation led him to state that it formerly served the ^Moravian Brethren as a magazine. He says, "I could not derive much information from my landlord on the origin, opinions and manners of the Society, but he informed me that I should next day see the ministers and administrators, who would gratify my curiosity. The nth, at half-past eight. I walked out with a Moravian, given me by the landlord, but who was likewise even if he did, he hardly addressed him with 'V/«." That Washington said "I wish I were a simple Moravian " is highly improbable. The recollections of one "old sister," quoted (p. 32), correctly state only one visit, but do not give the year. James Hall, the fuller (p. 32), evidently confused the two Washing- tons. The trombone music he refers to was probably rendered when Washington approached the house on his tour of the town after dinner. Mr. Martin gives these statements as he got them. An additional tradition, given by the Rev. Wm. C. Reichel in The Crown Inn, p. no, is the following: " According to the late Mr Frederick Fuehrer's statement (he was the fifth son of Valentine and Margaret Fuehrer [thirteen years inn-keeper at the Crown] and having been born in the ferry-house in September, 1768, was in the fifteenth year of his age, when Washington was at Bethlehem) the General passed the night of the 24th of July at his father's, and on retiring, pleasantly sought to impress the people of the house with an idea of the height of his person by reaching his hand into a ring suspended from a staple in the ceiling, which was inaccessible by men of ordinary stature." This " recollection," somewhat perplexing because definite and circumstantial, admits of two explanations. One is that this again was not General Washington, but the " nephew " of July, 1779, and that the exact date (24th) was assumed by Reichel as the only possible one in connection with the General's visit, the memory of Fuehrer having hardly been so distinct, he, at most, prob- ably specifying, " the night before " Washington came into Bethlehem. This was not an improbable occurrence in the case of the nephew, who may also have been a tall man and was doubtless more likely than his stately uncle to thus show off his height, to " astonish the gazing rustics ranging round." The other possible explanation is that General Washing- ton, traveling unannounced and unobtrusively, as he was then doing, may really have passed the night before entering Bethlehem at the Crown on the south side, reaching there perhaps late in the evening from Pottsgrove, now Pottstown. In the Itinerary of General Washing- ton {Pa. Mag., XV, p. 306) it is assumed that he passed the night of the 24th at Pottsgrove, from an entry of his expense account : " Exp. to Pottsgrove, £,1. 13. 4 — Bethlehem, ^3. 17. 6." But this is not conclusive, for that entry has merely "July, 1782," without exact date. Lodging and breakfast at the Crown and next day's entertainment at the Sun might not unnaturally have been placed in one item as "Bethlehem." This lengthy note, which some may think needless, may prove of use to others, for reference, bringing under review together, at one place, the various published Bethlehem-Washington stories. GEORGE WASHINGTON From Chas. Willson Peale's Portrait of 1780 See Penna. Magazine, Vol, XIII, P. 257 // 8 1785. 519 ill-informed, and only served me as a guide. He was a seaman who imagined he had some talent for drawing, and amuses himself with teaching the young people, having quitted the sea since the war, w^here, however, he had no scruple in sending his son. He subsists on a small estate in Reading, but lives at Bethlehem, where he and his wife board in a private family."^* The example of the old-time Bethlehem hotel-keeper, Ebert, in referring visitors who propose to write, to the "ministers and administrators" when led into deep water by questions out of the ordinary about Moravian history, doctrine and institutions, might even in modern times be followed by some interrogated people, with results more in accordance with the facts when the fruits of such inquiry appear in print. His first visit was to the "house for single women." Referring to the variety of work done there, he remarks that some "engaged in works of taste and luxury," revealed a particular skill in certain tine kinds, "like our French nuns." He speaks of the superinten- dent, "Madame de Gersdorfif," as being "a woman of family," but states that "she did not presume upon her birth." Like a high- bred gentleman, he offered her his hand in going up and down stairs and she even appeared surprised at the attention. Of the dormitory he says, "though it be ver_v high and airy, a ventilator is fixed in the roof like those in our play-houses." In the "clean and well-kept" kitchen were "immense earthen pots upon furnaces," like in our hospitals, he says. In the chapel of the house he observed, besides the organ, "several instruments suspended on nails." The church — the present Old Chapel — he speaks of as "simple" with the remark, it "differs little from that we had seen at Moravian Mill." He means Hope, N. J., where he had previously been, and which 14 The seaman referred to was Nicholas Garrison, Jr., who owned property and had been in business at Reading, for a while served as an express between Moravian places during the Revolution, and at this time was at Bethlehem with his wife Grace, daughter of William Parsons, founder of Easton, whom he brought to Bethlehem in March, 17S0, on account of her impaired health. Commonly, his attainments as a draughtsman and sketcher are spoken of with more appreciation than the French Marquis expresses. He made views of a num- ber of Moravian settlements of which two of Bethlehem, 1757 and 1784, and one of Naza- reth, 1761, are known to have been engraved and printed. His eldest son, Nicholas No. 3, born in 1760, came to Bethlehem in March, 1782, from Philadelphia to visit his parents. He it is to whom de Chastellux refers as sent to sea and whom the translator, wlio says he served with him on board ship, gives an exceedingly bad reputation in a note ; commenting on the miscarriage of his good Moravian education and training. The ''seaman" must not be mis- taken, as has been done by some, for the famous old Captain Garrison, Sr., who died in 17S1. 520 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. bore that name among some, on account of its famous mill, which was an important objective point, and the superior meclianism of which particularly interested many observant travelers. He also speaks of the "religious pictures" which he saw in the church. When he went to the house of the single men he found the super- intendent, Jacob Van Vleck, copying music, and states that "he had in his room an indifferent piano forte made in Germany." He also found him to be "not only a performer, but a composer." On the organ of the house, Van Vleck "played some voluntaries in which he introduced a great deal of harmony and progressions of bass." The Marquis says that he found him "better informed" than those he had before met with, but adds, "yet it was with some difficulty I got from him the following details." He then gives a concise state- ment of the general organization of the Brethren, the economic system, the property arrangements, the discipline and social order and, of course, the much-discussed subject of marriage, in connec- tion with which, however, he does not refer to the use of the lot to settle the question of a proposed marriage. While some of his state- ments are quite amiss, they are, on the whole, substantially correct on these various subjects, and are interesting as made from the stand- point of an outside observer, using his own terms for things which were then translated into English expressions different from those in current use among the Brethren, as applied to offices and official affairs. He found the Brethren's House much the same as the Sisters' House in its internal order. His attention was attracted by a novel arrangement for "awakening those who wish to be called up at a given hour," and describes it. He says, "all their beds are numbered, and near the door is a slate on which all the numbers are registered. A man who wishes to be awakened early, at five o'clock in the morn- ing (this was not early at Bethlehem except in winter) for example, has only to write the figure five under his number. The watchman who attends the chamber observes this in going his rounds, and at the time appointed, the next morning, goes straight to the number of the bed, without troubling himself about the name of the sleeper." He also took a view of the surroundings from the belvedere on the roof. He visited the Bethlehem farm. He says it was "kept in good order, but the inside was neither so clean nor so well-kept as in the English farm-houses, because the Moravians are more bar- barous than their language." The translator, as an Englishman, doubtless enjoved rendering this latter remark, which rendering 17/8 1785. 521 appears to be a defective translation of the author's meaning. Then after eating breakfast, at ten o'clock, with which he was "still better satisfied"" than with his walk, he and those with him proceeded on their journey at noon; halting twenty miles away, towards Phila- delphia, at Kalf"s tavern, a German house, very poor and filthy."' This kind of comments by travelers on country taverns in Pennsyl- vania generally, in those days, was the common rule. The first new visitor of the following year, 1783, to be specially mentioned, was Attorney General John Gardiner, of the Island of St. Kitts, the first week in June. Counsellor Gardiner was a son of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, of Boston, proprietor of the "Plymouth Purchase" on the Kennebeck River, in Maine, the region in which the Broad Bay work had previously been carried on by Moravian evangelists. John Gardiner was acquainted with Moravian clergy in England, had his son, who later became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, educated in the JNIoravian School at Fulneck, England, was a warm friend and supporter of the Moravian missionaries in St. Kitts, and for some time was engaged in negotiations with the Mora- vian authorities with a view to the founding of a settlement on the Kennebeck. ^^ He was received with much pleasure at Bethlehem, spent six days at the place, was accompanied, on his departure, as far as Nazareth, by Ettwein, and from there proceeded to Boston. At the end of June there is a reference to the celebrated Judge Edmund Pendleton, of Virginia, who had sojourned some time as an invalid at Bethlehem and left, much benefitted in health. Four weeks later Dr. Otto was called to attend the Swedish Baron von Hermelin — an eminent mineralogist, on a tour of scientific investi- gation — who was taken ill on the road six miles away. He was brought to Bethlehem for treatment and remained until August 7. From July 22 to August 29 of that year, 1783, the famous Captain Paul Jones was most of the time at Bethlehem. He was accompa- nied to the place by the well-known Philadelphia merchant. Samuel Wharton, who seems to have just returned from his eventful sojourn in Europe, where, after fleeing from England, he had sought the befriending offices of Dr. Franklin in France. The diarist says he became acquainted with the English Moravian, James Hutton, dur- ing the intercourse of the latter with Franklin. Captain Jones had occasion to participate during his stay, as a voluntary emergency police captain, in an exciting incident at the Crown Inn. After the 15 See Transactions, Moravian Historical Society. IV, 53-65- 522 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. evening service of the Children's Festival, August 17, Fuehrer, inn- keeper at the Crown, came over and reported the suspicious move- ments and unruly acts of two individuals who had followed to his tavern a traveler who carried a sum of money which, under fear of these men, he had given into Fuehrer's care. Meanwhile they attacked the traveler, deprived him of his letters and papers,, inflicted bodily injury upon him and threatened to kill him, when he escaped in the darkness, the assailants then intimidating the other persons at the tavern and taking possession of the place. There being no magistrate at Bethlehem, Captain Jones took matters into his hands and made arrangements to hold and guard the ruffians until an officer could be sunmioned. The next day a neighboring Justice was sent for, the affair was investigated, the assaulted trav- eler appeared, the prisoners, who were both found to be tavern- keepers on the road to Philadelphia, were bound over to court, and at the trial, on September 18, the worthy squires concluded that the affair was trivial and the case was dismissed. The apparent reason for their leniency is doubtless to be found in the fact that the trav- eler's errand proved to be one associated with Moravian mission- aries and Indian missions to which their worships — most of them — cherished the old repugnance, cultivated among some classes of people in Northampton County. The aforesaid tavern-keepers who followed the traveler to Bethlehem proposed, as it seems, to earn fame in the service of their country by hunting down a traitorous emissary of the Moravians and unearthing some dark plot. When the papers taken by them from their victim, after he first escaped from their hands, were examined by Captain Paul Jones and others at the tavern, the traveler turned out to be a trader, Ebenezer Allen,, who, on August 2, had brought to Bethlehem letters sent, June 22, from Niagara by that faithful assistant of the missionaries John Joseph Bull, alias Shebosh, frequently mentioned in former chap- ters, and John Weigand, of Bethlehem, on their way as messengers of the MoraAnan authorities to the fugitive missionaries Zeisberger, Heckewelder and Sensemann, settled with the remnant of their con- verts at New Gnadenhuetten, on the Huron River— now Clinton — in the present State of Michigan. The whole affair had a connection, therefore, with occurrences on the ragged border-edge of the great Revolutionary struggle, out in the wild West, which once more involved the Moravians and gave the heaviest blow to their Indian missions that had yet been JOHN MARTIN MACK OWEN RICE (sIst) JOHN HECKEWELDER DAVID ZEISBERGER ABRAHAM LUCKENBACH 17/8 1785. 523 suffered. This blow was the cold-blooded slaughter of ninety Mora- vian Indians, men, women and children, together with six other Indians, by a band of lawless white guerillas at Gnadenhuetten, on the Tuscarawas River — then called the Muskingum, being a con- fluent of that stream — in the present State of Ohio, on March 8, 1782. That atrocious deed, although it has had its apologists, has passed into history as one of the blackest stains on the records of the border country of that time. Yet it was probably no worse than some men in Pennsylvania were ready to perpetrate, and would have perpetrated, in 1764, if there had been as little restraint around them as there was around those in Ohio. If the deed had been executed upon those savages who had been guilty of the terrible outrages in the West that excited many almost to frenzy, it would have admitted of some palliation, under the awful circumstances of the time. As it was, however, historians who can apologize for it, can bring them- selves to defend any dastardly wickedness men were ever guilty of, should it suit some purpose of the writers to do so. The Indians at Gnadenhuetten had no more to do with the atrocities which that band of rangers wished to avenge, than had the most innocent women and children in the settlements. The details of that deliberate butchery of a lot of defenseless, submissive, praying Christian men, women and children, penned up for the purpose and then led out, one after another, to be slaughtered like cattle, are to be classed with the most inhuman deeds that men professing to be civilized have ever been known to commit in warfare. The affair sent a thrill of indignant horror through the country, and into the highest circles of Govern- ment, leading to Congressional action, with a view to investigation and punishment ; but, as events proved, there w^as little to be done under the crudely-organized administration and distracted condi- tions of the time. At Bethlehem, when the first intimation was received, a month after it occurred, the people were appalled and grief-stricken. This awful calamity to the missions hastened the end of the enfeebled and suffering old President of the Executive Board, Bishop Xathanael Seidel, who passed away on May 19. I782.i« 16 In his decease, the most conspicuous man yet remaining of those who figured promi- nently in the early days of Bethlehem passed away. Amid the scenes of the Revolution others of prominence had departed : John Bechtel, in April, 1777 ; Valentine Haidt, the painter of pictures, in Januar\-, 1780; Frederick Boeckel, Farmer General, the same year; "neighbor" John Jones, in June, 1781 ; Captain Nicholas Garrison, Sr., in Sep- 524 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PEXNSVLVANIA. Ten days before the disturbance of August 17, 1783, at the Crown Inn, which has given occasion to this digression, another tourist arrived at Bethlehem whose visit led also to an interesting published description of the place. This was Dr. John David Schoepf, a sur- geon from Baireuth in Bavaria, who had been serving in the British army. The diarist refers to him as having been with the Anspach soldiers, and having remained in the country to study its natural resources. His special object was to collect medicinal plants in order to extend the range of materia mcdica}' The scientist, the lover of nature, and the man capable of being pleased and of pleas- ing, are revealed in his account. It treats, more than do any previous narratives of the kind that have been referred to, of the natural sur- roundings of Bethlehem, and enables readers of the present time to form a better idea of the beautiful scenery along the Lehigh in olden times. In his description of an August visit to Bethlehem, the "placid and charming Lehigh," around the banks of which "gather in bewitching beauty all the fascinations of a truly delightful region," and the formation of the ridges and heights that constitute the Lehigh Hills with their bluish rock, their foliated gneissoid rock and their underlying gray limestone, first come in for mention. Among the "beautiful shrubs and trees which, with their shadow and boughs overhanging the bank far into the stream, impart to the picture a glow of richest exuberance," are mentioned kalmia, rhododendron, cephalanthus, sassafras, azalea, liriodendron, magnolia, and others which people in Germany "long to have in gardens and parks." This tember, 1781 ; Henry Miller, the printer, in March, 1782; Michael Haberland and Henry Beck, associated with the early work in Georgia, and George Klein, the " Father of Lititz " and first stage-line manager from Bethlehem to Philadelphia, all in 1783. Among those who departed in 1785 were the Rev. John George Nixdorff, the Rev. Christian Olto Krog- strup, and the old school-master Adam Luckenbach, ancestor of all the numerous families of that name at Bethlehem, who, although never actually a member of the Moravian Church, was treated as such at his death. 17 The results of his researches were embodied in '■^Materia Medica Amcricauis Septen- trionalis Pottissimum Regni Vegetahilis^'' published at Erlangen in 17S7. The distinguished Pennsylvania botanist, the Rev. Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg, seems to have rendered him valuable assistance, as did also Dr. John Matthew Otto, of Bethlehem, whom he men- tions several times in his Incidents of Travel. See on Dr. Schoepf The German Wars in the United States, by Rosengarten. The entire section of the Incidents of Travel, which relates to Bethlehem and the neighborhood was reprinted as Appendix No. i in A History of the Rise, Progress and Prese>it Condition of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies at Bethlehem, Pa. — " Bethlehem Seminary Souvenir" — 1858. 1870 and is, therefore, access- ible to more readers than the descriptions of other travelers that have been quoted from. 1778 1785- 525 is what a traveler in 1783 found where now the cinder banks burn under the August sun. To the mind of the genial writer "the ferry- man and his two assistants seemed to reflect the cheering aspect of the landscape, being friendlier and more accommodating than the generality of settlers in the vicinity." He then enumerates the principal buildings of the town and com- ments on the cleanliness, order and industry. He observed that while there were few English in the place, nearly all were conversant with both languages, and that there was English preaching every Sunday. He says, "As most of the Brethren, and especially their ministers, are of Saxon origin, it is a matter of no surprise that the purest and most correct German of which America can boast is spoken here at Bethlehem, and in the other Moravian settlements." Ettwein was absent on a journey, but in Huebnet he "found an agreeable and amiable gentleman and an ardent lover of botany." He bestows the customary praise upon the inn, refers to Baron Hermelin. the Swedish mineralogist who was there sick, and notes Dr. Otto's skillful treatment, under which he was recovering. The various "factories and mills," the water-works, and the new brewery are alluded to and in part described. The observant visitor refers to ''an iron nail of the thickness of the little finger and three inches long," found in digging a cellar, "ten feet below the surface of the ground and fifteen or twenty feet from the bed of the river," at a place where no excavations were known to have ever taken place before. He speculates on the possibiUty of its having come from the wrecked vessel of European navigators, before the days of Columbus, and having been brought inland by Indians ; and on the length of time requisite to have thus buried it under that depth of soil through deposits by the annual rise of the waters. The skill of Bethlehem's artisans and the variety and excellence of their products are praised. He acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr. Otto "for a variety of information respecting the medicinal proper- ties of indigenous plants." "What a glorious land would America be," he says, "if all its inhabitants conformed to the pattern afforded by the Society at Bethlehem." Referring to the position of the people in the matter of bearing arms and the trouble to which it had subjected them, he says, "Their love of peace and quiet cost the Moravian Brethren dear during the late war of the American Revo- lution." The long war could at that time be thus spoken of as at an end. On Januarv 20. 1783. the preliminary Treaty of Peace had been 526 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. signed. On April 11, Congress had ordered a cessation of hostili- ties, and this had been announced on the i6th by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. The final treaty was signed, September 3. Its ratification by Congress took place, January 14, 1784, and was proclaimed on January 22. On December 11, 1783, the people of Bethlehem joined devoutly and joyfully in services of thanksgiving, in accordance with public proclamation. With grateful hearts they looked into the future and, in their restricted sphere, deliberated upon plans for the new era and the changed conditions, as in the wider sphere, men upon whom the responsibilities of state rested gave their attention to the proper formation of government, to dealing with the glorious and the grievous results of the war and to the development of nation- ality. The Moravians were prepared to approve themselves faithful and law-abiding citizens under a new government, as they had striven to be under the old one. The prospects for the prosecution of their old missionary calling among the Indian tribes were not highly inspiring, for the ruin that had been wrought in the Tusca- rawas Valley, in Ohio, had left them, thus far, nothing that could be done but to hold, if possible, the remnant that survived. But plans for a new forward movement were being discussed, in spite of the discouragement, under the inspiration given by the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Moravian missions, in that same sadly memorable year, 1782. There were also other problems of readjustment and reconstruc- tion to be considered in a variety of greater and lesser things. The ordeal of the preceding years had not been without its internal effects, not only in their scattered town and country congregations, but also in their exclusive settlements. Some of these effects at Bethlehem were far from pleasing and salutary. Associations and impressions that could not be avoided had left their mark on many of the young men in particular, in ways that caused the fathers of the village grave concern. Among some the old simplicity, the old loyalty to the ideals of the place in its central missionary purpose, its religious, social and industrial life, had departed. That solidarity which had once made the Single Brethren so effective in united strength and zeal, in every effort upon which their energies were directed, was seriously weakened. Thoughts and ways picked up out- side were adopted by some who at the same time lacked the caliber, the stamina and the experience in the outside world that were 1778 1785- 527 requisite to make them sturdy and reliable men, if emancipated from the old tutelage and left to act independently. Even some contami- nation of morals was painfully evident, here and there, among those whose years of transition from boyhood to manhood had fallen in the time of the Revolution, when evil influences could not be kept at a distance. Not only the toning up of discipline and order, but the revival of industries and the rehabilitation of the economic sys- tem, to make the diacony of the Single Brethren flourish again on the old basis, were attended with difficulty. Throughout, in the matter of general and local government, in the management of property and finances, in the conduct of trades and handicrafts, in pastoral oversight and educational work, the problem of the time was complicated. Those who dealt with it had to face the fact that, on the one hand, after the Revolution, it could be said that, in many respects, old things had passed away and all things had become new in the country in which they were placed, while, on the other hand, their intimate organic connection with the European settlements of the Church, and the nature of their subjec- tion to immediate control by the central Executive Board in Europe, bound them to conformity, even in the minutest details, to principles, and methods which were fixed for both sides of the ocean aUke, and were not altered by the great changes produced by the American Revolution. Along with all this was the fact that through the exten- sive acquaintance that had been formed during the Revolution with leading men in all parts of the country, who regarded the Moravian settlements with admiration and conceived that more such would be desirable, in opening up and developing the country, they were met by numerous inducements and even urgent requests to colonize in different regions and increase the number of such settlements. This also gave rise to questions that had to be considered. Then, fur- thermore, the impression made upon so many intelligent people by the educational system and methods of the Moravians, and the desire of many such to find good schools in which to place their sons and daughters — for there was a woeful scarcity of such — resulted in applications from one quarter and another for permission to bring children to Bethlehem to be educated. The boarding-school for girls had been maintained through all the demoralization, on a small scale, but not on a plan that admitted the daughters of people generally, or afforded the faciUties they sought. That for bovs at Nazareth Hall had been temporarily closed in Sep- 528 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. tember, 1779, under the dire stress of the time, and the six boys remaining in it had been transferred to Bethlehem and placed in the little school that was again domiciled in the large stone house which in its palmy days had quartered a much greater number before they were moved to Nazareth Hall, when the school there was first opened in 1759. Hence it came that the question of re-organizing and enlarging the plan of school work to meet these applications, as an important branch of Christian service to the public in the new era that had been entered, was added to the other questions to be considered. Very naturally the Unity's Elders' Conference, at the close of the Revolutionary War, concluded to send a representative to America to direct the various new measures that had to be introduced, while thoroughly inspecting affairs, both externally and internally, and doing what seemed best to foster the spirit and fix the form then thought desirable. Bishop John deWatteville, commissioned to undertake this task, proceeded with his wife, early in September, to Holland, took passage on the ship Neiitrality, Captain Carl Siever, in the harbor of the Texel, and sailed, September 27. They were accompanied by the Rev. John Daniel Koehler, destined for Salem, N. C, and his wife; an attendant named Sponar, and a woman, Jus- tina Grafif. Their voyage was an exceedingly long one, full of hard- ship and peril. Reaching the vicinity of Sandy Hook early in Janu- ary, and being tossed about there until nearly the end of the month, they headed for the West Indies ; were shipwrecked off the Island of Barbuda, spent some time in Antigua, and finally sailed in another vessel for Philadelphia, where they landed, the end of May, and reached Bethlehem, June 2, 1784. Their nearness to New York and then their shipwreck in the West Indies had become known and their arrival had been awaited with the utmost anxiety, especially, of course, by deSchweinitz and his wife, the son-in-law and daughter of deWatteville, and the joy in welcoming them was correspondingly great. This was Bishop deWatteville's second visit to America, but the third made by his wife, who must have been much impressed by the changes that had taken place at Bethlehem since she first saw the spot when, a maiden of less than seventeen years, she accompanied her father, Count Zinzendorf, to the Forks of the Delaware in 1741. DeWatteville's duties, during his stay of three years in the United States, embraced more or less extended visits to all of the congre- 17/8 1785. 529 gations in the Northern States and a protracted sojourn in North CaroHna, where a separate executive government for the Wachovia work was organized which survives to the present time, dividing the Moravian Churches in America into two Provinces. The seat of government of the Northern Province continued to be at Bethlehem. After the death of Bishop Nathanael Seidel, Ettwein, first Vice-Presi- dent of the Executive Board, who had been engaging for a while in ofilicial duties at Lititz, returned, on May 31, 1782, to Bethlehem, to fully take the President's place, with Huebner as Vice-President, until instructions about the permanent filling of these positions should be received from Europe. A General Synod was held at Berthelsdorf, Saxony, that year and, although no deputy from America was present, American afifairs were specially considered by a committee, and various enactments relating to them resulted. Ettwein was to be the successor to Seidel, and he became the candi- date for the episcopacy to fill the vacancy. Bishop Graff, of Salem, N, C, had died, August 29, 1782, a little more than three months after Seidel's decease, and the venerable Matthew Hehl, of Lititz, was the only Moravian bishop left in America. Ettwein's consecra- tion was deferred, however, until the arrival of deWatteville. It took place on June 25, 1784, in connection with the anniversary festival of Bethlehem. Bishop Hehl, at that time already in the eightieth 3^ear of his age, died on December 4, 1787. Ettwein was then the only Moravian bishop in America until 1790, when the Rev. John Andrew Huebner, of Bethlehem, and the Rev. John Daniel Koehler, of Salem, N. C, who had come to America with Bishop deWatte- ville, were consecrated to the episcopacy. Seidel had, as set forth in a previous explanation of the executive office, been regarded as the American "Provincial Helper" of the Unity's Elders' Confer- ence. Their several Helpers at the head of the Elders' Conferences of the American church-settlements had, together with the Admin- istrator of the Unity's estates in America, constituted a kind of cabinet of the Provincial Helper, called the Provincial Helper's Conference, all being appointees of the Unity's Elders" Conference, selected by them, subject to confirmation by lot. Now, vmder the order instituted by deWatteville, this individual position of Provincial Helper, as "Occonomus'' of the iVmerican settlements and congre- gations, was to cease, and the conference as a body were to jointly administer affairs, under directions. The title Provincial Helpers' Conference also ceased for a number of years and the long, unwieldy 35 530 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. one, "Conference of Helpers in General of the Congregations and Stations in Pennsylvania and adjacent parts," referred to in a pre- "ceding note, was given them.^^ The rationale of all this was to eliminate, under the policy of that period, all semblance of autonomy from the body of American settle- ments, congregations and stations, as an integral section (Province) of the Unity ; to place them, like those in Germany, under the immediate control of the Unity's Elders' Conference more fully, this board holding direct relations to them severally, as congre- gations, and undertaking to deal across the ocean with all their internal affairs, the same as a governing board on the spot. Such a thing as an American Provincial Government did not really exist under this arrangement. There was no Synod, properly speaking, from the last such gathering in 1768 until 1817. The meetings that took its place were merely conferences of ministers, shorn of all power to legislate independently, even on the most trifling things. What may be called the Provincial Board by courtesy was only an admin- istrative agency of the Unity's Elders' Conference, composed of its appointees sent over from Europe, from time to time, as vacancies occurred. They possessed no power of independent action in any particular beyond what they were occasionally compelled to exercise in emergencies. A related feature of this policy was the abandon- ment of church extension, so far as embracing opportunities to organize further city and country congregations was concerned. The growth of those which did exist was restricted by the system then everywhere established, of making even admissions to membership subject to the use of the lot, and by imposing regulations upon them as closely akin to those of the exclusive settlements as possible, and as nearly uniform as possible, even in the most petty details, quite regardless of varying circumstances and classes of people. The only kind of extension taken into consideration under this regime was that invited by large land-owners who held out induce- ments for the founding of additional settlements after the model of Bethlehem. But one after another, these propositions, after inter- minable deliberations, came to nought in consequence of what the board in Germany concluded were insurmountable difficulties ; these being often matters of detail which from the standpoint of present- day views, seem unimportant and sometimes even petty. The rigid 18 *>■ Heifer Conferenz itt's ganze der Pennsylvanischen und umliegenden Gemeinen utid Post en."' 1778 1785- 531 system which had been elaborated and everywhere imposed, required. in such cases, provision for every feature that entered into the organi- zation and equipment of the existing exclusive settlements, and when the means for such provision were not in sight the project must needs be abandoned. That under such a regime the Moravian Church in America, as a whole, as well as its several settlements and congregations, entered upon a stationary period, got out of touch with the spirit and movement of the country about them, became confirmed in an isolated, unique, quiescent character — self-absorbed and somewhat open to the charge of narrow self-complacency and conceit, like those in Europe — was natural and inevitable. That at Bethlehem and the other exclusive settlements, it was found by and by, that this isolation did not exclude human nature in any of its elements and phases ; did not suffice to make all people perfectly good and harmonious, contented and happy, was just as natural and inevitable. On the other hand, the vitality preserved in spite of all the artificial restraints and trammels, so that these settlements did not become efifete in the exotic character forced upon them — a vitality which was able eventually to emancipate itself and adjust itself to surroundings that had moved far away from them in the development of the country — remains a matter of surprise. This stationary, exclusive and quiescent condition of Bethlehem was fixed by the results of deWatteville's visit. Such a more pro- nounced isolation of the Moravian villages was the alternative chosen when the question of future poHcy had to be decided after the Revo- lution. The other would have been to fully fall into line wath the new general movements of the time. This would have required the entire abandonment of the church-village plan, and for many reasons deemed cogent, this was regarded as undesirable, impracticable, even fatal to Moravian ideals. The logic of the situation seemed to demand a decided course in one direction or the other. That which was taken greatly retarded the growth of the Moravian Church and accounts for its comparative smallness at the present time. Nearly fifty years passed before it began to organize new congregations again, and some old ones had, under this system, been permitted to die. But at Bethlehem, and its other exclusive settlements, it pre- sented one of the most interesting experiments in methods of reli- gious culture, municipal organization, regulation of business — adjust- ing supply and demand, taking care of the place and claim of each, preventing aggrandizement on the one hand and impoverishment 532 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. on the other, making the milhonaire and the pauper ahke impos- sible — that can be found anywhere by the student of these matters. In its effects on the general spirit of Bethlehem, deWatteville's sojourn was highly beneficial. His personal influence in allaying friction, smoothing out the wrinkles, reducing the jarring that had been produced during the trying years of the Revolution, and in gen- erally toning up the esprit de corps, was very great. His earnest appeals to heart and conscience were effective in recalling to their better selves, some who had drifted away from the standards, and in checking the inroads of baleful tendencies, such as intemperate indulgence in strong drink, which had become a cause for serious alarm in some quarters and had borne some sad fruit. The entire system of finances was thoroughly examined and the agreements between Bethlehem and the Wardens of the Unity, as well as the Pennsylvania Sustentation Diacony, made in 1771, were renewed. Notwithstanding the grievous burdens of eight years of war and the heavy taxes which yet continued, the Bethlehem Con- gregation Diacony at the closing of accounts on May 31, 1784, not only showed no deficit for the year, but revealed that the amount for which its property in buildings stood obligated to the Wardens of the Unity — iio,ooo in 1771 — had been reduced to the extent of £3,500. It was found that the finances of the Sisters' House were in a gratifying condition. Those of the Widows' House showed a small deficit, due to the fact that there was less opportunity for carry- ing on productive industries, and that the rates for board had to be fixed ver}^ low on account of the indigence of most of the widows. The finances of the Brethren's House were not in good shape, owing to the long demoralization of most of the industries carried on by the single men, from which they had not recovered, the drain caused by the heavy war taxes and militia fines, which almost bankrupted their establishment, and a lack of loyalty and zeal in their common cause shown by some of the single men since the war. Some diffi- culty in the adjustment of wages to the price of living was also being experienced. It is stated, early in 1785, that the warden of the Brethren's House was finding some relief for the situation by the barter of products, especially from the oil-mill and from the oat and barley-hulling mill, for provisions in Philadelphia, enabling him to procure these cheaper than they could be furnished him through the Bethlehem store. In this connection the regulations of the time in the matter of mutual support between the various establishments of ^77^ 1785- 533 the place appear, for while the authorities acquiesced in this enter- prise on the part of the warden of the Brethren's House, under the peculiar circumstances, strong disapproval of the practice of some people of commissioning him to make purchases in the city, was offi- cially expressed. The people were admonished to patronize their own village store, just as each of them expected the support of his brethren and fellow-citizens in his particular trade or business. It is of interest to note that in connection with the need of farmers and of various craftsmen and artisans, such as shoemakers, tailors, linen-weavers, tinkers, a brazier and a coppersmith, then wanted in the industrial revival and advance, and to be secured from the church settlements in Europe, if possible, the decision was recorded when this matter was under discussion, that there should be no previous binding contract with such men, or advance of money for traveling expenses to America, for should any of them prove to be useless or unfaithful, the higher law of the place, as based on Christian brother- hood, would leave them a charge upon its resources, if indigent or sick. Thus, in its Hmited scope, Bethlehem, at that time, considered and pronounced upon the questions of pauper immigration and imported contract labor on which, in modern times, the United States Government makes laws. A final important reconstruction effected at the opening of the new era, under Bishop deWatteville's supervision, was that of the boarding-school for girls, to be yet mentioned in this chapter. It is an interesting fact that at this third epoch in the history of that department of Moravian work in Pennsylvania, his wife, the Countess Benigna, again took part in shaping its plan and course — she who had opened the original school for girls in Germantown, May 4, 1742, and helped in its re-organization and permanent establishment at Bethlehem, January 5. 1749. The desire of various people outside the Moravian Church to have their daughters educated at Bethle- hem, which, as already stated, led to the thought of restoring the school to its original character on an enlarged scale, as a general boarding-school for girls, had been anticipated by action of the Gen- eral Synod of 1782. Such applications to the schools of the Church in Europe had there led to a similar move. Prior to 1769, both in Europe and America, all the children of Moravian settlements had been educated in their schools at the expense of the general treasury of the Unity. Then, this being no longer financially feasible, and more complete local organization being everywhere effected, only 534 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the children of ministers and missionaries continued to be so cared for, and arrangements had to be made to support schools for the other children out of the several congregation diaconies. This new arrangement went into eflfect at Bethlehem in 1771, as was men- tioned in a previous chapter. The General Synod of 1782 was made attentive to a movement to so re-organize or newly establish schools in the church settlements of Germany and England, that the desire of outside people to place their children in such schools might be met and, at the same time, by means of the enlarged facilities and increased school income thus available, the very important end be gained to secure better school- ing for the village children without a heavier financial burden on the people ; while the presence of such boarding-scholars would, further- more, be a financial benefit to the several places in other ways. The Synod, taking the whole subject into consideration, concluded that this movement also indicated a mission which the Moravian settle- ments might fulfill in making educational work in their way, on this basis, a special department of Christian service to the public, and therefore officially authorized undertakings in this direction. Thus opened the new era of schools, both for boys and girls, in the Moravian villages, with the two classes of scholars — boarders and day-scholars ; the era of the boarding-schools in their modern char- acter, as one of the special departments of Moravian activity. In the boarding-school for girls at Bethlehem there had been, during the Revolution, a great decrease in the number of daughters of mis- sionaries from the West Indies and South America, and at this time, although it had not, Hke Nazareth Hall, been temporarily closed, there were only five inmates. After many deliberations, a scheme for the institution on the new basis was matured, and plans for the re-organization and re-opening of Nazareth Hall, as a boarding- school for boys, were worked out at the same time. October 2, 1785, the school for girls, thus re-organized, entered the new period of its existence with those five boarders, Susan Bagge, Rosina Friedman, Maria Heckewelder, Anna Unger and Maria Unger as a nucleus, and eleven girls as day-scholars. Two former teachers, Elizabeth Burnet, serving since 1757, and Susan Langaard, retired ; also Juliana Esther Wapler, for many years the matron, and Anna Margaret Motz,for a while the stewardess. Two other teachers, Maria Elizabeth Beroth and Sulamith Nyberg, continued under the new order, performing also some of the duties of the retired matron 17/8 1785. 535 and stewardess, while John Frederick Peter and his wife became curators of the estabhshment. The whole was in charge of the Head Pastor at Bethlehem, the Rev. John Andrew Huebner, as first "Inspector," or Principal of the new period, and its quarters continued to be in the bell-turret building — "Old Seminary" or "bell house" — in which it was established in 1749. On October 3, eleven Bethlehem boys were taken to Nazareth Hall and that institution was re-opened with the Rev. Charles Gotthold Reichel as Principal and George Godfrey Miller and Lewis Huebener as teachers, while a little bovs' school was continued at Bethlehem. CHAPTER XIV. Two Decades Under the Close Regime. 1786— 1806. The re-establishment of Bethlehem on the basis of more complete conformity to the Herrnhut model caused it to become stationary amid surroundings that were all in flux politically, ecclesiastically, industrially and socially. This was, in accordance with the revised scheme, consummated step by step during the year 1786 and the first months of 1787. Bishop deWatteville and his wife, having finished their work in xA.merica, bade farewell to Bethlehem on June 4, 1787, and went to Philadelphia, where they had engaged passage for Europe on the brig Ruby, Captain Sam. Smith. They sailed on June 12. They were accompanied by several other persons. One of these was Susan von GersdorfT, the superintendent of the Sisters' House during the Revolution, who returned to Germany. Bethle- hem was left to struggle with the experiment of extreme exclusivism amid conditions more adverse to such a regime than could have been found anywhere in civilized countries — with the experiment of strict paternal government at a time when the contagion of independence was in the air to such an extent that even the legitimate outcome of the Revolution in the creation of federal government had to fight for its life, when the war was over, with many who, after indepen- dence had been achieved, wanted also to be independent even of a central government of their own. The spirit of the brewing French Revolution, already in the atmosphere of the times, moving the thinking and the unthinking, the educated and the ignorant in their several ways, could not be entirely kept out of even Bethlehem. An aversion to being controlled became contagious, especially among the younger men of the place, from the more intelligent craftsmen and mechanics who read books and newspapers and discussed the great movements of the time, down to the stable boys, who got ideas from others of their kind and tugged at their leading strings. The old heroic days of Bethlehem were a thing of the past, never to return. 536 1786 i8o6. 537 The spirit and aims of earlier times were specially recalled and fervently impressed upon the people on one memorable occa- sion during this period. This was when the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the settlement — Bethlehem's first jubilee — was •celebrated with high festivities on June 25, 1792. A festal eve ser- vice of humble confession, fervent prayer and grateful praise was held on the previous evening. At six o'clock in the morning, the trombonists, stationed on the belvedere or roof-terrace of the Breth- ren's House, ushered in the festival with stirring chorales. At half- past eight, the people gathered to morning prayer. At the next ser- vice, at ten o'clock, a historical sketch of Bethlehem and several original poems treating of the theme of the occasion were read. There was lovefeast at three o'clock, the Holy Communion was celebrated at seven o'clock, and after that the day was closed with -evening prayer around a pyramid of light in the square in front of the bell-turret house or old seminary. The entire town entered into the spirit of the day. Illuminations were arranged in the evening in nearly every building of the place, and the feeling prevailed that all ages and classes had a part in this great festival. There was an uplifting of spirit in the contemplation of noble men and women, and noble deeds, awakened by the historical review. The thought was impressed anew that Bethlehem had been founded to the glory of God, and had been preserved through tribulation and peril by His mighty hand for a further mission in His Name. The festival was beneficial in its effects on the general tone of the place, and it evidently made many a one attentive to ideals that should not be abandoned. But it did not permanently revive the aspirations of the early years, or kindle anew the first love. To be heroically altruistic was not in the atmosphere of the time. The spirit of self- denying co-operation for the maintenance of ideals had given way, among many, to that of merely striving to better individual circum- stances, either by leaving and seeking their fortune in the world or by staying and trying to get all they could out of the establishment with the least necessary return on their part ; some doing this by agitation and clamor, other by circumvention. The former — those who left — deserved more credit than the latter and, although their depar- ture often saddened the hearts of the village fathers, they caused them less trouble and did not resort to dishonorable little ways of seeking their own interests, as the latter frequently did. Many other men, both married and single, were good and faithful and true. Thev 538 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. were yet in sympathy with the old ideals, and continued to associate their place and calling with missionary work and with the service of Christ. In them the men who were sincerely trying to maintain exalted standards always found support. There were yet others who, although quiescent, so far as action for or against established ideas, principles and methods was concerned, were nevertheless a burden, for they perpetually murmured and found fault. The growth of this spirit, under such a regime, among those who lacked the force or the opportunity to do anything alse, was natural and became a prominent characteristic of Moravian villagers. The system was well adapted to developing a chronic disposition to grumble among persons who were so inclined and who in their narrow confines were given to magnifying the smallest occasions for dissatisfaction. With all there was of comfort and unconcern for the lesser spirits, in the state of being entirely taken care of, there appeared with it also the common propensity of persons who are beneficiaries to childishly dwell upon little grievances, supposed inequalities in the bestowal of favors, partiality in assigning places or tasks and the like. Those who had more energy and were engaged in occupations that gave them more importance, but who did not figure in controlling circles, chafed under an order of things that subjected them to so much official surveillance, and all their doings and affairs to such close and constant supervision. What the old devotion and enthusiasm could submit to without growing restive, the spirit of those last decades of the century found very galling at times. The men, both at the top and in minor places^ who were set in authority under the system, differed in ability, force and tact, as well as in heart. Some were able to control easily and hold good will, some could even inspire subordinates with loy- alty and zeal. Others were unable to be anything but a hardship to those under them. Not all could in a pleasing manner pursue the strictness and minuteness of the worked-out instructions under which they performed their official duties. Some were disposed to impress their own importance by being minutely severe and playing the mar- tinet. There were men then, just as there are now, who quickly grew great by being put into some little office and being clothed with a little authority. Under such it was less easy for persons to patiently bear the yoke, and their assumptions often provoked insubordination and caused friction that under larger minded and wnser men would not have appeared. During the first vears after 17^6 i8o6. 539 the Revolution, more difficulty was experienced in all these respects than some years later, when the machinery of the place ran smoother and the period of serious new jarring and friction had not opened. In numerous features, however, the life of the place was a very attractive one in its quiet retirement, its orderly industry, its degree of social equality and harmony hardly to be met with anywhere else except in similar Moravian villages, its average comfort among all classes, its genial intercourse which among many tempered the fault- finding spirit into a harmless habit, its cultivation of much aesthetic taste under the unpretentious plainness, particularly in music, and the picturesque externals of the situation. Such characteristics were usually charming to people who visited Bethlehem and did not come into contact with the things that were less pleasing, for these commonly escaped the attention of the outsider. The latter, which have thus been cursorily sketched, can indeed hardly become known and would not be associated now with those idyllic days except through an examination of the minutes of official boards. These records reveal how difficult it was to regulate some things and some men, and they give an insight into the sombre features of the situa- tion. Some of the difficulties were occasioned, of course, by the attempt to operate, in all particulars, the over-wrought system that was imposed, often giving rise to serious embarrassments in quite trivial matters without compensating benefit resulting from the methods. It is true also that it was the official custom of those days, when treating of the conduct of people, to make use of language, in the way of allusion, that conveys the impression of something far more serious than really lay in many a case, so that such allusions must be taken with caution and with a proper understanding of the official expressions in vogue, in justice to many an individual referred to whose offence was really but a trifling thing. It is true, further- more, that the paternal administration of those days was disposed to attach too much odium in the relative estimate of various offences, to the particular one of insubordination, a very undefined misde- meanor ; one in which very insignificant occurrences were sometimes magnified by small men, jealous of their authority, into grave offences, and the offender was occasionally as much officially sinned against as sinning — like a child provoked to wrath. Nevertheless, many of the difficulties were experienced in the effort to suppress propensities and to keep out influences that were really evil. One most frequently referred to was intemperance in the use of strong 540 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. drink, mentioned in the previous chapter, which seems to have pre- vailed in some circles — as generally throughout the country at that period — to a deplorable extent. This was the most prominent evil in the declining establishment of the single men at Christiansbrunn, which finally sank into decadence that became hopeless. It had to be closed out on April i, 1796, when the important farm and indus- tries were put in charge of a few competent and trustworthy men, mainly men with families, and several of the deteriorated bachelors were given a mere asylum there under watchful restraint. Another flagrant vice which was particularly characteristic of that age throughout the country generally and at Bethlehem found its way into some circles to an extent that called forth earnest pastoral admonition, was the practice of coarse profanity. A spirit of irreverence, indifiference and levity, over against sacred things, among many inmates of the Brethren's House and even among some heads of famiHes, and a disposition to neglect the services of the sanctuary under all kinds of flimsy pretexts, occasioned the Elders' Conference of the village much anxiety. In all these things, the taint of bad influences during war times and the invading spirit of the age in revolt against long accepted religious tenets, ecclesiastical traditions and even moral restraints, did no Httle damage in Beth- lehem during those closing years of the century and taxed the resources of its guardians. Possibly if the policy of complete open- ing up had been adopted at this period, in harmony with the general course of things in the country, the result might have been disastrous to the spiritual and material trusts providentially committed to Beth- lehem. Perhaps the system, given the name of '"close regime" in the heading of this chapter, was at that time, all things being considered, the best, as a means of conserving the body of resources centered at the place for more effective future unfolding and use under other conditions. The olBcial personnel of Bethlehem, during the twenty years embraced in this chapter, did not change very frequently, so far as the most important positions were concerned, but it included a con- siderable number of minor functionaries, particularly in connection with the establishment of the single men, who came and went, serving short terms. Bishop John Ettwein remained at the head of the Amer- ican General Board until old age and infirmity compelled him to retire on November 26, 1801. He died soon after that, January 2, 1802, and on January 5, his remains were laid to rest aside of the 1786 i8o6. 541 grave of Bishop Xathanacl Seidel. His funeral was attended by a great concourse of people from the surrounding country, including three clergymen of other denominations. The General Board had decided, in February prior to his retirement, to request, when the General Synod of that year should meet, that provisions might be made for the continual residence of two bishops in Pennsylvania, in order that the embarrassments resulting several times before from the old age and incapacity of the single one resident in this country might not occur again. Under the system existing at that time, one was singled out as "'Presiding Bishop," placed by the Unity's Elders' Conference at the head of its Conference of Helpers, the General Board in Pennsylvania. Ettwein was succeeded in this position by Bishop George Henry Loskiel, who arrived from Europe on July 21,, 1802. The Rev. John Andrew Huebner, Head Pastor and President of the Elders' Confer- ence at Bethlehem — Gcmeuifwlfer — and first Principal of the re-organ- ized boarding-school for girls, w^as consecrated a bishop on April 11, 1790, and in ]May removed to Lititz, where he was stationed until 1801, when he attended the General Synod in Europe and remained there as a member of the Unity's Elders' Conference. The Rev. John Augustus Klingsohr, a very popular preacher and a zealous, faithful man, before this stationed at Lititz, became his successor at Beth- lehem in May, 1790, continuing in that office until his death, Novem- ber 5, 1798. The head pastorate at Bethlehem, after his death, was filled ad intcriui by Bishop Ettwein, assisted by the Rev. Christian Frederick Schaaf, until the appointment of the Rev. Jacob Van Vleck to the office by the Unity's Elders' Conference in 1799, after serving since 1790 as Huebner's successor in the principalship of the boarding-school and as regular preacher at Bethlehem. In the spring of 1802. he removed to Nazareth and his successor in 1800, as principal and regular preacher, the Rev. Andrew Benade, became associate Head Pastor, with the Rev. John Gebhard Cunow ad interim, until the arrival of Bishop Loskiel, who had been appointed to this office by the authorities in Europe, along with the presidency of the Board of General Helpers. In May, 1790, the Rev. John Schropp became Warden of Bethle- hem and filled this office until his death, July 4, 1805, when he was succeeded by the Rev. John Yungberg. Others connected with the pastorate corps during that period were — a short time until his death in 1791 — the Rev. John Frederick Peter, Jr., assisting the Rev. Paul 542 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Muenster, who died October 15, 1792, in special oversight of the married people, along with other duties. Muenster was followed in this position, in 1793, by the Rev. Jeremiah Dencke, formerly war- den, who died, May 28, 1795. After a temporary arrangement until November, 1798, this department of pastoral service, together with various other positions and duties, passed into the charge of the Rev. Christian Frederick Schaaf, who filled the place more than twenty years — the longest consecutive term of service in connection with the Moravian pastorate, in the history of Bethlehem. Others who assisted in the pastorate during the period from 1786 to 1806 were the veteran missionary, the Rev. Bernhard Adam Grube, from May, 1787, to March, 1791, and then, after a brief term of service at Emmaus, where his wife died, from October, 1793, to the end of this period and beyond to his death, March 20, 1808, at the great age of ninety-three years. During his years at Bethlehem he also rendered much service as a secretary of boards and, Hke Schaaf, Van Vleck, Dencke, Oerter, Immanuel Nitschmann and some others, with his superior musical abilities. Another assistant, 1786 to 1787, was the Rev. Lewis Frederick Boehler, a son of Bishop Peter Boehler. Jacob Van Vleck, when he was selected to be principal of the boarding-school was succeeded, as chaplain of the Brethren's House and spiritual overseer of the single men, by his assistants, John Mar- tin Beck, Nathanael Brown and John Christian Reich by turns, from 1789 to November, 1791, when this ofBce was filled by the Rev. George Godfrey Mueller until September, 1793, the Rev. John Fred- erick FrueaufT until November, 1797, the Rev. John Frederick Stadi- ger until April, 1802, the Rev. John Constantine Mueller to November, 1804, and then the Rev. John Frederick Loeffier to the end of the period under review and beyond ; he at the same time performing the duties of warden for the single men during part of his term of service. The wardenship of the Brethren's House, after 1790, was brought into closer relation to the general wardenship of the village, on account of the precarious state of the finances and the growing disposition in the Brethren's House to proceed incautiously and incur debts. The incumbent was no longer such an important and independent functionary, but, shorn of some authority, was rather merely a steward acting under directions. John Gambold was in office until March, 1790 — a faithful, conscientious man struggling with great difficulties — assisted, prior to that time, by Samuel Gottlieb Kramsch, who also assisted the chaplain and was school-master of the boys ; 1786 i8o6. 543 Charles Jacob Dreyspring, and John Christian Reich, who then for a while filled the position alone. After that the chaplain was at the same time the steward, for, as arrangements then were, he had less of actual business to oversee than was formerly the case. The Rev. John Christian Alexander deSchweinitz, Administrator of the property of the Unity in Pennsylvania from 1771, returned to Europe in 1798 and became a member of the Unity's Elders' Confer- ence. He left Bethlehem with his family on April 10 and sailed, April 22. His assistant, the Rev. John Gebhard Cunow, who arrived from Europe, July 30, 1796, and had therefore been in training for the ofifiice nearly two years, became his successor and thus acquired a very prominent and important position at Bethlehem. He was a man who made himself felt, not only in point of ability, but in self-asserting force, a disposition to be arbitrary and (dictatorial in the conduct of affairs, and an uncompromising insistence upon every minute regula- tion that had been fixed, no matter what kind of difBculties might be involved in enforcing it. As the nature of his duties brought him into close and constant connection with financial and industrial mat- ters of all kinds and with village affairs generally, these character- istics were decidedly felt by those who had the most to do with its business concerns. Besides these positions filled by ordained men, some other con- spicuous places and their incumbents may be mentioned. The first postmaster of Bethlehem appointed by the United States Govern- ment was Joseph Horsfield. His commission dated from June 12, 1792. He also filled the ofifice of Justice of the Peace for a while, from 1794. The second postmaster was George Huber, February 13, 1802, and the third was Francis Christian Kampmann, February 20, 1803. He was the incumbent at the close of the period covered by this chapter. The apothecary shop of Bethlehem, in charge of Dr. John Matthew Otto until his death in 1786, had the names of several men connected with it besides Timothy Horsfield, Jr., for a number of years his chief assistant. These were Dr. Christian Fred- erick Kampmann, who had come to Pennsylvania in 1781. He had served as physician at Hope, N. J., some time prior to Dr. Otto's death. Then he came to Bethlehem as physician and apothecary until the appointment of a successor in 1790, when, in September, he again went to Hope and remained until 1808, and then settled finally in Bethlehem. He was assisted for a while after 1786, by the young 544 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. surgeon Matthew Otto, Jr., who, ahhough inheriting his famous father's talents, was not Hke him in steadiness and reHability of char- acter. He died in May, 1797, at Allentown. Another assistant for some time was James Cruickshank, better known as steward and accountant of the boarding-school for girls, who died in 1805. Yet another was Joseph Dixon, who in August, 1794, went to Emmaus as physician. One of the regularly educated physicians of the period. Dr. God- frey Henry Thumhardt, was temporarily located at Bethlehem after his arrival from the mission field in the West Indies, until August, 1791, when he went to Lititz and was identified with that place until his death. Dr. John Eberhard Freitag arrived from Europe in 1790, to be the regular physician and apothecary of Bethlehem. His long term of service reached far into the new century. In November, 1795, came Dr. John Frederick Rudolphi, from Europe, who later settled for a while near Lititz and for a longer time at Reading. It is a little surprising to read of such specialties in the healing art being countenanced at Bethlehem in those days as the coming of Dr. Newbury to the place, in 1792, to instruct Joseph Dixon in the mysteries of magnetic healing. The Sun Inn also changed hands in 1790, when John Christian Ebert, who enjoyed the distinction of entertaining General Wash- ington, retired from the position and, on June i, Abraham Levering, whose wife had the reputation of being a particularly popular hostess, took charge. He was inn-keeper until June, 1799, when he was succeeded by John Lennert, who on June i, 1805, retired in favor of Christian Gottlob Paulus, who was landlord at the time which closes this chapter. The era of regular mail stages, coming and going in the dignity of Government contract, opened during the decade embraced in the connection of Abraham Levering with the famous inn. Before that, the "stage wagon" to Philadelphia was a more humble enterprise of intermittent existence. A more satisfactory service than had existed since the days of George Klein was established in the summer of 1785 by Frederick Beitel, farmer general and former wagon-master, of many adventures in Revolutionary times. He expressly stated, however, that he did not wish to be bound by an advertisement of regular trips. How long he was on the road in this new capacity is not clear. Now, however, the opening of regular post roads brought better system into this important branch of public service and increased its speed and con- 1786 i8o6. 545 venience. The stage coach, arriving and departing regularly, became a part of the life of the Sun Inn, and after 1795 the blowing of the stage horn when the vehicle came within hearing distance of the Lehigh, was no longer listened for in the direction of the Irish stone quarry, from which the old Philadelphia road had, since the days when Bethlehem was founded, led to the place, for in that year the road across the mountain, now yet spoken of as "the Philadelphia road," was opened. In connection with all this, a more conspicuous epoch-making enterprise had been consummated at Bethlehem which terminated the history of the Crown Inn and the need of a house of entertain- ment on the south side, and relegated the ferry to the realm of things that were, by proudly carrying all who sought a tavern at the place quickly and on an unmoving structure across the river to the Sun. This was the building of the first bridge over the Lehigh. Towards the close of 1791, when the construction of a turn-pike from Philadelphia was being agitated by parties in the city and along the road — for road-making in all directions was then a leading enter- prise — Warden Schropp and other men at Bethlehem who were studying the external problems of the time, revived, with more vigor than before, the oft-mooted project of a bridge. In that first bridge scheme the new principal of the boarding-school, Jacob Van Vleck, was interested, for his institution was then the most important estab- lishment in the town, and its patrons probably expressed the wish that conveyance across the stream on a foundation more firm than the ferry might be secured. A committee appointed, January 2, 1792, to deliberate on the matter and report, declared, three days later, in favor of postponing it because of other proposed undertakings. The committee consisted of Bishop Ettwein, Paul Muenster, Francis Thomas, the carpenter ; Frederick Beitel, the farmer and wagoner; Valentine Fuehrer, and Massa Warner, connected with the fortunes of the Crown Inn and the ferry. Perhaps the last two were not unbiased members of the committee and supported Bishop Ettwein in reporting adversely. Ettwein stoutly opposed the building of a bridge at that time, for he favored first enlarging the hotel accom- modations, which seemed to him and some others to be the more pressing need. Those who were urging the bridge knew that when his opposition had to be reckoned with ; there must be some special efifort put forth to win the day. Therefore, the opportunity was seized on January 23, when he was on a visit at Hope, to call a meet- 36 546 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ing of the voting men of the village in GcnicinratJi or Common Coun- cil, to test the prevailing opinion when the most forceful opponent was not present. The result was a practically unanimous vote in favor of a bridge. When Father Ettwein returned and learned of this sly maneuver he declared that he would have nothing to do with any further meetings about the bridge, and he kept his word. He did not actively oppose it but quietly let things take their course, and the bridge was built. The projectors offered, as conciliatory conditions, that no indebtedness should be incurred by the Congregation treas- ury ; that a sum, each year, equal to the average annual income from the ferry for the preceding ten years, should be guaranteed the treasury from the receipts of the bridge ; that the regulations in all respects should be under the control of the village authorities ; that the stock — for a stock company was to be formed — should be kept in the hands of citizens of Bethlehem. The Act of Assembly authorizing it was passed, April 3, 1792, and signed by Thomas Mif!iin, the first Governor of the State under the new constitution. Contracts for furnishing material and building the bridge were let in due process of time, and at last, fine hemlock timber cut in the forests along the Panther Creek, began to be floated down and drawn ashore near the ferry. In the spring of 1794 operations were properly started. On May 12, the wood-work was commenced, and on June 25, the first pier was completed. But between difficulties encountered because of inexperience in building a bridge across so wide a stream as the Lehigh, and a set-back through damage done by high water, the work was delayed, so that it was Saturday, September 27, before the announcement could be made, "the bridge is finished." The next day it was opened for free travel and on Monday the taking of toll commenced. The structure cost $7,800. The amount was dis- tributed in shares of $100. This first bridge, like its successor, built in 1816 and opened for travel October 19, was an uncovered one. The old ferry was abandoned as soon as the bridge was finished, and on October 31, 1794, the Crown Inn was closed as a public house and became a farm house. The last inn-keeper, from May, 1792, to that time, was George Schindler. The need of additional hotel accommodations was met in another way. by considering it in con- nection with the long-felt need of more ample quarters for the vil- lage store. There had been a project in the minds of some to erect a more commodious inn on the south side, but the interjection of the bridge-building plan caused, instead of that, the entire abandon- 1786 i8o6. 547 nient of the tavern on that side, as has been seen. On February 13, 1792, the Elders' Conference, finding that there was a determination to build the bridge, referred to the Village Board of Supervision — Aufscher CoUegiinii — a substitute for that tavern plan. This was to erect a new building for the store and then fit up the whole of the old stone building on the Ladciigassc or store street — the present Market Street — that is, the part which had been occupied by the store and the adjoining '"Horsfield house," later "Van Vleck house" — as an adjunct to the Sun Inn. Further developments preserved this inter- esting connection between store and hotel, for the new store, the site of which was selected February 16, 1792, "next to Joseph Hors- field's house," became Bethlehem's second hotel, the Eagle, which will be referred to again in proper connection. During that year and the following one, the enterprise dragged heavily. Several times evidences of a "hitch" in the affair appear — whether because of a coolness between Christian Heckewelder, the store-keeper, and the village fathers, or a lack of entire confidence on their part in the abihty of the store-keeper to superintendent building operations, or a conflict of authority between Heckewelder and War- den Schropp, is not clear. When the plan of the building was dis- cussed and preliminary approved, on August 2, 1792, the Elders' Con- ference saw fit to record the decision that the warden and not the store-keeper was to superintend its construction. They twice reiter- ated this decree during the following months, the second time adding the remark that there was much unpleasantness connected with the whole matter. The store was moved into the new building before its completion in 1794. On August 30, of that year, it was stated that the entire building was about finished and the assistant, John Christian Reich, moved into it. This new store was finally gotten into proper order and became a more elaborate business than that in the old building, but Christian Heckewelder was transferred to Emmaus to take charge of the little country shop at that place, and then to Hope, N. J., and was succeeded at Bethlehem by Owen Rice. He was a son of the Rev. Owen Rice who came to Pennsylvania with the "First Sea Congregation," had, from 1784 to 1790, been in charge of the inn at Nazareth and then of the store there, and in November, 1792, would have been selected to open the adjunct inn at Bethlehem in the former store-building, if the fathers of the Nazareth Elders' Conference had concurred. His son, Owen Rice the third, had been "store-boy" for Christian Heckewelder for a season, receiving his first mercantile training; but for some reason, relations were not 548 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. perfectly agreeable between him and his master, for on one occasion Heckewelder, who seems to have been unfortunate in encountering the cross-grained side of various persons, complained of young Rice that he gave him much trouble — perhaps by "insubordination" — and made life grievous for him — "machte ihm das Leben saur" — so that two members of the Elders' Conference had to be deputed to interview the young man and persuade him to desist from causing his master heaviness. Thus in divers little ways the surface of business life at Beth- lehem was ruffled in connection with Heckewelder's administration, but when Owen Rice, father of the aforesaid youthful Owen, was established in charge of it, things moved more smoothly and prosperously at the new stand ; for he was not only a highly capable but a popular and much esteemed citizen and business man. During the early years of his administration there are evidences of gradual but very modest additions to the range of stock carried — things which some, who yet cherished the notions of the Spartan times of Bethlehem, looked upon as ministering to the frivolities of the world ; such things as lay in the direction of slight ornamentation in dress. Even such articles as ribbons of divers' colors and glittering beads could be purchased there by parents who wished to brighten the hearts of their little girls, when taking the last stroll about the village with them, before leaving them at the boarfling-school to enter upon their first struggle with home-sickness. This institution was becoming increasingly important to the village in various ways, not only to the inn and the store, but also to other estabHshments and Hues of industry. Already in 1789, it had out- grown its primitive quarters and the question of better accommo- dations had begun to be discussed. August 16, of that year, the Elders' Conference of Bethlehem concluded that a new and larger building was needed and, at a session of the General Conference of Elders on the 22nd, this view was concurred in and three preliminary points were agree to : the new building must be erected on school account and not on account of the Congregation treasury ; a stone building would be preferable to a frame one ; the two most eligible sites would be in the rear of the old school building — where the Parochial School now stands — or east of the Widows' House where the cow-stable and the old log kitchen of the Sisters' House — "an eye-sore" — stood. The latter site was preferred by some officials, but the superintendent, stewardess and chief women of the Sisters' 1786 i8o6. 549 House entered decided objections, because of the ruin that would be wrought to the large and conveniently located garden of that establishment. The subject was discussed in Common Council of the village on September 10. The site back of the old school was selected in deference to the wishes of those who plead for the Sisters' House garden. The sisters promised to have the unsightly old kitchen removed as soon as possible, and the locality put into more attractive shape. It may be added here that already in 1782, the Widows' House had become so crowded that its chapel was parti- tioned up into dwelling-rooms, and that some years later the plan was entertained of building a separate but communicating wing to afford a new chapel with a refectory in the basement; but in September, 1793, it was decided to extend the main building east- ward and in 1794 this extension, as noted in an earlier chapter, was completed in the direction of the spot first had in mind for the new boarding-school building. Plans for the new school building had been submitted and approved, September 11, 1789. It was to be built of stone, one full story high, forty by fifty feet in dimensions, with four large rooms on the main floor, a basement under the entire building for refectory and cellar and an attic for dormitory purposes, to contain several separate apartments sufficient for the accommodation of forty to fifty girls. The only alteration of the plan was that in November it was concluded to have a broken roof so that such long timbers as the original plan called for would not be required, and the dormitories could be more advantageously con- structed. The building committee consisted of Joseph Horsfield, John Christian Hasse, John Heckewelder, then sojourning at Beth- lehem, John Andrew Huebner, then yet principal, with James Cruick- shank, steward and book-keeper of the school as paymaster, and John Schropp, warden, and Paul Muenster, ex-warden of the village, as advisory members. The building was commenced that fall and during the winter building material was collected and prepared, so that in the spring it might proceed rapidly. On Sunday afternoon. May 2, 1790 — Jacob Van Vleck being now principal — the corner- stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies. In a leaden box deposited in the stone was placed a document of the customary character, in which were recorded the names of the eighty-eight boarders and day-scholars and all who had entered since 1786; the officials and ten teachers connected with the school and their prede- cessors since 1785; the names of all the men and women belonging 550 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to the Elders' Conference and the men belonging to the Board of Supervisors — Aiifseher Collegium, formerly translated into English by some in the literal enough, but rather pompous and, in view of their functions, inappropriate title "College of Overseers''^ — the names of the General Conference of Helpers, conducting the affairs of the Moravian Church in the Northern States for the Unity's Elders' Conference in Europe, and the names of the latter body. The building, although practically finished the following autumn, was not occupied until the spring of 1791. On April 12, it was formally dedicated and taken possession of. Beds and other furniture I The Elders'" Conference, or Board of Elders, consisted of all the local clergy in official position — they have been mentioned in this chapter — the wives of those who were married and five other women in office : Juliana van Gammern and Catherine Lembke in the Widows' House, and Elizabeth Lewis, Anna Dorothea von Marschall and Verona Schneider in the Sisters' House. The Board of External Supervision consisted of de Schweinitz, Muenster, Reich and Oerter, already mentioned, and the following : John Andrew Borhek, William Boehler, Sr., Joseph Horsfield, Henry Lindemeyer and Matthew Witke. It may be added that, besides this official personnel, the Common Council of the village — this term is adopted for Gemeinrath in the character of that time to which the name in modern use, Church Council, does not suit, for town and church were then one — was made up, in 1790, in this wise: besides the above boards as ex-officio members, there were lo married couples, 2 widowers, 6 single men, lo widows, i8 single women from the respective classes (choirs) of the population, drawn by lot from candidates chosen by ballot. The following persons who were masters of trades or were holding positions by appointment, were, by virtue of their office, members, in 1790: Matthew Weiss, the dyer; Jacob Rick- secker, the fuller ; Charles Weinecke, the tanner; John Kornmann, the currier; Herman Loesch, the miller ; Christian Ebert, the inn-keeper ; Frederick Beitel, the farmer ; Chris- tian Heckewelder, the store-keeper ; Schmick, the baker; Christian Hornig, the forester; George Stoll, the saw-miller ; Massa Warner, the ferryman ; Valentine Fuehrer, inn-keeper at the Crown ; Dr. Kampmann, the Physician ; Abraham Anders, head sacristan ; John Jungmann, connected with sustentation affairs; Joseph Horsfield and Francis Thomas, in their capacity as cicerones ; Andrew Borhek and William Boehler, as curators respectively of the Widows' and Sisters' Houses ; Christian F. Oerter, the book-keeper ; the widow Mary Apollonia Weber, as assistant to the head sacristan; Detlef Delfs and Eva Lanius, nurses ; Mary Catherine Gerhardt, stewardess in the Sisters' House; Elizabeth Beckel, attendant upon visitors ; Jacob Friis, itinerant minister of the neighborhood. When it is considered that all of these positions were, by previously fixed arrangement, represented in the Council, and all the members of the two village boards were ex-cfficio members and the rest of its membership were drawn by lot from the candidates elected, it will be apparent how firmly the situation was held in the grasp of the " close regime^'' and how very little opportunity there was for a choice by the people in making up this body which nominally represented the vox popidi. For a few years before the Revolution the Gemeinrath was really a town meeting, composed of all the adult male population and a number of women in office. VIEWS FRONT AND REAR OF THE SEMINARY OF 1790 THE BOYS' SCHOOL HOUSE OF 1822 WITH FUNERAL IN THE FOREGROUND 1786 i8o6. 551 were moved into it in the forenoon and in the afternoon the forty-tive boarding scholars and their six tutoresses, with the clergy and other chief men and women of the village, passed in ceremonious procession up from the old to the new building, where elaborate exercises were held. Thus began school history at the spot where the present generation of Bethlehemites are accustomed to see the troops of boys and girls who make up the day-school and the Sunday-school of the Moravian Church, gather about buildings more commodious but certainly less picturesque than that massive stone structure with its quaint curbed roof and heavy overhanging eaves and its embow- ering willows which, after serving a quarter of a century as board- ing-school and then for more than forty years as a dwelling and, in part, as school quarters for some years, had to be destroyed because those who then controlled such things were immovable in their decision that no place could be found at which to erect a Parochial School building, except by demolishing the old stone house, which many wished to see spared. Some of the most classical memories of the famous institution which in subsequent years adopted the name Seminary for Young' Ladies in preference to boarding-school for girls, are clustered about that old building which served as its second home ; and certainly the largest comparative number of specially interesting and distin- guished family names figure on its roster during the twenty-four years of its history in that house, when it did not aspire to any more assuming name than simply boarding-school. If the diaries of those years had been kept in the manner of the earliet periods, thejre would undoubtedly be many allusions to persons about whom it is of interest now to read even trifling incidents, the larger number of whom were attracted to Bethlehem by the school more than by any- thing else. The occasional references to notable visitors are princi- pally when foreign Ambassadors, Ministers and Consuls came to see the town, as the common custom of such personages was. Now and then the name of some Governor, Congressman, Judge of the Supreme Court, or eminent scholar and educator appears. Among the latter class of public men was the Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, who was in Bethlehem several times, had some corre- spondence with Bishop Ettwein on various subjects and received simdry books treating of the history, doctrines and missions of the Moravian Church to be added to the library of his institution. The last known visit to the place by one of the Penns occurred in 1787, 552 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. when John Penn, son of Thomas — often called John Penn the poet, to distinguish him from his cousin of that name, the last Proprietary Governor — was in Bethlehem and felt his muse stirred to indite some lines to its memory which are to be found in his "Common Place Book," in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. - The most interesting visit of that period, in so far as it has added another to the published accounts of Bethlehem, was that of the famous Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who was pursuing his obser- vations and experiments in agriculture and economics, and naturally therefore investigated things at Bethlehem with particular attention. His visit occurred in June, 1797. The diary of that time, in its prosy brevity, disposes of his presence with the statement that "a French Duke was here and made very minute inquiries about all our arrange- ments." Moving about in the quality of a simple, untitled gentle- man, he announced himself as Monsieur Liancourt, using the name of another of his family estates, and ])robably did not encounter the ignorant criticisms for so doing, which certain quarrelsome relig- ionists in Pennsylvania who knew more about polemics than they did about etiquette, bestowed upon Count Zinzendorf in 1742, for announcing himself as von Thuernstein. This French nobleman came to Bethlehem with a letter of introduction from Alexander Dallas, Secretary of the Commonwealth, acting in the matter for Governor Mifflin and commending the visitor to the courtesies of 2 " Hail, Lehigh, to whose woody shores Monockesy his treasures pours, Thro' fertile meadows bro't; For when he writes, the groves and streams Most fill the poet's airy dreams And most inspire his thoughts. Else, Bethlehem, had I pictured thee (Surrounding culture raised to see) My muse's earliest care ; Or told the customs and the rites Each brother boasts (as she indites) Or each religion 's fair. From German fields the people came O'er stormy seas, with pious aim, Nor deemed the risk too much. Irish in troops the same have done, By bondage short their welfare won, Scotch, English, French and Dutch." 1/86 i8o6. 553 Bishop Ettwein.^ He, of course, met with polite attention and in the account of his travels* gave, at some length, the most correct statements about the place and about Moravian affairs generally that is to be met with in such printed narratives. In his first reference to Bethlehem and the Moravian Brethren he says : "I have read in books of travels, so many different recitals respecting the government of their Society, their community of goods, their children even being taken away from the authority and superintendence of their parents, as belonging to the Society at large, and respecting several other points of their government, that I was desirous to judge, myself, of the truth of these assertions, and I have found at Bethlehem fresh reason not to credit, without proof, the recitals of travelers. This indisputable truth is, however, rather delicate to be averred by one who is writing travels." He reveals the correct insight he had gotten into the system of things by even explaining that the General Economy which existed prior to 1762, was an emergency arrangement, though "contrary to the rules and usages of their Society (i. e. elsewhere), from the necessity of circumstances which would have rendered the general progress of their Society more slow, and the situation of the individual families more incon- venient, if their labors and productions had been divided." It is agreeable, in contrast to the nonsense published by some, to read among his statements, this, in reference to the arrangements with the children in the time of the Economy : "The fathers and mothers being constantly employed in labour, could not, without inconven- ience to the Community, give their attention to the children. The Society therefore set apart some of the sisters to take care of the whole. The authority, however, and the superintendence of the parents was neither taken away nor diminished." His statements in regard to the alleged enforced surrender of private property about 3 " Sir. Permit me, in the absence of the Governor, to introduce to your acquaintance Mr. Lian- court (formerly Duke de Liancourt) who is about to prosecute a tour through the interior of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Any information which you can communicate to him, and attention that you may be pleased to shew, will confer a favour on the Governor, as well as on me. Phila., 15 June 1797. I have the honour to be, with great respect. Reverend Sir, The Right Rev'd Bishop Ettwein Your most obed. Hble serv, Bethlehem and Nazareth. A. J. Dallas." 4 Voyage dans les Etats-Unis, translated under the title of Travels in N^orth America. 554 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. which some had formerly written so much, are equally correct and lucid : "At that time, even (i. e. under the former General Economy) notwithstanding their community of goods, the Brethren that received any money from their families or friends, had the predis- posal of it. If any of them vested their property in the common stock, it was voluntary, and the effect of a zeal and disinterested action of which there were few examples. The Brethren possessed of any private property, had frequently their children with them ; they clothed them better and the care which they took of their infancy — a charge considered a relief to society — was a proof that at Bethlehem the children were not, as has been alleged, the property of the Community, and that it was no part of the constitution to make members renounce all private property." He then carefully states that the system of that time was abolished in 1762, and that, after that, Bethlehem was established "on the rules of the societies in Europe." His brief, clear statements about the regulations of the time at which he visited the place are almost without exception entirely correct. This eminent publicist, making a study of such matters, would, of course, get a clear insight into things more readily than untrained observers among mere tourists. Writing moreover with a sober purpose, his foremost desire was not to merely tell an entertaining story, while he had no disposition to distort things to the disadvantage of the Moravians, like some of the prejudiced ecclesiastics who had formerly written about the place. Fifty years after he wrote, changes even greater were made at Bethlehem than those of thirty-five years before that time, and yet, after fifty more years have passed since those greater changes, it is not uncommon to meet with statements in print about Bethlehem and the Moravians, as they are alleged to be at the present time, which would have been antiquated statements even at the time when de la Rochefou- cauld wrote, more than a century ago, and would have been corrected by his narrative of that time. His observation about caution in accepting narratives written is even yet not without value. Much of the intercourse that took place between the authorities at Bethlehem and public men during the period sketched in this chapter, had to do with the affairs and aims of an important organ- ization that had been formed, to which allusion has not yet been made. Although it existed for the prosecution of mission work, and its principal operations lay at a distance from Bethlehem, belonging rather to the general work of the Moravian Church than to the local 1786 i8o6. 555 concerns of the town, its official seat has always been at Bethlehem and so much of its history is interwoven with the history of the town, that its founding can not properly be omitted from these pages. This was the "Society of the United Brethren for Propa- gating the Gospel Among the Heathen." When its formation was first discussed, October 15, 1766, it was at the instance of the General Directory of the Church in Europe which suggested a plan for placing the "Pennsylvania Heathen Society on the same footing as that in England." This recalls the fact that the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel founded by Moravians in England in 1741, which had become decrepit, was at that time being revived under a new organ- ization, and the fact that the society of the same name founded in Pennsylvania, August 19, 1745, after the model of that in England, to which reference was made in a previous chapter, was now also in a decrepit state, had a mere nominal existence and was approach- ing its dissolution. The difficulties in the way of its re-organization on the proposed plan, seemed to be so great at that time that it was postponed. Meanwhile its nominal existence — which at last amounted to nothing more than its appearance as a factor in the finances, in the quality of a debtor to the so-called General Diaconate in the accounts of 1762-1771 — was terminated when, in connection with the financial re-organization of 1771, its debt of £459.13 was charged off and not carried into the new books then opened. A memorandum in reference to that debt states that it "must be consid- ered sunk, as the said Society is dissolved and the income as well as the Expenses are now managed by the Sustentation in Bethle- hem." The question of re-organizing the society came up again in 1768 and was the subject of further correspondence with the authorities in Europe. While the matter was being delayed, the disturbances of the Revolution broke in and. of course, nothing was then done. Therefore a considerable interval elapsed between the dissolution of the old organization and the formation of the new one. In 1786, while Bishop de Watteville was in Pennsylvania, the proposition of 1768. was again discussed with the result, as stated in a paper in the hand-writing of Bishop John Ettwein, preserved in the archives, that "a. proposal and a rough draft as a plan for a Brethren's Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen" was sent to the authorities in Europe and was by them "Kindly received, amended, approved and recommended for execu- tion, which was cheerfully done, and the Stated Rules of the Society 556 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen agreed on and subscribed in Bethlehem the 21st of Septem- ber, 1787, as printed."^ On May 5, 1787, the General Conference of Helpers at Bethlehem received the answer to their letter of December 25, 1786, proposing to the Unity's Elders' Conference that the new organization be now proceeded with and application be made to the Congress of the United States for a charter of incorporation. On August 3 and again on September 4, the articles of constitution worked over by the U. E. C. embodying their proposed amendments to the draft that had been sent them, were carefully considered seriatim. It is to be observed here that the common supposition that this constitution, which was adopted almost verbatim as then drafted, emanated in the first instance from the U. E. C. has been ascertained to be an error. The original draft was made by Bishop John Ettwein and, with the proposed alterations and amendments by the U. E. C, was eventually adopted. September 14, after securing the approval of the proposed constitution by the Elders' Conferences of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz and Hope, and of the majority of the ministers of the city and country congregations, the General Board of Helpers resolved to call a meeting on September 21, of those persons at Bethlehem and Nazareth who under the constitution would be ex- ofUcio members, to proceed with the organization. This meeting was held in the original chapel of Bethlehem in the old Community House, which had become the residence of local clergy exclu- sively and therefore, properly speaking, a Clergy House. After a formal opening and an address, the constitution was read and then signed by those present according to an order agreed upon. Then followed the election of a President and three Assistant Directors ; the members of the General Conference of Helpers — subsquently again Provincial Helpers' Conference and then Provincial Elders' Conference — being cx-ofUcio directors, together with the members of the similar Executive Board in North Carolina, until some years later, when a separate organization was formed there. The first President of the Society was Bishop Ettwein, president of the board 5 For a full account of the original society of 1745. see Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society Vol. V. pp. 311-355- A Historical Sketch of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, 1 787-1887, compiled by the late Bishop Edniiund de Schweinitz. and read at the centennial anniversary of the new society, was published in 1887 by the Board of Directors. 1786 i8o6. 557 at Bethlehem. The Administrator of the property in Pennsylvania of the Unity or Church General, John Christian A. deSchweinitz, was appointed the first treasurer and Jacob Van Vleck the first sec- retary ; he with Bernhard Adam Grube and John Frederick Peter being the first three elected assistant directors. It was decided that August 21, the anniversary of the beginning of the Moravian missions to the Heathen, should be proposed, as the day for the annual general meeting of the Society. Bishop Ettwein was commissioned to draft a petition to Congress for an Act of incor- poration and to consult with Charles Thompson, Secretary of Con- gress, furnishing him a copy of the constitution. Thompson suggested that the more proper course would be to apply to the Assembly of Pennsylvania for incorporation, as the Society would be organized in that State. It is interesting to note, in this matter, the federalist conceptions of the Moravian authorities at that time, before the Constitution of the United States had been adopted, in thus turning at once to Congress as the body to be addressed. They were, for the most part, of this political persuasion which was in harmony with the genius of their own organization as then estab- lished under a strongly centralized federal government. In discussing the question of applying to Congress for incorporation at the meeting of September 21, 1787, it was debated whether they should wait until the adoption of the federal constitution — the Constitutional Convention had just finished its work and in the following December it was ratified by Pennsylvania — or proceed at once when there were yet many in Congress who were conversant with Moravian afifairs and friendly disposed. On October 19, it was decided to have six to eight hundred copies of the constitution of the Society with an intro- duction by Ettw^ein printed in English and distributed for the infor- mation of the members of the Assembly and of different Congress- men and other public men. The proposition to ask the Assembly at the same time for a grant of land for the benefit of the Indian missions — no indemnification having ever been received for the improvements abandoned when the missions had to be transferred to Ohio — was deemed open to objection in connection with the petition for incorporation, unless well-informed and influential members of the Assembly should suggest the expediency of doing so. The first general meeting of the Society took place, November i, 1787, and was attended by fifty-three members from Bethlehem and other places. The act of incorporation was passed by the Assembly of 558 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Pennsylvania, February 27, 1788. Similar incorporation was later secured in New Jersey and New York, and then also in the new State of Ohio, where twelve thousand acres of land in the Tuscarawas Valley had been set apart by the United States Government for the Christian Indians in 1785, as an indemnification for the ruin of the missions. In 1796 the grant was confirmed and made over to the Society in trust. In 1797 the survey took place and in 1798 the patent was finally signed by the President of the United States. Further proceedings of the Society need not be here pursued. After an unbroken existence of one hundred and fourteen years on the new foundation laid in 1787, it held its one hundred and twenty-eighth general meeting in 1901, in a vigorous and flourishing condition, its financial report showing $16,160.81 disbursed during the preceding fiscal year.'' Numerous interesting communications between the officers of the Society for Propagating the Gospel and the highest officials of the Government during the last decade of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century are on record, and some of the letters that passed in these communications are preserved in the archives at Bethlehem. Its existence also gave occasion to renewed communi- cation between Bethlehem and General Washington. On March 28, 1788, Bishop Ettwein wrote a letter to him, then at his home at Mount A-'ernon, and with it sent a copy of the constitution and rules of the Society, together with a treatise he had prepared on Indian traditions, languages and customs. Washington wrote a reply under date of May 2, in which he courteously acknowledged the receipt of these documents and spoke in commendatory terms of the Society and its object.'^ 6 Founded in 1745, existing until 1771, then, after the Revolutionary break, re-organized in 1787, this Society is by far the oldest existing missionary organization in America ; a claim continually made for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, organized, June 29, 1810. 7 This letter of May 2, 1788, reads as follows : " Dear Sir, I have received your obliging letter of the 28th of March, inclosing a copy of some remarks' on the customs, languages &c of the Indians, and a printed pamphlet con- taining the stated rules of a Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen ; for which tokens of polite attention and kind remembrance I must beg you to accept my best thanks. So far as I am able of judging, the principles upon which the Society is founded, and the rules laid down for its government, appear to be well calculated to promote so laudable and arduous an undertaking ; and you will permit me to add that if an event so long and so 1786 i8o6. 559 Again on July 10, 1789, at a meeting of the Directors of the Society, a congratulatory address was framed to be sent to him in view of his inauguration as President of the United States. It was committed to the Rev. James Birkby, the Moravian pastor in New York City, to present in person. This was done and a very cordial answer was returned by Washington, which was received August 20, 1789, to the board at Bethlehem.^ The sentiments expressed by ardently desired as that of converting the Indians to Christianity and consequently to civili- zation can be effected, the Society at Bethlehem bids fair to bear a very considerable part in it. With sentiment of esteem, I am your most obedient humble servant, Geo. Washington." 8 The address of the Directors read as follows : "To HIS Excellency George W.\shington, President of the United States of America. The Address of the Directors of the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. Sir, The Directors for the Society of the United Brethren for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen do in the Name of this Society and in the name of all the Brethren's Congre" gations in these United States most cordially congratulate you on your being appointed President of the United States of America. Filled with gratitude towards God and our .Saviour, unto whose goodness and kind inter- position we ascribe this great and joyous event, we rely on His mercy and on the influence of His good Spirit when we expect that your administration will prove salutary and a bless- ing to that Nation whose unanimous voice has called you to preside over it. We embrace this opportunity to present you a small treatise which contains 'An Account of the Manner in which the Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren preach the Gospel and carry on their missions among the Heathen.' Permit us at the same time to recommend in a particular manner the Brethren's Mission among the Indians in the territory of the United States which is at present at Petquotting on Lake Erie and in a very dangerous situation, to your kind notice and protection, and to lay before you the ardent wish and anxious desire we have of seeing the light of the glorious Gospel spread more and more over this country and great multitudes of poor benighted heathen brought by it to the saving knowledge of Christ our Saviour Who gave Himself a ransom for all and who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. We fervently pray the Lord to strengthen your health, to support you daily by his Divine assistance, and to be Himself your Shield and great Reward. Signed in behalf of the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen and in behalf of all the Brethren's Congregations in the United States. John Andrew Huebner, Charles Gotthold Reichel, Hans Christian v. Schweinitz, Paul Muenster, Frederick Peter, David Zeisberger." Bethlehem, July lo, 1789. (Bishop Ettwein was in Europe.) The answer of Washington long thought to have disappeared and known, as to its con- tents, only through copies, was unexpectedly found by the writer of these pages in 1892, in 3 X . !i N-^ -\ti'\ 5 N. \'^ r^ \ Fold -out Placeholder This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at future date. 1/86 i8o6. 561 Washington in these two letters were those which intluenced his recommendations and poHcy in deahng with the Indian problem of that time, as clearly appears upon an examination of extant records relating to this subject during the administration of the first Presi- dent of the United States. Early in 1791 and again in 1792, Bethlehem was once more brought into interesting connection with representative Indians engaged in negotiations wath the Government. The first week in January, 1791, Bishop Ettwein was in Philadelphia — the seat of the Federal Gov- ernment being then in that city — to see President Washington and members of Congress iti regard to the land grant. Three Seneca chiefs, Cornplanter, Half-town and Big-tree, were in the city as agents of their people, and by special request he met them on January 6 — Epiphany, the Moravian missionary day® — at the house of Gover- nor Mifflin and addressed them "as a representative of the Moravian Brethren, in whom they had confidence." His account of this inter- view awakened much interest at Bethlehem and recalled the scenes of earlier days to the minds of many. Yet more vivid was the reminder of those times that came in March, 1792. On the 9th of that month fifty-one chiefs and other representative men of the a bundle of receipts in the archives, enclosed in the original envelope, with the endorse- ment of Clement Biddle on the cover, and under that a further endorsement in the hand- writing of Treasurer de Schweinitz : " Ree'd at Bethlehem, August 20, 1789." The letter, autograph throughout, very neatly written and beautifully preserved, reads as follows : " To the Directors of the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. Gentlemen : I receive with satisfaction the congratulations of your Society, and of the Breth- ren's congregations in the United States of America For you may be persuaded that the approbation and good wishes of such a peaceable and virtuous community cannot be in- different to me. You will also be pleased to receive my thanks for the Treatise which you present, and to be assured of my patronage in your laudable undertakings. In proportion as the General Government of the United States shall acquire strength through duration, it is probable they may have it in their power to extend a salutary influ- ence to the Aborigines in the extremities of their Territorry. In the meantime it will be a desirable thing for the protection of the Union to co-operate as far as the circumstances may conveniently admit, with the disinterested endeavours of your Society to civilize and Christianize the savages of the wilderness. Under these impressions, I pray Almighty God to have you always in His holy keeping. G. Washington." 9 See on Christmas, I74i,and note 14, Chapter IV. The last Indian baptism at Bethlehem, before the Revolution, took place January 6, 1763. 37 562 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Six Nations arrived at Bethlehem en route for Philadelphia, on invita- tion of Washington, as an embassy from their people. They were accompanied by the well-known missionary, the Rev. Samuel Kirk- land, then engaged in his noble experiment at Oneida. The names of eight of the chiefs are given. The principal one was the famous R^d Jacket. Cornplanter and Big-tree were again of the number. Others were Farmer's Brother, Little Billy, Captain Shanks and La Fayette's young Oneida, Pierre Jaquette, who died at Philadelphia. They tarried at Bethlehem until the 12th, when they proceeded by canoe down the Lehigh and the Delaware to the capital city. With solemn formality they were gathered in the village church — the pres- ent Old Chapel — while at Bethlehem, and were addressed by Bishop Ettwein, who reminded them of the former relations of Moravian missionaries to the Six Nations, and especially the several covenants of friendship made, beginning with that by Count Zinzendorf in 1742. The pupils of the boarding-school were present and one of them read an address to the Indian visitors. Red Jacket responded in dignified language to the Bishop and the old man, Good Peter, to the young ladies. This was the last visit to Bethlehem by Indians in any considerable number. Times and circumstances had changed, and their presence did not awaken fear and wrath among people of the neighborhood, as on so many former occasions. The Indian question and others which had once occasioned so much friction between some elements of the surrounding population and the Bethlehem people were now dead issues, and relations were becoming normal. Since the close of the Revolutionary War, several of the Bethlehem clergy, particularly Jacob Friis until his death in 1793, Jacob Van Vleck and John Frederick Frueauff, had been doing much preaching in different neighborhoods where people desired gospel ministrations, and where, for some years, service in this respect in their several denominations was very inadequate through scarcity of preachers. Several such regular preaching-places were established in the Saucon Valley particularly. These ministrations cultivated increasingly friendly relations and, as a general thing, were not objected to, but rather welcomed by the ministers of other denominations, who were labor- ing to serve extensive fields as well as they could ; for it was under- stood that it was not the intention of the Bethlehem ministers to attempt to establish denominational work, but merely to be of assist- ance in serving the needs of the people in the absence of a sufficient 1786 i8o6. 563 number of pastors. The era of church building in the surrounding country opened in the last decade of the century, and there are occa- sional references in the records, interesting, but m their meager and indefinite brevity irritating, to the participation of Bethlehem minis- ters and musicians in the consecration of churches at various points. These were usually union churches erected by the Lutheran and Reformed people jointly. Thus on August 15, 1790, there is men- tion of such a church dedication in the Drylands. Again on March 24, 1793, the dedication of the Fricdois Kirche in Saucon is men- tioned. The Rev. Augustus KHngsohr and a number of Bethlehem musicians participated ; KHngsohr delivering an address and offering the dedicatory prayer. The sermons were preached by the Lutheran pastor Jaeger and the Reformed pastor Hofmeyer. In the afternoon Pastor Pomp preached, and the diarist remarks that his wife was "a daughter of the sainted Brother Henry Antes. '"^° In this instance some details of the occasion are mentioned, even the texts of the several discourses being recorded. On September 4, 1796, it is stated that the musicians of Bethlehem and many others, also from Nazareth and Emmaus, were present at the dedication of the Lutheran church in Allentown, and again, October 15, 1797, KHngsohr and the musicians went, on invitation of the church officers, to help dedicate a new house of worship in AMiitehall Township. Occasional funeral services by Bethlehem ministers at different places about the country are mentioned. Thus in Alarch, 1796, two by Frueauf? are referred to; on the 7th "in Zion's Church, four miles away in the Dry Lands," and on the 26th in the "Stone Church" in Saucon, "the first in that neighborhood." Nothing specially marred the peace of Bethlehem and its sur- roundings but politics, and it often became necessary for the fathers of the village to admonish those who became affected by the excite- ment of election times, or yielded to the temptation to discuss issues with people of the country and neighboring towns, that they were bound by their signature to the Brotherly Agreement. The fact that anything whatever, no matter how preposterous or malicious, will be used as campaign material by some kinds of men, if it serves a purpose in poHtics, had its demonstration in those days as well as 10 The Rev. Nicholas Pomp was the second husband of EHzabeth Antes whose first hus- band was George Philip Dotterer. Her son, the Rev. Thomas Pomp, Reformed pastor at Easton for fifty years, was the father-in-law of the Rev. Joseph Berg, D.D. — McMinn, Life and Times of Henry Antes. 564 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. in modern times. Thus during a very hotly contested and rancorous campaign in the autumn of 1789, when Jacob Eyerie, of Nazareth, was candidate for the Assembly, the case of a certain unsophisticated Moravian, of Schoeneck, who was imposed upon by a fellow who palmed himself off as an English prince financially stranded, was made use of by some enterprising campaign workers of the opposi- tion, to show the rustic voters of Northampton County that the sympathies of the Moravians were yet with England, and that they were dangerous people. This nonsense really created sufficient hubbub that the church authorities considered the expediency of doing something to counteract the impression and to set forth that it was nothing more than an evidence of "Dummheif on the part of the victim of the adventurer. Subsequently, quiet Bethlehem was made attentive more forcibly to the contention and uproar created in some parts by the experiments in the exercise of federal authority, especially in the matter of taxation. Thus in the latter part of Sep- tember, 1794, the people were reminded of Revolutionary times by the marching of considerable bodies of militia through the place, on their way to the western part of the State, in obedience to the summons of the President, to forcibly put down the revolt against the excise law of the United States, commonly known as the "Whiskey Rebellion," and again early in December, when a number passed through on their return after the disturbance had been quelled. Far more exciting was the experience made a few years later, at the time of the insurrection started in 1798, against the "house tax," and led, in Northampton and Bucks Counties, by the redoubtable John Fries, and sometimes given the name the "Fries Rebellion." The actual violence committed during that insurrection was far less than has attended many a strike in modern times, but the nature of the issue at that early stage of the Fed- eral Government, gave it more significance and made it memorable. The experience of Bethlehem in connection with that affair came on March 7, 1799, when an armed mob, headed by their hero and doughty chieftain, invaded the place at high noon, for the purpose of rescuing seventeen of their fellow insurgents, who had been actively engaged in preventing assessors from counting window-panes in people's houses in the interest of the obnoxious "direct tax," and whom a marshal had the hardihood to arrest. The marshal had his prisoners under guard in the basement of the Sun Inn, intending to proceed with them in triumph and to turn BETHLEHEM 1793 1795 1786 i8o6. 565 them over tu the authorities. Perhaps out of this incident grew the modern tales, sometimes heard and innocently believed by some lovers of grim romance, about old-time dungeons under the Sun Inn, with iron doors creaking on their rusty hinges ; with gyves and manacles ; with subterranean passages leading mysteriously to other parts of the town, yea even down to the river, and other adjuncts of the absurd fiction. After much flourish and bravado, accompanied by some threatening remarks about the Moravian settlements, because one of the county officers of the time, helping to execute state and federal laws, was a Moravian, Fries and his gang accom- plished their object and left victorious with the rescued prisoners. The subsequent trial of the conspirators for high treason, their conviction, sentence and eventual pardon by the President of the United States need not be further mentioned here. It was again one of the singular vicissitudes of those days that so soon after the Revol- ution, during which the Moravians were so much decried by many in the neighborhood as enemies of the country and traitors, they were now denounced by the same turbulent populace for their loyalty, when the Government called upon these malcontents to also take their turn in paying taxes which they objected to. On March 17, lygg, a meeting of all the men of Bethlehem was called, at which a pastoral letter of the General Conference of Helpers was read, admonishing them as to their walk and conversation in such disturbed circum- stances and warning them against entanglement in political controversy and against aspiring to public office. The letter, it is recorded, made a good impression and had a salutary effect, together with the posting at the tavern of the proclamation by the President of the United States warning all who resisted the execution of the federal laws and committed violence. April 25, the day of fasting and prayer appointed by President Adams, was solemnly observed at Bethlehem by several services and sermons both in English and German. The President's proclamation was read and its various points were enlarged on in one of the sermons. The review of the year, on December 31, notes in connection with reference to the condition of public affairs and to local and neighborhood experiences, that there was more disposition to utter a humble Jcsu Miserere than to join in high praises. An occasion for sadness, aside from these public disorders but associated with them in the minds of the people at Bethlehem, as well as elsewhere, was the national bereavement that had spread sorrow 566 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. through the country just before the close of the year 1799. On December 22, the diarist of Bethlehem notes : "We received through the newspapers the affecting announcement of the death of General Washington on the 14th inst.'' The review at the close of the year has this: "We, with all the people of the United States, were very deeply moved by the recent news of the death of George Wash- ington, that man who has done so much for the good of the country and was so universally loved and honored." On January 7, 1800, the proclamation of President Adams, referring to demonstrations of mourning, was considered by the General Conference of Helpers, as the question had been raised wdiether Moravians should, hke others, show this outward token of respect for the memory of the honored dead ; for it was not customary among them in those days to wear mourning attire or emblems among themselves because it was not held to be consistent with the idea inculcated that the departure of believers was going home to Christ and therefore the supreme bliss. It was observed that the words of the proclamation in this matter were merely a recommendation, leaving it optional, but that no objection should be offered if any desired to wear a badge of mourning on the left arm for thirty days, as proposed ; that it might indeed be proper for those who filled public positions to do so, and for the clergy to set the example, as a mark of respect for high authorities and for those whom the Nation honored. On February 22, 1800, solemn memorial services were held, agreeably to the proclamation of the President. There was elaborate music suitable to the occasion and a discourse was delivered by Jacob Van Vleck, in which the character and public services of Washington were set forth as an example of how God raises up great men for great tasks, and as a pattern for patriots, statesmen and citizens. Thus the people of the place joined in this solemn commencement made by the Nation, at the instance of Presidential proclamation, in the obser- vance of Washington's birthday. At the beginning of 1800, Bethlehem entered upon three years of uneventful quiet. Some of its industries flourished, others languished and a few disappeared entirely. The new order of things at large and the course which the general development of business was taking were not auspicious for the prosperity of the various trades of the place, carried on in the old manner. Especially was this the case with those which the authorities were trying to render profitable for the diacony of the Brethren's House. That establishment was 1786 i8o6. 567 retrograding. Loyalty and zeal for its maintenance were so much on the decrease among the remaining inmates that their finances were becoming a steady drain upon the resources of the General Board of Wardens in Europe, who, under the existing system of mutual support among the diaconies of the Unity — a system which the authorities did not yet wish to abandon — were contributing considerable sums from year to year out of the surplus of the more profitable of them in Europe to cover the deficits of those which were running behind. There was a steady decrease in the number of single men in Bethlehem, from considerably more than a hundred at the close of the Revolution to only thirty-eight above twenty-one years of age, together with twenty-two boys and young men between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, on December 31, 1806, when the entire population of Bethlehem, including seventy-nine boarders among the pupils of the girls' school, amounted to only 593. At the end of 1798, the total had been 601, including fifty-one boarders in the school ; therefore a decrease in the actual population of the village, of thirty-six from 1798 to 1806. Fortunately for the peace of mind of those who were in control, this, in itself, caused no uneasiness or dissatisfaction, for such were the system and aims of that time, that numerical growth was not sought and indeed was not necessarily an evidence of prosperity in those respects in which this was desired. As to the financial situation, it would have to become much worse before bankruptcy stared the Brethren's House in the face, so long as that arrangement of pooling accounts was main- tained. The special services of December 31, 1800, with which a completed century was closed, when a more extended and comprehensive retrospect than at the close of ordinary years was compiled, were marked by a more cheerful tone than prevailed at the close of the preceding year. In other respects, things had been gotten into smoother and more satisfactory working order in the village, and no special disturbance is recorded during the first six years of the new century embraced in this chapter. As to politics and connection with pubhc business, the place again even dispensed with the pres- ence of a Justice of the Peace for a few years ; a conference of ministers in 1802, having gone so far as to declare that none should reside in any of the church-villages. This was receded from several years later; even the Unity's Elders' Conference in Europe expressing the view that this exceeded what the General Synod had 568 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. enacted on the subject and was hardly an expedient measure. This was one of the moves in which the hand of the Rev. John Gebhard Cunow appeared, and which met the decided dissatisfaction of many at Bethlehem. Apart from these features of the situation there was little stir on the surface of village life more conspicuous than that occasioned by the various official changes, as reviewed early in this chapter, up to 1806 — in order to present them all in connection — the death of one after another leading man or notable v/oman," the most conspicuous being that of Bishop Ettwein on January 2, 1802, as already mentioned, and the occasional arrival of accessions to various branches of official service or lines of industry from Europe. ^- II Besides the deaths referred to in this chapter, a few of the many others from the close of the last chapter to 1806, may be noted because of the special prominence of the individ- uals or particular interest attaching to them: 1785, Henry Van Vleck ; 1786, Judith Bene- zet Otto, widow of Dr. John Frederick Otto who died at Nazareth; 1789, Timothy Hors- field. Jr., the apothecary, son-in-law of William Parsons; also the wife of Bishop Ettwein, while he was in Europe; 1790, Immanuel Nitschmann, secretary and musical director, Barbara Fenstermacher, who as the widow of Michael Leibert had been a zealous patroness of the second Moravian school in Germantown, and Jost Jansen, innkeeper during the Revolution ; 1791, Herman Loesch the miller, Gottlieb Lange the saddler who did work for the American army, Marcus Kiefer the master smith associated with the tribulations of the first Indian war; 1792, Daniel Kliest the expert lock-smith, and, in Lancaster County, John Okely, long so prominent and useful, who in 178S severed connection and left after a strange course of procedure to the detriment of the community in pursuit of his own plans, with controversy, litigation and at last complete estrangement ; 1793, Christian Frederick Oerter the famous book-keeper, Abraham Boemper the silver-smith Anna Margaret Jungmann, m.n. Bechtel, of Indian mission fame ; 1795, Matthew Weiss, celebrated far and wide as a dyer, aged 87 years; 1797, John Christian Hasse, book-keeper in the Administrator's office and conspicuous during the Revolution, whose later years were saddened by his own faults and frailties; 1 798, the venerable widow and Deaconess Catherine Huber, the last of the Georgia colonists excepting the missionary Zeisberger, and referred to as the oldest woman (95 years) in Moravian official circles in America or Europe ; 1801, John George Stoll, saw- miller and inn-keeper at the Crown; 1803, Ferdinand Philip Jacob Detmers, formerly warden, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz; 1805, John Schropp, the warden, James Cruickshank, steward, boarding-school and assistant apothecary, and Charles Cist, printer of Philadelphia and pioneer in anthracite coal trade, who died on a journey up the country. Many other interesting names might be mentioned on a broader basis of selection. More complete in- formation in reference to these and others whose decease has been referred to, may be found in the official register of deaths preserved in the Moravian "church books." 12 The lists of the arrivals during these years, containing also the names of majiy destined for other places in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, are not always entered accurately and completely in the diaries, and could only be given in full, as in earlier years, by laborious examination of catalogues and biographies. With few exceptions those who located at 1786 i8o6. 569 In 1803, after years of discussion and planning, active operations were commenced at a more prominent building enterprise than any that have been referred to in this chapter; one which, in view of the numerical and financial situation of Bethlehem at that time, was a surprising undertaking. This was the erection of a new church which was said, and doubtless correctly, to have been, at the time of its completion, the largest church in Pennsylvania; and it is doubtful whether a more spacious house of worship was to be found else- where in the country. The idea of building such a large village church — "La)idkirclic" — with a capacity suf^cient for an entire town and its environs for many years to come, did not have the character- istic chapel or "prayer hall" — Bctsaal — of the Moravian settlement compound as a model, like the church of that time, now the Old Chai)el. The great churches of many European villages, where a whole neighborhood has one church and does not think of having more, were in mind. This began to be dis- cussed long before the Revolution. Even as early as Novem- ber, 1754, the statement in a report from Herrnhut that the attendance on general communion occasions, when the people of the whole manor assembled, was too large for the capacity of the Bethlehem will be found mentioned in the diaries of the Congregation and the Brethren's House. They usually arrived in companies, but there were no large colonies as in earlier years — never beyond 12 to 15 at one time. The more considerable companies were single men, as a rule. Very few single women came. To assist those who may wish to pursue research in connection with this subject, or trace individuals, the year and month of the arrival of these Utile companies of Moravian immigrants, as found noted from tiie close of the Revolulion to the end of the century, with a few conspicuous names of ministers and laymen of the several parlies who figured at Bethlehem or elsewhere in Pennsylvania, are herewith given, in addition to those already mentioned in this chapter, without attempting a complete enumeration. November, 1785, John Meder, John Augustus Klingsohr, Samuel Gottlieb Kramsch, Dr. John Lewis (surgeon N. C, died at Bethlehem, 1788), Elizabeth Lewis, John Frederick Moehring; November, 1784, Charles Gotthold Reichel, George Godfrey Mueller; October, 1788, John Frederick Frueauff with four single men; August, 1 79 1, John Molther, Gottfried Sebastian Oppelt, Ernst Gehbe, Benedict Benade, and other single men, and in October, Christian Godfrey Peter, John Christopher Eilerts, Benjamin Mortimer, Christian Thomas Pfohl, Nils Tillofsen, and the teachers Christina Oliver and Mary Wade; November, 1795, the largest company, including Christian Frederick Schaaf, Andrew Benade, the surgeon Rudolphi, Conrad Kreuzer, Christian Gottlob Paulus, David Moritz Michael, the musician ; July, 1796, with Cunow, John Caspar Freitag (the Doctor John Eberhard Freitag came in 1790, as already stated, with Ettwein), and John Christian EJDbecke; November, 1797, John Frederick Stadiger with thr6e single men; October, 1799, five single men, escorted by Godfrey Haga; November, 1800, Joseph Zaeslein, Ernst Lewis Hazelius, John Henry Schultz, Frederick Bourquin. 570 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. old Berthelsdorf church, called forth the remark in a conference at Bethlehem, that in process of time a church large enough to seat fifteen hundred persons would have to be built for the gathering of people from the outlying places and of the Indian converts who might be living in the vicinity, on special occasions. All of the men who participated in that conference had been gathered to their fathers and all Indians had long disappeared from the neighborhood, before this ambitious project was really consummated, fifty years later. When Bishop Nathanael Seidel went to the General Synod in Europe in 1769, he laid before that body the desirability of building such a church at Bethlehem. It was discussed and generally approved, but the scheme was postponed in favor of the enlargement of the Sisters' House. Then, while the matter was yet resting, the Revolution came on and further steps could not be thought of. When Christian Heckewelder first broached the idea, in 1785, of building a new store "on the vacant lot opening on the square" — the place at which it was eventually built, the Eagle Hotel site — it is recorded that the project to build a new church was re-opened and the opinion prevailed that this should take precedence. Further deliberations followed at intervals until Bishop Ettwein went to Europe in 1789, to attend the General Synod. He was authorized to agitate the subject anew. He took with him a map of Bethlehem, drafts of several eligible sites and a plan of the proposed church. His fond hope was that the enterprise might be proceeded with during the years 1790 and 1791, and might progress far enough to at least have the corner-stone laid at the celebration of Bethlehem's jubilee, June 25, 1792. The drafts and plans were discussed with much interest at the Synod, the committee on American afifairs reported in favor of the undertaking, plans for raising the necessary money were considered, and the ofBcial sanction which was necessary under the system of that time was formally given by the Unity's Elders' Conference. Decided differences of opinion in regard to the building site began to develop after Bishop Ettwein's return. His favorite spot was the so-called timber yard, the locality between the present main building of the Parochial School and Cedar Street, now occupied by the remodeled boys' school house and the janitor's house. His plan was to open a new street from that spot down to the present Main Street and the large open square — Plate — of that time, which, with Cedar Street northward, and the walks through the cemetery eastward, would, as he argued, provide approaches to 1/86 iSo6. 571 the church from those directions in whicli the town would naturally extend, while access from the various choir houses southward would be very convenient. Another site in view was the garden south of the Community or Clergy House, where at present the parsonage west of the Widows' House stands. This place was favored by the fathers of the Unity's Elders' Conference, for it was thought that there it would round out a symmetrical group, fronted and flanked right and left by the several other institutional buildings, and pre- sent an imposing and picture'sque appearance from the southern approach to the tow^n across the river. The third site proposed was the large space west of the old Community House, then yet occupied by the two log houses and the water-tower, all of which were thought to have outlasted their usefulness, to be in a state of decay, and unsightly in appearance. It was proposed to demolish these and build the new church there, fronting the square or Plata ; front- ing also what those who were having the bridge in mind, considered would then become the Main Street of the town ; the thoroughfare between the bridge and the hotel, store and mills, more traveled than before, when traf^c grew with the prospective development of facilities. That this site was ultimately chosen was to some extent a compromise on the part of those who advocated the other two, between which there was the most decided contention ; and the favorite plan of some to have that space eventually thrown into the Plats and remain a park was waived. The argument against the timber-yard site was mainly that it would not display the church suf^ciently, and would become pent up. Ettwein argued against the garden site most decidedly and to some extent also against that which was finally selected, chiefly on account of misgivings as to the security of the foundation, in view of the precarious nature of the limestone formation along that entire slope, to which he had given careful attention. He pointed out evidences of cavernous places in the rock, of sliding and settling layers and a treacherous condition generally, increasing towards the descent southward. This had led the master masons to strengthen the walls of the connecting section of the Sisters' House and those of the chapel, built in 1751, with buttresses. It had caused much diffi- culty with the foundation of the Widows' House and produced a crack in the walls of the Brethren's House. Although, as he records, his opinion on this point was ridiculed by some and not much heeded by any, the unexpected labor and expense required to secure a satis- 572 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. factory foundation when finally the church building was commenced, justified his views, and as for the garden site across the way to the south of the clergy house, which he most strongly opposed, some who are very familiar with the premises in modern times have observed singular evidences of the precarious condition of things beneath the surface, of which he was so firmly persuaded. The matter dragged until, in February, 1792, it seemed, after further discussion in the several boards, as if an agreement would at last be reached to let the question of the site be discussed by the men of the village in common council. Then the bridge building project was suddenly thrust forward and another postponement of the church building ensued. In a letter to the Unity's Elders' Conference, in March, 1792, Bishop Ettwein, referring to the question that had been raised anew as to whether a large church was really needed, expressed the belief that if there could always be a strong preacher at Bethlehem, as well as at Lititz, many people from the surrounding neighborhoods would be attracted to the churches of these places. Amid the religious conditions and doctrinal tendencies of those times, he attached great importance to the idea of making the Moravian churches centers at which to gather as many people as possible to hear sound evangelical preaching. He refers also to the inconvenient, round-about entrances to the Old Chapel, of which he was often ashamed when the numerous visitors at Bethlehem during the summer, who wished to attend services, had to be conducted into the place. ^^ Meanwhile the new building for the boarding-school, the bridge, the extension of the Widows' House, the new store, a new market house and other minor improvements were completed and the church building enter- 13 The present north facade and entrance to the Old Chapel are modern. At that time, it was entered through the eastern doorway at the front of the Clergy House and by doors at the east side, one from the first floor of the bell-turret house, another opening from the lawn in front of it into the basement under the chapel, from which an inside stairway ascended. There was also a door, made use of commonly by aged and invalid women opening from the upper floor of the bell-turret house into a small gallery at the north end. As the interior of the buildings was then arranged, access to the chapel through that doorway could be had from the remotest parts of the Sisters' House without going out of doors. The congrega- tion was for the most part seated facing westward. The simple table which served all the purposes of the officiating minister— there was no regular pulpit — was placed centrally at the west side, where he stood or sat facing the congregation eastward, with the official men and women seated on special benches against the west wall, to his right and left respectively, also facing the congregation. Various oil paintings representing Scripture scenes, especially from the life of Christ, some of which are yet preserved, were hung about the walls. 1786 i8o6. 573 prise was indefinitely postponed. Finally a new start was made in 1802, when the development of the provisions for water distribution, the construction of a new octagonal stone reservoir, from which the first flow began on September i of that year, and the consequent abandonment of the old wooden water-tower, opened the subject of building a church once more. The long delay had worn out the energy of controversy about the location of the edifice. The timber- yard and garden sites were given up by their respective advocates and gradual agreement to settle upon the water-tower site had been reached. Bishop Ettwein did not live long enough to see the actual beginning of operations, for on the second day of that year he entered into rest. The arrival of Bishop Loskiel in July, awakened new activity. In accordance with the common disposition of people, what he said found more hearing and what he did was more accept- able, because he was a new man, than anything that emanated from one who had been with them longer, even if he said or did the same things. The first flow of water from the new reservoir seemed to be emblematic of the new spirit of progressive action, for on that very day, September i, 1802, a general council was held to take those steps forward that depended now upon the action of such a meeting. Careful preparatory work had been done. Like the interesting asso- ciation between hotel and store, to which reference has been made, the process of things which was now culminating reveals a similar connection between water- works and church, giving room for fancy to play on the significance of "the well of Bethlehem," that wonder- ful spring, as an emblem of the spiritual water of life dispensed ; the purpose for which the church was to stand. A committee had been wrestling with the water problem. It consisted of John Gebhard Cunow, the administrator ; John Schropp, the warden ; William Boehler, Jr., Joseph Horsfield, John Christian Reich, and Anton Schmidt. They canvassed the subject of a new water-tower or reservoir and a new church together, and the undertaking of the latter enterprise was strongly favored. Cunow and some others conceived the idea of combining them by planning the church with a massive tow^er at the west end, to be utilized for water distribution and belfry jointly, but this idea was evidently too startlingly unique to find acceptance. The unanimous sentiment of that meeting of September i, settled the question of proceeding. The very important matter of raising money Avas at the same time discussed. This point 574 ^ HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and others involved were given consideration by a conference held by thirty-six ministers in the chapel of the Sisters' House, in Octo- ber. It was decided to solicit direct subscriptions, first from the Bethlehem people, then from the people of Nazareth, Lititz and the other Moravian settlements and congregations in America, then also from brethren and friends in Europe. The larger part of the cost was to be covered by instituting a tontine plan like that which had been adopted at Zeist, in Holland. Considerable amounts were, in course of time, made available under this plan, which, although opposed by Cunow and some others, was adopted on a limited scale. Some of the annuities, however, ran on very long before the sums thus advanced ceased to draw interest, for certain of the beneficiaries were very tenacious of life. It is interesting to note how very modern they were in 1802, in under-estimating the probable cost of a church. It was expected that it could be built for about $11,000. It eventually cost more than five times that amount, including the organ. The Building Committee consisted of John Gebhard Cunow, the administrator ; John Schropp, the warden ; John David Bishop, William Boehler, Jr., Matthew Eggert, George Huber, and Samuel Steup, with the Rev. Andrew Benade. principal of the boarding- school and regular preacher, and at that time the most energetic advocate of the enterprise among the clergy. Preliminary steps to clear the building site and commence excavations were taken directly after the council of September i, 1802. Before the middle of Sep- tember the families who occupied the old log houses had been pro- vided quarters elsewhere. The water-tower house was demolished at the end of the month. James Cruickshank, the last occupant who tarried in the other one, next to the Clergy House, moved out, the middle of October, and before the end of that month the second of these old structures had also disappeared. Further than this, little seems to have been done at the spot during the winter. On November 19, Warden Schropp contracted for the quarrying of the stone at the "Stcin-Rufsch," i. e. rock-slide — the German words were later anglicized, with their meaning lost, into "stone ridge" — on the mountain side across the river from the large island. During that uncommonly cold winter, the most of the stone was conveyed across the river on the ice. Christian Nagel, George Savitz, John Hillman and Jacob Schneider were the quarrymen. John Cunius, of Reading, was the architect and superintendent of construction. His plans and 1/86 i8o6. 575 specifications were accepted, January, 1803. Contracts were made with Francis Weiss, of Lehighton, and William Nyce, up the Dela- ware, in the Alinnisinks, for pine and oak timber; with BalzerStaehle, to furnish the choice white oak for the frame-work of the large belfry, and with Daniel Wagner and John Green & Co., of Easton, for pine boards. Adam Lehn and Nicholas Woodring, of Easton, were employed as master masons. March 19, 1803, at a special meeting of men and boys, it was agreed that the excavation of the cellar should be undertaken by volunteers, gratuitously. The next day a large number of them set to work at this task and continued from day to day — the residents of the Sisters,' House furnishing fore- noon and afternoon lunch as their contribution to the effort — until in two weeks it was accomplished. Then preparations were made for starting the great foundation walls, six feet thick, with the best stone blasted out of the mountain side and mortar so excellent, from the pit in which it had lain during the winter, that when it now becomes necessary to apply the chisel and hammer to it, little difference between the hardness of the stone and the joints is perceptible. April 13, the masons began their work. The entire force, including the "tenders," numbered about twenty, nearly all of them men from out of town. April 16, the corner-stone was laid at the north-east corner, not as a mere ornamental block set into the wall above the ground, but down at the bottom, a foundation stone, after the manner of former times. x\t ten o'clock the people assembled in the Old Chapel, where a preliminary service was conducted and a brief address was delivered by Bishop Loskiel, who also read the document which was to be deposited in the stone. It contained the names of National, State and Church dignitaries, catalogues of the several divisions of the mem- bership and lists of the pupils in the boarding-school. Coins of the United States, which were then a new thing — the first copper having been coined in 1792 and the first silver and gold in 1794 and 1795 — were also deposited. After this, the lead box into which the articles were placed was sealed. Then all proceeded in decorous order to the building site, where they formed in a square, while the trombonists performed a chorale. A hymn was sung, accompanied by stringed instruments, and in the last verse by the trombones also. The Bishop, with other officials, gathered about the stone and when the conse- crating formula had been spoken by him while he grasped the stone, preparatorv to lifting it, he, with the assistance of Cunow and 5/6 A HISTORY OF BE'iHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Schropp, placed it in position. After this the leaden box was put into the cavity in the stone and during the singing of another hymn all of the clergy who participated performed the ceremony of striking the stone with the hammer. Thereupon followed prayer by the offici- ating Bishop, after which a closing hymn was sung and the assembly was dismissed with the benediction.^* At the close of the year the walls were laid up to the eaves, and the woodwork had progressed correspondingly. Wilham Boehler, Jr., was master-carpenter and John Frederick Bourquin, a very pro- ficient cabinet-maker and joiner, did the finer work, such as the paneling around the galleries, the carving at the door-ways and the Hke, and built the pulpit. Stephen Eastwick and Levick Palmer, of Philadelphia, did the plastering and stucco-work and rough-cast the exterior of the edifice after its completion, excepting the block-work around the windows, which was not done until after 1830. The building committee unfortunately became involved in controversy and litigation with these Philadelphia mechanics. Before the end of 1804, the entire building had finally been enclosed. May 7, 1805, the vane was mounted on the belfry, in which was hung the bell received from London in April ; that now hanging in the belfry of the West Bethlehem Chapel. Although much work remained to be done inside, the church then stood complete in its original external shape, which is familiar from extant pictures and which many have wished it yet had. The annexes at each end had a flat roof, covered with sheet copper. A graceful turret stood in the center of each, while a balustrade ran around the three outside edges. Trouble was experienced with leaking, which damaged the interior, and in 1816 this unique design was destroyed by running out the gable roof of the central body of the building to both ends. There have always been those who could not be convinced that this course, put through by the determination of several men, was the only way to overcome the trouble, for there are many flat roofs in the world that do not 14 A copy of the document that was deposited in the stone is preserved in the archives. The aged widow Salome Gold, a daughter of David Weinland. master of the violoncello and successor, in 1790, of Frederick Beitel as farmer general at Bethlehem — she died in 1891 in the 95th year of her age — was among the school children who were present on that occasion. When more than ninety years old she retained a vivid recollection of the cere- mony and gave the writer a description of it, stating exactly where the children stood, where the trombonists were stationed, what hymns were sung, and how the different officials looked. Her most striking impression was of Cunow who wore " a long blue coat with a cape'' and of whom the little girls " were very much afraid." 1786 1 806. 577 leak. The iinishing of the interior proceeded slowly and was not completed until May, 1806. The interior of the church has been altered almost as much as the exterior. When it was originally finished there was no alcove at the pulpit end. Centrally at that end stood the traditional table — Liturgus-Tisch — characteristic of the Moravian chapel or prayer-hall, on a large platform which extended to the doors on either side, and it was flanked right and left by the benches for the clergy and for the women in official position, facing the congregation. The old-time table and the chair for the use of the officiating minister are preserved in the archive-room of the church — the large up-stairs room at the east end, which was originally designed and for many years used for minor services and meetings of various kinds. High above the table, against the flat wall, was the pulpit of the pattern dubbed "swallow's nest." It was entered behind from the aforesaid large up-stairs room. The original pulpit, which was removed in 185 1, when one designed by Bishop William Henry Van Vleck and now doing duty in the Moravian Church in South Bethlehem, was built at the same time that the organ gallery was enlarged, is yet in existence, stowed away in the garret of the church. On a level with the high pulpit, in the corners, on either side of it, were small galleries which were made use of by some clergy and church dignitaries, usually aged or infirm persons ; men using that on the north and women that on the south side, corre- sponding to the division of the sexes in the seating of the congre- gation which was adhered to for sixty years after the church was built. Traces of those corner galleries, which were removed in 1867, when the most radical interior alterations were made and the present pulpit was built, may be seen on the walls. They were entered through doorways up-stairs, from the eastern annex. A stairway similar to that in the north-east corner of the church origin- ally ran up in the south-east corner. The walls show the marks of that staircase, as also of the doors at the head of the stairs, both on the north and south sides, which opened into the corner galleries. Before the edifice was finally completed, two men departed this life who stood in very important connection with the enterprise. One, on July 4, 1805, as already stated, was the eminently capable, energetic and faithful Warden, John Schropp. He was. therefore, not permitted to see the completion and dedication of the church, in the building of which he had borne so large a part of the official responsibility and burden. The other was the famous old Mora- 38 578 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. vian organ-builder, David Tanneberger, of Lititz, referred to in a previous chapter, who in May, 1804, was suddenly stricken down while finishing the placing and tuning of an organ in York, Pa. He expected to build the great organ for the Bethlehem church as his crowning achievement. He had come to Bethlehem on horseback in July, 1803, when the contract was made. At his instance the walls of the church were run up four feet higher than the architect's plan called for in order to have what he deemed sufficient vertical space under the ceiling to construct special pipes which it was desired to have. On June 5, 1804, a meeting of the General Council of the village was called to secure approval of the plan of the Elders' Conference to negotiate with a reputable organ-builder of New York, of whom information had been gotten by Bishop Loskiel. This was John Geib, who had his son associated with him in the business. The result was that Cunow, himself a good organist and therefore the most competent official for the purpose, was commissioned to go to New York to see Geib. On July 16, Cunow rendered a report, and, all things being considered satisfactory, a contract was at once made with John Geib and Son, for an organ somewhat larger than Tanneberger was to have built. The organ was finished in March, 1806, and tested on the 27th of April. It is now in use in the chapel of the Parochial School, to which place it was removed at the close of 1872, to make way for the present church-organ, built by Jardine and Sons, of New York. The entire original cost of the church, including the organ, was slightly more than $52,000. The consecration of the new edifice began on Sunday Exaudi, May 18, 1806, and the festivities extended to the evening of Whit- Monday, May 26, including a variety of services. Elaborate prepa- rations were made by the clergy, the musicians, the committee on entertainment and the officials of the town ; even some special police arrangements being deemed necessary in anticipation of an enor- mous mixed multitude. Such a multitude did gather. The num- ber of people in Bethlehem on that Sunday, May 18, was estimated at more than six thousand, which was a great throng for a village of barely more than five hundred inhabitants. At five o'clock in the morning the jubilant sound of trombones, trumpets and other wind instruments from the belfry of the church broke the stillness of the awakening village with a musical announcement of the great festival day. Already troops of people from the surrounding coun- 1/86 i8o6. 579 try were making their way towards the place, everything was soon astir and before eight o'clock the street in front of the church was thronged. The first service of the day was a brief one in the Old Chapel at eight o'clock. It was intended to be a formal leave- taking of that second sanctuary of the village, which, although occupied only fifty-five vears, was rich in venerable associations. Bishop Loskiel officiated. At the close, the assembled membership passed in two processions into the new church, which was sur- rounded by great crowds inspecting the exterior of the structure and awaiting their arrival. One procession, headed by the Bishop and clergy and the various church officers, consisted of the male portion of the congregation. Following the church officers came the school boys, then the older boys and single men, and finally all the men of the village. They entered at the north-east door. The other procession, which passed in at the south-east door, was headed by the wives of the clergy and other women in official position. They were followed by the school girls and their teachers, and back of them came all the women of the congregation. The moment the doors swung open and the ministers entered the silent and empty building, they were greeted by a burst of music from the organ and trombones like that which announces the midnight hour at the New Year Eve vigils, and the chorale was the same — ''Nun dankct allc Goft." While the congregation filed in and took seats, a large choir, with elaborate orchestral accompaniment, sang the second part of the hundredth Psalm: "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise : be thankful unto Him and bless His Name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations." When the sound of the chorus ceased, the congregation raised the solemn hymn : ''Hciligcr Hcrr iind Gott" — chorale No. 519 in the Moravian collection — the first verse of which, in EngUsh translation, is incorporated in the church litany. Thereupon all fell on their knees and Bishop Loskiel dedi- cated the finished edifice to the worship of the Triune God with a prayer of thanksgiving, confession and supplication, imploring the Divine blessing upon the house, upon all the future assemblies of the people within its walls and especially upon the preaching of the gospel within it during the coming years. This was followed by a brief address, in which gratitude for the completion of the structure after so many years of waiting, and cordial recognition of the ser- vices of those who had directed the work, all who had labored at it 580 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and all who had contributed to the building fund was expressed. Then this first service closed. Apart from the elaborate music, no outward pomp and circumstance attended the occasion. The ritual, as will be observed, was extremely simple, but it is recorded that all present were profoundly impressed. It had been the desire that this first service should be exclusively for members of the congregation and of other Moravian congregations who had come to Bethlehem, but the pressure about the doors was so great that this could not be strictly adhered to. The next service, at which the first sermon was preached in German by Bishop Loskiel, was understood to be open to all who could find entrance. Not a spot, even of standing room, remained unoccupied in any part of the building into which people could crowd. Its seating capacity, with the loose benches of that time placed for close sitting, was fifteen hundred. It was estimated that about a thousand more were present. At this service the pulpit was used the first time and a special prayer of dedication, in view of this, preceded the sermon, which was based on the words, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men" — Rev. 21 13. At the conclusion of this service, the metrical version of the Te Deum Laudamus which, both in German and in English translation, is yet used in the Moravian Church, was sung. The English sermon was preached at three o'clock in the afternoon by the Rev. Andrew Benade, Principal of the boarding-school and associate minister. The text was, I Kings, 9:13. At this service anthems with English text were sung by the choir. The crowd was not so great as in the morn- ing, for many from distant neighborhoods left at noon and the most of the country people who had assembled were German. At the evening service, when few excepting Moravian visitors were present with the congregation, the Rev. John Herbst, Head Pastor at Lititz, preached in German; his text being 2 Tim. 2:19. The second day's festivities took place on Tuesday, May 20. At half-past eight there was morning prayer — a choral service with a brief address by Bishop Loskiel. At ten o'clock the first adminis- tration of baptism in the new church took place. The candidate was a young woman named Sarah Rothrock. At three o'clock there was lovefeast. The collection of hymns and anthems sung by the congregation and choir was arranged by Bishop Loskiel. In the evening the Holy Communion was celebrated. Wednesday, the 2 1st, the first funeral was held in the church by the associate min- ister, Benade. It was that of Anna Catherine Hanke. In the even- GEORGE HENRY LOSKIEL CHARLES GOTTHOLD REICHEL JACOB VAN VLECK ANDREW BENADE JOHN DAVID BISHOP 1/86 i8o6. 581 ing the first of the purely musical services, then so popular, called simply Singstundcn, was held, with full choir and orchestra. Thurs- day evening was devoted to a special prayer-meeting by the mem- bers who participated in the hourly prayer-turns which were y'et observed, as instituted at Herrnhut in 1727, but in a modified man- ner. This service was in charge of the Rev. John Herbst, of Lititz, and the inspiring associations of the occasion were made use of to revive devout interest in this union of prayer. On Friday another funeral took place, that of Sarah Pyrlaeus, wife of John Christopher Pyrlaeus, Jr. On Whitsunday, May 25, there were six services : Morning prayer at nine o'clock ; a general service with preaching, at half-past ten, and in the afternoon, beginning at three o'clock, a succession of short special services for the several choir divisions of the congre- gation in the old manner, several of the more nearly related choirs being, however, combined. At the evening service a young negro woman was baptized. Finally, on Whitmonday, an elaborate Gemeintag was observed somewhat after the old-time manner described in an earUer chapter, having largely a missionary char- acter suitable to the associations of this great Christian festival. The first service was at nine o'clock, when interesting matter from the latest missionary reports was read. At half-past ten o'clock there w^as English preaching, at three o'clock there was another missionary meeting, at which a report was communicated from the Rev. John Peter Kluge, on the mission undertaken by the Rev. Abraham Luckenbach and himself among the Indians on the White River, in the present State of Indiana. The day was closed with one of the old-time antiphonal services of song, once so greatly enjoyed, and commonly spoken of as Liturgicn — Liturgies — treating of the theme of Pentecost and the office of the Holy Spirit. Thus the present spacious Moravian Church of Bethlehem was consecrated and made use of for the first festive w^eek. Very nearly a hundred years have passed since then, and therefore the details of its first history have an interest which may be increased when the centennial anniversary of its dedication draws near. A month after the consecration of the new church, July 19, 1806, two members of the Unity's Elders' Conference, with their wives, arrived in Bethlehem from Europe on an official visit, the Rev. Charles von Forestier and the Rev. John Renatus Verbeek. With them came four single men ; two bound for North Carolina, John 582 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Christian Burkhardt and Carsten Petersen, and two called to serve in the ministry of the Moravian Church in America, Emanuel Rond- thaler, who in later years was so long identified with the pastorate at Nazareth, and Charles Frederick Seidel, who after three years' service at Salem, N. C, and eight at Nazareth, was called, in 181 7, to Bethlehem, where, excepting one interval of about three years, the remainder of his life, to 1861, was spent in various capacities, as minister, principal of the boarding-school and member of the Executive Board. He was associated with church and town for a longer time and through more great changes than any man who figures in the long list of Moravian ministers at Bethlehem, and will be frequently mentioned in these pages. Very significantly does his name appear at the epoch marked by the completion of the new church, when so many associations of the interesting past receded and the connections of the modern period opened. BETHLEHEM 1805 1810 CHAPTER XVI. The Beginning of Modernizing Movements. 1807 — 1825. The period embraced in this chapter extends over the most extreme efforts to maintain without modification the close regime under which Bethlehem, Uke all other Moravian villages, was brought by the re-organization completed in 1786. This period was one of decadence in some main elements of the system that had been gradually developed after 1769. This system was not only proving inadequate, even in Europe, to preserve its theoretical ideals of internal village life, but in America was becoming clearly an impossible thing. The people were no longer unique in a united religious purpose had in view as the reason for the existence of the settlement, and in enthusiastic loyalty to this purpose. They had no desire, therefore, to remain unique in the minor external features of regulation and custom that had in course of time become fixed in con- nection with the former purpose. However peculiarly interesting or quaintly pretty many such things might seem to the casual observer, people of the place who were living in touch with the times and their surroundings, in the affairs of business and in social relations, had no taste for posing as an attractive curiosity for the diversion of visi- tors. Various things which seemed very odd, particularly to untraveled and not well-read Americans, because different from pre- vailing ways, were, amid European surroundings, not at all striking, just as many other village customs and regulations, domestic arrangements, modes of dress and the Hke, prevailing also outside of Aloravian circles in Germany and other countries, would, if trans- planted to America, have appeared very singular to such ; for narrow provincialism in all countries regards everything as queer that is different from its own customs and habits. In modern times more people travel and more cosmopolitan views prevail ; for even those who do not travel have the customs and habits of other people thrust upon their attention through the more general intermingling 583 584 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of varieties, so that those, both in the city and the country, who find all ways of people that are different from their own so strikingly absurd or amusing, constitute a relatively much smaller part of the population than was the case from fifty to a hundred years ago. While modern conditions tend to eliminate eccentricities and modify sharp contrasts in the customs and manners of society generally, they at the same time broaden views and make people more tolerant of differences. Not so many things are now regarded as outlandish as formerly, for well-informed people are more numerous. This fact is not confined to the ways of society and to domestic habits, but extends also to ecclesiastical matters. It is the person of narrow training and contracted horizon who is impressed by the oddity of organization, terminology, ritual and custom in churches other than that in which he has been brought up. The system which governed the Moravian villages also naturally produced this same kind of narrowness to a striking degree among their people, besides fostering a certain characteristic self-com- placency and a kind of egotism that was sui generis. Therefore, while so many people elsewhere regarded their ways as peculiar and in some respects absurd, they, in turn, especially in matters more strictly ecclesiastical, lived in the happy indulgence of this narrow egotism which had its origin in the idea of earlier times that a Mora- vian congregation was one of culled out people ; an idea fostered unduly by the exclusive system which had been instituted. That a degree of general culture prevailed that was far above the common country surroundings is an undeniable fact. That a degree of decorum and good manners marked even the plainest laboring classes of the community, far beyond that to be commonly met with among the same order of people in traveling the country, was a characteristic of the Moravian village of those days that never failed to impress the stranger who entered its gates. The general cultivation of good music, as one of the refinements, reached a stage at Bethlehem hardly to be found anywhere else in the country. It attracted many to the place. Some of the leading compositions of the masters which during the preceding decade had been more generally introduced to the music-loving public in Euro- pean cities, were brought to Bethlehem and rendered, at least in part, before their production had been attempted anywhere else in America. A conspicuous instance was the first rendition of Haydn's oratorio, "The Creation" in 181 1. That musicians from the cities or i8o7 1825. 585 visiting the United States from Europe were drawn to Bethlehem was natural, and during the years now under review the records of the place frequently refer to such visits by performers of note, and to con- certs in which they had the satisfaction of rendering music of a high order to an audience by taste and training capable of appreciating it. The pleasing and impressive character of the services of the sanctuary heightened by this assiduous cultivation of music, which fills such an important place in the general liturgicum of the Mora- vian Church, was one of the most notable things in Bethlehem ; and in those days, as well as in modern times, it was a common thing for people to visit the place at the seasons of high festivals for the purpose of enjoying the music. The visitor could not fail, furthermore, to be impressed by a pre- vailing friendhness and disposition to accommodate, and by a style of intercourse among the people that bore evidence of a relation not merely as fellow-citizens, but as brethren, on a religious as well as a social ground, existing between them. The church routine main- tained and the nature of the services and sermons suggested the prevalence of deep piety as one of the characteristics of the place. But with all this which appeared on the surface, there was much beneath and behind it that was far from ideal. In many cases, reli- giousness was largely a matter of conventional habit, and among the population born and bred in the place and trained to all of its external ways, there were persons enough whose real character and life were by no means superior. There was that in the religious training of the time which tended to produce a refined type of hypocrisy among some kinds of people. The conspicuous appear- ance of fraternal relations did not have beneath it a greater measure of cordial good will between man and man, in many cases, than pre- vails between well-disposed fellow-citizens and neighbors in other villages. The common rivalries, jealousies and bickerings of people existed among many Moravians in Bethlehem just as they did among people elsewhere and as they do among many of them in modern times, when there is less show of fraternity in mode of address and general habit of speech. Indeed, after the harmonious enthusiasm of former times had disappeared, many of the more petty disturbances of cordial relations were aggravated by the close regime under which men had to deal with each other at such short range, were crowded into such intimate contact with one another's perversities, frailties and foibles, and felt each other's angularities 586 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. more forcibly in the contracted relations in which they had to jostle each other in struggling for the elbow-room more easily afiforded by the larger freedom of modern times. The spirit of chronic criti- cism and fault-finding, referred to in the previous chapter as one of the unpleasant products of the old Moravian village system, grew with the increased stringency by which those who were trying to maintain it in its extreme character sought to correct irregularities and abuses. The general system was entering upon an ordeal of severe strain at the opening of the period of which this chapter treats. This came partly through the growing determination of many to be rid of the burden of antiquated rules and methods which they would no longer endure, and partly through controversy in matters of finance and property, in which the struggle was not so much with inflexible regulations as with domineering men. An acute condition of things in both features of the ordeal was brought on in connection with the several chief events of this period, as will appear in their narration. The deputies of the Unity's Elders' Conference who arrived in Bethlehem in July, 1806, as stated in the preceding chapter — the Rev. John Renatus Verbeek and the Rev. Charles von Forestier — closed their official labors in America by convening a conference of ministers at Bethlehem which was in session, September 14 to 16, 1807, and on September 28, they left to return to Europe. No material changes of organization or supervision were made during their stay, the poHcy of that time being to endeavor to tone up and strengthen the existing system. Several things of importance resulted, however, from their visit, which had to do partly with retrogression and decay and partly with plans for the future which had life and progress in view. Of the first sort was the termination of the once promising organization and institutions of Hope, New Jersey, which had sunk under a burden of debt with no prospect of recuperation. This settlement, besides the disadvantage of unhealthy surroundings, was too weak to survive the dead- ening system of the time, as Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz and Salem, N. C, did. After arranging for the disposition of the mill, farm, store and other appurtenances of the estab- lishment ; for locating and utilizing various officials, artisans and laborers of the place, and for measures to get rid of the prop- erty, the deputies formally made the melancholy announcement at Hope on May 26, 1807, that the place would be abandoned as a church-village. Some of the people w-ere given a home and employ- i8o7 1825. 587 ment at Bethlehem, others at Nazareth, at Lititz and at Salem. The services of Easter Sunday, April 17, 1808, terminated the history of the place as a Moravian settlement. Occasional services were sub- sequently held there by Moravian ministers, it being regarded as a mere preaching-place, but even these did not continue long. An offer by the Messrs. Kraemer and Horn of $48,000 for the main body of the property had been submitted to the lot with an affirma- tive result and was definitely accepted on September 19, 1807. There- upon the sale was made and the place ceased to be the property of the Moravian Church. A residue that was leased was finally sold in February, 1835, for $9000 to Abraham Bininger, of Camden, N. Y. Another move inaugurated at the same time under the direction of Verbeek and Forestier had a more cheering character, even though its early years were attended by circumstances that caused disagreeable disturbances, starting the first active revolt against the narrow, rigid system of the time. This was the establishment of a Theological Seminary to take the place of the importation of all regularly educated ministers from Europe, which was no longer feasible. This enterprise had been particularly advocated by the Rev. Jacob Van Vleck while he was principal of Nazareth Hall and was laboring to elevate the standard of his teaching force by secur- ing classically educated men from Europe, and by the Rev. Christian Lewis Benzien, of Salem, N. C. The project had been discussed for some time without results ; difficulties seemed to have blocked the way, and Van Vleck was making arrangements in the summer of 1807, to send his subsequently distinguished son, William Henry, to Europe with the deputies of the governing board, to pursue his theological studies, when the question was re-opened. A letter from the Unity's Elders' Conference cordially favoring and encour- aging the undertaking was received in August. They proposed to appropriate the necessary amount from the general educational fund of the Unity for the support of young Van Vleck and also of another candidate, eventually a well-known bishop, executive official and musician, Peter Wolle, son of a West India missionary of the same name, they having both completed the course of study at Nazareth Hall. Tt was stipulated, however, that the institution, if founded, should not be a tax on that treasury beyond these appropriations at the beginning. Then it was decided, on September 8, to take this important step in a modest way with these two students as the first class. A general scheme and a curriculum were elaborated by Ver- 588 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. beek and Forestier. Ernst Lewis Hazelius, who had arrived in 1800 and was employed at advanced teaching in Nazareth Hall — the most gifted and best educated, both classically and theologically, among the men available — was appointed as professor, to be assisted by the other theologically educated and most capable of the teachers, John Christian Bechler, who, like Rondthaler and Seidel, mentioned in the previous chapter, had come over from Europe in 1806. It was arranged to combine the institution with Nazareth Hall. On September 26, a proposition was made by Jacob Van Vleck and con- curred in by the General Helpers' Conference to add a third student to the class. This was Samuel Reinke — the venerable bishop, well- remembered by many — a son of the Rev. Abraham Reinke and a grandson of the Rev. Abraham Reinke, Sr., who fifty years before figured prominently at Bethlehem and Nazareth. Young Reinke had been a fellow-pupil, at Nazareth Hall, of Van Vleck, who entered in 1799, and of WoUe, who entered in 1800. He was employed at this time in the store at Nazareth, but, as Principal Van Vleck stated, did not like the place, did not seem adapted for mercantile life and undoubtedly would soon be useful as a teacher. On October 2, 1807, with these three students, Hazelius and Bech- ler commenced their work and the Moravian College and Theo- logical Seminary had its humble beginning. In 1809 difficulties arose in connection with this institution. Besides the lack of clear- ness in the relations held to it by the General Conference of Helpers and the Elders' Conference at Nazareth respectively, which caused misunderstandings, it soon became evident that the former body would not be able to enforce the kind of supervision and regulations, in all minute details, which, under the system of the time, they thought they must exercise. The dominant spirits among them, the Rev. John Gebhard Cunow seconded by the Rev. Andrew Benade, were disposed to press such supervision to an extent which Professor Hazelius chafed under as offensively pragmatical and a species of petty tyranny. Strained relations developed which, with a different kind of men in control, might easily have been restored, but which at last issued in a complete rupture. Hazelius had taken some unneces- sary liberties, was hasty and indiscreet in issuing a manifesto and enlisting co-operation, and in general seemed too ambitious to head a premature crusade. A variety of objectionable features in the official regime of the time, extraneous to the points in contention, were merged in a body of grievances in which common cause was i8o7 1825. 589 made bv some Icadiiiii- men at Nazareth with whom the Professor was personally very popular and who warmly espoused his cause. Then that most tiagrant of all offences in those days, "insubor- dination," an offence which officials of Cunow's way of thinking could condone less than any other, put the General Conference to the necessity of asserting themselves. Involved in it all was the inquisi- torial meddling of the authorities in men's private affairs, which so many could no longer brook, and the unbearable supervision of ofHcialdom in the matter of contracting marriages, with the appli- cation of the lot not yet relaxed, against the excessive use of which, in all kinds of matters, an almost irresistible opposition had begun to appear. Some, particularly Cunow, insisted upon it with an insensate determination to enforce every letter of the oppressive regulations regardless of consequences. Other men in the general board were not in sympathy with his extreme views and were disposed to accom- modate some things, not only in the interest of peace but also in the interest of common sense and in the line of modifications in the system that w^ere imperatively demanded. They were placed in a difficult position by the supposed necessity of preserving collegiate relations and of standing together. The situation was rendered very trying for Bishop Loskiel, who was constrained to act contrary to liis personal inclinations, but especially for Jacob Van Vleck, who was a man of more liberal views than Cunow and Benade, and, unlike them, was disposed to be gen- erotis and conciliatory. He was for a while placed in the perplexing situation of being a member of the General Board of Helpers and at the same time President of the Elders' Conference at Nazareth which disputed some points of control over the young divinity school with the General Board. Furthermore, he stood, as Head Pastor at Nazareth, in relations of a kind which did not trouble Cunow and Benade, to the men of that place who were siding with Hazelius, while he felt a warm interest in the latter as the leading man in his educational corps, too valuable to be alienated for insuffi- cient reasons. He was also most interested in the new institution which he had so strongly plead for and to the prosperity of which he attached so much importance. Thus strangely the Theological Seminary became the storm center where the disturbed elements began the agitation that was to break forth and clear the heavy atmosphere. It was the beginning of movements that issued, during the next decade, in the first breach made in the close regime of the time, and 590 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. therefore has a proper place here as reveaUng the genesis of develop- ments yet to be narrated. Things even went so far that some of the men at Nazareth — among whom William Henry, Jr., founder of the gun-factory ; Dr. Schmidt, Christian Senseman, the store- keeper, and Frederick Beitel, son of the former wagon-master and farmer-general at Bethlehem took the lead — had the temerity to hold a meeting, without official sanction or authority, and even to elect a chairman and secretary, in order to give formal expres- sion to their views on the situation as also on various related matters. The fathers of the General Conference stood aghast at this unprecedented act of "insubordination." A document drawn up by Benade, discussed, amended and adopted by the General Conference, was sent to Nazareth to be read to these daring men. Their radical step had gone so far that Jacob Van Vleck and the Elders' Conference at Nazareth felt officially bound to concur in calling them to account. Quite unabashed they returned answer, in which they expressed their sentiments concerning Cunow and Benade against whom, particularly the former, strong feeling prevailed. Cunow had even been accused by some of persistently harrying Professor Hazelius for the purpose of discour- aging him and thus frustrating the plan of the new institution, because he had been overruled when it was decided to locate it at Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, where he wished to have it under his eye. A new sensation was caused a few weeks later by the discovery that the document written by Hazelius, discussing the system and methods of the time, had been copied and sent to Bethlehem, Lititz, Philadelphia, Lancaster, New York and even Salem, N. C. Now all the members of the General Conference of Helpers, including the Rev. John Herbst, of Lititz, who had not attended the previous meeting, assembled at Bethlehem to draw up another manifesto to be sent to all of these places. But they had more to reckon with than they supposed. Early in June they had before them a copy of a paper signed by twenty-seven men of Nazareth which was to be sent to the Unity's Elders' Conference, setting forth not only their views on the contention between the Board of General Helpers and the Professor at Nazareth, but also a list of grievances under the existing system of government and a strong protest against various harassing restrictions and particularly against the excessive use of the lot. This, as it then entered into the machinery of government, had far less the character of srreat faith in God than of great lack i8o7 1825. 591 of faith in men. Instead of being, as it once was before it was reduced to system, a simple-hearted way of occasionally seeking guidance in perplexities, in the belief that the result, being inde- pendent of human will or judgment, was therefore to be taken as Divinely overruled and directed, it had become a complicated system of perfunctory oiiticial mechanism by which either the responsibility of judgment and choice was evaded, or objections of people to the results of official action were supposed to be silenced because these results did not then rest on the will or judgment of any man or body of men. Next to its employment in ultimately deciding the question of a proposed marriage, which was becoming intolerable to many, its use in making up the personnel of boards and confer- ences was most strongly objected to. The simple, fervent piety requisite to an acceptable employment of such a method did not exist. In the absence of this it became a grievous yoke and even seemed to many sheer mockery, in view of the theory under which it was used and the phraseology employed in connection with it ; especially when they were unable to credit those officials who insisted upon its full retention, with the exalted spirit, thoughts and purposes which belonged to the practice. If the situation of that time is analyzed it is not surprising that intelligent independence of thought was emboldened to take this initiative at Nazareth rather than at Bethlehem. At the latter place where those who dominated the official policy of the time lived, their constant presence, their connection with the village boards and their consequent personal touch with all local affairs rendered it more difficult to make any such attempt. Besides this, when the asso- ciations of the two places as educational centers are had in mind, it is easy to understand how opinion and purpose would more readily develop and acquire force in the academic atmosphere of Nazareth Hall than in that of the girls' school at Bethlehem. In 1809, while these complications were at their height, a new man appeared upon the scene who, although he assumed a cautious attitude, was inclined to side with the liberal party at Nazareth and Bethlehem. This was Charles Frederick Seidel, who came from North Carolina as Principal of Nazareth Hall and associate minister there, when Jacob Van Vleck became Head Pastor. He was a man of varied accomplishments, engaging personality and specially gifted as a preacher. The general popularity he enjoyed among the people added force to the awakening and stirring tendency that had 592 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. set in, and led to his soon being looked upon, notwithstanding his cautious course, as at variance with the position and policy repre- sented by Cunow and Benade who evidently also regarded him as not fully in sympathy with them. The whole matter between them and Hazelius, in reference to the lot and other things, with the memorial of the citizens of Nazareth and various questions growing out of the trouble, were referred to the Unity's Elders' Conference. Their opinions and decisions were received in July, 1810. While they sustained the position taken by the Board of General Helpers on the main questions, they did not approve the course pursued at the beginning towards Hazelius. They thought that it unnecessarily irritated relations and brought on trouble which might have been averted. A protracted succession of interviews, personal reconcili- ations and readjustments with the representative men at Nazareth followed, and matters settled down for the time being; but the entering wedge had been inserted, and not withdrawn, for cleaving and shattering the strait-jacket in which the old system held men and things. The scene of disturbance was afterwards shifted to Beth- lehem with new elements entering into the contention. As to the Theological Seminary, that and the Moravian Church lost Hazelius, who, in later years, arose to influence and honor in the Lutheran Church, into which he was followed by the Rev. Joseph Zaeslein who had come to Pennsylvania with him in 1800. His colleague, Bechler, continued in charge of the work, but felt little encouragement to persevere in it. The young institutio^n, which needed much fostering care, received a serious blow from these unfortunate disturbances. The first three students completed their studies. Only two constituted the next class, Charles Anthony Van Vleck, a younger brother of William Henry, and George Benjamin Miller, a son of the Rev. George Godfrey Miller and a grandson of John Levering who, with his wife Susanna, a daughter of John Bechtel, had been conected with the early schools of the Church. Young Miller became disaffected under the methods of tutelage that were so irksome to ever increasing numbers of young men. He fol- lowed his former teacher Hazelius into the Lutheran Church, notwith- standing the efforts made by his uncle, Abraham Levering, at this time warden at Lititz, and John Christian Ebbecke, of Nazareth, to persuade him to be reconciled. He, in later years, became con- spicuous as the honored President of Hartwick Seminary. It may be added in this connection that, a few years later, yet another gifted i8o7 1825. 593 young man, who could not be persuaded to submit to the shackles of the time, left the service of the Church and attained distinction elsewhere. This was Henry Immanuel Schmidt, a son of Dr. Schmidt, of Nazareth, long connected with the faculty of Columbia College in New York. It may be stated, however, that all of them. Dr. HazeHus, Dr. Miller and Dr. Schmidt, notwithstanding the breach between them, in their young days, and the officials who were persisting in keeping the Moravian Church under the bondage of a system that so cramped and repressed men, retained a warm regard for the Church of their youth and were on terms of cordial friendship with many of its later ministers. The Seminary was closed in 181 1. In 1820 it was re-opened with a class of three candidates for the ministry : Charles Adolphus Blech, Samuel Thomas Pfohl, and Jacob Zorn. Their professors were Charles Van Vleck, already mentioned, and John Christian Jacobson, who, in later years, long filled a prominent place in the Moravian Church as educator, bishop and President of the Executive Board. He arrived in Bethlehem from Europe on August 18, 1816, and began his long career in the service of the Church as a teacher in Nazareth Hall, Bechler being then Principal. After that the Seminary had an unbroken although, until 1858, migratory existence.^ While the complications which have just been described were engaging the church authorities and spreading the contagion of unrest among the people at Bethlehem, a crisis was approaching in the affairs of another establishment which caused much perplexity and, in connection 'with other difficulties which ensued, led to serious disturbances, issuing in events of importance. This was the estab- I In 1830 it was moved out of the Hall into the little building in the yard to the west, long known as "the Cottage." On May 10, 1S38, it was transferred, the first time, to Bethlehem where it remained, in a building on the north side of Broad Street, a little distance west of New Street, until August 5, 1851, when it was moved back to Nazareth. Excepting an in- terval from August, 1855, to November, 1856, when as an emergency arrangement, one class of students sojourned in Philadelphia, the institution remained at Nazareth until the autumn of 1858. During the Nazareth periods a part of the old Sisters' House now known as " the castle" at Nazareth Hall, was also occupied for a while by one of the classes, but the principal home of the institution was the old Whitefield House which in those days came to be called Ephrata, the name Whitefield is said to have intended to give his pro- posed Nazareth orphanage, and by which the place is now commonly known. August 30, 1858, the Seminary was transferred finally to Bethlehem and re-opened in the remodeled school-building on C-hurch Street, east of New Street, before that known as Nisky Hill Seminary, where it remained until 1892, when the present buildings were taken possession of. 39 594 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. lishmelit of the single men, whieh had retrograded numerically, financially and in general tone to such an extent that, when another of the regularly recurring deficits at the close of the fiscal year, in the summer of 1809, was under discussion, the proposition was made in the Conference of General Helpers to close out and abolish that diacony,- turn the large house to other uses, fit up quarters for the single men who yet remained together, in a smaller house and modify their choir organization into merely that of a division of the mem- bership, put under special pastoral oversight. The frequently men- tioned stone house on Main Street, which had been put to such various uses, and at this time was occupied in part by the boys' school, and in part by sundry Economy pensioners and others as a dwelling, was had in mind for such a modified organization of single men ; it being thought that several of the minor trades by which a few of the older men could eke out a living might be continued in that building. The idea had been broached by the Unity's Elders' Conference, when the erection of a second building for the boarding-school was first under consideration, of devoting the Brethren's House to the use of the school and re-establishing the single men elsewhere on a modified plan. This was now again discussed. The school was prospering and would doubtless soon need all the room this building contained, and the building erected in 1790. could be put to other uses. To a lesser but yet serious degree, financial perplexities were involved in maintaining the other choir diaconies, not only at Bethlehem, but also at Nazareth and Lititz. The amounts which the General Board of Wardens in Europe had to appropriate from year to year to cover their deficiencies were becoming a severe tax on the common resources. When this and all other aspects of the question were discussed by the Unity's Elders' Conference — the General Wardens of the Unity constituted a department of that body — after the reports and accounts of 1810 were received, it was concluded to risk further losses and make another effort to maintain 2 This term, formerly in common use, meant, as explained in a previous chapter, a fund, treasury and general financial system by which an organization, establishment or line of activity was supported — congregation-diacony, the several choir diaconies of the single men, single women and widows, sustentation, school and mission diaconies. The several trades and industries carried on as sources of income for one and another diacony were called, in the German nomenclature of the Church, Branchen, a term brought into use in the days of Frenchified German, in the sense of special departments of productive activity operated by the diacony. ^ilP ^-^^, BETHLEHEM, 1810 i8o7 1825. 595 the Brethren's House at Bethlehem, by putting it under new manage- ment and introducing various retrenchments and reforms. On February 22, 181 1, Thomas Christian Lueders arrived in Bethlehem from Europe, to take charge of the establishment as chaplain and warden, and co-operate with the Rev. John Frederick Stadiger, the warden of the Congregation since 1808, in the effort to rehabilitate some of the industries and get the finances into better shape. Prior to this, from August, 1808, John Jacob Kummer, the successor of Jacob Frederick Loeffler, had been at the head of the establishment of the single men, assisted by Jacob Christian Luckenbach," who put forth loyal efforts to maintain the several industries yet carried on by it, and who subsequently took charge of one of the branches, that of tin and copper work, on his own account and built it up into a permanent business. The Rev. John Gebhard Cunow, in his capacity as Administrator of the Unity's estates in Pennsylvania and agent of the General Wardens of the Unity, did not favor these further efiforts. He being, under the interlocked organization of officialdom at that time, a member also of the two village boards, the Conference of Elders and the Board of Supervisors — Aufschcr Collegium — as well as a member and the dominant personality of the General Helper's Conference, and therefore to be met and reckoned with everywhere, made his disapproval felt in an obstructive way. It was not long, therefore, before he, on the one hand, and Stadiger and Lueders, on the other hand, were at issue on various points in the complicated situation. In this connection other changes in the official personnel may be noted, so that a proper association of officials and events may be preserved in the course of things now to follow. Bishop Loskiel, disheartened by the difficulties of the situation in which he labored in the midst of prevailing disaffection, and broken in health, was relieved of his duties in May, 181 1, and after some months of retirement, received a call to return to Europe ; first to the head of the work at Gnadenfrei in Silesia, and then, after the death of Bishop Jeremiah Risler, to a seat in the Unity's Elders' Conference. Before he was ready to start, the war with England broke out, rendering ocean travel precarious and detaining him. Meanwhile his physical infirmities increased. An opportunity to sail on the ship George Washington for Liverpool, in July, 1812, was 3 Son-in-law of the missionary John Heckewelder, and father of the late Henry B., Reuben O., and J. Edward Luckenbach. 596 A HISTOKV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. considered but let pass. When another opportunity occurred in September, Dr. Rudolphi, who was then at Bethlehem, strongly dissuaded him from attempting the journey. Amidst the sympathies of all, he resigned himself to quietly await the outcome of his ailments. He departed this life at Bethlehem on February 23, 1814, and his remains were laid to rest in the cemetery where the dust of so many revered men already reposed, and where "Tschoop" and other notable converts of that race lay buried which, before he came to America, had awakened his special interest and led him to write the valuable book through which he has chiefiy become known, his "History of the Missions of the Brethren Among the Indians of North America." He was suceeded, in May, 181 1, as President of the General Helpers' Conference and Head Pastor at Bethlehem, by Bishop Charles Gotthold Reichel, previously at the head of affairs at Salem, North Carolina. The Rev. Andrew Benade remained Principal of the boarding-school and associate minister at Bethlehem until January, 181 3, when he went to Lititz to succeed the Rev. Jacob Van Vleck as Head Pastor; Van Vleck, who had been transferred to that position from Nazareth in 181 1, now following in offtce Bishop John Herbst, who died a short time after his consecration to the episco- pacy and transfer from Lititz to Salem. The Rev. Lewis Huebener, in January, 1813, followed Benade as Principal and associate minister at Bethlehem, but died, greatly mourned by school and congregation, in December of the same year. Cunow then filled the place ad interim until the close of 1815, when Bishop Reichel assumed the Principal's duties until February, 1816. The Rev. Christian Frederick Schaaf remained at Bethlehem, devoting himself to pastoral labor among the married people of the place and engaging in various other duties. The men who figured principally in the interminable deliberations and debates which finally issued in a solution of the Brethren's House problem and then, in connection with various related questions, which enlisted the active participation of prominent laymen at Bethlehem, ran out on other lines and brought a subse- quent crisis, were, besides Bishop Reichel, as President of the General Conference of Helpers and Head Pastor at Bethlehem, Cunow, as Administrator, Benade, of Lititz, and Abraham Reinke, of Nazareth, as members of the General Conference, besides the two wardens, Stadiger and Lueders. Thus it will be seen that the two last named were the only principal parties to these ol^cial discussions i807 1825. 597 who, in the intedinked make-up of the boards, represented exclu- sively the local interests of Bethlehem, especially in material concerns. In the conflict of opinions and interests, they formed together a kind of distinct party of those combined bodies in some of the important questions at issue. This appears quite strikingly in some of the minutes of the General Helpers' Conference. On the other hand, in the persons of Benade, of Lititz, and Reinke, of Nazareth, as members of that Conference, the iiead pastors of two other congregations, or, in other words, the presidents of the ruUng boards of two other villages were, at a subsequent stage of the complications, helping to officially deliberate and act upon grave questions in controversy which related exclusively to the property and finances of the village of Bethlehem — questions of a kind which had not arisen in connection with their own villages — were even eventually helping their colleague, the Administrator, to antagonize the local officials and citizens of Bethlehem in action they proposed to take with their own property. The extraordinary state of affairs finally produced by the manner in which supervision and control were then organized, did much to impress thinking men with the objec- tionableness of the system and the necessity of amending it. Such a product of the old principle of community of interests had not been contemplated when the system was created. In September, 1812, when the General Wardens in Europe finally wrote that they would not be able to further support the choir house diaconies that were carried on at a loss every year, because to pursue this course any longer would plunge the whole Unity into bankruptcy, the question what to do with the institution of the single men at Bethlehem was taken up anew. The diacony of the single men at Nazareth had been closed out on May i, 1812. That at Lititz was yet continued for a while. At Bethlehem the financial condition of the concern had not improved. There was much indifference and even lack of conscientiousness among the single men, according to the records of the General Helpers' Conference. Carelessness and extravagance in the culinary department and unnecessary expense in entertaining many visitors were complained of. This latter fault was also found with the Sisters' House. It was even intimated — and probably not without reason — that certain ones were disposed to help on the ruin of the diacony so that they might capture some wreckage, in getting control of certain trades to their own advan- tage. At an interview had by the General Conference with Stadiger 598 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and Lueders in November, 1812, it appeared that the excess of Habihties, as shown by the books, was $11,447, but should really be put down at more than $16,000, because the buildings were booked much too high. Lueders was of the opinion that, among the industries yet controlled by the Brethren's House diacony, the oil- mill, the tobacco-factory and the slaughter-house might be made decidedly profitable under competent and conscientious manage- ment ; but that the defective wording of the leases, as then drawn, placed the diacony at a disadvantage and enabled those who were so disposed to deal unfairly with it. Thus matters dragged on into 1813. In January of that year, an even more startling presentation was made by Cunow, who was for pressing the issue. He declared that if the creditors became urgent the diacony would be bankrupt, and that it should immediately go into liquidation. Two courses were considered. One was that the Warden of the Congregation simply assume the estate and let it then transpire to W'hat extent the Board of General Wardens in Europe would stand for the liabilities. The other was to appoint assignees, either the General Wardens, or the Bethlehem Warden, or both in conjunction; if jointly, the latter to administer for the former as agent, if the latter became assignee alone, the Warden of the Brethren's House to administer, but in any case private parties who held claims, and not the Unity's Wardens who held the chief claim, to be preferred creditors. The first of these plans was eventually adopted. Cunow, in further pressing action, had a proposition entered in the minutes of the General Helpers' Conference on February 16, 181 3, to close out the Brethren's House diacony by June i, of that year, and not await an answer from the General Wardens of the Unity, inasmuch as it was highly improbable that they would assume the heavy liabili- ties except by direction of a General Synod. He had meanwhile written to them, strongly urging this position. Thus he moved to crowd the burden upon the Bethlehem Congregation diacony. WHien the objection was made that another interview ought first to be had with Stadiger and Lueders, he had a paragraph added to the entry, to the effect that such a further interview with them was not deemed necessary. Although the closing out did not take place, June I, because it was held by all, excepting Cunow, to be too early a date, he thus prepared for the position he afterwards assumed, by putting himself on record as totally opposed to the continuance of the establishment after that time. Tn October the question of the JOHN SCHROPP (2nd) JOHN FREDERICK STADIGER LOUIS DAVID DESCHWEINITZ WILLIAM HENRY VAN VLECK JOHN CHRISTOPHER BRICKENSTEIN i8o7 1825. 599 disposition to be made of the large Brethren's House was more specifically discussed. There were three plans. One was to convert it into a second hotel. Misgivings about its proximit}- to the church were answered by the opinion that probably guests at a hotel would not create more disturbance during hours of service than some occupants of the Brethren's House were in the habit of doing. This indicated a state of affairs not much to the credit of the Single Brethren of that time. Another plan was to retain a section of it as a mere dwelling for those occupants who wished to remain together, they simply paying a stipulated rental, and to fit up the remainder of the building" to be let to families. The third was that finally adopted, to move the boarding-school into the building and make use of that occupied by the school for family homes and day-school rooms. February 3, 1814, a meeting of the single men was called at which the final decision concurred in by the General Helpers' Conference, the local Elders' Conference and the village Board of Supervision, was communicated. Even the idea of giving them quarters in the old Economy House on ^lain Street had been abandoned because there seemed to be no way of raising the necessary rent of $80 a year. Some of the single men who were earning wages cared too little about the matter, and others did not realize that the end had really come, and that the generous practice of the financial authorities in Europe to pay their debts for the sake of maintaining their insti- tution, largely as a mere matter of sentiment, had ceased. Some true- hearted, good men among them deplored this culmination of things and some of the older men who were ill-adapted to any other mode of life, were much dismayed at the prospect ; but ofBcial assurance was given that the personal situation of each one would be duly considered and the aged and infirm would be properly cared for. During the last week in February, Bishop Reichel and the wardens Stadiger and Lueders had a special consultation on further arrange- ments with those of them who were of age, and, the first week in March, had an interview with the fathers and masters of those who were minors, in reference to their board and lodging. On April 9, the closing service was held in the chapel of the building by Bishop Reichel. The associations of the occasion were in pathetic contrast to those of the dedication and first occupation of it, sixty-six years before. By April 16, the moving out was completed, and thus ended the historv of the Single Brethren's House at Bethlehem. 600 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. On June 28, 1814, Cunow presented a plan — which was officially approved — of the necessary alterations to the building for the purposes of the boarding-school. Some principal items of the plan were, to increase the height of the windows in front and at the gable-ends ; to fit up a dining-room in the north-west section on the first floor, and construct a stairway leading up to this from the kitchen in the basement ; to remove the stairway running up in the center of the house and, instead of this, build stairways at both ends for increased convenience and greater safety in case of fire. New floors were laid throughout the house and there was much work for carpenters and joiners, plasterers, painters and glaziers in connection with all the details of renovation and fitting up, both inside and outside of the building, while the grounds in the rear received the attention needed to prepare them for their new use. The work proceeded with the characteristic deliberateness of the time, and it was late in the autumn of 181 5, before everything was ready for the transfer of the school to its new quarters. This took place on November 10, of that year. There was a formal procession from the vacated building to the more imposing one now to be occupied. It was headed by Cunow, as temporary Principal, and his wife, with sundry clergy of Bethlehem and Nazareth. They were greeted, on their approach, by the music of the trombones from the belvedere or roof-terrace of the building. A processional hymn was sung by the clergy, tutoresses and pupils as they filed in, and when all had assem- bled in the large roo^ Vk'hich was to serve as a chapel, a formal but simple dedicatory service was held, after which the distribution of the room-companies and other internal arrangements were pro- ceeded with. Thus began the history of the occupation of that interesting building by what may now be called in these pages, no longer the boarding-school, but the Young Ladies' Seminary ; this latter name having never been associated with the institution in its former quarters, but having been first adopted in the course of the new period now opened.* The vacated building, the erection and the ultimate fate of which have been treated of in the preceding chapter, had very little subse- 4 The total number of persons connected with the school on this occasion was 132. There were 80 boarders and lo "day-scholars" connected with the boarding-school proper; 24 in the day-school for girls organized in a separate room with its own teachers — an arrangement which continued many years — and 18 adults; teachers, stewardess and matron. The record states that the whole number enrolled in the boarding-school proper, beginning with the first from outside of Bethlehem in 1786, to ihis time was 965. i8o7 1825. 601 quent history associated with it, of a kind that got on record. As already stated, its school character did not become entirely obsolete, for, besides afifording dwellings for various successive occupants, it was in part made use of at various periods by a section of the boys' school of the village, in its latter years by part of the town-school for girls for a while, and at one time also by a primary school for girls. While the regular day-school for girls was, during the most of the period prior to 1858, appended to the Young Ladies' Semi- nary — the history of which has long been before the public in the well-known "Souvenir" — the boys' school of Bethlehem, from the Revolutionary period up to 1823, had an irregular and at intervals obscure and unsatisfactory character. It was at times somewhat neglected, left in charge occasionally of unsuitable and incompetent persons for whom some kind of employment had to be found, and filled such an unimportant place that the records contain very httle concerning it. Then again times came when the authorities and citizens of the village were stirred to improve it and render it more efficient; re-organization took place and more competent teachers were put in charge. Much of its unsatisfactory character at some periods was due to the fact that, because of the lack of resources from which to properly salarize men, many, even of the more com- petent teachers, had to combine this with other duties, or were employed, as a mere temporary make-shift, while sojourning at Bethlehem recruiting their health or awaiting appointment to other positions. The provisions for the education of boys at Bethlehem lost much of their earlier importance after the re-establishment of Nazareth Hall in 1785, for then the few boys who were to receive a more thorough education were sent to that institution, either as boarders or as "day-scholars" living with relatives at Nazareth. This disadvantage under which the majority of the Bethlehem boys who could not be sent to the Hall were placed, continued for some years, even after the people of the village began to discuss the need of remedying it. The charge occasionally made, at one period, was perhaps not entirely groundless, that the clerical officials and a few leading men who controlled the situation, because they either enjoyed cx-oMcio privileges at Nazareth Hall or were financially able to send their sons to that institution, were not disposed to properly bestir themselves in the interest of those who were less fortunate. The chief difficulty, however, lay in the fact that so many of the people of Moravian villages were not trained to pay for what they 602 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. received or wanted, and many were willing to be satisfied with an ordinary common-school like those of neighboring" villages if some- thing better meant increased expense for them. The former sviperior advantages, under which people were accustomed to regard them- selves as mere beneficiaries, had ceased under financial pressure, and the modern large benefits of the principle established in the financial settlement of 1771, that the cause of education should have the benefit of a part of the estate that fell to the share of Bethlehem, did not begin to be substantially realized until a period long subse- quent to that covered by this chapter. As a rule, during the entire time from the re-organization after the Revolution up to the building of the first modern school-house for boys, the school was kept in two divisions, one for the little boys and another for those who were older ; sometimes together in one building and again separate at different places. During most of the time one of these divisions was domiciled in the stone house on Main Street. For a number of years the older boys had their school-room in the Brethren's House. For some years after the erection of the new church, the south-west room of that edifice was used as a school-room. At variovis times an evening school was kept during the winter months for boys who had to work at trades as regular apprentices, or at ordinary labor. Besides the common-school branches and regular religious instruction, music, both vocal and instrumental, always entered into the school plan, and there were at all times proficient instructors having boys in training to recruit the musical ranks in the service of the Congregation. Among those who served as teachers of tihe common branches and of music, from the close of the Revolution to the completion of the church — besides the chaplains of the Brethren's House and sundry of their assistants, w^'hose names were given in the preceding chapter — were John Chris- tian Till, John George Weiss, Abraham Levering, John Caspar Frei- tag, Paul Weiss, and especially John Christopher Eilerts. During the first decade of the new century, Matthew Eggert and David Peter Schneller were conspicuous, both serving for a number of years, at intervals. In i8tt, appears the name of Benjamin Haven, the mis- sionary, and, in 1812, that of Adam Haman, who taught until 1815. Tn 1813, Samuel Reinke took charge of the first class, but after a few months had to resign on account of illness. The same year David Moritz Michael, an accomplished performer on the violin and other instruments, became the musical instructor of the bovs. The 1 80/ 1825. 603 successor of Reinke was Jacob Rauschenberger, until September, 1814, when he was called as minister to Gnadenhuetten, Ohio. Then John Beck, later the famous school-master of Lititz, Charles Joseph Levering, John Caspar Freitag, the former teacher, who at this time closed his discouraging labors as minister of the dying congre- gation at Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoning, and William Henry Van Vleck were all under discussion as teacher of the first class, the second being yet in charge of Haman. A temporary arrangement was made tmtil, in Januar}', 1816, \ an \^leck was called to Bethle- hem as pastoral overseer of the single men and boys and secretary of the General Helpers" Conference. While Thomas Christian Lueders was the last superintendent of the Brethren's House, William Henry Van Vleck was the last of the succession of men who were appointed to the special pastoral care of the single men — Briicdcrpflcgcr — at Bethlehem. He took the boys' school in hand and again brought it up to a better standard. Now John Christian Till again appears upon the scene as a sc'hool-master, in addition to his duties as organist of the church, which he assumed in July, 1813, after the death of John Frederick Peter. He suc- ceeded Haman in 181 5 in charge of the second class of boys. He also taught the evening school for a while. He dropped out of the corps of pedagogues in 1819, but remained organist until 1841, w^hen he was succeeded by Ernst F. Bleck — likewise famous both as organist and teacher — of whom there will be more to record. At the time when William Henry Van Vleck commenced his duties, Eilerts, the former proficient school-master, who was evidently fond of little children, was devoting his attention to a primary school. Van Vleck was called to duties elsewhere in August, 1817, but the boys' school did not again retrogade. A new impetus was given to educational activity in Bethlehem generally by the accession to the Elders' Conference of the village, in Februarv, 1816, of the scholarly and devoted new Principal of the Young Ladies' Seminary, the Rev. Henry Steinhauer. Although his career was brief, ending with his lamented death. July 22, 1818, the impress of his presence remained, extending beyond the par- ticular institution he had been called to direct. Another man, already mentioned, who joined the the corps of leaders at Bethlehem on Sep- tember 28, 1817, devoted special attention to fostering the school work. This was the Rev. Charles Frederick Seidel. who was called from Nazareth to become the associate pastor and regular preacher 604 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of Bethlehem. One of his duties, in this position, was the special oversight of the day-schools of the place. The death of Steinhauer also unexpectedly brought him into his first connection with the Young Ladies" Seminary as Principal, temporarily until 1819. In 1818 there were special deliberations by the Congregation Council on improving the boys' school. A special committee was appointed to secure the best possible teacher. Daniel Steinhauer, a man of superior attainments, who had come from England to visit his brother, the Principal, during his illness, was engaged tempo- rarily. In 1819, John Jacob Kummer removed to Bethlehem from North Carolina, and soon after his arrival, negotiations began with ihim to take charge of the first class ; and thus another of the more prominent old-time school-masters of Bethlehem took a place in the succession. David Peter Schneller, a veteran in the service, was associated with him some time as teacher of the second class. Among the important steps forward in 181 7, was that which brought a special School Board into existence. At a meeting of parents, masters and guardians, on November 11, 1817, to discuss measures for improving the boys' school, a committee of seven was appointed to thoroughly consider the subject and report. January 21, 1818, a general meeting was held to hear the report, which went into the subject exhaustively under the three heads of general prin- ciples, financial resources, and management. It recommended the creation of a School Board of seven, the associate minister as general School Inspector, the Warden of the Congregation and the Prin- cipal of the Seminary to be ex-ofUcio members, and the other four to be elected by the voting members of the Congregation. The first election was held on March 10, 1818, and resulted in the choice of Samuel Luckenbach. John Frederick Ranch, Joseph Rice and Samuel Steup. Seidel became president and Rauch secretary of the board. The needed increase of revenue had been provided for by arranging with the Young Ladies' Seminary to let half of the former sum — £80 Pa. — agreed upon for accommodating the day-school for girls in that institution, and now considered rather high, go to the benefit of the boys' school, besides slightly increasing the tuition fees. Thus a needed additional amount of $200 was secured. The four mem- bers of the board chosen at the next election, March, 1819, were Charles David Bishop. John Frederick Rauch, Joseph Rice and Owen Rice, Jr. On October 18, 1819, a special winter evening school for apprentices and other boys who could only attend in the evening i8o7 1825. 605 was commenced, eighteen young men having arranged to take turns as instructors in various branches. In 1821, the subject of building a suitable school-house for boys began to be discussed during the incumbency of John Frederick Ranch, Joseph Rice, Owen Rice, Jr., and Charles Schneller as the elected members of the board. In July, 1822, there were several joint meetings of the Elders' Conference, the Board of Supervisors and the Board of School Directors on fiirther improving the school, which then consisted of upwards of thirty boys. A new teacher of the second class, Charles William LiUiencron, supposed to be a specially capable man, w^as chosen, but his term of service was brief, for in August, 1823, he left Bethlehem to return to Sweden, his native country. At the same time the building of the new school house was determined by a meeting of voting members in Congre- gation Council, on July 5, several members having expressed their willingness to advance the necessary money at four per cent, interest and, together with others, to make considerable contributions out- right. It was decided to build a two-story brick house, forty by thirty-three feet in dimensions, at an estimated cost of $1800 — this was exceeded somewhat — and to use the second story as a concert hall so long as it was not required for school purposes. Plans were drawn, a building committee consisting of Charles David Bishop, John Jacob Jundt and John Frederick Ranch was elected, and on July 26, 1822, it was commenced. It was completed soon after the following New Year and, on January 12, 1823, was dedicated with a brief service and a musical performance in the concert hall. This is the building on Cedar Street fronting south on the green, after 1858 used for many years as a dwelling for the Superintendent of the Parochial School, and in 1890 remodeled to be used again for school purposes. When the school was re-organized in this new building, Jacob Kummer was teacher of the first class and David Peter Schneller, re-employed after LiUiencron left, had charge of the second class, while the religious instruction was in charge of the pastors, and special instructors in vocal and instrumental music were employed. To complete this cursory survey of the school situation at Beth- lehem up to the epoch associated with the completion and occupa- tion of the new school-house for boys, it may be added that the principalship of the Young Ladies' Seminary passed out of the hands of Seidel in 1819 into t'hose of the Rev. John Frederick FrueaufT, 6o6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. who, in 1 82 1, was succeeded temporarily by the Rev. Lewis David deSchweinitz until, in 1822, Seidel was appointed Principal again and filled the position until 1836. The women who taught in that insti- tution in 1823, when the new period of the boys' school opened with two regular teachers, were seventeen in number, including several who left in that year and others who entered. Some of them merely taught music and others fancy needle work, plain sewing, or other special things, and did not belong in the ranks of regular tutoresses ; yet the contrast between the two institutions was thus very great. The faculty of the Seminary corresponded in number rather to those of Nazareth Hall and the Bethlehem boys' school combined. The mention of two new names among the clergy and executive officials of Bethlehem, Frueaufif and de Schweinitz, leads back to the more general course of events after the closing of the Brethren's House. The financial difficulties of the time, together with the growing revolt against the prevailing regime which appeared openly in the complications of 1809, and could not again be suppressed, finally brought on the most acute crisis of the period embraced in this chapter. A proper connection of affairs leading to this crisis requires a reference to discussions prior to the closing out of the Brethren's House diacony. In September, 1811, the General Board of Wardens in Europe, replying to a communication of the Elders" Conference of Bethlehem on the financial situation, decidedly favored the proposed sale of a thousand acres, or about one-fourth of the land which, in the settlements of 1771, the Bethlehem Diacony acquired from the previously existing General Diacony of the Unity. The title deeds were held, as explained in a previous chapter, by the so-called Proprietor in fee simple, but as a trust for the Bethlehem Congregation, although no formal declaration of trust was issued. The active business connected with all land thus held, was transacted by the so-called Administrator under power of attorney from the Proprietor. Hence it will be seen that, while the Bethlehem Congre- gation claimed, of course, to be the real owner of the land held for it by the nominal Proprietor, sales or conveyances of any kind had to be made by the Administrator, acting for the Proprietor. At the same time, in accordance with the diacony combine between all the congregations of the Unity, with the General Wardens in Europe standing financially at the head of the whole — the arrangement estab- lished in 1775 — such a proposed sale was subject to the approval of these General Wardens, whose agent at Bethlehem was the afore- said Administrator. i8o7 1825. 607 That cliacony combine involved reciprocal obligations between the whole and each of its parts ; hence betw^een the Wardens of the Unity and the Bethlehem diacony, as well as each of the special choir diaconies. They were each under obligation to help the whole and the whole likewise to help each of them. It was under this arrangement that the European General Wardens of the whole were furnishing such considerable sums, from year to year, to help the diaconies at Bethlehem out of trouble, for which in the last instance they would have to be responsible. Therefore, it was a natural and proper arrangement Ijhat such a proposed sale of Beth- lehem land should be subject to their concurrence; although, if the Bethlehem Congregation had chosen to break faith and take a revol- utionary step, and the Proprietor through the Administrator had been willing to co-operate in making the required deeds, the General Wardens could not have prevented such a sale, but would have been helpless, beyond legally pressing their claims against Bethlehem if they had chosen and found means available to do so. The only persons who could efifectually thwart the will of the Bethlehem authorities in such a case were the Proprietor, Jacob Van Vleck, of Salem, N. C, and the Administrator, Cunow, or really, under his power of attorney, the latter alone. The object of the proposed sale of land, w^iich the General Wardens approved, was to pay ofi all indebtedness at Bethlehem and stop the heavy drain for interest on loans. At the beginning of 1812, when the letter of approval from the Wardens of the Unity was first under consideration in a meeting of the General Conference of Helpers at Bethlehem, the uncovered liabiHties of the Congregation were reported as amounting to $12,541.63^ and the debt on the church building was $37,i05.83>^. It was calculated that the sale of the thousand acres would extinguish this and put a balance into the treasury. Cunow, the Administrator, strongly opposed the project and induced his colleagues in the General Helpers' Conference to take an adverse position. It was argued that there was no necessity for such a step because the income of the Bethlehem diacony for the previous fiscal year had met current expenses and interest, with a prospect of improve- ment; that the situation was not as bad as represented because the land assets were booked too low, had greatly increased in value and would at a proper valuation cover the apparent excess of liabilities together with the church debt ; that it would be difficult to safely and at the same time profitably invest the money of those who held 6o8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the notes of the Betlilehem warden, which would have to be redeemed if, by such a sale of land, the obligations of the Bethlehem diacony, then serving as a sort of bank for many persons, were paid ofif — the stocks of corporations being an insecure investment in those times of war. It was proposed to cover the apparent excess of liabilities by adding $3.10 per acre to the valuation of the Bethlehem land, which increase would yet leave it booked below its real value. The congregation authorities at Bethlehem declined to recede from their purpose, and controversy ensued. In January, 1813, Cunow declared his opposition more clearly and emphatically in a pro memoria, in which he set forth his conviction that such a sale of a large tract would violate the agreements of 1771 ; that, in any case, the concur- rence of the owner in law, the Proprietor, must be had through the Administrator and they could not be ordered to act against their will ; that the Bethlehem Congregation — and on this point the subse quent contention turned — really held the land only on perpetual lease and could not sell it ; that the Bethlehem diacony only had a stipulated right to the revenues of the land, to meet its own neces- sities and its obligations to the Sustentation Diacony controlled by the General Helpers' Conference ; the surplus above this was at the disposal of the General Wardens of the Unity, according to a resolution of the General Synod. In the following April, he secured the endorsement of his colleagues in the General Helpers' Con- ference to a letter he had written to the General Wardens of the Unity, so presenting the matter as to persuade them to withdraw, for the time being, their concurrence in the proposd sale. This aroused much indignation in Bethlehem against him and those who supported him, and, together with other causes of irritation, produced a state of disaffection that was disturbing to the internal peace of the village. Although no steps were further attempted until 181 5, contention increased and grew bitter. Circumstances attending the closing of the Brethren's House, and the position taken by Cunow that the situation must be controlled by repression through a stricter enforcement of regulations and exercise of discipline, aggravated things until at last an ofificial and personal rupture took place between him and the Bethlehem officials. In September, 1815, the question of 181 1, in reference to selUng land to clear off indebtedness was again agitated. Cuno-w had been mainly instrumental in bringing about the assumption of the liabilities of the Brethren's House by the Bethlehem diacony, and i8o7 1825. 609 it was tliougliL Ihat, in view of this, lie would cease to obstruct tlie measure. At that time the debts of the Congregation diacony amounted to $20,463.94, and those of the defunct Brethren's House diacony to $15,072.74, which made a burden of $42,130.08, that was being carried and drawing interest, besides the church-building debt. Some strongly objected to the large credit system that had been instituted both by the Bethlehem treasury and by the Susten- tation Diacony, while Cunow favored and fostered this kind of a banking arrangement by which loans were taken from individuals. The result of the renewed agitation was that Cunow went to Europe early in 181O, to personally present all the features involved in the situation, as he viewed them, to the Unity's Elders' Conference and particularly to urge his arguments on the question of selling land upon the Unity's Wardens in that board. Decided differences of opinion had now arisen between him and some of his colleagues in the Conference of Helpers, especially in the matter of enforcing the yet unaltered regulations of the old system in all details, which some of them, like the Elders' Conference at Bethlehem, regarded as no longer possible. They had also broken away from him in his view that the Bethle'liem land, as an inherited trust, could only be held on perpetual lease and could not be sold, a view in which he was not sustained by the General Wardens of the Unity after a second consideration of the whole subject. The Unity's Elders' Conference, after hearing his presentation of matters and considering a written statement sent by his colleagues, brought about an adjustment of differences for the time being, and took measures to institute more particular inquiry into the demoralization of discipline at Bethlehem set forth by Cunow, wdiile the larger questions involved were left to be dealt with by the General Synod of the Church which, after the lapse of seventeen years, it was now proposed to convene. Cunow returned to Bethlehem and a truce was effected even with the boards of the Bethlehem Congregation, and in April, 1817, he was formally invited by the Elders' Conference and the Board of Supervisors to again attend their sessions and to again participate in conducting services, neither of which things he had done for a considerable time. Meanwhile the agitations at Bethlehem and the other church villages, extending over a wider range of subjects, were at last given opportunity to issue in some regular action in the direction of desired changes and reforms. February 16, 1817, a circular of the General Conference of Helpers convoking a Provincial Conference in June, 40 6 10 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. preparatory to a General Synod to be held at Herrnhut in 1818, was publicly read at Bethlehem. It was the first such convocation in ten years and the first since 1768 in which lay-deputies participated, and which in its organization and methods deserved to be called a Synod. It consisted of two sections, one representing the exclusive settle- ments of the Church — Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz — and the other representing the town and country congregations. The ses- sions of both were held at Bethlehem and were presided over by Bishop Charles Gotthold Reichel. He yet filled a position very try- ing under the circumstances, as President of the General Helpers' Conference and Head Pastor at Bethlehem, but was soon to vacate these offices and return to Europe. The section of the Synod which represented the church-villages consisted of twelve ministers as ex officio members, composing the Elders' Conferences of the several places, together with eight women of these Conferences also entitled to ex officio seats, and thirteen lay delegates elected by the voting membership. The delegates from Bethlehem were Christian Eggert, Sebastian Goundie, Joseph Oerter, John Frederick Ranch, Jacob Rice, Owen Rice, Jr., and John Christian Till. Goundie and the two Rices represented more particularly the desire for reform in business regulations and property conditions, and the two last named were from among the younger citizens of the place ; Owen Rice being at that time thirty and Jacob Rice only twenty-four years old. All of them were men who were au fait in all the important matters that came under consideration, so far as the various interests of the vil- lage were concerned, and each of them was selected as a specialist in some department. The section representing the exclusive church villages began its sessions on June 9, continued until the 21st, adjourned to August 4 and finally finished its work on August 6. The other section, representing the city and country congregations, consisted of eighteen ministers and eleven delegates and held ses- sions from June 26 to 28. The former had fifty-five and the latter eleven sittings. Prior to the convening of this Conference or Synod, it was pro- posed by some of the leading laymen, not only at Bethlehem, but also at Nazareth and Lititz, to have preliminary meetings of voting communicant members to discuss and formulate points to be brought forward. The Conference of General Helpers would have quietly let this take its course, but Cunow interposed strenuous objections to the exercise of this liberty and constrained his colleagues to express disfavor. As all sensible men appreciated the desirability of i8o7 1825. 611 preserving amicable relations just then, such formal meetings which would have, accomplished much preparatory work and expedited business were not held. Among the vexed questions of the time, the official discussions that preceded the Synod reveal those which were most prominent. One was the modification of the use of the lot in connection with appointments to office and in routine government, and its total abolition in connection with finally deciding the question of proposed marriages in the church settlements. Another was legal incorpor- ation, advocated by some to enable the Church general and the Congregation or village to hold and convey real estate. The chief motive was not fear of dishonesty on the part of the Proprietor, who held the title in fee simple, but the desire to escape from further experience of arbitrary domination on the part of the x\dministrator. The wish was that the Congregation might be in a position to control its own property. A third was that of abolishing the so-called "Lease System" under which residents of the village could only hold posses- sion of real estate on ground rent. There was a strong desire on the part of many to own the ground on which their houses stood as well as the buildings. Related to this was a long-standing grievance at Bethlehem and Nazareth which it was decided to have removed if the Lease System were retained. This was the old "limitation clause" in the house leases which those at Lititz and Salem, as it seems, did not have attached. The leases contained a proviso to which the builder of a house agreed, that if he vacated either by voluntarily removing or by forfeiting his right to live in the place under the agreement which he had signed, and received a quit notice ; or if the heirs of a deceased house-owner were not members of the Church, and the Administrator, representing the owner of the ground, had to buy the house — as frequently happened — in order to keep control of the premises, and disagreement arose about the price, a valuation was to be put upon it by three disinterested men, but this valuation must not exceed a maximum sum named in the lease. This was the "Hm- itation clause." It was designed originally to be a safeguard against collusion to extort an exorbitant sum, but was now regarded as very unjust to many owners of houses because the leases were old and the figure named did not nearly represent the value of the houses, as property was now rated. It was desired that this limitation clause should be omitted. 6l2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Another wish strongly expressed, especially by many who were engaged in business, was that the principle of the Church which restrained members from resorting to the civil courts in complica- tions with other members, to collect debts or get redress for injuries, might be modified. The Conference of General Helpers had to admit that the character and relations of citizens of the church-vil- lages were so far from the ideal pre-supposed by the old require- ment that only the church authorities be resorted to in such mat- ters, that the position was no longer tenable. It was acknowledged that these authorities could no longer adequately deal with offenders, for there were those who would not be amenable to moral suasion and some for w'hom the threat of expulsion had lost its former effect. It was admitted also that the laws framed and the courts instituted to protect the persons and property of people were a product of Christian civiHzation, and therefore the words of Scripture about brother going to law with brother, in the days when this meant an appeal by Christians to heathen magistrates, did not invariably apply. Another change desired by the great majority was that the regu- lations which restrained men, regardless of their personal convic- tions, from performing militia service at the call of the Government be aboHshed. This troublesome matter, which had occasioned so much hardship, odium and expense during the Revolution, had now come into some prominence again during the second war with Eng- land. So far as can be ascertained only one Moravian, Joseph Rose, among those who had joined militia companies, was called out into service — September 25 to December 24, 1814, in camp at Marcus Hook — but much irritation was occasioned by the effort to enforce the inhibition, because there were at this time far fewer at Bethlehem and Nazareth than in former times who had scruples in the matter, and far fewer who were disposed to pay money for themselves or others, in preference to merely turning out to drill. The question referred to the Unity's Elders' Conference whether a man could be held to necessarily forfeit membership if he voluntarily joined the militia, was answered in the negative. The General Helpers' Con- ference finally agreed that it was not prohibited by Scripture ; that they could not prevent a man from doing what the Government called upon him to do as a pubHc service, and in reference to which the laws of Christianity gave him personal liberty; that the old rule could no longer be strictly maintained. All agreed to this position excepting Cunow, who appealed to the letter of the synodlcal enact- i8o7 1825. 613 ment not yet repealed, and urged that discipline be exercised upon all who transgressed. In December, 1814, the board received answers from the Elders' Conferences of the three church-villages to their question on this point. The answer from Bethlehem was : it is impossible to further continue the arrangement to combine in pay- ing for substitutes, and the question of drilling ought to be left to the option of the individual. That from Nazareth was : nothing can be done in the matter. The young men who are so inclined simply go to drill, rule or no rule, and flatly refuse to stand the expense of maintaining what they call an antiquated regulation that ought to be considered obsolete. From Lititz, where, as formerly, narrower con- servative views in such matters yet prevailed, and Benade, the sup- porter of Cunow in uncompromising adhesion to the old system, was at the head of affairs, came the opinion that militia service was con- trary to the fundamental principles of the Church and that the rule requiring the payment of fines instead of going to drill should be enforced. Nevertheless, the tendency to break away from it carried the day, relief from the regulation was afforded in 1818, by a revision of the synodical enactment on the subject, in response to the request of 1817, and then this ceased to be a trouble to the people. It may be added here that, beyond the renewed difficulties about the requirements of the militia law — but to a far less degree than during the Revolution — and the general financial and economic effects which were experienced in the country generally, Bethlehem felt nothing of the War of 1812, but on February 22, 181 5, engaged in a special celebration of Washington's birthday in view of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent. There was a general illumina- tion of the town in the evening, during which two choirs of trom- bonists, one stationed at the open windows in the organ loft of the church and the other in front of Sebastian Goundie's house, alter- nated in performing festive chorales. On April 13, solemn services were held in observance of the Peace Jubilee proclaimed by the President. Turning back from this digression in connection with the final reference to the subject of mihtia service, two more prominent mat- ters are found figuring in the discussions of 1817. One was the desire to have the so-called monopolies in the various branches of trade and industry in the village abolished, or at least to have the regulations so relaxed that what was believed would be a legitimate and beneficial competition in business might become possible, and a 6l4 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. larger measure of liberty which was believed to be a natural right ot the citizens in the matter of establishing trades might be enjoyed. What was originally intended to be a protection to those who leased one after another of the "Branchcn" from the Congregation Diacony — regulating the number of trades so that each one might be assured a living by means of it, and adjusting the supply to the demand — had become, in the opinion of many, a system of oppressive restriction. In some cases it was looked upon as a petty tyranny exercised by the village fathers. There were frequent jealousies and contentions and occasional charges of partiality, imfair discrimination, protec- tion of favorites, barring out those who happened not to stand in the good graces of the village authorities or to enjoy the prestige of influential connections. Young men were sometimes compelled, under the rigid arrangements, to betake themselves to an occupation not to their liking, in order to merely gain a livelihood, because there was declared to be a scarcity in that particular line and ample pro- vision in the other which they preferred, and there was no appeal from the decision. It not infrequently happened that a young man had served a full apprenticeship at a trade or had devoted some years to learning a certain business — perhaps almost under coercion and quite contrary to his inclinations, because just then apprentices happened to be needed in those particular places — which he was afterwards not permitted to follow except by consenting to transfer his residence to another church settlement, where there was need of one to ply his particular trade, or by going out to hunt a location for himself. The contagion of progress and expansion was in the atmosphere. General activity in opening up new trade and traflfic and starting all manner of internal improvements spread through the States after the second war with England. Some energetic and enterprising men of Bethlehem foresaw that the place had a future and even then believed that there was trade enough for several mercantile estab- lishments, room for another hotel, prospect of success in starting new manufacturing industries, warrant in laying foundations for larger operations generally than the village regulations then made possible or those in control who preferred to see all things remain in the narrow, beaten track, could contemplate with peace of mind. Hence the growing desire to have the chiuxh-village S3^stem so relaxed and modified that there might be freer action in business affairs. Yet another feature of the existing system, one already referred to. was given special consideration, and the strongly-felt need of a i807 1825. 615 remedy for various hampering and even oppressive effects of it that had been experienced was put into formal propositions. This was the interlinked organization of official bodies under the close regime of the previous three decades which created too much identity between the general executive body, the General Helpers' Confer- ence, on one hand, and the local village boards on the other, and gave too much opportunity for one little group of men or even one man like the Administrator to exercise a dominant infiuence in all of them. To a very great extent, as has been observed, interviews of the General Helpers' Conference with the Bethleliem Elders' Conference had been really but interview's with themselves. For some time merely the Wardens of the Congregation and the Breth- ren's House did not hold double official positions. Therefore, when — as was often the case — only the Bethlehem contingent of the Gen- eral Board was in session deliberating, and they wished to have an interview with the Bethlehem Elders' Conference, they merely had to call in the two wardens — and after 1814 only the one warden — in order to become a joint body, and could then have the interview with themselves as thus augmented. Some were beginning to regard it as oppressive and some looked upon it as almost grotesque to have Cunow as xA.dministrator discuss with Cunow as a member of the General Helpers' Conference, then with Cunow as a member of the Bethlehem Elders' Conference and finally with Cunow as a mem- ber of the village Board of Supervision, whether the Bethlehem people might do something to wliich Cunow' in all these capacities was opposed. Some were also beginning to think that when the President of the General Helpers' Conference had occasion to com- municate with the President of the Bethlehem Elders' Conference on points of controversy between the two boards, these Presidents ought to be two different men, especially when, as one and the same man. he was to so great an extent dominated at both ends by the Administrator. This desire for the re-construction of organization extended to three other features. One, purely local, was the constitution of the Gemeinrath or Common Council of the village, which, under the existing system, as was pointed out in the preceding chapter, con- sisted so largely of ex oificio members and of certain predetermined classes of citizens and functionaries, for the time being, who held their places to a great extent by the choice and appointment of the Elders' Conference, that it was very much of a close corporation. The number in it whose membership expressed the free choice of 6l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the people was next to nothing, and that man\- looked upon it as a ■■packed" body made up by the Elders' Conference is not surprising. That some refused to be comforted under their close grip by the extensive use of the lot in making choice from candidates is also not surprising, for there were many ways of controlling and restricting the foregoing election of candidates, and the regulations of the time even permitted the Elders' Conference to ignore a candidate occa- sionally in drawing names or settling the question yes or no, if to their minds there was sufficient reason for doing so. The movement at this time was in favor of not merely reducing the c.v officio mem- bership of the Council and the number of positions which, as such, were necessarily represented in it by their incumbents selected by the Elders' Conference, but to again have it consist of all the adult male population who were communicant members in good standing, as was the case under the more democratic organization of fifty years before. Another feature in which re-construction was advocated was the standing of the General Conference of Helpers administering the affairs of all the American settlements, congregations and missions, and its relation to the Unity's Elders' Conference in Europe. There was a strong desire to restore more authority and freedom of action to this board ; to give it more of the character of an Executive Board supervising the whole as an integral, organized body of work, instead of being onl}^ a conference of the agents, appointed in the three settlements by the U. E. C. to act for them in the care of these places as merely individual congregations, together with the few city and coimtry congregations which yet existed. It was a move towards the creation of a proper Provincial organization with a Pro- vincial Executive Board and a Provincial Synod. Yet another feature, that came under discussion lay even closer to the central and fundamental character of the whole system. Tt was desired that in the composition of the U. E. C. there might be provision for one member from America or at least one thoroughly conversant, through previous residence in the country, with the American situation ; and for giving the Elders' Conference of the American church settle- ments a vote in helping to fill vacancies in the general governing body in Europe. Numerous lesser matters at the same time received attention, and the opportunity was embraced to formally seek release from the obligation to conform to various antiquated requirements in ritual and church routine, some of which were utterly foreign to the genius i8o7 1825. 617 of the age and the country and were distasteful and burdensome to most people. A few such observances had, without formal abolition, become obsolete, while sticklers for punctilious conformity, among those in control, harassed the people by urging the letter of the regulations in all particulars and reproaching them with insubor- dination and unfaithfulness. One minor feature of the general struggle came to prominence in 181 5, which was interesting and somewhat amusing. It showed how the martinet is more easily baffled by women than by men; how the stern regulator of customs is at his wits" end when he encounters rebellion in the domain of feminine attire ; how even Moravian women of nearly a century ago knew how to make short work of a matter by an application of what has been said to be the woman's way — to jump to a conclusion and then argue from the conclusion. For some time there had been a growing sentiment among the women at Bethlehem, Nazareth, and even at Lititz, against the old regulation that required them to wear the uniform "Schneppel Haube"^ to church, or on all formal or dress occasions, in the exclusive settlements — it was not obligatory in the city and country congregations — and here and there one ventured to discard it and don a more popular, conventional style of in-door head covering, in quite extensive use outside of Moravian circles in those days, distinguished from the other, in Moravian parlance, as the "Englische Haube." Quietly, plans for an open rebellion were formed, with Nazareth again the headquarters of venturesome pro- gress. Suddenly, in February, 181 5, the General Helpers' Confer- ence received a message from the women at Nazareth that, while they intended to further respect the principle of uniform head-attire among high and low, rich and poor alike in the sanctuary, and the several colors worn with it distinguishing the choir divisions, they did not propose to longer wear the Schneppel Haube, but had agreed together and concluded to appear in church the following Sunday wearing the Englische Haube. They did not first ask the fathers whether they approved ; did not give them an opportunity to first examine the law, discuss the question, perhaps write to the Unity's Elders' Conference for counsel and then return answer. They simply 5 Schneppel^ ScJnieppcheu, diminutive of Schiieppe, nozzle, lip or peak, and Plaube, cap. Schneppel-Haitbc or Mii/ze, a close fitting cap with a peak in front. One variety of it seems to have been associated in former times — -not among Moravians — vi^ith mourning attire. Some portraits in the archives at Bethlehem display the Schneppel- Hajibe of former times. Women in old Moravian settlements in Germany submit to a somewhat modernized form of it even yet. 6l8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, served notice on the Conference of what the}- had conchuled to do. Here was a problem that embarrassed the fathers more than all the conflicts with iJethlehem business men. This gentle audacity took them by surprise, it was a coup dc main that left them little else to do than to unconditionally surrender. They meekly asked the sisters who had official seats in the Elders' Conferences of the three church villages to ascertain for them the general sentiment and opinion among the women and kindly report. Those at Bethlehem, speak- ing for all, reported at a sitting in March, and very likely with a twinkle in their eyes, that the sentiment against the Schncppel Haiibc was very general ; that many had already adopted the change at all of the places on all occasions excepting in church, and that the move- ment would evidently prevail. Thereupon it was recorded that inas- nnich as many had introduced this change without consulting the several Elders' Conferences, the General Helpers' Conference did not see what it could do in the matter, but the Elders' Conferences were to be urged to seriously consider how the growing spirit of insubordination might best be coped with. Thus came the gradual discarding of the Schncppel Haiibe and the adoption of the Englischc Haubc as a transition to finally wearing what each one pleased. Meetings of the voting members were held at Bethlehem, August 22 and 23, to settle the question of representation at the approaching General Synod. Under the arrangement then yet existing, there was no election of deputies of the churches jointly as a Province of the Unity by the Synod, but representatives were chosen by the several church-settlements as such. It was decided on the 22nd, that Bishop Reichel, who was going to Europe to remain, and Cunow, who had to attend the Synod anyhow, might be two of the Bethlehem depu- ties. Then a third should be elected representing the laity and the parties most sharply at issue with the Administrator. This election, which took place on the 23d, resulted in the choice of Owen Rice, Jr. February 15, 1818, the credentials furnished the deputies were publicly read in the church and delivered to them in the presence of the congregation. March 5, they started on their journey to Europe — Bishop Reichel and his wife, Cunow and his wife, and Owen Rice. The important General Synod was in session from the beginning of June to the end of August. On December 6, Cunow and his wife and Owen Rice got back to Bethlehem. Five davs later came the Rev. Lewis David deSchweinitz, who had attended from North Caro- lina. With him came Bishop Christian Gottlieb Hueflfel to succeed Bishop Reichel as President of the Executive Board, but not as i8o7 1825. 619 Head i'astor at Bethlehem. Herein one of the desired changes already appeared. These two positions were no more to be filled by the same man unless some emergency made it unavoidable. The board over which he came to preside was now no longer to bear the lengthy, unwieldy, although ingeniously thought-out title: "Confer- ence of Helpers in General of the Congregations and Stations in Pennsylvania and the adjacent Parts," which in these pages has been abridged into General Helpers' Conference — it was constructed to accord with the rationale of the close regime which suppressed the idea of a Provincial body with an official head — but was to be called the Pennsylvania Province Helpers' Conference and was to have more character as a central body, differentiated somewhat more from the local boards of Bethlehem. For convenience it \\\\\ henceforth be called the Provincial Board. It was to consist of five members : the Presiding Bishop appointed by the Unity's Elders' Conference ; the Administrator, also, of course, an appointee of that body, and the Head Pastors — Gemcinhclfcr — of Bethlehem, Xazareth and Lititz. The Administrator w^as not to be necessarily a member of the two Bethlehem boards, although this w^as not forbidden if circumstances rendered it unavoidable. It was also decided that the Principal of the Seminary for Young Ladies should devote himself more entirelv to his particular work, as a rule, and, when possible, another man should fill the position of associate minister and preacher. New statutes for the exclusive church settlements in Pennsylvania, formulated by the Preparatory Synod in 181 7, submitted to the Gen- eral Synod, amended in some particulars and then enacted by that body, together with a new code of detailed instructions for the gov- erning boards of these villages, were made operative in January, 1819. On the 28th of that month all of the revisions and re-con- structions authorized by the Synod were publicly communicated and the new statutes were adopted and signed at Bethlehem. Not all that was desired was gained, but the reforms were sufficient to arrest the growing disaffection, prevent revolutionary measures and make it possible to continue the exclusive church-village plan a number of years longer. The most objectionable uses of the lot, sufficiently treated of in the preceding pages were abolished and the Gcmeinrath or Common Council now again consisted of all male communicants of the village, of voting age and in good standing. Various hampering restrictions long objected to, and methods of procedure that had caused irritation were set aside, and the way to the introduction of 620 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. some desirable external improvements was opened by the revised instructions adopted for the village boards to work under. The Rev. John Frederick Frueauff was installed as Head Pastor for the time being, while the Rev. C. F. Seidel continued to fill the position of associate minister and regular preacher. The position up to this time occupied by the Rev. Christian Frederick Schaaf in the pastoral corps, as special spiritual overseer of the choir of married people, ceased to be a separate one. It was added to the functions of the Head Pastor. Schaaf left for Salem, N. C, in April, 1819, after more than twenty years of labor at Bethlehem, the longest continuous term of service among Moravian ministers of the place. Besides his particular function, as stated, he had been variously usefvil, in connection with the church music, the management of the book depository, the publication of a new hymn book and in keeping records for the Elders' Conference and for the General Board. He had also filled the position of Head Pastor at one interval and served as a member of the General Board. He repre- sented eminently the old regime and the paternal idea of government, but not in their harsh, forbidding features like some other men. It was in a kind and fatherly way that he thought he must do his full duty by supervising every man's household and having a hand in the management of all domestic matters. He was a friend of the children and there are people yet living who remember good "Pappy Schaaf," as he was affectionately called at Salem in the later years of his life, who always had with him a "mint cake," or other tempting thing to bestow upon the little boy or girl who could promptly give him the answer to a catechism question or correctly repeat for him a verse from the hymn book. During the last years of his service at Bethlehem he was actively associated, as one of the leaders, with several features of church routine and with new movements which were among the brighter things of the time. He took much pains to help foster singing among the children and to render their participation in various services attractive. On September 7, 1814, the first reference occurs in the records, after the building of the new church, to the children entering at the close of morning prayer to greet the parents by singing benisons on the morning of their covenant festival, as had long been the practice in the old place of worship. At that time they quietly entered at the east end of the church, slipped up the stairs and suddenlv appeared in the corner galleries on either side of the pulpit, the bovs on the north and the girls on the south side. In those davs i8o7 1825. 621 the beautiful outdoor close of evening prayer on the festival days ot the children — before 1818, the little boys on June 24, and the little girls on August 17, and after that year combined on the last named date — took place at the west end of the church where the children assembled on the terrace, while the choir and orchestra were stationed at the open windows at the rear of the organ and the trombonists in the center. This arrangement continued for about seventy years after the church was built. Another of the conspicuous occasions for which the children were particularly trained to sing in public was the general Congregation Festival or anniversary. This occasion, which began to be observed in 1762, to commemorate the organization of Bethlehem completed June 25, 1742, and was more distinctly and formally established as a feature of the annual routine in 1781, during the sojourn of Bishop John Frederick Reichel at Bethlehem, was called the Gemein- fest, or Congregation Festival, because it w^as a general festival for the entire congregation and not for any particular choir division of the membership, or an occasion of a memorial character for the communicant membership exclusively, like the services associated with August 13, and November 13. The observance of such a general Congregation Festival on the anniversary of the founding of the settlement, organization of the congregation, first communion occasion or consecration of the church has always been a prominent custom of Aloravian congregations everywhere. The General Synod of 1818, among other measures intended to foster more historic churchly consciousness, made the attempt to have the significant date. May 12 — "der Mdhrische KircJientag," the Moravian Church-Day — uniformly adopted by all as the day of the Congregation Festival, in view of corner-stone laying and arrival of the "Moravian Churchmen" at Herrnhut in 1724, the first distinct organization under the statutes of 1727, and the Anglican recognition of 1749, all associated with this date. This movement, although May 12 deserves far more notice by Moravian Churches as a memorial day than it receives, did not prove to be popular, for it deprived the occasion of its local anniversary character in each particular congregation. The change was made at Bethlehem, but in 1826 the festival was restored to the 25th of June, the experiment, like in other congre- gations, not proving satisfactory, as was reported to the next General Synod in 1825. Since then its character as a purely local Anniversary Festival, commemorating the organization, has been more distinctly recognized as its specific meaning. 622 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. In those da}s of much musical cukure in Bethlehem, the greatest of all children's services, that of Christmas Eve, was naturally the most conspicuous in this partictilar and was usually preceded by some weeks of practice at which Brother Schaaf was commonly present to lead the singing with his violin, as in former years Father Grube had so often done, and to encourage the children to do their best. Schaaf was, moreover, one of those at Bethlehem who caught the spirit of the years which followed the war of 1812, in the domain of religious effort — for it was not only in trade and traffic that new energies were stirred, but also in evangelization, particularly in special efforts to inculcate scriptural knowledge among old and young. It was the period in which mainly the movements started that took shape in such final great organizations as the American Bible Society — that of Philadelphia, now the Pennsylvania Bible Society, having existed since 1808— the Amerian Sunday-School Union, the American Tract Society, and the American Home Mission Society. The Sunday-school movement of that time particularly interested men like Schaaf, and it was chiefly through his efforts and those of A-Iary Allen, one of the leading women of her time at Bethlehem, in culture and piety, and particularly in efforts for the benefit of the young, that the first Sunday-school was commenced at Bethlehem in 1816. Its purpose and methods were those which had been adopted a quarter of a century before by Robert Raikes at Gloucester, England, had become very popular in that country and at this time were becoming so in some parts of the United States. Both in New York and Philadelphia they were enlisting the interest of many in the Unions that were elaborating extensive plans of organ- ized effort. While the name Sunday-school adopted in English speaking Chistendom and the popular interest in the work were comparatively new, the idea and the methods were far from being so. It belongs to that kind of movements which cannot be said to have had their distinct beginning anywhere or at any exact time, or to have been originated by any particular person; that kind of undertakings which have often been thought of and started by differ- ent persons at different places. The Sunday-school work of modern times is commonly traced back to the efforts of Raikes, because the movement started by him, rode forward on a popular tide, in some churches carried the interest of clergy and people with it, attracted wide attention as meeting a need of the time, spread, became general and attained organized permanence. Wherever the English language i8o7 1825. 623 and English associations and traditions prevailed, people naturally viewed this rapidly growing new branch of Christian activity as the outcome of what Raikes commenced; learned to associate his name with it as founder, and in course of time became accustomed to speak of him as the father of Sunday-schools ; generally assuming that such a thing never existed and such an idea never was thought of before his day; for comparatively few persons have the inclination or take the trouble to historically investigate. The Sunday-schools that existed in England and America before that time, although num- erous, were sporadic, did not constitute the starting-point of great popular and permanent activities, were not epoch-making, have to be hunted for in the by-ways of history and are therefore not known by the most of people to have existed. The similar work in Germany and Holland is usually not taken into account simply because it did not bear the English name Sunday-school. In Pennsylvania there had been many Sunday- schools in colonial days, some in Lutheran and Reformed country churches, others started by Quakers, Mennonites and Tunkers, and by the Sabbatarian Brethren, at Ephrata. All were conducted with the idea of giving instruction in reading, moral training and discipHne and particularly information out of the Bible and on the essentials of Christianity to children who \vere neglected or in various ways were prevented from enjoying either the privileges of secular schools or the benefits of provisions made by such churches as then existed for the special religious nurture of the children. The last named object was one to which, in those days, far more attention was paid among the German population than among the masses of Enghsh speaking people. As for the Moravians, the general idea and, in the main, even the methods of Robert Raikes were as exactly like those of much of their early located and itinerant w^ork among neglected children in Pennsylvania as such efforts, at diii'erent times and places and by different people under varying circumstances, could possibly be. In connection with the modern era of spreading interest in such efforts under the name Sunday-school, such work had been commenced in several of their city congregations prior to 1816. When the work at Bethlehem was started, it v*^as not because there was thought to be a need of it in the Congregation. The ample, thorough and systematic provisions for the nurture and training of the children that existed in the Moravian villages of those days were among their foremost char- acteristics. This indeed accounts for the fact that the Sundav-school 624 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. in its modern character did not rise to importance in the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, as a department of its internal work until many years later when it very gradually attained its place in conse- quence of the decay of older arrangements and methods. The Sunday-school of 1816, was opened for the benefit of children about the neighborhood and of apprentices and girls in service who had not been brought up at Bethlehem and whose opportunities for acquiring both secular and religious education had been meagre. While many children in the vicinity were in a sadly neglected condition, it would be an injustice to some respectable Christian families to suppose that all who were among the scholars in those years came from careless and irreHgious homes. Boys and girls gathered from considerable distances, some of them encouraged to attend by Christian parents who gladly embraced the opportunity, in view of the very crude character of the few country day-schools and the insufficient provision for religious instruction in their neigh- borhoods. The exact date at which ''Sister Polly Allen," as Mary Allen was familiarly called, commenced her little Sunday-school for girls in the spring of 1816, cannot be ascertained. She quietly gath- ered a few children together who lived near Bethlehem in the present Hanover Township, taught some the alphabet, others to spell and yet others to read ; taught them hymns, told the^m Bible stories, had them sing together — Brother Schaaf helping her in leading the singing — and then gave them a light repast before they returned home. Their first place of meeting was the former dining-room under the Old Chapel. Probably the last member of that Sunday- school, the aged widow Sarah Yerkes, of South Bethlehem, died in 1896. At an evening service on July 28, 1816, Shaaf made this matter the subject of a discourse in which he referred to the general activity of the time, both in England and America, in the spread of God's Word among adults and children, and particularly to the Sunday-school movement, and drew attention to the duty Bethlehem owed its surroundings in this respect. He then stated that a few men and women of the Congregation felt moved to open a Sunday- school for children of the neighborhood, to be held from one to three o'clock, drew attention to the boys and girls in service at Bethlehem, who should also have the benefit of it and asked for the prayerful interest of the people and for contributions to a fund for the purchase of books.^ 6 A subscription list in his hand-writing is yet in existence containing the names of contri- butors from July 29, 1816, to September 22, 1818. They are mostly women. The first on i807 1825. 625 The most active among those interested in the boys" department was Wilham Henry Van Vleck, then fiUing his first appointment at Bethlehem, already referred to, as superintendent of the young men and older boys of the Congregation. The formal opening of the school under offtcial auspices took place in the church on August 4, 1816, when thirteen boys and twenty-five girls from the neighborhood gathered as the nucleus, and a number of Bethlehem people were present. Bishop Reichel opened the exercises with an address and prayer. Then the scholars repaired to the places where the schools were to be held; the boys in the up-stairs room of the church, the present archive-room, and the girls in the Old Chapel ; Van Vleck in charge of the former and Mary Allen of the latter. Thus began Sunday-school work in Bethlehem. One of the boys who attended that school was the long and widely-known Lutheran pastor, Joshua Jaeger, whose father ministered at Schoenersville. He made this interesting statement himself when he preached, the first time, in the Moravian Church in Bethlehem on December 9, 1849, during the pastorate of Bishop William Henry Van Vleck, who at the beginning was superintendent of the school. The Rev. C. F. Seidel took a warm interest in the work when he removed to Bethlehem in 1817, and energetically fostered every effort to revive Christian activity among the people. Several tangible evidences of this appear in the records of the }ears from 1817 to 1825, which deserve to be referred to in this connection. One, looking to the cultivation of more substantial interest in the missions of the Church, was the organization of the Women's Mis- sionary Society on March 8, 1818. More than fifty women met on that occasion and, after an opening service at which Seidel officiated, they organized by adopting a few simple regulations, fixing the membership fee at one cent a week, electing six collectors who were to report quarter-yearly and who with Seidel as President then con- stituted the Board of Managers. The Society was called at first the the list is the daughter of Bishop Ettwein. Her name is written Benigna Ettwein, Sr., to distinguish her from his grand-daughter Benigna about whose odd sayings and doings so many reminiscences, stories with variations and fictions, have been current among Bethlehem traditions. The largest contributions were from Mary Allen. On the back of the paper two disbursements are noted; one, June lo, 1817, to Conrad Zentler, printer, of Philadelphia, for printing "An Address to Parents" (German) on sending their children to .Sunday-school; another September 20, 1818, for German tracts. Copies of the '■'■Ansprache an Eltern in Bezng auf Sonntags-Schnlen''' are preserved in the archives. The issue of such an appeal was decided upon by the Elders' Conference in May, 181 6. 41 626 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. "Society of Sisters and Friends in liethleheni in Aid of the Missions of the United Brethren." Its name was later the Female Auxiliary Missionary Society in Aid, &c., then for many years simply the "Female Missionary Society," and eventually the "Women's Mission- ary Society." Its organization was subsequently elaborated some- what. It has had an unbroken existence, is yet pursuing its good work and is probably the oldest such organization at present in existence among women in the United States. It is of interest to record that one of its earliest undertakings was to put into print, for the use of the missions, the Delaware Indian translation of Lieber- kuehns's Harmony of the Gospels, completed in 1806 by the venerable missionary, David Zeisberger who, after sixty-three years' labor among the Indians, had entered into rest in the eighty-eighth year of his age at Goshen, Ohio, on November 17. 1808. It was published in New York in 1821. The famous missionary and Indian scholar, John Heckewelder, then living in retirement at Bethlehem, prepared the copy for the press at the request of the Women's Society. Elias Boudinot, the first President of the American Bible Society, was greatly interested in the enterprise and was of much assistance in securing the necessary financial aid. The interest of the Women's Missionary Society in this particular undertaking was perhaps stimulated by the attention that was aroused at Bethlehem in those years by another organization for the general cause of Bible distribution, of which Seidel for a few years was the foremost Moravian promoter. A Bible Society had come into existence in the county in 1819, auxiliary to the Philadelphia Society of 1808, now the Pennsylvania Bible Society. At a meeting held in the Court Flouse at Easton, with Samuel Sitgreaves as Presi- dent and Joseph Burke as Secretary, on November 8,1819, the "Bible Society of Northampton County, auxiliary to the Society in Phila- delphia," was formed by the adoption of twelve articles of consti- tution. Its first President was William Kennedy and its first Secretary was Samuel Sitgreaves. The annual dues were fixed at one dollar, all the clergy of the county were constituted ex officio directors, and provision was made for the formation of auxiliaries in the county. Such a branch organization for which a printed constitution of nine articles was prepared by the Board of Managers and distributed in April, 1820. was to be called a "Bible Association Auxiliary to the Bible Societv of Northampton County." An auxiliary was formed by women, at Easton, on March 3, T820.w"ith S. C. P. Bishop as President and Susan Sitgreaves as Secretarv. The onlv other auxiliaries known i8o7 1825. 627 to have been formed in the county were at Bethlehem and Nazareth. Here, however, there was not a regular organization with officers but merely an association of stated contributors entitled to a certain num- ber of Bibles for free distribution in return for their contributions. This was in response to an appeal from Secretary Sitgreaves, April 12, 1820. The second annual report of the Board of Managers, April 3, 1821, contains the statement that, whereas at the time of the first annual report, April 4, 1820, there w^ere only fifty-four annual sub- scribers, the number had been increased by twenty-five, and adds the following: "It is but justice to say that this important addition to the funds has been chiefly received from the Moravian settlements of Bethlehem and Nazareth, whose clergy gave immediate attention to the call made by your Board upon the Christian benevolence of the County in their circular of the last spring; and by their zeal and exertions have not only aided our funds, but promoted also the objects of our institution in opening a door for the dispensation of many volumes of the Book of God. But whilst the Board would make honorable mention of the endeavors of the Moravian Brethren in aid of the common cause of Christians, and cheerfully acknowledge the zeal of a few other individuals in the same cause ; it is with regret that they have to report that similar attention has not been given to their circulars in other districts of the county ; that they have not heard of other subscriptions made or associations formed, or collections taken in behalf of the most important and disinterested of all charities." This report of 1821, states that $110 had been sent to the Parent Society at Philadelphia.' The better spirit of those times manifested itself also in a more unconstrained cultivation of cordial relations with pastors and people 7 How long the nominal county organization lasted the writer has not ascertained. Its denominational complexion was principally Episcopalian and Moravian, the active members at Easton being mainly connected with the parish of Trinity Church. Some years later the associations there and at Bethlehem seem to have corresponded, each for itself, with the treasurer and secretary of the Parent Society. In May, 1828, the Rev. John A. Hicks^ rector of Trinity Church, Easton, in behalf of the County Society, called upon pastors there and at Bethlehem to preach special sermons in behalf of the Bible cause. A special effort was then being made by the Philadelphia society to have eath county canvassed and all who were destitute of the Scriptures provided in three years. Three-year subscribers were solicited. A subscription-list in response to this special appeal with an introduction by Seidel, dated January 5, 1828, has the names of 94 Bethlehem subscribers for 1 828-1830. A letter of Robert Ralston, treasurer, May 7, 1828, acknowledges ;J5i4i.5o as the first in- stallment. 628 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. of other religious bodies in the surrounding" region. The Bethlehem clergy frequently participated, with the musicians of the place, in church dedications, harvest-home festivals and the like, preached in churches and school-houses, where it was desired or seemed to be needed and occasionally exchanged pulpits with ministers of other denominations at Easton, AUentown and diliferent points about the country. In this kind of activity the Rev. Wm. Henry Van Vleck, until he left in August, 1817, and then the Rev. C. F. Seidel were more conspicuously engaged than any others. Such church dedica- tions referred to were one, on September 22, 1816, in Springfield Township, Bucks County, ten miles from Bethlehem, and "a union church in Saucon Township, four miles from Bethlehem," on May 26, 181 7, in both of which Van Vleck participated. One more par- ticularly noted was that of the Schoenersville Church, December 25- 26, 1819. Seidel had preached at the laying of the corner-stone on Ascension Day, May 20, when Pastor Conrad Jaeger, Pastor Becker and the Presbyterian Pastor Russell all took part. About three thousand people, says the record, were present. A panic was caused by the collapse of the platform, but no one was seriously injured. When the church was consecrated, Seidel again preached, together with Pastor Pomp of Easton, besides those before mentioned, and the Bethlehem musicians rendered service. When the "Jerusalem Church, nine miles from Bethlehem," was consecrated on May 22, 1820, Seidel preached one of the sermons, Pastor Pomp performed the dedicatory act and the musicians of Bethlehem participated. On Whitsunday, June 10, 1821, Seidel preached at an organ dedication in "Christ Church, four miles from Bethlehem," and the next day he and the musicians participated in another church consecration, "four- teen miles from Bethlehem" — the record does not state in what neighborhood. It was to have taken place the previous November, but for reasons not stated had to be postponed. On that occasion Lutheran, Reformed, Moravian, Mennonite and Schwenkfeldian ministers participated. Possibly some reader may identify one and another of these indefinitely mentioned churches and find some dates or other particulars in these pages that will supplement other incom- plete records. The ministers of the neighborhood who preached in Bethlehem during those years were principally pastors Brobst, Conrad Jaeger, Becker, Hecht, Pomp and Strasburger. Other clergymen mentioned were, in September. i8t8, the Rev. Mr. Feltus, rector of St. Stephen's Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, who preached in Bethlehem, and Bishop White, of Philadelphia, who. K'iyiX ' " '». BETHLEHEM 1830 1848 i8o7 1825. 629 on November 2^, 1820, came from Easton, where he had consecrated the new church and ordained and installed the Rev. Mr. Rodney. He was the guest of Bishop Hueffel, who escorted him through the Young Ladies' Seminary and entertained him with music on the organ. xA^mong other visitors to Bethlehem during those years, three of some celebrity may be mentioned. One was the Portugese minister, Joseph Correa de Serra, on June 20, 1818, with Peter Stephen Duponceau, Corresponding Secretary of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society. They came particularly to visit John Heckewelder, whose "Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States," published under the auspices of that Society, mainly at the instance of Duponceau, was then going through the press. Heckewelder — next to Zeisberger the most prominently associated with that domain of Moravian activity — departed this life at Bethlehem on January 31, 1823. The text of Seidel's discourse at his funeral on the 2nd of February — 2 Tim. 4:7-8— was by request, again used by him at the funeral of Gen- eral Robert Brown, on the 28th of the same month, when he and the Rev. Lewis David de Schweinitz participated in the obsequies, and a procession of a hundred and seven sleighs followed the remains to the cemetery. The second notable visitor to be mentioned was Joseph Bonaparte, August 22, 1821. The record states that soon after his arrival he received word of the death of his brother, the great Napol- eon, seemed greatly afifected and left immediately for his home at Bordentown, New Jersey, saying that he would visit Bethlehem some other time. The third was Bernhard, Duke of Saxe Weimar, on September 18, 1825. A special concert was given in his honor. He came again on the 7th of the following June, shortly before he left the country. During the years surveyed in this chapter, various changes and improvements of an external character took place at Bethlehem, in the midst of the general struggle for freedom from the trammels with which some sought to hold everything stationary and keep energies in suppression. Some of the changes were dictated by official policy, under stress of financial necessity ; others were the result of restless agitation that had to be yielded to. In 1812, the old farm associations disappeared from Main Street, for then the frequently-mentioned farm house, on what is now the site of Rauch's confectionery, was converted to the purposes of residence and trade, 630 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. and new farm buildings were erected east of the village, just south of the present Market .Street and east of High Street. Michael Hinkle, the tenant — at whose funeral Seidel officiated, September 10, 1825 — was followed, as farmer, for some years by his son-in-law John Roth. The last occupant of the premises and last of the succession of Bethlehem farmers seems to have been Lewis Benner, when, nearly forty years after the erection of those new farm buildings, that quarter was laid out in town lots. The old Sun Inn changed hands several times, was enlarged and greatly altered in appearance by the removal of the mansard roof, the addition of a third story and the covering of the outside walls with plaster, after the German manner of treating stone buildings, which in those days must needs be fol- Great jyortliern Line of Stages. lowed in Bethlehem. Some, in modern times, much regret this, as in the case of the church, while they rejoice that the diaconies of the Sisters' House and the Widows' House were too poor to thus "improve" their buildings, and that therefore they now stand unplas- tered. Those alterations at the inn were made during the incum- bency of Jacob Wolle, who took charge of it in 1816, following Joseph Rice, 1811-1816, the successor of Christian Gottlob Paulus. Inn-keeper Wolle was followed, after eleven vcars of service as host, by Matthew Crist, the last who conducted it at a salary for the Con- gregation Diacony, it being leased to tenants after 1830. During the years from the retirement of Paulus to the close of Wolle's administration, certain characters are associated with the old inn as habitues who in their several spheres and functions have been given perhaps more notoriety by some writers than they deserved — certainlv more than thev would receive in modern times when i8o7 1825. 631 THE MAIL STAGE, From Philadelphia for Bethlehem, Northampton, Na- zftreth, WilkesbarTe, Montrose, Owego, Geneva, Itha- ca} Canaduigua, Bufialoe, and Niagara, Three times a week. Will start, fi-om Mr. George Yoke's HoteU Sign of Genera! Washington' No» 6,CtK)rth 4th street, and J^. Daniel Leboi's Whitfe Swan Inn, No. 106, Race stieet, Philadelphia, every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, at 4, A. M.arnl proceed by the following routes, tlirougli Germantovvn, Flouertown, WAitemarsh, Montgomery sqare, Quakertown & Ferysburg, and arrive at Betnlehem at 5 p. m. leave Betldehem the next morning, & arrive at WiUces- barre in the evening, leave fVilkesbarre tlie succeeding day at 4, a. m. and arrive by 7, p. m. at Owego, and in the same manner continue through the whx>le route. Persons desiring to go to Bvffaloe, the Falls ofMagara or Canada, can by .this line perform the journey in five days, and lodge ev- ery night at the first-rate houses. Returning THE GHEAT XORTHERJSr STAGES, Via Buffaloe, &6, will arrive at their offices in Philadelphia every JIfbnday, Wednesday and Friday, by 5, p. m. BERWICK. The Stage for Berwick, tvili leave Betldehem every Friday numiing, acd arrive at Berwick tlie next day, at 2 p. m. leave Berwick on Tuttaday, anu arrive at Bethlehem, on Wednesday, at 1 p. m. There is likewise a line of Sta^s from Bethlehem to JVew York, Reading, LancasUr and Eastotu Persons whose wish it is to visit the Mineral Springs at 8chooUy*8 Mountain, are informed that tliis i» the best route, ana ti>at they can be ac- commodated at Bethlehem on reasonable terms. The Proprietors ifispcctfuUy inform the public, that they ha7« good horses and Stag ?, throughout this extensive line — the drivera.sober, experienced and oliligi 'g- "; ♦ different Stage-houses are noted li>ns# -and moderate in ♦heiJr char^ ^ la order to conform to the time*, the proprietors have Reduced the Fare To Bethlehem, only Three Dollars, From Bethlehem to Wilkesbairre^ Four Dollars, And 80 proportioned throughout the whole route — Baggage at the risque f the public favor. The Bethlehem ^- Philadelphia > Stage ProprIet«r», k April « 28«\ 632 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. peculiar individuals do not impress themselves so strongly nor acquire such a prominent place in local traditions as in the old-time village days. One such was a certain Daniel Green, commonly called "Doctor Green," who for the space of three decades hgured as a cicerone, but not by dignified official appointment like Francis Thomas — good old "Daddy Thomas" — formerly connected with the stewardship of the Young Ladies' Seminary, who departed this life in 1822, stricken in years, and was laid to rest on Easter Day. Thomas was the last who filled this position as a regular appointee of the Elders' Conference. There were divers cicerones who served either by common consent, or by reason of much leisure, or by arrangement with the inn-keeper ; the latter kind serving for a gratuity in cash, or more commonly, in the good cheer of the board and bar, bestowed by the host or the guest or both. The unofficial cicerones of those days — although many visitors found them very much to their purpose as dispensers of various kinds of information — were not always the most desirable narrators and expositors, especially when they were tempted to be more entertaining than exact. Some later men who long escorted visitors about the town were more discreet and reliable. Another of those characters was Doctor John Frederick August Steckel, the man who mixed lan- guages, and whose "Farewell to Bethlehem," in rhyme, November 24, 1826, which has been preserved in print, is not without interest in its local allusions — amongst the rest in revealing that the name "Calypso" was then already applied to the large island in the Lehigh, long called also "Catalpa Island" from its former abundant growth of this tree. Nor should it be forgotten to refer to that dashing rural adventurer in real-estate speculation, Nicholas Kraemer, who for a period statedly had his exchange and entertained at the Sun Inn ; whose reckless exploits have been duly chronicled by suc- cessive writers ; whose fascination drew numerous confiding rustics into the whirlpool of temptation to seek quick fortunes in buying and selling land, but who himself suddenly sank in its eddies, more execrated than mourned. Tradition proceeding from the impressions of the time has exaggerated him into a very Colossus of speculators, but probably, according to present day standards of bigness, his operations would not now bewilder the people. After years of discussion centering around various ])lans, the second hotel was finally established before the time to which this chapter runs. It came to pass eventuallv in this manner. In 1822 the old village store quartered on the west side of Main Street since i807 1825. 633 the days of Christian Heckewelder, was in various respects unsatis- factory to the Congregation Diacony. It had also begun to feel private competition, Jacob Rice had, in 1819, been permitted to open business as a merchant farther up the street, and had founded a store which, under successive owners, has had a continuous existence to the present time. A smaller store above Goundie's Alley carried on by Samuel Steup was, in 1822, passed over to Christian Jungman, but did not became a permanent business. Owen Rice, Jr., the suc- cessor of his father in charge of the old diacony store, purchased the house of C. G. Paulus, the site of the present Bee Hive store, in 1822, and there established the stand which afterwards belonged to James Rice and has had a continuance existence until now. The old store, in which William Rice succeeded Owen for a year, was moved across the street into a building that had been occupied for a while by John Jacob Luch, baker, followed by his son, Christian Luch, who moved the bakery to the log house at the corner of Main and Market Streets, where the post-ofifice now is. In the building vacated by Luch, John Frederick Wolle, in July, 1824, took charge of the business which, in 1845, was sold by the Congregation to Augustus Wolle, who, in 1847, also purchased the premises, and there, with different partners under various firm names, long carried on the general store remembered yet by many. December 6, 1822, the Congregation Council resolved that the second hotel should now be established in the building before occu- pied by the store, and should be conducted for the Congregation Diacony. Internal and external changes were reqviired. Outside appurtenances, such as stabling, had to be provided and these demanded room. Whether the impatient struggle of the time to get rid of old things rendered men insensible to the influence of venerable associations and deaf to the appeals of historic and antiquarian instincts, or whether the ghost of Kraemer lurking about the rear of the store so inflated the supposed value per foot of that ground that it was thought too precious in dollars for any of it to remain occupied by a little old house for mere sentimental reasons, no deponent hath said ; but the historic log cabin built by Father Nitschmann and his pioneer corps, in which Zinzendorf sang of Bethlehem, at Christmas, 1741. suggesting the name that w^as given to the settlement, and around which hallowed memories clung, had to go, in the summer of 1823, in order to make a place for the new livery stable of the new tavern. 634 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. In December, 1823, the remodeled store building was finished and furnished and before Christmas the new inn with the sign of the Golden Eagle, painted, as it seems, by Peter Grosh, of Lititz, was opened by Charles David Bishop, its first landlord. Thus began the history of the Eagle Hotel. Bishop was succeeded two years later by Christian Knauss. and he in 1828 by Zebulon Wells, of Philadel- phia, who was sold out by the shcrifif in 1832. From the autumn of that year to April, 1833, Jacob Luckenbach was landlord. Then Philip Brong, of Allentown, took charge, followed, in 1834, by Samuel Ziegler, who became landlord of the Sun in 1836. His suc- cessor at the Eagle was Thomas Morgan, previously of Wilkesbarre, who died in 1837, and then Jacob Freeman conducted it until August, 1843, when it was rented to Caleb Yohe. About the time when the new hotel was opened, a number of lots were leased and building permits issued, while sundry houses, especially along Main Street, changed hands. Some were planning^ speculations, in anticipation of developments they foresaw in the signs of the times, and others were feeling their way about after some new trade or line of business at which they might better themselves. Among the experimental novelties were a millinery stand, paper-box making, comb making, the opening of trade in musical instruments, -which became a more substantial business than the others — the first two by C. G. Paulus, the third by John Warner, the fourth by Henry Gottlob Guetter, for whom a shop was built by Paulus, adjoining his house on Main Street, and who subsequently located on Broad Street, west of the alley which yet bears his name. A little iron foundry was also attempted in 1824, by Joseph Miksch, on the west side of Main Street, north of Broad, where later Jacob Siegmund plied his trade with forge and anvil, vise and chisel, and at last Henry S. Krause, of the same craft, had an iron store. Watch- making and general silversmiths' work seem to have been among the more desirable trades at that time. In 1820, Jedediah Weiss who, although a master of this trade, is better remembered in connection with the music of Bethlehem, and who had bought the stone "oats- house," on the east side of Main Street, a little distance below the Sun Inn, built there a house in which he carried on this industrv for more than four decades. In 1815 he had succeeded his deceased master. John Samuel Krause, and further instructed his junior fellow- apprentice and musical associate, Charles Frederick Beckel. John Matthew Miksch — that veteran in the craft, last on Wall Street and EAGLE HOTEL 1862 1892 i8o; 1825. 635 well remembered by many— had his shop, in 1823, in the old stone "Economy House," farther down. This was one of the occupations in connection with which the village fathers had difficulty over against the abundance of applicants, like with the competing store-keepers and mercantile aspirants, in enforcing the old system of protection and regulating supply and demand, so that all might make a living and none should drive others out of business in applying the principle* of "survival of the fittest." Charles Tombler and the others who worked at the solid old trade of shoe-making had more competition at country villages and cross roads than silversmiths had. That trade, like some others, does not seem to have been so much coveted. The tinsmith, the cabinet-mak- ers, the wagon-makers, the blacksmiths, the butchers and the bakers seem to have prospered fairly well, but there was not room for more than one or two of any of these in the village. Among those who had more desire to engage in selling something than in producing some- thing, there were a few, from time to time, who, floundering as to occupation, wanted to begin some little easy business more in the line of "town ways," such as selling oysters and other things to eat — and drink — and to gather in the spare dimes of those who were not too frugal to spend a little money when they got hungry or thirsty for something beyond the resources of the home kitchen, while enjoying a place at which to lounge and chat. For reasons which they could doubtless defend, the official fathers were always much averse to encouraging this kind of enterprise. Among the original establishments of more importance which men desired to get possession of was the old grist-mill, for this was a solid business. Although it did not pass out of the ownership of the Congregation Diacony until 1830, the salarizing of a miller to run it for the authorities ceased in 1825. It was leased to that former soldier under Napoleon, George Henry Woehler, who had come to Bethlehem in 181 7, and became the successor of John Schneider at the mill. The old fulling-mill annexed to it was yet intermittently run by Matthew Eggert, but its removal to the saw-mill was under consider- ation alreadv in 1820. The grist-mill and the tannery being the most conspicuous of the earlv industries yet surviving in that old part of Bethlehem, the desirability of good facilities of approach from neigh- borhoods to the west had inspired persistent efforts to secure a new stone bridge across the Monocacy "at Weinlands (now the slaughter house) from the mill to the Allentown road." Petitions presented in 636 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. 1815 had been promptly granted in xMorthampton County and were renewed and granted again in 1818; but in the new County of Lehigh, with its competitive interests at Allentown, they were obstructively dealt with until, at last, after the third favorable report by the Grand Jury of Northampton County, August 2^, 1822, that of Lehigh County finally took similar action on the 6th of the following Sep- tember. The "mill road" had, in 181 5, been viewed by a jury, "from the Main Street down past the mill to the Monocacy," and for the first time declared a public road. It was afterwards found on record that the section from the mill to the creek had been so viewed and declared already in 1804. It may be added in this connection that at this period the definite establishment and naming of streets was engaging attention. On June 18, 1819, after a new locating of fines and corners, the names, as now borne, of Main Street, New Street, Cedar Street and Church Alley were first formally adopted by the Congregation Council, and in September, that of Market Street, which it had been proposed to call Lombard Street. There were in 1823, upwards of seventy dwellings in the town, in addition to the church and school buildings and those that were exclusively shops and places of business. While the prospects were brightening and Bethlehem, under the relaxed system and some important reforms, might have begun to move forward smoothly, a cloud yet hung over affairs because the controversy with the autocratic Administrator about selling some land to get out of debt still continued. He felt fortified in his position by the findings and reports of the financial committee of the General Synod, in 1818. The Bethlehem people were not prepared, however, to surrender the conviction that they owned their land. The report of a committee appointed at a meeting of voting members, early in 1819, to consider the whole subject, was rendered in February, 1821, and adopted. The Administrator formally objected to certain points and a second committee was appointed to review the first report in the light of his objections, with the hope that they might be satisfac- torily met. When, upon hearing the report of the second committee, he refused to recede in any particular from his original position, and it became evident that he would obstruct to the uttermost, it was resolved on April 10, to break ofif all negotiations with him, and a committee of nine was appointed to "lay the whole status causae before the Unity's Elders' Conference, with a faithful presentation of the general condition of things at Bethlehem, after giving the Provincial Board official notice of this step." Cunow's final effort was i8o7 1825. 637 to induce his colleagues in that board to interpose technical objec- tions, and when they decided to let matters take their course, he put in the plea that they ought to stand by him, as a colleague, and by the Sustentation Diacony against Bethlehem, claiming that its inter- ests were endangered by the action of the Congregation. Failing in this, he found himself standing entirely alone. They resolved that it was inexpedient to discuss the points of his pro memoria to them, and thus a breach resulted between him and his colleagues, in addi- tion to that now hopelessly existing between him and the Bethlehem boards, while much bitterness was stirred up among the people by his course. In July, 1 82 1, before the appeal sent by the Bethlehem Land Com- mittee had been considered and passed upon by the Unity's Elders' Conference, a letter was received from this body announcing the call of the Rev. Lewis David de Schweinitz, of Salem, North CaroHna, as Head Pastor at Bethlehem, and the proposed transfer of Cunow to his place at Salem. De Schweinitz accepted the call to Bethlehem, but that of Cunow had to be revoked in consequence of strenuous objections at Salem. De Schweinitz arrived at Bethlehem, December 15, 1 82 1. He was a son of the first Administrator, John C. A. de Schweinitz, and had been in Europe from the departure of the family from Bethlehem in 1798 until he returned to America at the begin- ning of the w^ar, in September, 1812, after a voyage of much adven- ture and peril. Since that time he had been at Salem. While the U. E. C. had misgivings about his willingness to step into such a position as that which had developed at Bethlehem, they felt that in general ability, requisite acquaintance with all the questions involved and personal popularity, he would be more likely to master matters than any man available. February 5, 1822, Bishop Hueffel commu- nicated a letter from the U.E. C. to the Provincial Board, announcing that Cunow was relieved of all his offices and functions and tempo- rarily retired. He left Bethlehem with his family on May 7, to return to Europe. During his long term of service he had displayed great ability, zeal and faithfulness in a variety of duties, and in many respects had been an eminently useful man. His ultra conservatism in the matter of church government, his extreme and uncompromis- ing views on the enforcement of regulations — failing to see that much in the internal condition of the Congregation which he criticised w^as simply the product of such a regime — and finally his determination to defeat the will of the people by means of the power which the system gave him. were probably the agencies needed to call forth 638 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the thought and action that would produce the desirable changes. DeSchweinitz now became Administrator of the estates in his place, in addition to his duties as Head Pastor and for a while also Prin- cipal of the Seminary for Young Ladies. His position was difficult and his labors were arduous. February 18, 1823, the decision of the U. E. C. on the land ques- tion that had been appealed was received. While strongly urging that controversy now cease, they took the responsibility of setting aside the adopted report of the financial committee of the General Synod, which had inclined towards Cunow's position, with which they did not agree. They also called for the formulation and adop- tion of new articles of agreement on the basis of 1771, between the Administrator and Bethlehem, to meet the situation and provide against any future controversy of the kind. On April 8, 1823. the Bethlehem Congregation elected Charles David Bishop, John Frederick Ranch. Jacob Rice, Owen Rice. David Peter Schneller and the Warden, John Frederick Stadiger, a committee to negotiate with de Schweinitz, the Administrator, to this end. After protracted deliberations, such new articles, receiving the sanction of the Pro- vincial Board — for they involved relations also to the Sustentation Diacony — were adopted by the voting membership at Bethlehem, March 2, 1824. A new agreement between the Proprietor and the Bethlehem Congregation was also drawn by de Schweinitz. It embodied an explicit declaration that the title he held to the land w^as a trust for the Bethlehem Congregation. These discussions, of course, had nothing to do with any questions about the soundness and validity in law of the title held by the Proprietor. No questions on this point ever arose. The Proprietor at this time was yet Bishop Jacob Van Vleck who. in 1822, seven years after his consecration to the episcopacy, had removed from Salem to Bethlehem and retired. He finally signed this agreement and thus the main question was settled in a way that prevented a recurrence of such a situation as that which Cunow. under power of attorney from him, had produced. There was general gratification at the result of these efforts and the temper of the people was consequently such that the settlement of other troublesome questions became easier. A gradual straightening out of things that were aw^ry ensued and an era of better feeling set in. Tt was with considerable satisfaction therefore that the new Admin- istrator left in March. 1825. for Europe, to attend the next General Svnod and complete that part of the business which had to do with the General Wardens of the Unit v. He returned to Bethlehem on i8o7 1825. 639 November 30, to resume his labors. With the end of this episode a distinct period in the progress of things closed. Although the so- called exclusive system continued a number of years longer, there was a very different state of afifairs at Bethlehem from that which existed prior to 1814, and the "close regime" was no longer possible. CHAPTER XVII. Transition from Church-Village to Borough. 1826 — 1845. The solution of vexed questions, the new agreements and the revised regulations which brought controversy to an end and intro- duced a season of more cheerful activity, did not result in a fixed condition. It was merely the beginning of a more natural and orderly transition from the exclusive church-village organization to that of a town like others. Such a transition had been not only pre- pared for, but rendered inevitable by the occurrences of the preced- ing years. External influences also began to affect the situation more decidedly than before, and to produce new internal problems in addition to those which had previously appeared, making it plain to some far-sighted men that further reconstructions would have to proceed in the direction which had been taken until there remained nothing more that was unique in the system of the place and incon- gruous with its surroundings and connections. The transition was very gradual and extended over two decades. The events which marked its progress were mainly grouped about three principal epochs that produced forward movements with pauses of a few years intervening. Two of these were chiefly industrial and financial, one was educational. The most conspicuous of the former kind was at hand when the period embraced in this chapter opened. What has been called the modern carboniferous age had dawned in the Lehigh Valley. No allusion has yet been made in these pages to the discovery and early attempts to make use of the vast treas- ures, now so familiar, that were buried in the great hills from which the Lehigh flows down. It has been reserved for the time when the revolutionizing activities which grew out of that discovery began to affect Bethlehem. The record of the advent of anthracite coal from the upper Lehigh into the world of industries, and into the body of nature's ministries to human comfort, is such an oft-written and familiar chapter in the history of the region that much space need 640 1826 1845- 641 not be given to it here. A grave in the old cemetery at Bethlehem furnished a resting-place to the remains of one of the pioneers in the effort to make the public believe that those "black stones which became black diamonds/' found by Philip Ginter, but known before that to be there underground, could be burned and were valuable. It was in 1792, when Bethlehem was fifty years old and the Assembly of Pennsylvania atithorized John Schropp, the Warden of the place, to build the first bridge across the Lehigh, that Charles Cist — Halle graduate in medicine, former Russian army surgeon, then Phila- delphia printer and some time a Moravian — joined with Col. Jacob Weiss, of New Gnadenhuetten — later Fort Allen and finally Weiss- port — also of previous Moravian connection, who took the first specimens of the black mineral, found two years before by Ginter, to Philadelphia; Michael Hillegass — merchant, musician and United States Treasurer during the Revolution — and several others in mak- ing the first purchase of coal-land in the region of that discovery and in forming the original Lehigh Coal Company. Schropp and others who urged that the building of the bridge take precedence of other improvements agitated, were interested in those projects up in the hills, as they were in the building of roads and the develop- ment of inland navigation. The bridge was significant of their anticipations in the line of material advance, and doubtless they, like Cist, Weiss and Hillegass, dreamed dreams about the black stones far up the Lehigh ; for it was only six years after Weiss took the first of them to Philadelphia that they were experimented with at the forge of W^illiam Henry, above Nazareth, one of the Moravians associated with the enterprise of 1792. It appears that among the twenty-six men who, in 1793, subscribed to the stock of that primitive company — fifty shares of $400, the tract of coal-land taken up being 1,000 acres — seven were Moravians holding twenty of the shares. Three of these taking four shares — Schropp and two others — were Bethlehem men. Two, with a share each, lived at Nazareth. It was in 1805, the year in which Warden Schropp died, that Cist also suddenly died of apoplexy, after a tour up in the wild country, looking after those incipient interests, and in December his body was laid to rest in the old cemetery at Beth- lehem, where his daughters lived and, Hke their mother in Philadel- phia, were Moravians. Hillegass had died the previous year and Weiss, whose son became prominently connected with the mining of anthracite after men had ceased to declare in their haste that it 42 642 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. was worthless, was the only one of those leading three who lived to see their faith vindicated. The next year after Cist's death the first of the oft-described "arks" — floating coal-bins that looked a little like the coal cars of later years — was poled down the Lehigh past Bethlehem with a load of the "stone coal" which the persistent be- lievers in it begged men at Philadelphia to try. Discouragement fol- lowed, but in 1813 the effort was hopefully revived, and on August 3, a more imposing ark with twenty-four tons passed under the Beth- lehem bridge on its way down stream to the sea-board. In 181 5 it was being sold at Bethlehem by C. G. Paulus, acting as agent to introduce it. That was the beginning of coal-yards at Bethlehem. Then in 1819, when those enterprising men, Erskine Hazard, Josiah White, George F. A. Hauto, and their associates of the Lehigh Navigation Company, leased the land of that first coal mining com- pany, and vigorous operations were commenced, with Hauto on the ground superintending them and even experimenting with a "steam wagon" as a substitute for oxen to draw the product from the mines — precursor of the locomotives that would, after the lapse of some more years, daily bring thousands of tons thundering down the valley — men at Bethlehem who were able and willing to look about them and out into the future, were stirred by the thought of what it might all mean for their town, by and by. No wonder that the trammels in which x\dministrator Cunow was then yet trying to keep them, with their land held stubbornly in his clutch, were becoming intolerable, as the fever of enterprise rose with each new report of progress in those efforts up the river. The next year (1820), when the Navigation Company of 1798 and the Coal Company of 1792 were combined as the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company — finally called the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com- pany and so incorporated in 1822 — the results appeared in a whole fleet of arks passing Bethlehem with hundreds of tons of the valu- able fuel which men were now learning how to burn; and then they became a familiar sight. They were significant, in that transition time, of a transition also in the associations of the beautiful Lehigh at Bethlehem from the sentimental to the utilitarian. The canal- building period had also opened in the country to enlarge the visions of men who were interested in business. The Schuylkill canal was completed in 1825, followed, soon after, by the opening of the Union canal and the great Erie canal, while the grand scheme of transpor- tation from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by means of the long Penn- sylvania canal was being rapidly pushed forward with a result, in 1826 1 845- 643 1831, of two hundred and ninety-two miles of canal and a hundred and twenty-six miles of railroad. The Lehigh Valley was at the front in this kind of enterprise. With the opening of the anthracite collieries of the upper Lehigh, nine miles of railroad, for the steam wagon at the mines, and the first miles of slack-water navigation were put into operation at Mauch Chunk before the end of 1826. Then followed naturally the rapid extension of the canal all the way to Easton, to supersede the less satisfactory river navigation. In the summer of 1827, a sensation was created at quiet Bethlehem by preparations for work at the canal. Excavations in the vicinity were commenced in August. On June 2, 1829, the water was first turned into the section that passes the town and on June 10, the first two boats loaded with coal passed down from Mauch Chunk. Very soon a packet boat carrying passengers was running. The name of the first seems to have been the "Swan." The diary of Bethlehem mentions the arrival of a military company from Philadelphia, on June 24, 1829, with the statement that they proceeded to Easton on the canal-boat. The first effect at Bethlehem was local encroachment and necessary changes where the cut was made. It is to be regretted that the meagre references do not present a fuller picture of altera- tions in the topography. One building that had to be removed was the laundry of the Young Ladies' Seminary. The new one was finished early in September, just before the large force of diggers invaded the locality. Havoc was also wrought with the fertile acres between the Monocacy and the Lehigh which had been under tillage as the "boarding-school fields." It was then decided by the authori- ties to abandon raising grain on that section of school land. Another change made necessary was in the location of a business site. Owen Rice, who in 1822 had built the grist-mill up the Monocacy, which for many years has been a paint-mill, had a ware-house for grain, flour and feed combined with a cooper shop, near the river. It was rendered useless for him by the building of the canal, and was, after that time, occupied for other purposes. In the summer of 1829, he purchased, to use instead of it, for the sum of $1,000, the abandoned brewery property of the former Brethren's House Diacony, the building in which, in the spring of 1838. Copeland Boyd established a paper-mill — its site being the first ground within the limits of Bethlehem deeded away in fee simple, as a necessity to the owner in negotiating for water-power from the canal — and which, after this industry ceased, served as a barrel factory for the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc 644 A HISTORY OF J5KTI1LKIIKM, I'KNNSYLVANl A. Company and, at last, as a foundry-facini;' mill, until it was consumed by fire, March 15, 1885. it occu|)ird the site of the present Diamond Roller Mill on the south canal hank at the Main Street bridge. The course of the Mont)cacy was also artificially altered somewhat, to facilitate the construction of the aqueduct, and some changes were required at the saw-mill. Bridges, of course, had to be built acros.s the canal; one at the Main Street entrance to the town from the river bridge, and a foot-bridge leading over to the saw-mill from the miller's house, I'usconced at the foot of the blufif just east of the present New Street bridge, overlooking the old-lime boat-yard — a comfortabK' and ])leasanl abode, as later improved, until the con- struction of the Lehigh and Sus(|nehamia Railroad made life a burden to the occupants. Not only the grain lields of the lowland, where once the h'riedenshuetten of the exiled Indian converts from persecuting New York stood, but many a hue tree and familiar path, with embowered nooks here and there, had to be sacrihced at the foot of Bethlehem's hill; and the pitiless ravages of industry upon the picttircsque, which have never ceased along the course of the Lehigh River, had fairly set in. The canal itself added some pretty landscape features, after it became old, which ])artly compensated for those which it destroyed, but at first the new ditch nmst have been a sight far from attractive, in beholding which the thought of increased business and all that imagination could picture as desir- able, following in the wake of this, had to be kept constantly in mind to reconcile many a I'etlilehemite to the imiovation. Now and then an incident in connection with the construction of the canal is mentioned in the records of IJcthlehem, several of them of a pathetic nature. Thus, on January 8, 1828, one of the workmen who ai^proached a fuse which he supi)osed had gone out, was sud- denly blown into the air by the blast and hurled into the river. During August and September of that year, when the weather was excessively warm, the vast quantity of uivturned earth produced an epidemic of fever. A foreman on the canal, a certain Alvin Newton from Connecticut, died on .August 7; his wife followed him on Sep- tember 14. and their infant daughter on September 28. They were all interred in the row along the Market street border of the Beth- lehem Cemetery. There is a conunent in the diary on the general good behavior of the workmen, and gratihcation is expressed that no distm-bance was occasioned by the large mmiber of them who attend(M| the Cliristm.as st-rvices. The record at the close of i?2Q reveals also some of the fi'ars and fancies of the ]-)eoi)U\ in the remark i8jO 1^45- 645 thai no lianii had come from slasj;nanL water in the canal becanse the water was kepi in motion, and that there had been no cUniinution in the river when the canal was iilled. Snndry buildings were soon erected along the canal, and in 1830 the cluster received the name South Bethlehem. This name was applied to that pt)rtion of the present West JJethlehem which lies between the Aionocacy and the Lehigh from the western end of \ ineyard Street, where Lehigh yVvenne — formerly Canal Street, — runs into il, to the saw-mill eastward. Industries were soon undertaken, such as the sale of lumber and coal by Timothy Weiss, and the l)eginning of more extensive oper- ations ill that line was made by Henry (.i. (iuetter, jt)ined later by others. They laiil the foundations of the well-known business with which sid)sec|uently the names liorhek, Knauss and Miksch became associated. Some even predicted that there tlie business center would be in futiu'e years. The most conspicuous building that arose was Bethlehem's third hotel, the Anchor Hotel, first kept by Captain Henry Woehler, mentioned in the previous chapter — afterwards for a while the "South Bethlehem I louse" — the later widely-known hotter House, replaced a few years ago by the present commodious building with the old name retained. There the old soldier who fought at Waterloo) and, amid the more peaceful ])ursuits of his later life, be- came the first Captain of llu' llethlehem ( luards who faced no foes, unless possibh- the shades of those non-combatant fatluMs who had shunned the drill-ground on battalion da\ , evi-n when there was no war. and ])ai(l their tines, had the honor of entertaining for some weeks a foreign guest of rank, Maximilian Prince of Wied, traveling as Hcrr von P.rcnnbcrg. Pleased with the place, its surroundings and its people, he tarried long and added materially to his collection of American Naturaltcii. lie also made sketches of scenes in the vicinitw Like earlier famous travelers he wrote about Bethlehem in his i)ublished narative.^ He describes the ri\er, the hills and tlu> llora of the neighborhood much in the st\K- of 1 )r. .Schoepf, quoted in a previous chapter, and connui'uts on the attractive features of Bethlehem as well as on its niatcM-ial prospects at that tinu'. Ri^ferring to piM)])le he met, he savs I Maximilian Prince of Wied — Travels in North America^ translated from the German by H. Evans Lloyd, London, 1X13. The picture of Calypso Island, on which he passed many hours — typical of the primitive beauty of Ik'thlchem's surroundinj^s — p;iven in this volume, is a reproduction of the sketch made by John Hoilmar, the arti.st, who accompanied him. 646 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. "i became acquainted with the Directors of this colony, Mr. Von Schweinitz, well-known in the literary world as a distinguished bot- anist; Mr. Anders, the Bishop and the Rev. Mr. Seidel. All these gentlemen received me in a very friendly manner, and Mr. Seidel, in particular, showed me much kindness. Dr. Saynisch lives in the same house with me and I derived great benefit from his knowledge of the country." Referring to his excursions in the neighborhood in search of specimens he says : "The Rev. Mr. Seidel, who had a good hbrary and a taste for the study of nature, had the kindness to provide us with the necessary literary assistance. We lived here very agreeably in the society of well-informed men and fellow-country- men, and our residence at the extremity of the place, close to the woods and fields, afforded us the most favorable opportunity for our researches and labors ; and our landlord, Mr. Woehler, from West- phalia, did everything in his power to assist us in our occupations." The broadening horizon, perceptible at Bethlehem at the period introduced in this chapter, was not merely in the realm of material business. It appears also in the growing spirit of American citizen- ship supplanting the idea of being '"a peculiar people,"" self-centered and ruled in thought and practice only from within, which was foster- ed by the regime of the preceding several decades. The authorities of the village no longer deprecated, as unsuitable and tried to sup- press such things as patriotic demonstrations, but encouraged and led off in them, in so far as they were of a character consistent with good order and Christian decorum. They no longer merely mourned over Fourth of July ebullitions, as evidences of degeneracy, but, by a more liberal and rational course, they held unseemly excesses in check more successfully than had previously been done by the vain attempt at stern repression. They even tolerated shooting. On July 4, 1826, an elaborate celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was ushered in by a salute of fifty guns, in accord- ance with a resolution of the Congregation Council. At the jubilee services the church was elaborately decorated, a feature being fifty large boquets of fiowers artistically placed. The best music of that highly musical period was rendered. The Rev. C. F. Seidel preached in German in the forenoon, the Rev. L. D. deSchweinitz delivered an English oration in the afternoon and a special celebration, mainly of a musical character, took place at the Young Ladies' Seminary in the evening. On that memorable day, the second and third Presi- dents of the United States, John Adams and Thomas Jefiferson, both signers of the Declaration of Independence, departed this life, and 1 8 26 1845. 647 on August 0, memorial services were held at Bethlehem, in accord- ance with the proclamation of the President of that time, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams. Solemn chorals, as at the death of a member of the Church, were played by the trombonists at six o'clock. After the bell had been tolled half an hour, a German service with preaching by Seidel was held at half past ten. A similar service took place in English at three o'clock, when de Schweinitz preached, and in the evening there was a rendition of Mozart's requiem mass. It was in that same summer of 1826, that a very handsome piece of embroidery, executed by pupils of the Young Ladies' Seminary, after being exhibited at the closing exercises on July 28, was sent to Mrs. Adams, wife of the President, who received it with pleasure and courteously acknowledged it. On July 4, 1829, the interests of an organization which for some years commanded wide attention and was regarded as of great im- portance by many throughout the country, but is now almost for- gotten, were first presented at Bethlehem, where it met a cordial response and where, for a number of years, collections in aid of its objects were annually taken on the Fourth of July, or the nearest convenient day, in accordance with the appeal and suggestion of its officers to the Christian public. This was the American Coloniza- tion Society, sometimes called also the African Colonization Society, which came into existence in December, 1816, with its headquarters at the National Capital and with men like Bushrod Washington, Henry Clay, John Randolph of Roanoke, General Jackson and others of eminence among its early officers and promoters. Numerous state auxiliaries were formed later. Its purpose was to solve the negro problem in the United States by deportation and colonization on the west coast of Africa, where the first colony, Monrovia, in Liberia, was founded in 1820; and by means of such colonies to promote philanthropy in efiforts to break the slave trade and to spread civilization and religion in that region. In 1837, the State Society of Pennsylvania, which had established a colony at Bassa Cove, opened correspondence with the Moravian authorities in reference to securing reliable Christian negroes from the mis- sions of the Church in the West Indies as assistant missionaries, teachers and industrial leaders at those African stations on the dark coast Avhere. a hundred years before, the Moravian Church had made a first attempt through the agency of a converted native to found missions. Strangely enough, the extreme abolitionists and the slave-traders joined from opposite ends in combating this 648 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. scheme, which was eventually abandouecl as not practicable, so far as its purpose in connection with the racial and social problem was concerned which the United States, by fostering the institution of slavery, had imposed upon itself and with which the Nation is yet struggling. The interest manifested at Bethlehem in the experi- ment, so long as it was persevered in, caused the Fourth of July collection for the support of this object, with occasional addresses in its interest, to be continued as a feature of the annual routine. The suggestive associations of this enterprise were quickened by such occasions as the celebration, in 1832, of the centennial anniver- sary of the beginning of Moravian missions among the negro slaves of the West Indies, which visibly increased the waning missionary zeal at Bethlehem, as did also the celebration of the fiftieth anni- versary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel. An interesting tangible evidence appeared several years later. In the early autumn of 1840, several young men, students of the Theological Seminary and others — the prime mover being David Zeisberger Smith, son of a missionary to the Indians, and himself a candidate for that service — promulgated the following: "A Plan for instituting a Missionary Society of Young Men at Bethlehem, Penna. All single men who are in favor of furthering the missions of the United Brethren among the Heathen are here respectfully invited to sign their names, in order to form a society exclusively for this purpose." Twenty-nine young men signed the paper. A meet- ing was held in the boys' school-house, September 7, 1840, and the Society was organized by the election of David Zeisberger Smith as President; Henry J. Van Vleck, Vice-President; Augustus WoUe, Recording Secretary; William H. Warner, Treasurer; Amadeus A. Reinke, Edward PI. Reichel and Albert Butner, Directors. A month later the of^ce of Corresponding Secretary was added, the first incumbent being Maurice C. Jones. A constitution was adopted at that meeting and signed by thirty-one young men. Thus was founded the Young Men's Missionary Society which, through manv vicissitudes, with frequently alternating ebb and flow of zeal ; through various experiments witli notions to alter its character, elaborating its scope and variety of objects, expanding it at times into a kind of general Christian Association, converting it into a literarv, librarv and lecture bureau, or into a guild for the intellectual and moral im]:)rovement of the young men of the town, the organization mean- while several times almost dying, but always getting back again to its real purpose, has had an unbroken existence to this time. Only 1826 1 845- 649 two of its original members survive at this writing : Simon Rau, of Bethlehem, and its first Vice-President, Bishop H. J. Van Vleck, of Gnadenhuetten, Ohio. In connection with reference to these revivals of interest in evangelization among the heathen, another symptom of the opening and broadening spirit in relation to general condi- tions in the country, that was at work at Bethlehem, as in other old Moravian congregations, may be mentioned. This was the growing conviction among many who were living and thinking in touch with the movements of the time, while they also kept in mind the old pro- fession of Moravian settlements to be centers of religious influence, that Moravians ought to resume their share of duty in the cause of evangelization at home and engage in Home Mission work. There were those at Bethlehem who felt that in this matter also the com- munity ought to extricate itself from the trammels of the system they were endeavoring to shatter. It was a natural feeling for those men to cherish who were both bvisiness men and Christians and who in both respects were alive to the demands of the time. This sub- ject had engaged attention at a Synod in Bethlehem in 1824. It was considered in discussing the American situation at the General Synod of 1825. Interest was awakened at Bethlehem in the first distinct move in the direction of modern church extension made in the State of Indiana in 1829, in the proposition to organize work among the German colonists who had settled in the beech forest of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, in 1828, and in the enterprise started by New York Moravians in 1830. in Washington County, in that State. The next General Synod in Europe, held in 1836, gave utter- ance to views decidedly favorable to such a return, on the part of American Moravians, to the attitude and policy of the days before the Revolution. Although the movement then halted while further local problems were engrossing attention, and. so far as Bethlehem was concerned, a definite organization for aggressive church activity at home did not come into existence until the Bethlehem Home Mis- sion Society was formed in 1849, the first stirring in this direction took place, along with other agitations, when the advent of coal and canal opened a new era of progress. There were some at that time whose ideas of moving forward were large enough and high enough to embrace more than merely floating some kind of business on the new waves of prosperity that glided down the canal, and breaking up the lease-svstem so that they might redeem their ground rents, build houses ad lihifmn, purchase other lots and share in the advan- tage of a rise in value. 650 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The period of new prosperity that opened with the completion of the canal did not last long. The financial reaction that so generally followed the inordinate rush of public improvements in the country and the attendant headlong ventures in speculation, soon affected Bethlehem also, and many who had encumbered themselves in over- confident undertakings were stranded, for their resources were too meagre to enable them to survive the crisis. A season of dire per- plexity for those who controlled the property and managed the finances of the Congregation and of the Unity or Church General at Bethlehem ensued. The enlargement of the credit system that had proceeded beyond the Hmit of safety almost proved ruinous. The Bethlehem Diacony was heavily in debt to the Administrator who represented the General Wardens of the Unity, for several suc- cessive years closed its annual accounts with a considerable deficiency and yet had abundant resources latent in the land held for it in trust by the Proprietor. The increasing desire of property owners to have the lease-system • abolished and the disposition of some to agitate the matter without due consideration of all the interests that needed to be guarded by proceeding with much delib- eration and caution ; even the readiness of some to use various little advantages of the situation to embarrass and undermine, with a view to forcing the issue, served to render the state of affairs pro- duced by this financial crisis very perplexing. There had been what would be called in present-day speech "a building boom." The straits into which various individuals were brought sub- jected the Administrator and the Congregation Diacony to the necessity of purchasing numerous houses in order to prevent them from coming under alien ownership at sheriff's sale ; for it must be remembered that the real reason for maintaining the lease-system had been, not financial policy in view of increasing value, but to preserve the exclusive church-village organization by enabling the authorities to thus discriminate and restrict in the matter of possession of buildings and residence in the place. The number of persons among residents who were not members of the Church had, up to this time, been very small and the authorities had been able to exercise strict control in the question of persons to whom they would lease property, besides retaining, by mutual agree- ment, the power to terminate each lease at the expiration of a vear or, in case of a clear violation of contract, to annul it at their dis- cretion. But the number of such non-members was slowlv increas- ing through various circumstances which could not be prevented. 1826 1845. 651 The necessity of deriving income from the properties that had to be thus bought in compelled the authorities to be less select and rigid in the matter of tenants than they desired. It is easy to understand that if one after another such property were allowed to simply go to the highest bidder at sheriff's sale, all control over the ownership of many buildings would soon be lost, and complete demoralization of the system would ensue. Two unpleasant features of the situation especially aggravated these embarrassments. One was the fact that some who were com- pelled to sacrifice their houses and some who saw the shortest and easiest way out of their difficulties in letting them simply get into the sheriff's hands, knowing that under existing circumstances the Administrator would have to buy them, took improper advantage of this way out. Even worse were cases in which by collusion the valuation was run up unfairly by the jury appointed under the arrangement that existed to appraise the buildings. The other feature of the troublesome situation referred to was the assertion,^ freely circulated by designing persons, that there were flaws in the form of the house-leases, so that their terms and conditions could not, if put to the test, be insisted upon. Inasmuch as all the power the authorities had to maintain the regulations of the village and be rid of undesirable people lay in the terms of these leases, this grow- ing impression, fostered by indiscreet and not over-conscientious individuals among those men of the place who were trying to hasten the dissolution of the system, produced a disposition in some quar- ters to violate contracts and defy ejectment ; in others to ignore the existing rules of the village when an advantageous opportunity occurred to sub-let apartments. In 1830, a legal opinion on this subject was procured of that distinguished jurist, Horace Binny. He declared that there was no flaw in the leases and that no jury could without violation of conscience frustrate the purpose of a quit-notice under their terms ; but that, on the other hand, if the jury required for summarv procedure by the sheriff rendered an unjust verdict, there was no process for redress. The Proprietor could avoid this last resort by the slower course of issuing a writ of ejectment against a refractorv tenant. A further legal opinion was gotten on the ques- tion whether the Proprietor, in cases of seizure by the sheriff, to which some were purposely letting thinsfs come, was compelled to enter as a bidder in order to save the situation. The opinion was that, while there was nothing to prevent the sheriff from seizing the property of a lessee, the purchaser could not acquire more right in 652 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the house than its owner had, but, hke him, was bound by the terms of the lease; that the sum bid at the sale could not control an appraisement made under the terms of the lease, even though it might influence the appraisers, but that they could not go beyond "the actual present value of the property" which their oath bound them to determine. Mr. Binny advised that the Proprietor com- municate at such a sheriff's sale what the circumstances were under the lease and enter objection to the sale taking place. Then, if the sheriff proceeded — as he probably would have to — at once annul the lease in the hands of the possessor and insist on the appraisement, as provided for. If the purchaser was one who would be an unob- jectionable possessor or occupant, a new lease could then be made to him. It was advised, however, by all means to avoid litigation in the courts, in the interest of all concerned, in view of the unusual nature of the whole arrangement and the questions that might be raised by counsel not thoroughly -conversant with its peculiarities or disposed to needlessly shake confidence. These various points sufficiently reveal the perplexities of the situ- ation, the internal conditions that were making it very difficult to maintain the lease-system and all that was dependent upon it, and the circumstances that forced the conviction upon deSchweinitz, who was then the Proprietor and Administrator, and upon the majority of his colleagues in the Provincial Board, that the time had come to take steps in the direction of reconstructing the entire system ; even doing away eventually with the proprietorship and abandoning the exclusive polity. It was concluded, however, that it would not be wise to proceed with such measures during the financial crisis and the excitement that prevailed, and that the preliminary steps must be taken quietly and leisurely ; at every step consulting legal counsel thoroughly competent, through a careful study of the situation and its genesis, to give advice that could be relied upon. In June. 1833, when these conclusions were recorded, five such properties that had passed into the hands of the sheriff had been purchased in one year at a cost of $13,790 — one of them being the new hotel of Henry Woehhler at the canal, for $6,000. Among the special financial meas- ures adopted in 1829 and 1830, to relieve the Congregation Diaconv of unprofitable operations, was the sale of several industries that had been conducted bv lessees. The grist-mill was sold to Charles Augustus Luckcnbach and the tannerv to Joseph Leibert and his son James. The plan of having the hotels conducted hv salaried i826 1845. 653 landlords was given up. Although these establishments were not sold at that time, they were leased to private parties. During the summer of 1831, the hardships of the situation were increased by an epidemic of fever. The hotels were emptied and scores of people in the village were prostrated. During July and August, there were frequently two and once three funerals on one day. The record states that seven persons who were not members of the Church died. One of these was the Hon. William Jones, of Philadelphia, who had been Secretary of the Navy under President Madison. He was on his way to the mountains for the benefit of his health, was taken seriously ill after he left Bethlehem, had to return and on September 6, passed away at the Sun Inn. In accordance with his special request his remains were interred in the Bethlehem cemetery. The diary notes the interesting fact that sixty years before, he had w^orked as an apprentice at boat-building on the Lehigh at Bethlehem. On July 3 of that same year, the venerable Bishop Jacob Van Vleck departed this life. He had continued to be the Proprietor of the estates of the Church until, on December 4, 1829, he was persuaded, in view of his feebleness and the pre- carious condition of affairs, to make a general deed to the Adminis- trator, the Rev. L. D. deSchweinitz, who then constituted the son of the previous Proprietor, the Rev. WilHam Henry Van Vleck, his heir and thus the next in the succession of Proprietors. Following upon all of the depressing circumstances, came a severe blow in the sudden death of deSchweinitz on February 4, 1834. Bearing the brunt of the difficulties, and reUed upon by all for leadership, it seemed as if none could so ill be spared just then. His health had been faiHng for some time, but none were expecting his sudden departure. He was greatly mourned throughout the Church, and his wide reputation in the scientific world as a botanist of distinguished rank, caused his death to attract much public attention. Eugene A. Frueaufif, a son of the Rev. John Frederick Frueauff. had been assist- ing him and now took temporary charge of the business of the Administration, in consultation with the Rev. John Gottlieb Herman, Principal of Nazareth Hall, one of the executors of deSchweinitz's estate, along w^ith Warden Stadiger, of Bethlehem ; the Rev. John C. Bechler, President of the Provincial Board at Salem, N. C. ; the Rev. Theodore Shultz, the Administrator at that place — deSchweinitz having been also the Proprietor of the Wachovia lands — and the Rev. W. H. Yan Vleck, who now became Proprietor. On Septem- 654 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ber 2-j, 1834, the Rev. Philip lienry Goepp arrived from Europe to assume the office of Administrator. To preserve the connection of leading officials, it may be men- tioned, furthermore, that on March 21, 1827, Bishop Hueffel, whose wife died in December, 1824, left Bethlehem to return to Europe, where he became a member of the Unity's Elders' Conference, Bishop John Daniel Anders arrived from Europe on March 29, 1828, to take his place as President of the Provincial Board. He assumed, temporarily, the duties of the Head Pastor at Bethlehem after the death of deSchweinitz. The other members of the pastoral corps were the Rev. C. F. Seidel, Principal, and the Rev. J. F. Frueaufif, who, after an interval of absence in Europe, resumed this connection in November, 1835, and continued in his old age to render assistance until his sudden death, November 14, 1839, at an inn eighteen miles from Bethlehem, on the way to Philadelphia. The turmoil of the previous few years had, to a great extent, abated when the Rev. Philip PI. Goepp entered upon the difficult duties of his office as Administrator, in September, 1834, but the financial burdens and the inherent problems of the situation remained. Upon him devolved the task of directing the course of development which his eminent predecessor had prepared for. Now came the second important epoch of this transition period with which distinct forward movements are associated. This was the advent of the era of public schools. During the preceding six years, two special efforts had been made to give the boys' school of the village a more satisfactory character. On January 14, 1830, a meeting of citizens, with John Warner as President and John Oerter as Secretary, appointed Charles F. Beckel, Timothy Weiss and John Oerter a committee to report a plan of improvement. Their report was adopted at another meeting on the 19th, and submitted to the Elders' Conference of the village, who appointed eleven men to further take the matter in hand. Consultations were held and inter- views were had with Jacob Kummer and David Schneller, teachers of the first and second divisions of the school respectively, and some minor measures in the direction desired were taken, but nothing very decided resulted from the efifort. George Fetter, who at intervals engaged in some lines of special teaching, removed to Lancaster in 1830. His wife had been keeping the primary school, and there were now two applicants for the position. One was the wife of the old organist, John Christian Till. The other was Mrs. Christ, wife of Matthew Christ, who in April of that year retired from the man- i826 1845. 655 agcment of the Sua Jnn. The school was entrusted to Mrs. Christ. Subsequently its enlargement and division brought her husband, a former Nazareth Hall teacher, also into requisition, and thus two of the most prominent and capable Bethlehem school-teachers of that period came upon the scene. Matters then ran on until 1834, when agitation began anew, perhaps under the stimulus of general popular discussion on the subject of common schools. A meeting of fathers, guardians and masters, on May 26, 1834, referred the problem of school improvement to a new committee consisting of Dr. Abraham L. Huebener, President ; James T. Borhek, Secretary ; John M. Miksch, John F. Ranch, C. A. Luckenbach, Charles C. Tombler and Abraham Andreas. Sundry meetings followed, at which many sug- gestions were discussed, most prominently a scheme for re-organiz- ing the school laid before the committee by Jedediah Weiss. A proposition of the committee sustained by some others, to increase tuition fees in order to meet the main difihculty, that of trying to get good work for poor pay, encountered opposition on the part of those who were in favor of improving everything but the salaries ; being more pretentious than liberal, and wedded to the old idea, so hard to eradicate among many of the people brought up in a Moravian village, that, somehow, the authorities must provide them with the best to be had at little or no cost to themselves. Another interesting feature was that, while at Bethlehem the boys' school, as compared with that of the girls, was continually regarded as unsatisfactory, at Nazareth the girls' school was the cause of com- plaint, while no fault was found with that of the boys. The reason was clearly the presence of the boarding-schools with their superior standard and equipment — the day-school for girls at Bethlehem being combined with the Seminary and that for boys at Nazareth with Nazareth Hall, in the grades above the primary out of which, in both cases, the children passed into the day-school departments of these institutions. It must be borne in mind, however, that even when the most reason was found for declaring these schools unsat- isfactory, they were so, not by comparison with like schools of that time at neighboring points, for they were very decidedly better, even at their worst, than these usually were at their best. They were unsatisfactory by comparison with the standards had in mind by people of a Moravian village, with superior schools as a tradition of the place. The schools of some neighborhoods were quite satis- factory to the majority, even if kept onlv three months in a year by a person barelv able to teach reading, writing and a little "ciphering." 656 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The boys' school, in two departments, with Kummer and Schneller in charge as before, was continued, together with the pri- mar}' school combined with a department of private instruction for some boys from the neighborhood, in charge of Christ and his wife, and the girls' day-school adjunct of the Young Ladies' Seminary. Some internal improvements in methods, arrangements and text- books, and a general toning up resulted from these consultations, and the contract with the County Commissioners to provide tuition to poor children of the neighborhood within a given radius, at the rate of two to two and a half cents per day each, that seems to have existed since 1828, was also continued to 1836, as well as the pro- visions to accommodate for a stipulated amount, boys from the country whose parents wished them to enjoy better advantages than any other schools within reach could offer. On September 3, 1834, a new School Board was elected, consisting, in the order given in the record, of Dr. Abraham L. Huebener, John M. Miksch, Timothy Weiss, Owen Rice, John F. Ranch and James T. Borhek, with the Head Pastor, the Associate Minister and the Warden as ex officio members. Thus things stood when the Public School era opened at Bethlehem. In December, 183 1, the Governor of Pennsylvania, George Wolf — whom Northampton County has the honor of counting, as the "father of common schools" in the State, among its native citizens — advocated, in his annual message, the establishment of a system of free common schools supported by taxation. The result proved that the time had come when this long-cherished scheme of some broadly-thinking men could be initiated. The desired action was taken by the Legislature in 1834. Although opponents used this public-spirited step against Wolf in demagogic agitation among the ignorant, the parsimonious and the narrowly sectarian, the effort made by these elements to pack the Legislature for the purpose of reversing the action failed ; Wolf's successor, Governor Joseph Ritner, sustained the position taken, and the structure of Pennsyl- vania's Public School System arose on the foundation then laid. The act creating the Bethlehem School District, identical in extent with the Election District, and authorizing the levying and collection of school-taxes and the election of District School Directors, was approved, Aj^ril i, 1836. The first Board of Directors elected, April 29, consisted of James T. Borhek, Abraham L. Huebener, John M. Miksch, John F. Ranch, Owen Rice and Charles C. Tombler. All excepting the las.t-named had been members of the previous village 1826 1845. 657 School Board. They organized, April 30, by electing Owen Rice, President; Dr. Huebener, Secretary, and 'Squire Rauch, Treasurer. On May 2^, at a meeting of the citizens of the School District, it was decided "to raise, for the current year, a sum, in addition to that determined on by the Delegate Meeting, equal in amount to the County Tax for the present year." This first school-tax in the dis- trict amounted to $469.79. John C. Warner was appointed collector at a commission of $8.00. In December, the board "resolved to employ Margaret Opitz, at a yearly salary of $8.00, to sweep the school rooms twice a week." At a later meeting, the services of "Gretel" were thought to be worth more and, the following Febru- ary, her salary was raised to $10.00. The re-organization of the day-schools had finally amounted, therefore, simply to converting them from parish-schools with the ecclesiastico-municipal authorities controlling them, and the clergy, of course, ex officio members of the School Board, into District Schools under the Pennsylvania school-law, with a Board of Direc- tors elected by the citizens of the School District, as such, in accord- ance with the provisions of the law. That the change was decidedly beneficial, under the circumstances which then existed, cannot be questioned, although many were opposed to it. This opposition was of two kinds. Some, taking into account the established principles of education in a Moravian village, combining secular and reHgious instruction and churchly training, had exaggerated visions of secu- larizing influences and of drift'away from all cherished associations. While some of those who had urged the change undoubtedly regarded with favor this prospect of an additional breach in the old village system which they impatiently wished to see broken up more rapidly, such fears were needless, for all that was important in the relation between church and school remained under the arrange- ments of those first years. Bible instruction, general reHgious instruction and distinctly Moravian Church instruction by the pas- tors continued as before. Even such features of a Parochial School as the regular attendance of the scholars, in a body, at the public service on Sunday and at the various special services in which they were in the habit of participating, did not disappear. Nothing in the school laws interfered, at that early stage, with things like these, and, as the village was yet so exclusively one of Moravians that no other element weighed, the continuance of such local features was taken for granted by common consent. The other kind of opposition was 43 658 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. that of persons who objected tu the introthiction of a law which compeUed them to pay for the support of the schools whether they had children to be educated or not. When, in 1834, the nerve of the situation was touched by the proposition to increase tuition fees, and the improvements clamored for halted before the opposition to this indispensable condition, the enlightened and enterprising part of the community moved energetically for the creation of the School District, to bring the new school law to bear upon such, constraining them to do for the support of their school what they could not be induced to do voluntarily; and at the same time to get a just share of state appropriations in order to meet the further lack of local resources that really did exist at that time, and thus properly provide also for free school in the District to the extent required. That a decided majority of those who had children soon saw the improve- ment in the schools, as thus re-organized, and were sincerely inter- ested in their el^ciency, is shown by the laudable fact that school was regularly kept the entire year from the first, excepting the customary A^acation of, at most, two weeks after the mid-summer examinations ; and that when the revenue from the regular school tax and the state appropriation, according to the arrangement of that time, did not suf^ce, they made up the balance voluntarily, and all the children of the District, without any discrimination, enjoyed the benefit. Beth- lehem was surrounded by neighborhoods in which, at that time, it was a rare thing to find a school open six months in the year. The first report rendered to the State Superintendent, January 9, 1837, gives the average number of scholars enrolled in the three schools or rather departments, up to that time, as a hundred and twenty-five. These departments were the school for boys taught by Jacob Kummer, that for boys and girls taught by Matthew Christ and his wife with various assistants at intervals, from 1836 to 1845, such as Mrs. Theodora Beear, a daughter of the former Adminis- trator Cunow, and twenty years a teacher, and the Misses Henry, Caroline Warner, Sarah Eberman. Josephine Leibert, Sarah Rice and Elizabeth Weiss — the last-named, now the widow of the Rev. Francis Wolle, being the only one of them yet living — and the day- school department for girls connected with the Seminary in charge of John Gottlob Kummer, Principal, into which girls were statedly advanced from Mr. and Mrs. Christ's school under a contract made by the District School Directors with that institution for $150 a year. The total paid on account of salaries, including this sum, the first year, was $750. The only other expense was about $4.50 for 1826 1845- 659 fuel. The school-rooms, of course, cost the Directors nothing and some necessary equipments were purchased by the warden at various times or procured through private contributions. The first state appropriations were $45.59 in 1836 and $129.48 in 1837. From the county was received $136.77. These amovnits with the first year's district tax, $469.79, and other receipts, $10.34, made a total income of $792.15. In May, 1837, the district tax was fixed at "fifteen cents per $100 on occupation and three cents per $100 on other subjects •of taxation.'' In June of that year, the department in charge of Jacob Kummer, which then contained only fifteen boys, was eliminated and the Direc- tors contracted with Christs to take charge of all the children in the District, excepting the thirty-four girls attending the Seminary as day-scholars. At the close of the year there were 106 scholars in their school and it was reported to be in a highly satisfactory condition. In June, 1838, it became necessary, for the first time, to restrict the admission to boys and girls from five to four- teen years of age. Another important institution had been added to the school accommodations, which the Directors mentioned with gratification in their second annual report to the State Superintendent — an institution remembered with peculiar apprecia- tion by its few surviving pupils. In June, 1837, Ernst Frederick Bleck, who had passed through the regular course at Nazareth Hall and in the Theological Seminary of the Church and spent five years as a teacher at the Hall — a man of marked ability and varied attain- ments, opened a private school at Bethlehem for the more advanced education of boys who either wished to enter business life or to pre- pare for special professional studies or for a general classical course at college. Men at Bethlehem had encouraged this undertaking and privately guaranteed him a satisfactory salary and school-room for one year. Thus, with sixteen boys in a room on the first floor of the boys' school house, commenced "Bleck's Academy," which was sub- sequently quartered in the "Till house" — a part of the former great barn on Main Street — purchased for $1,800. It was, for a few years, the most popular and successful school of the kind for boys in the Lehigh Valley. The curriculum embraced, besides a solid and thorough course in the regular English branches similar to that at Xazareth Hall, instruction in higher mathematics, Latin, Greek, French, German, surveying, double-entry book-keeping, drafting, free-hand drawing, musical instruction, including lessons on the organ, piano-forte and 'cello — in the use of which latter instrument 660 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Mr. Bleck was specially proficient — and courses of illustrated lec- tures on various subjects, particularly astronomy and chemistry, on which branches he compiled a manual for his own use from the best authorities. The pupils of the Young Ladies' Seminary and the people of the town occasionally shared the benefit of these lectures. For a few years the District School Directors also contracted with him to accommodate boys who passed beyond the hmit fixed for Mr. Christ's school. Mr. Bleck continued to conduct the Academy until June, 185 1, when he sold the property and good will to Benjamin VanKirk, to whom there will be further reference in the next chapter. When, with all this, it is had in mind that the Moravian Theological Seminary had been moved to Bethlehem from Nazareth in May, 1838, as mentioned in the preceding chapter — the institution was domiciled in "the William Luckenbach house" on Broad Street — it will be apparent that educational activity was flourishing at that period. It would indeed seem primitive and in many features crude if compared to the present body of institutions and their work, but men of learning and ability were in charge, and when viewed amid the conditions of that time — and this is the only intelligent and fair way to judge anything — the school situation at Bethlehem then was one which those yet living who enjoyed its advantages need not be ashamed of, even if the flippantly disposed would see only. the crudi- ties and defects of the picture and the things to be amused at. An important vote was taken at Bethlehem on May 5, 1840. "A meeting of the qualified citizens residing within the bounds of the Bethlehem Town School District" was held, with Jedediah Weiss as President and the Secretary of the School Board, John Schropp, as Secretary,"for the purpose of deciding by ballot whether the Common School System should be continued in said District or not, 'agreeably to the directions of the thirteenth section of an Act to consolidate and amend the several Acts, relative to a general System of Education by Common Schools,' passed, June 13, 1836." The majority being in favor, it was settled that it should be continued for the ensuing three years. This was the point at which the Public Schools at Bethlehem ceased to be regarded as an experiment. After the election of that summer, the Board of Directors were Owen Rice, Dr. A. L. Huebener^ Charles F. Beckel, George W. Dixon, John Schropp, John M. Miksch. In October, John C. Brickenstein was chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Schropp. The further development of the school system in the State brought the time when subsidies to existing institutions and combinations with ecclesiastical or private 1826 1845' 661 schools ceased. This point came at Bethlehem after the closing examinations, the last week in June, 1844. Then, although an appor- tionment of district school tax continued some years, the blending of the District School and the Parochial School was at an end. The latter was re-organized in accordance with action of a Congregation Council on June 7, when Charles F. Beckel, Wm. Eberman, C. A. Luckenbach, W. T. Roepper and J. F. Wolle were elected as the School Board. On July 22, it was re-opened under this board, elected by voting members of the Moravian Church as such, and not by citizens of the School District as such, with the Head Pastor, the Associate Minister and the Warden again ex officio members, as prior to 1836. The District School, deprived thus of numerical strength and of a certain caste and prestige with which it had been ushered in, entered upon a season of struggle to attain efficiency and standing in the community ; for a number of years elapsed before that part of the population which sent children to the Public Schools instead of the Parochial School, the Young Ladies' Seminary or private schools, had grown to such numbers and mfiuence and been infused with such intelligent zeal for the advancement of the "schools for all the people," that the time of their ascendency set in. The school-period which has thus been sketched was one of enthus- iastic interest and well organized effort in music at Bethlehem. The new musical association of 1820, long known as the Philharmonic Society, reached its zenith during this period. The orchestral prac- ticing, which prior to 1814 had. as a rule, taken place in the old Brethren's House, was then, by permission, transferred to the room in the church where the archives are now stored, and when the school-house at the corner of the green on Cedar Street was finished in 1822, to the second story of that building which the musicians kept possession of until it was needed for school purposes. In 1827, the Old Chapel, which, since the dedication of the church had been used for the library of the Congregation, was remodeled to adapt it for concerts and various school functions, as well as for Divine service on special occasions, and the library was transferred to one of the rooms at the east end of the church. It was thus used as a place of worship, the first time for twenty-one years, on July i, 1827. There the Philharmonic Society now established its headquarters and for many years that historic and venerable sanctuary was spoken of, even oflEiciallv, as "the concert hall.'' The indignity suggested by this term did not, however, exist in the music there produced, for this was almost exclusivelv of a strictlv classical, elevating and even sacred 662 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. character. The choral renditions uf those days, usnally with the full instrumentation called for by the score, were undoubtedly an advance from the performances, no less enjoyed, of two decades before when, amid the bucolic charms of those days, the people of the town were wont on Whitmonday to follow, in boats or afoot along the bank, the slowly-moving- "flat" up the Lehigh, listening to the chords of the unique Wasscrfakrt — Boat-ride — performed by the players of wind instruments on board — the boatman's horn on the canal was the only echo that remained of it at the time now treated of — but the musical forces of Bethlehem had been trained, even from those days, to work at the productions of Haydn and other superior composers, and it was no sudden leap to mastering and rendering the "Creation," the "Seasons," the "Seven Sleepers," and such compositions. It may be that, even at this period of higher proficiency here in mind, the modern technical critic would have hatcheled them with strictures in the stock terms of that professional cant which all kinds of critics cultivate in their several departments and which in some of its phrases often passes the lay understanding, but the Bethlehem musicians were not worried with nervous dread of this, for the critics were not abroad in such abundance then as now. They did their best for the pure love of it. That they surpassed anything that people were accustomed to hear in those days, excepting the occasional attainments, in some features, of the best musical organizations the cities could then produce, may be safely assumed. The acme of the period was a complete rendition, in the church, on Whitmondav, in 1839, o^ "The Creation" — at different times more modestly performed since its first partial production in 1811 — by a hundred and twentv- five participants ; the Bethlehem choralists and instrumentalists being re-enforced from Nazareth, Easton and Allentown. After that, nothing so elaborate was attempted. A reaction followed this achievement. In 1840 that well-remembered man of varied attain- ments in science and art. literature and affairs. William Theodore Roepper, came to Bethlehem from Neuwied on the Rhine, a famous seat of Moravian education, where he had been an instructor in various departments. He possessed commanding musical ability and put forth energetic efforts to prevent Bethlehem's musical association from languishing, but that it must experience its ebb and flow lik > all other lines of united or organized interest was inevitable. Some of the men who then played instruments, and some, both women and men. who sang, such as he who later was known as "Father Weiss" — Jedediah \\'eiss, facile princcps among bassos, when at his best, JEDEDIAH WEISS ERNST LEWIS LEHMAN JOHN CHRISTIAN TILL ERNST FREDERICK BLECK WILLIAM THEODORE ROEPPER 1 826 1845. 66 :> almost anywhere that he might go — would be a welcome acquisition to orchestra and chorus in Bethlehem, even in these days of far greater things in music than would have been possible sixty years ago. Bach's Mass in B Minor would hardly have been attempted then, but some of those men and women, if they were here yet, in their best powers, would respond efBciently to a leadership that can make such an undertaking" a success. The meagre authentic records that exist in reference to the culti- vation of miUtary music and whatever else may be loosely classed under the term "band music," afford very little in the way of exact data. The evolution of what is popularly styled "the band," with only wind instruments and principally the class of music just referred to, in mind, was a protracted and, in its early stages, rather nebulous process. It is easy to understand that, under the conditions and regulations existing at Bethlehem until well into the second decade of the nineteenth century, a band, in the popular acceptation of the term, was an institution, not to be looked for even though there was much cultivation of instrumental music. The traditional "trombone choir" does not come into consideration in this connection, for it was strictly a feature of the musical equipment of the church, as it is today. Its instruments have always been regarded as devoted to ecclesiastical use, even the exceptions to this being on occasions when hymn-tunes and, beyond these, only oratorio parts in concert or patriotic airs of dignified and hallowed associations are performed. Noble indeed has been the place and function of the trombone choir. Their services have always been connected with inspiring and solemn religious festivities, while with their most frequent and familiar duty, calling them up to the belfry of the church at any hour of any day, to pour down in the morning or evening stillness or upon the mid-day bustle and noise of the street, the mellow strains of the significant three chorales, and then several days later to accompany the sequel of what those tunes from the belfry told the hstener, at a new-made grave in the "God's acre." thoughts most holy and memories exceed- ing tender are associated. The germ with which the evolution of the band — or to make a more bald distinction from orchestra and trombone choir, in the common parlance of modern times, the "brass band" — started, at Bethlehem, seems to have been the equipment of clarionets, horns and bassoons formed in 1809 by that musical genius, David Moritz Michael, in order to produce his river music, the Wasserfahrt, already referred to. That was probably the most secular sort of music- indulged in. 664 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. up to that time, at Bethlehem, unless perhaps stealthily by some not always staid musicians inside the walls of the Brethren's House. But soon desire and courage grew in this direction, as the weakening restraints in the matter of miUtia drill tempted young men to turn out on Battalion Day, and some time in that very year a Bethlehem Band came into existence, called, for a while, the "Columbia Band," which entered into agreement to furnish music for the 97th Regiment of Pennsylvania Militia. It acquired recognized standing and not only grew from twelve to twenty-four members, but, during the subsequent years of its chequered career, enrolled a number of promi- nent names in the musical records of Bethlehem, notably such names as Till, Weiss, Ricksecker, Beckel and Luch, among its performers and many, otherwise prominent, among its supporting members. Then followed, in 1839, an attempt to form a "brass band," strictly speaking, which the other organization through successive changes had not been, but it does not seem to have flourished. In 1845, the year to which this chapter runs, a more successful efifort was made, with a prior organization that had played reed instruments, as a nucleus. A full set of brass instruments of newer fashion were secured, and then the later famous "Beckel's Band" emerged into articulate being and lived through the following decade. While a wide distinction is to be made, as before pointed out, between band and trombone choir, the men who did duty in the latter, in those days, were usually members of the former also ; such as the patriarchal group whose picture is familiar, Jacob Till, Charles F. Beckel and Jedediah Weiss, with the instrument that had been played by their departed companion, Timothy Weiss, also on the picture. At that time (1845) appears also the name of another in the roster, both of band and trombone choir — one who alone remains of those who then figured, and after more than fifty years of consecutive service is now the patriarch of the trombonists and indeed of Bethlehem musicians — Ambrose H. Ranch, who came to Bethlehem from Lititz and, along with other enterprises, established the well-known bakery and confec- tionery at the site of the historic Beckel farm house. He and Simon Rau are the sole survivors of the men who, as voting citizens, partici- pated in the municipal, industrial and ecclesiastical activities of Beth- lehem before the close of the period included in this chapter. The one other, their senior by a few years, who lived bevond the time of the town's sesqui-centennial, Henry B. I.uckenbach, departed this life in 190T. Another contemporary yet living, the former missionary, Gilbert Bishop, who was born and passed his youth at Bethlehem. 1826 1 845- 665 was living elsewhere at the time here had in mind, and did not become a resident of his native place again until some years later. Renewed agitation of various other changes set in with the spread of the larger public feeling which possessed many under the stimulus of the new school era. There was a growing desire to become a different kind of a town in other particulars also. In the municipal arrangements a quiet, gradual approach towards an organization distinct from the ecclesiastical estabUshment was in progress. Even as early as the close of 1819, when the plan of streets reported by Administrator Cunow, Jacob Kummer and Samuel Steup — the village engineer corps appointed by the voters of the place in council assembled — was adopted, a succession of more distinct functionaries than had formerly held office of the kind were emerging into promi- nence, combining the duties of street supervisor, chief of police and health officer. At one time there were two serving jointly, like Jonathan Bishop and John Christian Kern, who, in 1821, found the thankless task onerous and begged to be excused. Then, for a season, "one-man power" was embodied in the position. Augustus Milchsack was a prominent incumbent for some years. He had to oversee work on the highways, protect them from encroachments in the shape of building material, fire-wood and the like, and keep them clear of straying cattle and swine ; had to guard against such viola- tions of village ordinances by careless people, as endangered health and safety or lowered the standard of neatness and cleanliness for which the place was famous ; had also to supervise disbursements from the municipal treasury — Buergerliche Kassc — differentiated by degrees from the congregation diacony and maintained by village taxation. He received the title of Burgomaster. Cumulative respon- sibilities and dignities crystalized about the office until, in many a little thing, the incumbent shared honors with that more powerful official, the Warden, in being dreaded by the delinquent and the transgressing and courted by the dependent and by those who were wanting something. There were also the "Tax Board" and the Overseers of the Poor who, with the Burgomaster and other function- aries, were, under the latest village regulations, chosen in the month of January each year by the voters of the place in Gcmcinrath or Congregation Council, which in the latter days of the transition period had, on such occasions, more the character of a citizens' town- meeting than that of a meeting of church members. Reports, financial and otherwise, were rendered on municipal affairs at such meetings and were discussed. Thus the Burgomaster and the other village 666 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. officials associated with him, foreshadowed the coming Burgess and Town Council, as a kind of municipal government in training, to which the Warden and that venerable body, the Supervising Board {Aiifsehcr Collegium) delegated functions and routine duties. Besides these were also the Postmaster, Justices and Notaries, with whose appointment the Elders' Conference as such had nothing to do. The village also had its fire department and its water department, in no way under their official control. There was more of the machinery of village organization not subject to that board of clergy than is commonly understood, under the erroneous popular supposition that the change from church-village to borough was a sudden crisis. The matter of improving and extending the water service was one that occasioned frequent deliberations from year to year, the lack of funds being a continual embarrassment. From 1825 to 1829, at intervals, the laying of iron pipes, instead of wooden ones as formerly. 1 8 26 1845. 667- or leaden ones also experimented with, which had been commenced as early as 1813, was continued. In 1826, this more durable con- nection was completed to the stand pipe on Market Street, the octagonal stone tower of 1803 a little east of the corner of Cedar Street, which stood until 1832. Then the new reservoir on the higher ground, north of Broad Street and east of New Street, added to that of 181 7, on Market Street, with the smaller ones at the apothecary shop, 1805, and that on Church Street, 1806, which remained for many years, rendered it needless. In 1830, the extension of the pipes up Main Street and along a portion of Broad Street was completed. In 183 1, that excellent and well-located building, the oil-mill, w^as secured to contain the new pump put in by the water committee in 1832, in order to meet the increasing demand, while the grinding of oat and buckwheat meal was yet continued in part of it ; these products acquiring a high reputation under Charles David Bishop, the lessee, 1835- 1847, who twenty-five years before had man- aged the combination industry in that mill for the Brethren's House Diacony — a reputation sustained in later years under the management of his son who is yet living, the venerable Gilbert Bishop, so that long after he had to vacate in 1874, because the entire building was needed for the water works, city dealers contintied to plume themselves with the oat and buckwheat meal alleged to have been ground there, as a specialty, and report has it that, even yet, some are advertising the "celebrated Bethlehem buckwheat flour." The water supply contin- ued to be in charge of such a water committee until the incorporation, in 1845, of the "Bethlehem Water Company," which, in 1871, sold out to the Borough, when this important department of municipal service again passed under the control of a "water committee." As regards the lire department, the several years after the free- school epoch were a time of revived interest in improving its equipment. Three companies figure in a somewhat confused group. The "Perseverance" w^as domiciled in the little frame house built in 181Q, on Main Street at the opening of the alley named after Administrator Cunow ; for it ran along the rear of his official premises. The "DiHgence" had its quarters, after 1820, on Main Street, just north of the old stone "Economy House" in the narrow frame structure in which a long-familiar stove and tin-ware store is kept — the second building above the Moravian Publication House. Rut now emerges, in 1838, the new "Reliance" company on Broad Street. The old Perseverance, the original company of 1762, with its famous old engine, seems to have grown cifetc and to have actually- 668 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. become defunct about 1838; but it took a new lease of life ten years later, with the historic engine, whose claim to be the oldest in the United States has never been disproven, repaired and again made serviceable. The Diligence was the survival of the company formed in 1792, by married men, with the smaller hand-engine — ''das Butter- fass" — of that time — for some years its quarters were a shed, near the mortuary chamber in front of the Old Chapel — while the single men with the original engine had perpetuated the Perseverance. Fortunately, in consequence of the strict discipline and intelligent observance of good order always maintained, Bethlehem had, up to this time, seldom suffered from serious fires. Some further steps were also taken during those several years in extricating the congregation diacony from burdensome entangle- ments with business concerns ; disposing of properties to reduce its htavy indebtedness to private creditors and to the Administrator, as agent of the Unity's Wardens, and, in general, getting the finances into a shape better prepared for the pending changes. Some fortunate sales of valuable property outside of Bethlehem, which affected the general situation, were made by Administrator Goepp, in pursuance of a policy which his predecessor, de Schweinitz, had in view, opposite to that of Cunow twenty years before— the policy of gradually converting much of the real estate into cash in order to pay off heavy debts and stop drains for interest which, in some instances, more than equaled the income from the corresponding properties, and, at the same time, bring the holdings of real estate within the limits that would be required to secure legal incorporation when the time should come for this step. One of these sales which deserves mention on account of its prominence and historic associations, was that of Gnad- enthal, after long consideration and protracted negotiations, to the Northampton County Commissioners of the Poor in June, 1837, as the location of the County Poor House. The financial advantage appears in the statement on record that the interest on the money derived from the sale of a little more than 235 acres of that property at $90 per acre — only ten acres more than half of the original farm, would be more than the rent received for the whole, leased to George Schlabach four years before. Some, even in official circles, were strongly in favor, in 1837, of not only embracing opportunities to sell large tracts immediately around Bethlehem, especially on the south side of the river, but also of abolishing the lease-system in the town without further ado ; making ground rents redeemable, as well as putting an end to the necessity of buying more houses; in CALYPSO ISLAND, 1850 1826 1845- 669 order to keep control of the properties, and thus reUeving the Con- gregation of the heavy burden it was bearing. The indebtedness to the General Wardens of the Unity had grown enormously since 1830, and that owing individual creditors was almost as great. But the ve*ry relations this state of things created between Bethlehem and the general board in Europe hindered steps towards bringing the Bethlehem property under the control of a legal corporation; and as the abolition of the lease system, involving so much, could not be ventured until the right point of understanding between them was reached from which the processes preparatory to incorporation could be instituted, a further conservative and cautious course was pursued and yet more time was taken for getting ready. Meanwhile the strain was relieved somewhat by sundry sales of smaller parcels, here and there, and by disposing of several more establishments. The earUer sale of the grist-mill and tannery, already referred to, was followed by the transfer of the saw-mill, in 1835, to Lewis Doster who, in 1826, had leased the dyeing and fulling- mill which, before that, had been conducted by Matthew Eggert, and which the new possessor then transferred to the saw-mill site. Out of this combination, when a few years later he purchased the property,, he built up a flourishing business, developing the manufacture of woolen goods to an extent that led to the erection of the additional larger building on the north side of the canal at the lock, in 1850, — destroyed by fire but quickly rebuilt in 1862 — where for a number of years the products of the Monocacy Woolen Mills, later the Moravian Woolen Mills, that won public reputation, were turned out. Thus were perpetuated industrial associations of the Sand Island and the Monocacy banks at the foot of the hill, in a connection of activities which had existed already in the days of the General Economy, when the proximity of bleachery, soap-boiling factory and laundry to the saw-mill, near which the flax-house of the linen-weavers was built and the first sheep of Bethlehem, growing wool for the carders and spinners, grazed, brought about a relation between timber and textile products there manipulated. Furthermore, even before the modern revival of those associations by Lewis Doster, buildings and machin- ery for turning out products from the mineral kingdom in addition to those from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, had also been erected on the Sand Island when, after the completion of the canal in 1829, Charles F. Beckel who since 1825, had — though first a watch- maker by trade — been operating the little iron foundry on Main Street started by Joseph Miksch, moved the establishment to a site on 6/0 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. that island near the lock, where for many years the Beckel foundry flourished as the pioneer of all iron industries along the Lehigh at Bethlehem. Even in their features of deterioration those precincts are historic, in a down-grade continuity, from the time, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, when, on Independence Day, the hilarious patriotism of certain young and old men led them to respond to a few toasts too many with a potion somewhat lusty, to the time when the old laundry was made to do duty in honor of Gambrinus and was dubbed "Noah's Ark;" and then on to the time when the woolen-mill had long disappeared, and the flames belched forth no more from the cupola of Beckel's foundry and, even at the older and yet existing establishment where the combination of wood and cloth has changed to that of wood and paint, the sound of the saw was heard only at irregular intervals, and at the canal a greatly debased repro- duction of the "Ark," under other names like the "Little Item," shed bad odor about the vicinity. It is well that a present-day owner of so much of that historic ground, with sentiments that respect its better days treasured in the recollections of youth, has not only restored an inviting appearance to the neglected parts of the old island, but has revived also the associations of a far earlier and higher civilization than that spread about them by the more recent successors of the "Ark" under Hcense from the County Court — the civilization that dwelt among the Christian Indians of Friedenshuetten along the Monocacy in 1746 — by substituting for Sand Island, as names for its two sections, the tribal designations of those exiled Moravian Indians of New York, Wampanoag and Mohican. With the exception of the hotels — and these, as previously stated, were now leased, Caleb Yohe taking possession, in 1844, of the Eagle, which he finally purchased and for many years conducted — none of the few surviving old concerns that had been managed for the congregation diacony in former times remained its property when Bethlehem became a hundred years old. Without attempting to refer to all the business operations, large and small, mostly new, of that period — the mercantile establishments that issued from the old village store, and the old tinsmith-shop taken by Christian Lucken- bach and built up into a business which is still carried on by his descendants, having already been alluded to — three may yet be speciallv mentioned because they not only were then among the old establishments of the town, but are existing at the present time amid the many modern industries with which they are surrounded. One was that which supplied the people of Bethlehem with meat. This MOUNTAIN PATH ALONG THE LEHIGH THE SPRING 1826 1845. 6/1 was one of the old industries along" the IVIonocacy which, after 1753, when Henry Krause became the head butcher, remained in the hands of the family and is at present in possession of the fifth gener- ation, in the old "Weinland house" near the stone bridge, mentioned in the preceding chapter, which John Krause, the meat-purveyor of the time now under review, took possession of and enlarged as a slaughter-house. Another was the book-bindery of Joseph Oerter, which he, as the successor of older Bethlehem members of the craft, became master of in 1785. He died in 1841, but the business was continued by his son, John Oerter, and then by others, and yet exists. The third was the historic pharmacy made famous in colo- nial times by Dr. Otto. This was the first Bethlehem establishment which was sold outright, long before the modern period opened. It was purchased of Dr. Eberhard Freitag in 1839 by a young man who had been learning under him for a number of years, Simon Ran, who is yet living, has his name at the head of the firm that owns it, and enjoys the solitary distinction of being the one sur- viving business-man of the days before the village celebrated its centennial anniversary and passed through the third epoch-making experience around which leading events of this chapter center, and out of which it finally emerged with a modern borough organization. The Bethlehem epoch now approached was one of striking con- trasts, during the space of five years, between depressing adversities and jubilant celebrations ; desire for change and progress, on the one hand, and revived reverence for old-time associations on the other ; perturbed conditions amid which business establishments were wrecked and accumulations scattered, while, at the same time, the foundations of new enterprises and fortunes were laid. These contrasting features stand closely grouped in the picture. The financial panic, depression of business, general suspension of specie payments, contraction of the currency, collapse of speculations throughout the country, felt in full force in Pennsylvania — fruit of the play of party politics, in their jealousies and bickerings, with the national finances, following the expiration of the charter of the second Bank of the United States in 1836, constitute the most prom- inent elements of the country's history from 1837 to 1844. Just when the efifects of this crisis were beginning to be seriously felt at Bethlehem, as they crept into all lines of business and found their way into the affairs of every store and shop in all corners of the country, great local reverses were suddenly caused by one of the most disastrous floods that have visited the Lehigh Vallev since its 6/2 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. rirst settlement. The records refer to the one ahnost as ruinous in 1786 and that of 1739, which swept away the unfinished iirst cabin of Isaac Martens Ysseistein, the nearest neighbor of the Bethlehem pioneers, as the only ones known in the history of the valley that could be compared with it. This great freshet occurred early in January, 1841, and may be described by following somewhat closely the record of the Bethle- hem church diary. On January 4th and 5th, the degree of cold reached eight below zero, Fahrenheit. Then, on the 6th, came a sudden rise of temperature, with heavy rain on top of a deep snow which melted rapidly and, added to the rain, poured great floods of water down over the frozen ground into the Lehigh as well as into the Monocacy and other tributaries. The sudden breaking of the thick ice up the river caused gorges at many places, which increased the overflow. The night from the 7th to the 8th was one of much anxiety. Besides the packs of ice, great masses of debris — houses, sheds, thousands of logs and fence-rails, canal-boats, loaded with coal, torn from their moorings — came down with the raging torrent. The entire lowland along the Monocacy and south of the river was one wild stream. Boats were brought into requisi- tion, along Water Street and in Old South Bethlehem, to convey persons out of the upper stories and garrets of houses to places of safety, and to rescue such things of most value as could be taken out. While engaged in this work, some men came into great peril on account of the depth and swiftness of the water and the quantities of debris encountered. Among the people rescued from the dwell- ings on Water Street was the venerable John Jungmann — son of the well-known missionary, John George Jungmann — ninety-two years of age, who was taken out of an up-stairs window into a boat. The water reached its highest point at four o'clock in the morning, "fully twenty feet above low-water mark." In the course of the night the rain ceased, the clouds scattered, and the light of the moon falling upon the scene, revealed an appalling chaos of ruins. A mass of shattered buildings and parts of bridges piled up against the Bethlehem bridge subjected it to such a strain that, shortly after two o'clock, the structure gave way and was carried, with the accumulation of ruins, down the stream, and only the four piers, considerably damaged, were left in place. When day broke the scene of desolation was first fully realized. The drifting masses were piled up in places fifteen feet high and, surging on with the rapid current, carried every obstacle before them. The fact is 1826 1 845- 673 recorded that, while up the country many persons perished, at Beth- lehem no lives were lost, but deplorable damage was suffered by all in the inundated area. Apart from the destruction of the bridge, the greatest pecuniary loss for Bethlehem people was caused at the grist-mill, the tannery, the foundry, the lumber-yard and the saw- mill; the sufferers being, in the order named, Charles Augustus Luckenbach, Joseph and James Leibert, father and son, Charles F. Beckel, Timothy Weiss and Lewis Doster. This extraordinary visitation was the uppermost theme at the services of Sunday, Janu- ary 10, and again on the 17th, when the work of repairing damage and clearing away deposits of drift and wreckage was yet in pro- gress. The keen sense of the hard blow to material interests at a time when none were in a condition to bear it well, was mingled with thanksgiving for the preservation of life at Bethlehem amid all dangers. During the year 1841, affairs dragged heavily. There was an appearance of partial recovery from the effects of this local disaster, but a feeling of uncertainty pervaded many circles, for the general conditions in Pennsylvania were not improving, and at Bethlehem, as at many another place, the financial stringency was putting a severe strain upon some who were involved beyond their ability to secure ready money to keep their operations afloat. While this pre- carious state of affairs, more serious because more extensive than that of ten years before, was not apparent to many, there were some who knew that unless a great general improvement set in suddenly, a local crisis ere long was inevitable. The first five months of 1842 passed without any striking developments and then, for a while, the attention of the village was diverted, in a very different direction, to preparations for enthusiastic festivity. The time drew near for the centennial anniversary of the organi- zation of the settlement. The anticipation of this had been awakened already at Christmas, 1841, when the memorable occasion of a hun- dred years before, that led to the naming of the place, was called to mind. Nearly the entire month of June, 1842, was devoted to preparations of great range and variety, from the compilation of a historical review and suitable offices for the principal services, the rehearsal of vocal and instrumental music, the construction of elaborate decorations, transparencies and illuminations, down to the minutest domestic details of cleaning and garnishing for the recep- tion of holiday guests. During the two wxeks preceding the great 44 674 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. festival, the evening services were omitted on account of the exten- sive adornments being made in the church. These were all finished before the 24th — two thousand feet of festooning and scores of gar- lands gracefully swung and looped between chandeliers, twined around pillars and run along the paneled fronts of galleries ; floral pyramids erected, right and left, on their edges, great masses of flowers placed in the windows between flanking green, and various inscriptions partly so constructed as to be transparent when the lamps and candles burned in the evening. Two columns eighteen feet high enwreathed with evergreen, on the right and left of the pulpit at the edge of the raised floor on which the table stood, supported an arch with the figures 100 ornamentally set in the center, while on graceful drapery hanging under the arch, one of the inscriptions was arranged with gilded letters. These inscriptions — others in the front of the large table of that time and of the galleries — were all Scripture texts. They are enumerated in the diary. Naturally, the preparations for the music of the occasion were corre- spondingly elaborate and thorough. The selections rendered by the choir are all to be found in the printed services arranged by the Rev. John G. Herman and the Rev. Charles F. Seidel. The historical sketch was compiled by the Rev. Philip H. Goepp. The celebration opened with a festal eve service on the evening of Friday, June 24. A large body of trombonists ushered in the chief festival day with chorales from the belfry of the church. At nine o'clock the people assembled to morning prayer. The historical review was read at the next service at half past ten. At the lovefeast hour, three o'clock, the crowd was so great that the customary meal of fellowship had to be dispensed with, the servitors not being able to pass through the church, and the service was held without it. At eight o'clock in the evening a service was held on the historic "God's acre" of Bethlehem ; the liturgical arrangement being an alternation of hymns by the choir and the congregation of over two thousand persons gathered under the mellow light of more than a thousand colored lanterns. In the center stood a pyramid thirty feet high on which were placed a hundred lights, while transparencies with appropriate Scripture texts were displayed on the four sides of the base. The head pastor, Herman and the associate minister, Seidel, officiated at these various services, in which both the English and German languages were used. On Sunday, the 26th, a service especially for the children was held at nine o'clock by the Rev. Peter Wolle, of Lititz. At the service at half past ten the Rev. George F. Bahnson, of Lancaster, preached MATTHEW KRAUSE JOHN GOTTHOLD HERMAN PHILIP HENRY GOEPP LEWIS FRANCIS KAMPMANN EUGENE ALEXANDER FRUEAUFF 1826 1845- 675 in German. At three o'clock there was Enghsh preaching by the Rev. David Bigler, of Philadelphia. At half past seven on Sunday evening the festival was closed with an ordination. Four ministers who were yet deacons were ordained presbyters. Bishop Benade officiated. The men ordained were George F. Bahnson, David Bigler, Charles A. Bleck and Philip H. Goepp. Earnest efforts were made by the pastors to render this notable occasion impressive and edifying in the best sense, and that many hearts were stirred by reflection on the noble ideals of church and town and of individual hfe called up by considering the days of old and the duties of the days to come, as they were fervently presented, cannot be doubted. The lessons of a hundred years of such history could hardly remain quite fruitless and the records lead to the con- clusion that they did not. In connection with this event, the changes in the ministerial personnel at Bethlehem, from the last mentioned to the close of the period covered by this chapter, may be given. The next, after the arrival of the Rev. Philip H. Goepp, in 1834, as Administrator of the estates, was the entrance of John Gottlob Kummer upon his duties as Principal of the Young Ladies' Seminary, in March, 1836. He was formerly connected with the institution as accountant and was not an ordained man. He took charge temporarily in place of the Rev. C. F. Seidel, while the latter was in Europe attending a General Synod, but then remained Principal until his transfer to Lititz, in 1843. The successor of Bishop Anders as President of the Provincial Board, in 1836, was Bishop Andrew Benade, who had formerly been connected with the pastorate and principalship at Bethlehem and had been a bishop since 1822. He returned to the place after many and great changes and with ideas of discipline and control greatly modified since the days when he supported the regime represented by Cunow. Indeed, as is often the case with one who abandons an extreme position, he finally, in his old age, went farther in his dissent from what yet remained of the ideas of those days, than many who had always been considered dissenters. He became Presiding Bishop temporarily, but then remained at the head of the Executive Board until his final retirement in 1848. For a while after his return to Bethlehem he also filled the position of head pastor until the arrival of the next incumbent, the Rev. John Gottlieb Herman, January, 1837. The latter, as regular successor of the Rev. Lewis David de Schweinitz in the head pastorate — the service of Bishops Anders and Benade, in this capacity, 1834-1837, was an emergency arrangement 6/6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. — continued in office until September, 1844, when he went to Europe as the American member of the Unity's Elders' Conference. He became a bishop in 1846, was President of the General Synod in 1848, returned to America in 1849, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ log cabin in the wilds of Missouri, July 20, 1854, ok his return to Salem, N. C, from a visit to the Indian missions. His remains were eventually conveyed to Salem. While head pastor at Bethlehem, he also served as Principal of the Seminary, from the departure of Kummer until the arrival of his successor, the Rev. Henry Augustus Shultz, of Phila- delphia, in June, 1844. Former Principal Seidel, who retired in 1836, removed, in August, 1837, to Newport, R. I., and took temporary charge of the Moravian work there. In October, 1839, he again became associate minister and preacher at Bethlehem, first with Herman and then with his successor the Rev. Samuel Reinke, from October, 1843, head pastor. In January, 1837, the Rev. John Christopher Brickenstein became warden at Bethlehem, as the successor of the Rev. John Frederick Stadiger, who had retired after filling this important office during twenty-nine laborious and troublesome years, and who then lived at Bethlehem in retirement until he departed this life, November 16, 1849. Prior to Seidel's return, the position of associate minister had been filled, May, 1838, to October, 1839, by the Rev. George Frederick Bahnson, professor in the Theological Seminary. His colleague in the professorship, the Rev. Charles Christlieb Dober, died at Bethlehem, January 21, 1841. Other professors of this period, at Bethlehem, were the Rev. Charles A. Van Vleck, October, 1839, to March, 1845, ^^^ ^^v. Emil A. de Schweinitz from August, 184J, until he became warden at Nazareth in 1842, and Dr. Edward Rice, 1839 to 1849. The centennial celebration was soon followed by a period of busi- ness turmoil and demoralization. The financial crash which Beth- lehem, like so many other places in those years, had to experience, came in October, 1842, when Owen Rice, whose business operations had been more extensive and varied than those of any of his towns- men, and who had become most deeply involved, succumbed to the strain and failed. While some were fearing such a crisis for the town and were partially prepared for it, the announcement was startling to the most of the people and produced a panic that aflFected business beyond the limits of Bethlehem. Money to a large amount for those days, held on loan for individuals and in charge for organizations, had been jeopardized beyond warrant in specula- tive ventures and was carried down with the wreck, the most serious 1826 1 845- ^17 such loss being suffered by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, of which he had been the treasurer for a number of years. Other men who might have withstood the general financial depression of the time gave way under this new strain. Joseph and James Leibert, who had suffered severely from the great freshet of the previous year, were compelled to suspend operations at the tannery and that important industry lay idle for a few years. Lewis Doster's busi- ness was likewise crippled by the indirect effects of this crash, fol- lowing the devastation wrought by the water, and all the merchants and shop-keepers felt it in varying degrees, while many not engaged in business found their little hoard swept away. In consequence of these experiences, the conviction rapidly matured that, without further delay, steps towards the complete re-construction of property control and financial management must be taken by the authorities, and that everything in the existing system of Bethlehem which, in order to maintain it, compelled the further purchase of houses that men were driven to sell, must be set aside, for it had now become impracticable to continue this burdensome method. And yet, when it came to facing the final issue, the abohtion of the lease-system, and with it, necessarily, the old exclusive church-village organization, there was at last more difference of opinion, both in official bodies and among the people generally, than those who clearly saw the necessity of it had expected; although by far the majority decidedly favored it. The Supervising Board of Bethlehem — Aufselicr Collegium — on February 14, 1843, appointed a committee of five to prepare an exhaustive report on plans to be proposed for further consideration. The first week in May. the report was discussed by the board and that part of it which proposed the entire abolition of the lease- system, with, of course, the abandonment of the exclusive polity — in so far as this yet existed — following upon it, was unanimously adopted as their proposition. The view prevailed that no partial steps nor gradual processes were practicable. There was a differ- ence of opinion, however, on that part of the report which dealt with plans for village and church re-organization. The report, as it left the board with no conclusion on this portion, was then referred to the Elders' Conference of the village. Their deliberations had prac- tically the same result, and then the report, with what they had to add, went before the Provincial Board. They were also divided in opinion on the measures proposed. A full report on the situation was prepared for the Unity's Elders' Conference. This body had 678 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. asked for it and were entitled to it, with an opportunity to give their views, because of constitutional and financial relations. A very thorough discussion of the subject was had by the Provincial Board on July 19, 1843, after receiving the opinions of the U. E. C. The latter were inclined to regard the final step as unavoidable at Beth- lehem, because of its external location, its peculiar circumstances and its growth, numerically and otherwise, beyond the limit to which the retention of the old organization was practicable, even if the time did not seem to have come for such a change at Nazareth, Lititz and Salem. The opinion was held by the majority of the Provincial Board that even the internal, spiritual condition of the Congregation would ultimately be improved by such a complete opening up, when church membership and citizenship in the town would no longer mean one and the same thing to the minds of the people ; when the former would become a voluntary union and the external complications would disappear. It may be remarked here that this important thought was shown by the outcome to be sound and true. The Church gradually became a better Church after the turmoil of re-construction subsided, leaving it an organization in the town instead of being the town, comprehending all that town meant, with men's status as residents and their business rights and privileges in the place depending upon their church-membership and consequently — for they were no longer even in theory a company of heroic Christians and enthusiastic evangelists — for many the uppermost reason why of their membership. In discussing the very practical aspect of the question, the increase of houses and consequent increase of difficulty about transfers and sales, it was observed that in the course of fifteen to twenty years, forty-five new buildings had been erected and many old ones had been remodeled and enlarged, besides all those in what was then called South Bethlehem,, of which at least seventeen had been built within nine years ; also that two entirely new streets. Broad and New Streets, had been opened and Market Street had been extended dur- ing those years, whereas during the same period not more than eight new houses had been erected at Nazareth and Lititz. The possible efiPects of the change upon the Yovmg Ladies' Seminary in various ways and the probable organization and building of churches in Bethlehem by other denominations were also elements of the situ- ation that were considered. It was shown by the Administrator that the peculiar financial complications which a few years before hindered the proposed step had been solved. More than one-third 1826 1845- ^79 of the debt of that time had been paid and financial relations to the Unity's Wardens had been gotten into a shape which left it possible to proceed. It was pointed out that there must be a proper, logical sequence of steps ; first the abolition of the lease-system, then the legal incorporation of the village and finally the re-organization and legal incorporation of the Congregation, followed by that of the Provincial Board, to hold the estate of the Sustentation Diacony after a settlement and division of property with the Bethlehem Con- gregation. Finally, in considering the broad, general question of such a radical change in the organized form of the Congregation, it was agreed that no fundamental principle of the Church and no vital interest of the local Congregation would be sacrificed by abol- ishing the plan of colonizing in an exclusive church-village. Of this peculiar arrangement it was said "it was not an article stantis et sedentis ecclesiae nostrae." Then, on that day, July 19, 1843, a vote was taken in a meeting of the Provincial Board on the question of favoring the proposed step as expedient. The vote stood five in favor to one opposed. The Elders' Conference and the Supervising Board of Bethlehem, while not unanimous at this time on the three main questions, the abolition of the lease-system, the incorporation of the village as a borough and the incorporation of the Congrega- tion, favored these steps by a very large majority. The records do not state exactly how the vote stood in those boards. Then, in the midst of much excited discussion among the people, a temporary reaction of opinion among many was produced by arguments against the proposed course by the Warden of the Congregation, who advo- cated a different method of dealing with the situation, and it became uncertain for a while what the result of a final vote in the Congre- gation Council might be. At this juncture the last action needed to settle the question was taken by the General Wardens in Europe. A letter was received from them in November in which they declared against any further advance of money by their agent, the Administrator, for the pur- chase of houses at Bethlehem, in order to maintain the existing system. Thus, instead of holding things back — as, under the super- ficial impression of their attitude which later prevailed among some, in the excitement of controversy, on new questions, in the next decade, they were charged with doing — they really gave the final push forward. On January 11, 1844, the Congregation Council definitely resolved in favor of the first step, to abolish the lease-system. This decision 680 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. was followed by many important deliberations on new arrangements that would immediately be necessary, particularly in the matter of sales and further leases of real estate. An ad interim status, until the point of incorporating the Congregation should be reached, had to be provided for. Ground rents would now become redeemable for its members, and persons who were not members could secure lots on ground rent, which was not the case before, the intention being that when the ifew permanent status was reached, real estate could be conveyed in fee simple not only to members, but to any person. The proposed incorporation of a water company was favor- abl}' acted upon by the Congregation Council on November 28, and a revised body of rules and regulations for the Congregation, adapted to this ad interim condition, were compiled which, on December 8, were read, expounded, adopted and laid before the members for signature. As regards the new village organization, to be distinct now from that of the Congregation, the discussion, intensified among some into controversy, was no longer discussion between parties for and against retaining the old arrangements. This stage of the question was past, because everybody understood that the vote of January 11, 1844, had settled that; for the old church- village organization disappeared necessarily with the abolition of the lease-system. This further discussion was rather such as might take place in any little town on the points involved in a proposed borough organization, such as increased taxation to run a system of borough machinery with improvements and elaborations of various kinds ; discussion between those who see and those who do not see the necessity of becoming a borough ; between those who are public-spirited and progressive and those who are not, or between those who have interests involved and those for whom it is immaterial. Bethlehem would now. in the first place, become simply a village, with what had remained of good government and order under the old system abolished and nothing new instituted to take its place. Some did not appreciate the force of this fact. Those who did and who understood that the large interests to be cared for would not admit of a long continuance of such a situation, were decidedly in the majority. The necessary steps were therefore taken before the close of the year to secure borough incorporation. March 6, 1845, "An Act to incorporate the village of Bethlehem, in the County of Northampton, into a Borough," was approved. Its metes and bounds were thus described: "Beginning at the River Lehigh at the fording-place immediately above Jones's Island ; JOHN KRAUSE CWEN RICE (2ndJ JOHN CHRISTIAN LUCKENBACH JACOB RICE . CHRISTIAN JACOB WOLLE 1 826 1845. 6^1 thence up the said river to the mouth of Monocacy Creek; thence along the said creek to the stone bridge at the Hanover Township Hne in Northampton County; thence along the center of the upper road, leading from Allentown to Easton, to the intersection of the road leading from Nazareth to Philadelphia ; thence along the center of the road last mentioned to the River Lehigh to the place of beginning." An act, approved March 24, 1856, extended the Hnes to the Borough limits as they have since existed. In accordance with the provisions of the act of March 6, 1845, the voting citizens met at "the house now in the occupancy of Caleb Yohe in the said Borough" — the Eagle Hotel — on the third Friday in March — it being the day of annual township elections. Good Friday, March 21, 1845 — and elected a Burgess, nine Councilmen and three Auditors. Charles Augustus Luckenbach was elected the first Burgess. The first Town Council were Ernst F. Bleck, Lewis Doster, Benjamin Eggert, Philip H. Goepp, Henry G. Guetter, Charles L. Knauss, John M. Miksch, Christian Luckenbach and William Luckenbach. They held their first session, organized and appointed sundry Borough functionaries on March 24, at the Eagle Hotel. The incor- poration of the Borough did not end the existence of the old Aufsehcr Collegium or Supervising Village Board, although it trans- ferred to the Town Council all those municipal functions which this board had before performed and which naturally now belonged to the Borough authorities. The Collegium continued, during the ad interim status of the Moravian Congregation, for the purpose of caring for its property and managing the laying out of town lots, opening of streets and alleys in its various blocks of real estate within the Borough limits, and, as a cabinet associated with the "Lord Pro- prietor and Administrator," as he was once facetiously called — who continued to hold the titletoall the real estate until 1851 — to negotiate sales and leases. The Rev. Philip H. Goepp had been both Proprietor and Administrator since October 9, 1843, when Bishop William Henry Van Vleck, as Proprietor, executed a deed for the entire estate to Goepp, thus concentrating and simplifying the situation, preparatory to the proposed changes. That Board of External Supervision con- sisted, in 1845, when the Borough was incorporated, of PhiHp H. Goepp, President ; John C. Brickenstein, the warden ; Matthew Brown, Matthew Krause, Augustus Milchsack and John F. Wolle to the end of that year; Charles D. Bishop, Henry B. Luckenbach, Jacob Luckenbach and David Weinland to the end of the next year. Tn December of that vear four new members were elected by the 682 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Congregation Council in place of the one-year men. These were Ernst Lehman, Wm. Theodore Roepper, Samuel Schultz and Jedediah Weiss. Roepper had previously been secretary of the board, but not a voting member. The exact population of Bethlehem at that time cannot be ascer- tained beyond the membership of the Moravian Church. This, at the close of 1845, given in the customary manner, was as follows : Married people 278, widowers 8, widows 54, single men 56, single women 95, older boys 32, older girls 38; under thirteen years of age, 117 boys and 130 girls; total 808. The Moravian statistics included also 100 girls from elsewhere who were boarders in the Seminary. They increased the population accurately known to 908. From various sources of information it may be estimated that about 150 other persons lived within the Borough limits as householders or in service, so that the entire population was about 1050. BETHLEHEM FROM THE S. E., 1850 FROM THE N.W., 1851 CHAPTER XVIII. Three Decades of Progress. 1846— 1876. The foregoing narrative makes it sufficiently clear that it is an erroneous impression which has the events of 1844 and 1845 in mind as a sudden crisis, and the change from church-village to borough as a stampede. It has been customary to lay so much stress upon one detail of the re-organization — the action of January, 1844, when the Congregation Council confirmed the action of the two village boards, sustained by the Provincial Board and the Unity's Elders' Conference, in favor of terminating the lease-system, as a step in the process of re-construction, and to speak of the town having then been "thrown open," that many who are not acquainted with the facts fancy the beginning and the end of the change to have lain in that vote. Some seem to have before them a kind of grotesque imaginary picture of it, like another capture of Jericho — an invading host marching around the Moravian walls until they suddenly fell, when the world got its first sight of what was inside and those inside first looked forth upon the world. Others have treated of it as if it had been like a first Oklahoma in-rush and scramble to locate claims when the supreme hour struck. Moravians themselves have been partly responsible for this impression, in their manner of speak- ing and writing about that epoch in later years. The absorbing thought of some residents was that of being able to secure owner- ship of the ground on which they lived and to buy a lot or lots, and from this point of view the situation was chiefly talked about by people. As for an imaginary rush upon the spoils from all quarters, it is a mistake to suppose that immediately after that action of Jan- uarv, 1844, a new land office was opened and indiscriminate sales commenced. While ground-rents at once became redeemable and town lots purchasable in fee simple by Moravian residents ; and other persons could secure sites, as Moravians had before done, on ground rent under certain stipulations relating to the nature and use of 683 684 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. buildings and other points, and all the restrictions of the old system in the matter of permission to reside or open any business at pleasure were, of course, obsolete, the final status, when such ground rents of non-Moravians all became redeemable and sales outright were made to any one, was not reached until the process of re-con- struction was completed in 1851. During the interval direct sales were made, in certain exceptional cases, to outside parties and some acquired real estate in fee simple in the town by having Moravians purchase for them. The important steps leading up to the incorpo- ration of the Moravian Congregation had to do with other elements of the situation besides merely selHng town lots, and they were taken very deHberately and carefully. So broad were the connections of the process that it entered into the business of two Synods at Beth- lehem, 1847 and 1849, and even into that of a General Synod in Europe in "1848; being intimately related to the general modern- izing of the organization and government of the Moravian Church in the United States, completed ten years later by the General Synod of 1857, preceded by Synods at Bethlehem in 1855 ^.nd 1856 and followed by one in 1858. The process involved so much from which important developments at Bethlehem issued that it enters essen- tially into the history of the town. The principal features in the transit of the Moravian Congregation from the point at which the abolition of the lease-system left it, to its legal incorporation in 1851, may therefore properly be sketched in this chapter. Up to that time, the former Bethlehem Congregation Diacony yet existed, with a warden at the head of its afifairs, and the title to all of its real estate continued to be held by the Proprietor and Admin- istrator, the Rev. Philip H. Goepp. While various considerations, among others the burden of the collateral inheritance tax made it very desirable to terminate this individual proprietorship as soon as possible, the transfer of title to a corporation could not be made until important adjustments had been effected between the Beth- lehem Congregation, on the one hand, and the Unity's Wardens in Europe and the Sustentation Diacony instituted in 1771 and con- trolled by the Provincial Board at Bethlehem, on the other hand. There were thus three parties to the pending financial settlements, the Congregation, the Administration — that is, the agency of the General Wardens of the Unity — and the Sustentation — that is, the treasury which supported the government of the Church in America, excepting the North Carolina Province, and provided for the estab- lished pensions and educational privileges of the ministry and sundry 1846 1876. 685 other objects. Up to 1847, the Congregation, as well as the Sus- tentation, continued to owe a large amount to the Administration, and the resources of the Sustentation, which had no endowment worth speaking of, were meagre and quite inadequate. The two most important measures planned to solve the whole situation, extricate the Congregation and clear the way for the ultimate steps, were to extinguish its .indebtedness to the Administration and to discharge its obligations to the Sustentation by a liberal endowment instead of a mere annual contribution under the old contract of 1771. After this matter had been thoroughly discussed by the Synod held at Bethlehem, May 2-20, 1847 — similar provisions for the Susten- tation by Nazareth and Lititz, which were made later, being also in mind — the Congregation Council at Bethlehem took favorable action, May 27, 1847, o^ ^ proposition by Administrator Goepp to sell to the Administration a body of 1,380 acres of the Bethlehem land, embracing seven farms and considerable woodland, at $75 per acre. This sale very nearly covered the debt of the Congregation. After arranging to dispose of the bulk of this land to private parties, Goepp went to Europe in the summer of 1847 to consummate the transaction with the Wardens of the Unity. He returned to Beth- lehem on November 9. Before the next steps were taken, a change in the government of the Church in America took place which was of importance among the closely related forward movements. The Synod which met at Bethlehem in 1849, was the first of these convocations that was of!icially called a Synod since 1768. During all that interval, with their very limited authority, they were called merely conferences. Constitutional changes had been conceded by the General Synod of the previous year which invested them with new powers that ren- dered them properly Synods, and gave the body of American Con- gregations more character as a distinct integral Province of the Unity. Its Executive Board, called yet the Provincial Helpers' Conference, continued, to this time, to be constituted as since 1818, consisting of a Presiding Bishop, the Administrator and the Head Pastors of the three church-villages — Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz — all being appointees of the Unity's Elders' Conference. Now this Provincial Board consisted of three members ; two elected by the Synod and holding no other office, and the Administrator ex officio. Bishop Benade, the President, had retired before the Synod of 1849 ™6t, and the first two members of the Provincial Board elected by the Synod were Bishop John C. Jacobson and the Rev. 686 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Henry A. Shultz, associate pastor at Bethlehem. Subsequently it was called the Provincial Elders' Conference, the name by which it is constitutionally yet known, and after 1857 all of its members were elected by the Synod and chose their own President. As constituted in 1849, this board had more of the character desirable to secure for it a charter of incorporation, quahfying it to hold and control prop- erty under the laws of the Commonwealth, than before. In view of plans at Bethlehem for the Sustentation, that step was had in mind in the final settlement of affairs, as well as the incorporation of the Congregation. After further preliminary consultations and arrangements, the next distinct step in the process was taken, December 26, 1850, when the Congregation Council formally adopted three important propositions : that the Congregation should be incorporated in order to legally hold and manage its property; that its real estate should, for the most part, be converted into cash ; and that a division of property and settlement should be made with the Sustentation Diacony. A committee of seven was appointed to take the whole subject into consideration in conjunction with the Warden, John C. Brickenstein, and the Provincial Board. The com- mittee were Charles Augustus Luckenbach, the mover of the propo- sitions; Jacob Rice, John M. Miksch, James T. Borhek, Ernst F. Bleck, WiUiam Eberman and John F. Ranch. They submitted a printed report, together with a draft of an Act of Incorporation, on January 30, 185 1. The report dealt with the general question of incorporation, discussed the proposed sale of real estate and set forth the plan of settlement with the Sustentation, elaborating details of the course to be taken in pursuance of the above proposi- tions. It was recommended that, following upon the incorporation and in connection with the division of property with the Sustenta- tion, the entire estate of every kind whatsoever be put into the hands of a Liquidation Committee after June i, 1851, if the charter of incorporation had been secured. That committee was to consist of three men, one appointed by the Trustees of the incorporated Congregation, another by the Proprietor, and the third by the Pro- vincial Board. It thus represented the three parties to the settle- ment — the Congregation, the Administration and the Sustentation. On a second reading the report was adopted, with slight altera- tions, at another meeting of the Congregation Council on February 13, and the committee was continued to carry out the plans. Admin- istrator Goepp and Ernst F. Bleck went to Harrisburg, February 19, to secure the passage of the Act of Incorporation and, at the CHARLES FREDERICK BECKEL THEODORE FRANCIS WOLLE CHARLES DAVID BISHOP JOHN SEBASTIAN GOUNDIE HENRY GOTTLOB GUETTER 1846 1876. 68; same time, another act incorporating the Provincial Board. Both acts were passed. That incorporating the Provincial Board v^as approved, March 29, and that incorporating the Congregation, April 3, 185 1. The legal title given the Provincial Board was "The Board of Elders of the Northern Diocese of the Church of the United B-eth- ren^ in the United States of America." That given the Congregation was "The Congregation of United Brethren of the Borough of Beth- lehem and its Vicinity." Both corporations yet carry the load of this ponderous verbiage.^ April 14, the Congregation Council chose three men to hold the first election under the charter. They were Charles F. Beckel, Charles D. Bishop and Jedediah Weiss. The election took place, April 22. The Act of Incorporation provided for the election of six Trustees, two Elders to constitute with the pastors of the Congregation — at that time a senior and a junior minister — the Board of Elders, and three School Directors, who with the Board of Elders, were to constitute the School Board, in charge of the Parochial Schools.- The first officers elected under the charter were the following: Elders, Charles D. Bishop, John F. Ranch; Trustees, Matthew Krause, Jacob Rice, Henry B. Luckenbach, Charles F. Beckel, Ernst F. Bleck ; School Board, Philip H. Goepp, Simon Rau, Jedediah Weiss. The Board of Elders met, April 23, and organized with the Rev. Charles F. Seidel as "Senior Minister," in priority of service, ex officio President, in accordance with the charter, and his colleague since September, 1849, Bishop WiUiam Henry Van Vleck, Secretary, until December, when, as was had in view in his call to Bethlehem, he became senior minister and President, Seidel retiring. The Board of Trustees organized, April 29, with Ernst F. Bleck as President and Charles F. Beckel as Secretary. Matthew Krause became the first Treasurer of the Board. The School Board organized, May i, with the Rev. C. F. Seidel, President of the Board of Elders, as President ex officio, Simon Rau as Secretary and Charles D. Bishop as Treasurer. In May, the Liquidation Committee, appointed to take the prop- erty in hand and complete the sales, divisions and settlements, was 1 On the names United Brethren, Brethren's Church, Brethren's Unity and Moravian Church see Chapter II, note i . 2 An amendment to the act, December 2, i88q, by decree of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, increased the number of Trustees to nine, the number of Elders from two to six and the elected members of the School Board from three to six, with the pastors, but no longer the other members of the Board of Elders, members ex officio. 688 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. formed. It was composed of C. A. Luckenbach, Jacob Rice and W. T. Roepper named respectively by the Trustees of the Congregation, the Proprietor and the Provincial Board. They finished their work and made a final report in May, 1852. As soon as the Act of Incorporation went into effect in the election of the first officers under the charter, the former financial system known as the Congregation Diacony was brought to an end and the wardenship ceased. The last Warden was the Rev. John C. Brick- enstein. The old Supervising Board, the Aufseher Collcgiuui, also came to an end, its successors being the Borough Council and the Trustees of the Moravian Congregation in the now separate domains of town and church business. The members of that former board had, for some years, been elected in sets for one year and two years annually in December. The final incumbents, with Administrator Goepp as President, Warden Brickenstein ex oiflcio a member and W. T. Roepper as Secretary, were the following: elected, December, 1849; Matthew Brown, Charles Knauss, John Krause, John C. Weber, with James Leibert, Henry B. Luckenbach and John M. Miksch holding over from the previous year ; and then their suc- cessors elected, December, 1850, for the remaining term ; Charles A. Luckenbach, William Luckenbach and David Weinland. One office that had always existed under varying organization was con- tinued — that of Almoners who subsequently were incorporated as the "Trustees of the Bethlehem Poor Fund," in order to legally hold and administer a small capital which, in the final settlement of affairs, was set apart to serve, in addition to the voluntary charity of the membership, for the relief of the needy. Another that ceased was that of Curator of the Sisters' House and the Widows' House ; the diaconies of these establishments having come to an end — that of the Widows' House not until 1848. The names continued to cHng to the buildings and they continued to be occupied as before, but with- out organized management and financial system. They became simply dwellings in which each occupant had her own private house- keeping. One of the last who exercised such supervision of affairs as curator was the Rev. William Eberman, who removed to Beth- lehem from Hope, Indiana, in 1841, to assume the ofifice, while at the same time actively engaged in a variety of other duties until he went to Nazareth in 185 1, to take charge of the wardenship. The Sisters' House and the Widows' House, together with the Old Chapel and other portions of the old historic mass of buildings, became a part of the portion of the Sustentation Diacony in 185 1, 1846 18/6. - 689 when the settlement of property was completed, and remained in its possession for some years, the Sisters' House even to 1893; the Beth- lehem Congregation having, in the division, made over to that treasury almost half of its estate after the large land-sale of 1847. As regards the Administration at Bethlehem and its remaining property which was now distinctly the property of the Church in Germany, the Rev. Philip H. Goepp continued in charge as Proprietor and Administrator until 1856, when he deeded the estate yet left to the Rev. Eugene A. Frueauff, with W. T. Roepper in charge as cashier until 1869, when the remainder was so disposed of by him that the business could be closed out, and the Administration came to an end. In this connection, before other matters are turned to, a few notes on the course of things with the Moravian Congregation during the years immediately following its incorporation may be added. Its entire membership at the close of that important year, 185 1, num- bered 1007 souls, an increase of 199 since 1845, when the Borough was organized.^ After the incorporation of the Congregation it became necessary to revise its rules and regulations in various particulars. The new rules adopted finally, August 28, 1851, and distributed in print, remained in force unaltered until 1890. The changes in the pastorate were the following: The Rev. C. F. Seidel retiring in December, 185 1, Bishop William Henry Van Vleck took his place as Senior Pastor with the Rev. Lewis F. Kampmann as Junior Pastor ; his place, until his arrival in May, 1852, being taken by the Rev. H. A. Shultz, a former pastor, then resting. Bishop "V^n Vleck died sud- denly on January 18, 1853. and the veteran pastor, Seidel, then in retirement, took the position once more for an interval until the arrival of the new pastor, the Rev. Samuel Reinke, who, from 1844 3 The population of the Borough had increased from about iioo in 1845, to 1500 by exact census at the end of 1850. An interesting count of the population by streets, December 29, 1847, is on record. It is as follows : Broad Street 334 Water Street, including Old Alley 74 South Bethlehem (Old South Bethlehem along the canal) 62 Cedar Alley 29 Main Street, including Boarding School 436 Market Street 124 New Street 118 Church Street 135 Total 1312 45 690 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. to 1847, lia*^l served as head pastor under the old org-anization. This his second term extended only from Alay, 1853, to November, 1854; Jtmior Pastor Kampmann remaining until September, 1855. After a temporary supply of the pastorate the Rev. H. A. Shultz and the Rev. David Eigler, who became bishops in 1864, took pastoral charge before the end of 1855, the first as "German preacher" and the second as "English preacher;'" experiments to meet difficulties resulting from the rapid ascendency of English having commenced. The first- named remained pastor until June, 1865, the last-named until October, 1864. Some changes made in the places of worship may also be noted. From 1816, when the exterior form of the church was greatly altered by running the gable roof out to both ends, no radical changes were made in the building until 185 1. In 1824, the clock-works had been taken out of the little bell-turret on the old school building on Church Street and transferred to the church, and in July, 1838, the spire on the belfry was shortened somewhat. In 1833, plans for improving the exterior casings of the windows were adopted and, in accordance with those plans, the present plaster block-work was then put in place. In 1838, improved Hghting facilities were introduced in the shape of thirty-eight oil lamps of the most satisfactory pattern to be found. They did duty until the introduction of gas, January 8, 1854. The Congregation Council, on February 6, 1850, adopted plans for a new pulpit and enlarged organ gallery, presented by a com- mittee composed of the Rev. C. F.Seidel; E. F. Bleck, the organist; Reuben O. Luckenbach and William Luckenbach. The new pulpit was designed by Bishop Van Vleck, who, on September 28, 185 1, preached the last sermon in the old one, perched high against the wall, which was then taken down and eventually conveyed to its resting-place in the garret where it may yet be seen. The alterations were finished in less than two months and on November 28, the Bishop preached for the first time in the new one which remained in use imtil 1867. It is now, as previously stated, doing dut}' in the South Bethlehem Moravian Church, to which building it was trans- ferred when his son, the present Bishop H. J. Van Vleck. ministered as pastor in that new sanctuary. In June. 1857. the old stone wall which surrounded the church-yard was removed to be replaced bv the present iron fence. In the spring of t86o. plans for collecting and properly arranging the library and archives in the up-stairs, east-end room of the church were officially discussed. In accordance with a resolution of the Provincial Svnod in 1861. the general archives 1846 18/6. 691 of the Church were consoHdated with those of the Bethlehem Con- gregation and were given a permanent home in that room, the Trustees of the Congregation defraying all the expenses connected with their preservation and increase up to the present time. In 1867, the most extensive alterations that have thus far taken place were made in the interior of the church. The little corner galleries at the east end were removed, the alcove and present pulpit were con- structed, the stairway at the south-east corner was taken away, the present gallery at the west end was built and the present pews were substituted for the loose benches then yet in use. The walls were frescoed, the present ground glass was put into the windows, heavy gas chandeliers, some of which are now doing service in the West Bethlehem Chapel, were hung and for the first time the floors were carpeted. It was re-opened with elaborate services on June 30, 1867, when the anniversary of the Congregation was celebrated. The inter- ior of the church remained in the shape into which it was then put until 1888, when another renovation of the frescoing and painting took place. The replacing of the original organ by the present one in 1873, has been referred to in a previous cha'pter. The present bell was hung in the steeple, October 23, 1868. The old one is now in use in the steeple of the West Bethlehem Chapel. The fiftieth anni- versary of the consecration of the church was specially celebrated on June 22, 1856. The Rev. C. F. Seidel, who participated, referred to his having preached in it directly after his arrival in America, six months after its consecration. ' The venerable Bishop Andrew Benade, who preached the first English sermon in the church on the day of its consecration, was yet Hving at this time, but was too feeble to attend the services. At the beginning of 1856, the Old Chapel, in which, during that year, some interior alterations were made, again became a regular place of worship. The organ at present in use in that chapel was built in 1859, and used the first time on June 28, of that year. Early in 1865, the interior of the building was entirely reconstructed, the present north facade was built, and its re-opening for worship took place, April 2. of that year. It remained unaltered until 1897. These notes complete all reference to these buildings that needs to be made. Yet another prominent enterprise of the ^loravian Congregation that lies within the period of this chapter and has given to Bethlehem one of its notable features, was the opening of the Nisky Hill Cem- etery. The first section of that tract, so finely located and well ada])ted for the purpose, was staked off to be reserved as a cemetery 692 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. in August, 1849. J^^i^ plan from the beginning was to use a portion of it for interments in the manner followed in the old cemetery, and to lay out the rest to be sold in lots in the customary way. With the exception of that part of Nisky Hill which was sold to the Lutheran and Reformed Congregations as a Union Cemetery in 1850, with an addition in i860 — the first interment in which was made July 7, i85i^no actual use of any ground was made there in pursuance of this project until more than a decade later, when the rapid filling up of the old cemetery and the expressed desire of many residents for a general cemetery led to the execution of the plan. The first inter- ment was made on May i, 1864, and the first adult member of the Moravian Church there laid to rest was the Treasurer of the Congre- gation, Matthew Krause, November 20, 1865; the man who was the original projector of the enterprise, its chief advocate and most energetic promoter. Many years of careful effort, with progressing improvements and repeated extensions made by the Trustees of the Congregation, have resulted in one of the. most attractive cemeteries in the Lehigh Valley. Both the natural agreeableness of the locality and the care bestowed upon every part of it, soften to a degree not common in places of burial, the marks of contrast between the rich and the poor there met together ; a contrast which is entirely invisible in the historic old cemetery of Bethlehem, where row had been added to row of green mounds, all alike, for it was a "God's Acre," nearly a full century and a quarter before the new one was opened. The period during which the complete re-organization of the Mora- vian Congregation was in progress constituted an ecclesiastical epoch in Bethlehem also in the fact that the beginnings of other denomin- ational reUgious work in the town lie in those years. These begin- nings can suitably be introduced at this point. It was natural that the variegated accretions of population added to the original Church of the town a variety of denominational types in a few years. Before the time to which this chapter runs had been reached, congregations representing nearly all of these variations had been organized in Bethlehem. It was also natural, in view of traditional associations and the principal denominational surroundings, that the Lutheran and Reformed Churches should be the first to organize among the new residents of Bethlehem; and that the first church built in the place that was not a Moravian church should be one of the union churches of these two bodies, which had become so numerous about the country. Therefore the first modern church edifice in Bethlehem was Salem Church on High Street, which was built bv these two 1846 1876. 693 denominations, was used by them jointly until 1869, and stood until the present structure, on its site, took its place in 1886. The Rev. Joshua Jaeger introduced stated Lutheran preaching at Bethlehem in October, 1849, in the "Armory," now the Market House, on Broad Street. On December 9, he preached in the Moravian church, on invitation of its clergy. The Lutheran pastor, Wenzel, of Heck- town, also officiated in the Armory on December 2. Services by pastors of Reformed churches of the neighborhood began on Decem- ber 2}^, 1849, when the Rev. J. C. Becker, D. D., ofifiiciated in the Armory. On January 13, 1850, the Rev. J. S. Dubbs, D. D., preached in the Moravian church. On December 26, 1849, the Rev. J. W. Richards, D. D., Lutheran, the Rev. Dr. Becker, Reformed, in con- sultation with the Rev. H. A. Shultz, of the Moravian Church, drafted a constitution for the proposed "Union Church," which contained a clause giving Moravian ministers also the privilege of preaching in it. Sundry members of the several denominations living in Beth- lehem were present on that occasion. They met in the Moravian school-house on Cedar Street. That constitution was adopted, August 24, 1850. Previously, on November 6, 1849, two building lots had been granted on ground-rent to the appointed applicants, John Berger and John K. Dech, together with Josiah George, who had joined the Moravian Church. The purchase of the site was made by Joseph Hess and John Nace, Trustees, on June 18, 1850, for $133.34, and an annual ground rent of $8, which latter was remitted in 1853. The corner-stone of the church was laid on Sunday, September i, 1850. The forenoon service in the Moravian church was held earlier than usual to enable all to attend the cere- mony who wished to do so, for it was a notable event. There were services in the forenoon and in the afternoon, the former seriously interfered with by rain but the latter attended by a great throng of people. Of Lutheran ministers, Pastors Jaeger, Richards and Stern ; of Reformed ministers, Pastor Becker and Candidate Santee ; of Moravian ministers. Bishop Jacobson and the Rev. Messrs. Goepp, Shultz and Seidel participated in the services, and the Moravian church choir rendered an anthem and led the congregational singing. In the stone were deposited, besides the customary kind of a docu- ment, a Bible, the constitution and hymnal of the Union Church, the svmbolical books of the two denominations and, at the suggestion of the Lutheran and Reformed ministers, a Moravian hymnal and catechism. That occasion which marked the beginning of denom- inational diversity at Bethlehem, was indicative of the position taken 694 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. by the best spirit of Protestantism in the matter of relations ; that of concord without interference with distinctive standards. It was a reminder of historic efforts to reaHze this position as far back as the Consensus of Sendomir, in 1570. That corner-stone of Salem Church was a witness to something which deserves to be remem- bered. Easter Day, April 20, 1851, was settled upon by the church officers for the consecration of the church. The pastors of the neighborhood could not absent themselves from their churches on that day and therefore, by special arrangement, the dedicatory services were taken charge of by the Moravian ministers Seidel and Shultz. At the afternoon service Pastor Becker and Candidate Santee were present and the Lutheran clergy were represented by the Rev. S. K. Brobst, D. D., of Allentown. The musicians of the Moravian Church again rendered service. The festivities were continued on Easter Alonday, when, besides the ministers just named, the Rev. Dr. Dubbs and Bishop Van Vleck participated. The first Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem was the late Rev. C. F. Welden, D. D., who preached his introductory sermon on November 16, 185 1. He served in this pastorate until 1865, when he was succeeded by the Rev. J. B. Rath. The first Reformed pastor was the Rev. J. C. Becker. D. D., who preached his introductory sermon on July 20, 1851, and his final sermon, October 21, 1855. His successor, after an interval of tem- porary supply, was the Rev. D. Y. Heisler and he was followed by the late Rev. L K. Loos, D. D., who began his labors in December, 1866, and with pastor Rath, was serving in 1868. when the two congregations decided to separate, the Lutherans acquiring sole possession of the church by purchase. Then the Reformed congre- gation erected Christ Church on Center Street. The corner-stone was laid, on June 6, 1869. The basement was opened for worship, January 15, 1870. and the edifice was consecrated. December 22.1872. Dr. Loos remained pastor until 1888, when, with a colony of the membership, he organized St. Paul's Church on December 4. Their place of worship at the corner of High and North Streets was com- menced in December. 1889. the corner-stone being laid on the 15th of that month. The church was consecrated. February 15, 1891. A further important evolution from Salem Church was the for- mation, in 1872 — when the Lutheran congregation had quite out- grown the capacity of the church — of a separate English congre- gation, and the erection, on Broad Street, of the second Lutheran church in Bethlehem, which was given the name Grace Church. WILLIAM CORNELIUS REICHEL CHRISTIAN FREDERICK WELDEN AMBROSE RONDTHALER ISAAC KALBACH LOOS MICHAEL ANDREW DAY 1846 1876. 695 Preparatory work for the foundations of this new house of worship was commenced in July, 1872, the corner-stone was laid on August 25, the organization of the congregation took place on the anniver- sary of the Reformation, October 31, the basement of the edifice was dedicated January 5, 1873, remaining the place of worship until the final completion of the main body of the church and its conse- cration on January 4, 1874. The Rev. J. B. Rath cast in his lot with this new congregation and remained its pastor until his death in 1885 ; being succeeded in the pastorate of Salem Church by the late Rev. F. W. Weiskotten. These two Lutheran congregations and the Reformed congregation, which emanated from that beginning of 1851, have become, next to the Moravian congregation, the strongest in Bethlehem. At the same period in which services were commenced in Beth- lehem by Lutheran and Reformed pastors, a quite different type of church activity appeared, which also represented historic relations to the Moravian Church, recalling the association of John Wesley and Peter Boehler more than a century before, as well as the sojourn in Bethlehem in the days of the Revolution, of the English soldier- preacher, Captain Webb, who went into the pulpit in military uniform instead of ecclesiastical vestments — the first Wesleyan organizer in America of a great host of aggressive gospel champions. It was in 1848. when occasional prayer-meetings were first held at a private house in Bethlehem by preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, serving the AUentown and Quakertown circuits ; up to 1853, the Rev. Joshua H. Turner, the Rev. David R. Thomas, the Rev. M. A. Day and the Rev. W. H. Brisbane. Mr. Thomas commenced stated preaching in 1849. in the Odd Fellows' Hall* in the building on New Street long occupied in subsequent years by George Wahl and now known as "The Brighton." The first of these men who preached in the Moravian church was the Rev. W. PL Brisbane, on March 7, 1852, but several of them occasionally delivered addresses at temperance meetings in the Old Qiapel — then vet called the concert-hall — and on these occasions 4 The first in Bethlehem of the so-called secret societies — an unfortunate term indiscrimi- nately applied to widely diverse organizations, from Anarchists to the most commendable beneficial orders — were the Independent Order of Odd Fellows who, on November 24, 1842, instituted Keystone Lodge, No. 78. They encountered ecclesiastical objection at first, not because of anything inown to the discredit of the order but because of objection, on general principles, to '■ secret societies." The aforesaid hall on New Street was dedicated by the Lodge, November 7, 1846. 696 A HISTOKV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. they and the Aioravian pastors of that time, who supported the much needed efforts of the temperance organization," were brought into association together as early as 1849. The Rev. Samuel Irwin, who began to preach in Bethlehem in 1853, brought about the establishment of a congregation of the Methodist Church, and the erection of a place of worship on Center Street. The corner-stone was laid on July 13, 1854. The church was dedicated, January 7, 1855, and received the name Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. The first public collection towards building the second church which now occupies the site was taken in the Moravian church, when Bishop Simpson preached there on March 12, 1865. The corner-stone was laid, September 11, 1869, and in November, the building was under roof. The basement story was formally opened for Divine service, January 30, 1870. The upper story was finally completed and consecrated, July 11, 1875. About three years after the incorporation of the Borough, min- isters of the Evangelical Association also found a nucleus among German-speaking people who desired their services, and a regular preaching-place was established at Bethlehem in 1848, by the Con- ference of that denomination within the territory of which the place lay. Their principal preacher of that time who visited Bethlehem was the Rev. J. Kramer. He also was invited to preach in the Moravian church. Their services were held for some time in Odd Fellows' Hall, alternating with those of the Methodist ministers. On November 17. 1853 — the Rev. F. Krecker filled the Bethlehem appointment that year — a Board of Trustees was elected and incor- poration was secured later under the title of "The St. John's Church of the Evangelical Association." They laid the corner-stone of their first church at the corner of New and North Streets on June 5, 1854. Its dedication took place at Christmas of that year. Bishop Jacobson, of the Moravian Church, preached one of the sermons. The church which now stands near that site was built in t88o, being consecrated December 19 of that year. From the work there 5 Penn Division of the Sons of Temperance was organized at Bethlehem in 1843 ^"d se- cured official permission to have temperance meetings in the Old Chapel. As early as March, 1845, the records refer to negotiations on their part for a lot on Broad Street for a hall. Some years later Temperance Hall is often alluded to. "Penn Section No. 3, Cadets of Temperence" was organized among the boys about 1863. While objection was expressed by some both clergy and laity, to the intemperate and unreasonable utterances of some extremistSv the beneficial results of this movement at that period in many quarters were recognized by right-minded people at Bethlehem. 1846 1876. 697 centered, the several organizations of the Evangelical Association, in its present two divisions which now exist in the community, emanated during the last two decades of the century. The next Church, in point of time, to begin work in Bethlehem was the Roman Catholic, the first public service of which was held in the Odd Fellows' Hall on March 11, 1855; r.lthough a priest from a neighboring town seems to have ministered at a private house already in 1854. The Church of the Nativity of our Lord was built on Union Street in 1856, and so far completed that the first service was held in it at Christmas of that year. There, both the German and EngHsh-speaking Roman Catholic population of the vicinity worshiped until 1863, when their first church on the south side of the river, which will be mentioned in another connection, was built. The next in order was the Protestant Episcopal Church. On Nov- ember 24, 1854, Bishop Alonzo Potter preached in the Moravian Church. The Rev. Mr. Osgood, of Easton, read the service on that occasion. During the summer of 1855, the Rev. Mr. Christman, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Latimer, a member of St. Stephen's Church, of that city, for many years a visitor at Bethlehem, read service in the hotel parlors several times, and other visiting clergy officiated occasionally in Temperance Hall. Such ministrations continued at intervals and, on August 28, 1859, Bishop Samuel Bowman preached in Citizens' Hall, which had been opened in 1856. The leading resi- dent members of this Church lived on the south side, where the first regular services by lay-readers were instituted and the first organi- zation was effected. The beginnings on that side of the river which have not yet been treated of must be anticipated here in bringing all the church activities of that period into connection. On Christmas Day, 1862, Bishop Potter again visited Bethlehem and officiated at a service in the parlor of the "Bethlehem House" — previously, and again subsequently, the "American House" — and on May 8, 1862, Bishop Stevens conducted service and preached in the Old Chapel of the Moravian Congregation which was later tendered for the stated use of the Episcopalians of the vicinity. They had services there and in the chapel of the Parochial School with considerable regularity for more than a year after July, 1863. On Maundy Thursday, March 24, 1864, Bishop Potter administered confirmation in the Old Chapel. A few vears after the parish on the south side was founded and the Church of the Nativity was built, to which more definite reference will be made in sketching South Bethlehem beginnings, some of its members commenced a branch work in Bethlehem. A Sundav-school 698 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. was opened in April, 1869, by the late H. Stanley Goodwin in the Wall Street school-house, and from that beginning arose Trinity Church on Market Street. The corner-stone of that church was laid on August 29, 1871. The basement story was opened for Divine service on January 16, 1872, and was consecrated, January 29, by Bishop Howe. A separate parish was organized in April and legal incorporation was secured, January 25, 1873. The first distinct rector of Trinity Church was the Rev. Charles Morrison. The finished church was consecrated April i, 1880. The beginning of Presbyterian activity at Bethlehem took place on the south side and will be mentioned more particularly later on. The first congregation there took the name "The Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem." Some of its leading families lived on the north side, where an affiliated Sunday-school was opened. The First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem was organized in the Young Men's Christian Association building, November 14, 1875. Services were held at a private residence on Broad Street until, on February 14, 1876, a little meeting-house, built on Union Street a number of years before, for the establishment of a congregation of the United Brethren in Christ, which came to nought, was first occupied as the place of worship. It continued to be used until the dedication, April 7, 1878, of the church on Centre Street, erected largely through the generous aid of the Rev. G. W. Musgrave, D. D., of Philadelphia, and for some years commonly called Musgrave Chapel. The first located pastor, the Rev. Alexander D. Moore entered upon his labors at the beginning of April, 1876. and remained until August, 1891. The first Baptist organization in Bethlehem took place, as records show, on April 6, 1869. Services were held at a private house and then for some time in a hall above the former smith-shop of the Rices on the west side of New Street, between Market and Broad. The Rev. E. Packwood, of Allentown, fostered the work during those years, until the first stationed pastor, the Rev. L P. Meeks, took charge. The lot on which the church stands at the corner of New and Lehigh Streets was secured in 1872, and on Sep- tember 17 of that year, a temporary structure spoken of as the "wigwam" was opened for services at the place. In October, 1873, work was commenced at the foundation of the church, but the financial panic of that time caused a long delay. The corner-stone was laid, October 15, 1874. The building progressed slowly until the basement story could at last be occupied and it was used in an unfinished state some vears until finallv the entire church was com- 1846 1876. 699 pleted and dedicated, February 3, 1884. The regular organization of the Mennonite Brethren in Bethlehem, whose place of worship, Ebenezer Church on Laurel Street, was dedicated, November 10, 1888, dates from 1884. They erected a "tabernacle" on Garrison Street, in that year, worshiped later in Citizens' Hall, and then built another temporary structure at the corner of Centre and Goepp Streets in the autumn of 1885. In February, 1887, the Rev. W. B. Musselman became their temporary minister. He officiated in a temporary chapel on Main Street, south of Fairview Street, until the erection of the present church. This may suffice in the way of refer- ence to new church beginnings in Bethlehem after the incorporation of the Borough. A few items of general religious activity, not strictly denomina- tional, during the three decades covered by this chapter deserve mention. On June 23, 1847, the first appeal of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association, through its canal-boat missionary, the Rev. William Hance, in behalf of evangelistic work among the boatmen on the Lehigh Canal, was favorably acted upon by the Moravian clergy. Not only did the stated collections for that Association, which have continued to this time, commence then, but personal work among the boatmen who tied up at Bethlehem and Freemans- burg over Sunday was luidertaken. October 20, 1850, the Rev. William Eberman, who took an active interest in this cause, officiated at the first Sunday afternoon service held for those men in a room over Knauss and Borhek's store in Old South Bethlehem. Other people living in the vicinity and up the canal attended, and the considerable number of neglected children belonging to such families led him to open a Sunda}'-school there in February, 185 1. This work was for a while so promising that the idea was officially entertained of building a chapel for its accommodation, somewhere about the foot of A'inevard Street. The interest was afterwards allowed to flag and no chapel was built, although, in June, 1856, after the erec- tion of a little school-house across the Monocacy, it was revived. There students of the Theological Seminary also began, in 1859, to keep praver-meetings and, on May 6, i860, opened another Sunday- school with thirty scholars. That was the beginning of the present WVst Bethlehem Moravian Sunday-school. The interest in the canal-boat mission led to the revival of the Tract Society at Bethlehem which had become defunct. When the agent of the American Tract Society, the Rev. Reuben Weiser, a great- grand-son of the famous Conrad Weiser, visited Bethlehem in 700 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. October, 1850, the organization was resuscitated on the 7th of that month, and on the nth a new constitution was adopted. It was participated in by ministers of all denominations at Bethlehem dur- ing the subsequent years. The first tract depository was opened, March 22, 1851, in a room in the Sisters' House known as the sales- room, where in former years, even back to Revolutionary days, the handiwork produced by occupants of the house was disposed of to visitors. Then came a revival of organized activity in the interest of Bible distribution. The Bible Society formed thirty years before had sunk into decadence. The new movement occurred in Novem- ber, 1852, and was also participated in harmoniously by ministers and laymen of the several denominations. This time it was directly auxiliary to the American Bible Society. A regular organization was formed, March 24, 1853. For a number of years annual meet- ings and collections for the cause took place on Thanksgiving Day. Pastor Welden, of the Lutheran Church, was for some time one of the zealous and energetic leaders in this branch of activity. More conspicuous among such general movements, was, however, that of the Young Men's Christian Association epoch in the following decade. Marked enthusiasm was awakened by the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Young Men's Missionary Society on September 7, 1865. At a reunion of its members on that occa- sion, imder the inspiration of the new Y. M. C. A. impulse of those times, the idea of a more developed institutional center for young men, in a building constructed and equipped for the purpose, was broached. Out of that arose the first such Association at Bethle- hem and its building — the structure on Main Street adjoining the present Moravian Publication Office on the north. A committee of twenty-one was constituted to develop the project, which finally took tangible shape in March, 1867, when the Rev. Edmund de Schweinitz — who had succeeded Bishop Bigler in the Moravian pas- torate in October, 1864, and was at this time in the midst of his well-remembered influential and fruitful labors in Bethlehem, where he was consecrated a bishop with the Rev. Amadeus A. Reinke in 1870 — reported as chairman of the committee that the Rev. Francis Wolle, Principal of the Seminary for Young Ladies, had, in behalf of the Trustees of that institution — the Provincial Elders' Confer- ence — offered a site on Main Street for the proposed building. Plans of procedure took shape and their further working out and execu- tion was undertaken by a smaller committee of five. On April 2, thev reported enough money secured to begin operations. On AUGUSTUS WOLLE CHARLES WILLIAM RAUCH MAURICE CHARLES JONES DAVID HENRY BISHOP JACOB BOEHM RATH 1846 fSy6. JO I May 17, work was commenced at the spot, the excavation for the foundations being performed by volunteers among the young men. On August 25, 1867, the corner-stone was laid with appropriate services and two days later the constitution and by-laws were adopted. Liberal assistance was given by many people of Bethle- hem and in due course of time the building arose and was finished. Its formal opening and dedication took place, Saturday and Sunday, March 21-22, 1868. Although the separate organic existence of the Young Men's Missionary Society continued, their interests were to some extent merged for a time. The museum of the latter, enriched on July 2, 1868, by a gift of two hundred mineral specimens by Air. Samuel Wetherill and later by the loan of Schuessele's celebrated oil painting, "Zeisberger preaching to the Indians," besides other new acquisitions, was transferred to the new building, and its library was consolidated with a nucleus from other sources® under the control of the new^ Association — in all two thousand volumes. The reading- room and library were on the second floor and the hall for meetings, 6 A committee appointed by the previously long-existing Bethlehem Library Association formulated, January 14, 1868, to report for adoption on the disposition of its books, a reso- lution to the effect that they be put "into the keeping of the Y. M. C. A. of Bethlehem," with the condition that the unsuitable books be retained and the members of the Library Association have the use of the Y. M. C. A. library " free from any charge or demand annual or otherwise therefor." This paper written and signed by Francis Wolle, Secretary, has on the opposite side, in the handwriting of W. T. Roepper, the following : " At a Gen- eral meeting of the Bethlehem Library Association held, January 20, 1868, the written report of the Committee was unanimously accepted and adopted, in witness whereof the members present have hereunto set their signatures with the additional, passed at said meeting, that in addition to the stipulations of the within report this Association reserves the right to withdraw the library from the keeping of the Y. M. C. A. of Bethlehem whenever a majority of the Library Association shall deem expedient so to do." The following auto- graph signatures are attached : W. T. Roepper, J. S. Krause, A. H. Rauch, . R. W. Leibert, E. F. Bleck, R. W. Leibert, Adm. Est. C. L. Knauss, Jedediah Weiss, Joseph A. Rice, for Josephine C. Rice, John C. Weber, Maria E. Kern, B. F. Caffrey, Francis Wolle, for Young Ladies' Seminary, John Krause, Adolph Degelow, Augustus Belling, Paulina L. Doster, M. C. Jones, Charles F. Beckel, Henry B. Luckenbach, Augusta E. Crist, James T. Borhek, J. F. Erwin, J. T. Borhek, one of the Executors F. L. Traeger, of H. Guetter, B. E. Lehman. 702 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. with a seating capacity of about three hundred,, was on the third floor. The Hbrarian was Dr. Valentine Hent, until January, 1875, when he was succeeded by J. T. Davenport until 1878. The build- ing and furniture cost about $15,000. The new organization did enthusiastic and valuable work during the first years of its existence. Its strength was afterwards impaired by influences inimical to denominational co-operation, by the loss of some of its most devoted supporters and by some elements of internal weakness which could not withstand the reaction of first impulses which inevitably comes to try every organization. Even- tually, like many another Y. M. C. A. which loses its hold on the interest or confidence of those in the community who could sustain it amid financial embarrassments, it sank under a remnant of debt. In 1878 its institutional work was closed and on December 12, 1881, it formally disbanded. Then the Young Men's Missionary Society again went on its way alone. It came into sole possession of the library which continues to have quarters in the building, along with its museum. It may be added, to complete these notes on Christian Association work at Bethlehem, that in 1890, a new attempt to establish a Y. M. C. A. was made and the next year a Young Women's Christian Association was formed out of the previous Girls' Reading Room Association. The efforts did not, however, under changed conditions, appeal sufficiently to people of the town, with interest centered upon other forms of activity, and before 1898 both organizations were defunct. A cursory survey of the school work may follow. When the Rev. H. A. Schultz retired from the principalship of the Seminary for Yoimg Ladies in 1847, he was succeeded by the Rev. Herman J. Titze. The latter was followed in August, 1849, by the Rev. Sylves- ter Wolle, who remained in charge until 1861, when his place was taken by the Rev. Francis Wolle, who was Principal until 1881. In 1850, by action of the Congregation Council on July 25, the long- standing connection between the girls' day-school and the Young Ladies' Seminary was brought to an end. The "first class" of day- school girls who had been attending the Seminary were, together with a few girls from families not connected with the Moravian Congregation, formed into a senior or "select" class in charge of Miss Caroline Bleck, on October 23, 1850. It was quartered in a room of the Seminary building of 1790, which stood on the present Parochial School premises. It was formerly spoken of as the new Kindcrhous (children's house) in distinction from the original Sem- 1846 1876. 703 inary, the ■"bell house," which was called the old Kindcrhaiis. The school for smaller girls under Miss Frederica Traeger, kept tirst in 2\Iatthew Christ's house and then in the Sisters' House, was trans- ferred, in April. 1851, to another room in the stone building occu- pied by Aiiss Bleck's school. The boys' school remained in its former quarters in the school house on Cedar Street. Francis WoUe, who had been teaching the first class of boys for several years, was succeeded, in the summer of 1851, by WilUam C. Reichel, until February, 1852, when the latter became teacher of natural science in the Young Ladies" Seminary and was followed temporarily by David Z. Smith and then, in April, by Herman Ruede until 1858. Matthew Christ and his wife were yet connected with the Parochial Schools and he continued until after the new epoch of 1858. Mrs. Theodora Beear also remained one of the teachers of younger girls and boys until 1855. Others were Airs. Lydia Rice, at intervals, 1849 to 1855; Josephine Fenner. 1853 to 1855, when she was succeeded by Harriet Fuehrer; Lucia Benade, who followed CaroHne Bleck in 1854, and Augusta Stoltzenbach, who had charge of the new department, from 1855 to 1857, and a few years later taught again for a while. Wise provision had been made for the Parochial Schools in the charter of the Congregation, the benefit of which began to be real- ized after the Liquidation Committee finished its work in 1852. Financial obstacles to the betterment of school facilities had disap- peared and on December 13, 1855. the Congregation Council resolved to "recommend to the School Board an inquiry into the condition of the Parochial Schools with a view to the development of a plan or plans for the material improvement, both internal and external, of said schools." A committee was appointed by the board, the following March, to prepare a report in pursuance of that resolution. The scheme reported and approved led to two important results. One was the erection of a new school house of sufficient capacity and the other was the consoHdation of the boys' and girls' schools of all grades in one organization under a Superin- tendent. The Congregation Council having, on December 11, 1856, declared in favor of these steps, it was resolved by the Board of Trustees at a joint meeting wath the School Board. January 12. 1857, to "appropriate the lot of ground on which the stone school house now stands and as much more as may be needed for the pur- pose of erecting thereon a suitable school house and out-buildings, not to exceed in cost the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, this amount to cover the fixtures and arrangements," etc. A btiilding 704 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. committee was appointed, composed of two Trustees, Henry B. Luckenbach and Ambrose H. Ranch, the latter succeeded by C. A. Luckenbach; two School Directors, James T. Borhek and Francis Wolle, the place on the committee of the latter being taken later by his successor as Elder and ex-officio School Director, John C. Weber; and the Treasurer of the Board of Trustees, Matthew Krause. A plan of the proposed building was adopted by the School Board after certain alterations, February 24, 1857. In March the services of the R'ev. Ambrose Rondthaler, of York, Pa., were secured as Superintendent. He arrived in July, when the new build- ing was in course of erection. The school departments that occu- pied rooms in the old stone building had been temporarily removed to the west-end rooms of the church in April, the persons who lived in other rooms of the house had been furnished quarters elsewhere and the vacated structure had been demolished in May. The old corner-stone, lifted from its place on May 22, was relaid in the new building. When it was removed and the box of deposits was taken out of it, a venerable woman, the sole survivor of the girls who had belonged to the old boarding-school at the time of the re-organiza- tion in 1785, was present. This was Johanna Maria Heckewelder, familiarly called "Aunt Polly Heckewelder," daughter of the mis- sionary John Heckewelder. It was ascertained that seven of the pupils of 1790 whose names appeared on the document in the stone, were yet living." To the regret of all, Miss Heckewelder was pre- vented by illness from being present when the old stone was placed in the south-west corner of the new building with prayer and praise on May 27. The old document, well preserved, was replaced in the stone and with it was deposited a new one of the usual character on which the names of the church authorities, general and local, the building committee and the teachers and scholars of the Paro- chial Schools in 1857 were engrossed. The finished building was formally opened and its chapel on the third floor dedicated, Febru- ary 15, 1858. The teachers, besides the new Superintendent, were at that time Herman Ruede, Matthew Christ. Lucia Benade, Frederica Traeger, succeeded <"liat year by William Brown, Harriet Fuehrer, Mrs. Cornelia Blank and Augusta Belling. In Aaigust 7 Salome Fetter, widow of Dr. Eberhard Freitag, Anna Rosina Kornman, wife of William Rauch, Anna Dorothea Warner, wife of Jacob Blum, Elizabeth Kampmann, widow of Bishop William Henry Van Vleck, Agnes Bininger, wife of Abraham B. Clark. Dorothea Sophia Reichel, wife of the Rev. Charles F. Seidel. and Margaret Catherine Vriehuis, of St. Jan, W. I. 3! CO m -0 > 1846 18/6. 705 of that year, Charles Edward Kummer, an able and suc- cessful instructor, long connected with the school, first as senior teacher and then as Superintendent, entered as the successor of Herman Ruede. The only surviving members of the faculty of 1858 at this writing are Mr. Kummer, residing at Medford, Mass., and Miss Fuehrer, now Mrs. B. F. Caffrey, of Bethlehem. Of their predecessors one remains, Miss Fenner, now Mrs. Samuel S. Warner, of Bethlehem. The first janitor of the new building was William Lelansky, who continued to serve until 1889. The former boys' school house was at once remodeled as a dwelling for the Superin- tendent. It was so used until 1890. After that stride forward the school entered upon a notable period of prosperity and efficiency. The Rev. Ambrose Rondthaler was a man of high attainments, a born teacher and an enthusiastic worker. During the period of thirteen years in which he had charge of the Parochial School he held conspicuous rank among the educators of the Lehigh Valley. Benjamin Van Kirk, who, as stated in the preceding chapter, pur- chased Bleck's Academy in 185 1, had laudable aspirations with that popular institution. In 1855, he purchased a site in the eastern part of the Borough at the edge of what was indefinitely called Nisky Hill, and there erected a large building in which he re-organized the school as Nisky Hill Seminary. But reverses came through his protracted illness at a time of general financial depression and the enterprise languished. An attempt was made to continue it by other persons who rented the property, but it did not prosper and in 1858 it passed out of existence. The following year Mr. Van Kirk entered the Young Ladies' Seminary as an instructor in mathematics and Latin, and remained in connection with that institution in various capaci- ties, from 1866 as Vice-Principal, until beyond the period embraced in this chapter. With Van Kirk's Academy was connected, first as student and then as teacher, one who subsequently opened another of Bethlehem's educational institutions which for many years enjoyed well-merited favor. This was Charles H. Schwartz, who in 1857 erected a commodious building on High Street and in it, August 3 of that year, opened his Academy, which may be regarded as the legitimate successor of Bleck's and then Van Kirk's Academy. In 1871, the Rev. Ambrose Rondthaler rented the property and con- ducted the institution a few years until his retirement from active life. Mr. Schwartz then resumed control, conducting it partly as a school preparatory to Lehigh University until 1889, when physical 46 706 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. infirmity compelled him to retire from the profession of teaching and the institution was closed. In 1858, as stated in a note in a previous chapter, the Executive Board of the Moravian Church purchased the Nisky Hill Seminary property, and, after the build- ing had been remodeled, the Theological Seminary was re-opened in it, August 30, 1858. The Rev. Lewis F. Kampmann became President. It was re-organized on an elaborate plan, as the Mora- vian College and Theological Seminary. Under this title it was incorporated by act of Legislature, approved, April 3, 1863. The District School situation, for want of exact records at hand in detail, appears somewhat nebulous and obscure between 1845 ^^^ 1850. Several schools existed in which the contract to keep a given number of months free school was combined with the privi- lege of also taking "subscription scholars" when the free school was not open. James Edward Knauss figures first, for several years, as the master of such a school, with Elizabeth Carrick in charge of an adjunct, besides a primary school in another house under his supervision. In 1850, Valentine Hilburn was on the scene. He was in charge, with Anna M. Reich, Maria Loesch and Susan Spinner assisting, when the disjecta membra of the free schools were collected and organized in the first pubhc school house built in Bethlehem in 1853, on Wall Street, where the George Neisser School House now stands. In 1855 appears the name of M. W. Carroll as head teacher, to 1858, followed by David Merrick, to March, 1859, ^^"^^ then, temporarily, by Benjamin Van Kirk, to Octo- ber, 1859, when he entered the Young Ladies' Seminary, Abraham Kindt, chosen to succeed Merrick, having withdrawn. An incident of 1858, that year of notable activity and advance in the educational work of Bethlehem, was the first general meeting of teachers, on December 31, in Citizens' Hall — brought about principally through the efforts of Herman Ruede, then editing the newspaper of the town — to form a "Union Teachers' Association." One old school- master of the time who took special interest in the movement, Emil F. Nimsch, entered the service in 1858 and continued until 1865. In i860, I. L. C. Miller began to teach in Bethlehem, as did also George Charles Rieser. From 1862 to 1869 appears the name of William N. Walker, who, after then serving a term as County Superintendent of Schools, was the first man elected (1872) as dis- tinctly Principal of Bethlehem Schools, with larger prerogatives than belonged to the position of any of the previous head teachers, although some of them were also called principals. In 1865, Daniel ^ 2 1846 1876. yoy E. Schoedler was elected to this position, as it then existed. Two more of the prominent and well-remembered pedagogues of those years were A. A. Campbell, who began to teach in 1866, and Gottlieb C. Souders, who entered in 1867. The latter being a man of some musical ability and fond of singing, generously offered to drill the boys and girls of the schools in vocal music gratuitously and with- out interference with other school work. This was an offer which the School Directors found it easy to accept. '* In 1865 the rooms in the Wall Street school house had become inadequate, and in Sep- tember, the use of the basement of St. John's Evangelical Associa- tion Church was secured for one school year, to accommodate the overflow, while the need of a new and much larger school-house began to be discussed. A site was purchased in 1866 at the north- east corner of North and Center Streets, but steps towards actual building operations were not immediately taken. Meanwhile, the Trustees of the aforesaid church declining to further rent the base- ment for school purposes, the Board of Directors, in the summer of that year, purchased and fitted up a building at the corner of Garri- son Street and Long Alley to serve the immediate need. January 6, 1869, the Directors decided to proceed in the matter of erecting a new school house "commensurate to the needs of the district;" this meaning, to the minds of some, a building not only large enough but of a quality and appearance that would do' honor to the town. Their aspirations in this respect were eventually attained by very slow steps, in the face of considerable opposition and with an expen- diture of over $66,000 in the completion of Franklin School House, which was formally opened and dedicated on September 30, 1871. This was the beginning of a new era for the public schools of Beth- lehem. Lifted then to a higher plane they have steadily progressed.^ 8 Besides those mentioned above, the names of the following women and additional men who for longer or shorter terms served as teachers in the public schools between 1855 and 1 87 1, given in the general order of succession in which they first appear, may be noted, without claiming perfect accuracy and completeness for the list : Louisa C. Cole, Helen Cole. Amanda A. Bast, Rebecca S. Ritter, Sarah E. Spinner, Anna B. Schmich, Alice Kidd, Frederick A. Welden, Sabina Wolle, Ellen Ritter, Lizzie J. Weaver, Jacob Nickum, Emma J. George, Clara V. Reich, Gertrude Wertz, Lizzie Teussig, Olivia Mease. 9 The School Board, in January, 1869, were Rev. D. F. Brendle, President; Charles N. Beckel, Secretary ; William Leibert, Treasurer ; Augustus Wolle, Dr. J. H. Wilson, C. E- Kummer and Anton Hesse. The Building Committee of 1869 were Augustus Wolle, D. F. Brendle, J. H. Wilson and 708 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. In connection with these references to the schools of Bethlehem during the thirty years embraced in this chapter, it is proper to allude to the efforts of those who endeavored to foster the various refinements of general culture in the community, even amid untoward conditions at some periods. Although, at times, the influence of men who attach no value to any interests or activities beyond those covered by the word business, bore down hard on the town, there were always more people than in most Pennsylvania communities of like size who welcomed what the men of literature and science, the musicians and the artists had to dispense. Older residents of Bethlehem will recall the laudable exertions of the Young Men's Missionary Society at different periods, the proprie- tors of Citizens' Hall when it was in its best days, and the Young Men's Christian Association, for a while, to provide instruction and entertainment of an elevating character for the people of the place, by means of courses of lectures and concerts. In these efforts, home talent sometimes met the demand to a surprising extent, especially during the fifties and sixties of the century, while the financial possi- bility, then and later, of engaging high-priced lecturers and high- class musicians from elsewhere, bringing men of distinction in various lines to Bethlehem, was creditable to the community. Although the Philharmonic Society retrograded somewhat after its achievements referred to in the preceding chapter, and for some years did not add any specially notable performances to its record, it again came to the front in ministering to the musical tastes of the people during the second of the three decades covered by this chapter. Two conspicuous names connected with its history then, in addition to those already mentioned, deserve a place here. Prof. Theodore F. Wolle, who figured among the young musicians of Bethlehem from 1847 to 1852, returned after an absence of thirteen years, and then, until his death in 1885, held a front place in music Charles N. Beckel, the place of the last-named being taken in June by his successor in the Board, Charles B. Daniel. The successor of Mr. Beckel as Secretary was Mr. Kummer. Mr. Brendle resigned and Charles Augustus Luckenbach was elected to fill the vacancy and succeeded Mr. Leibert as Treasurer, while Mr. Wolle became President of the Board, which was composed, when the new building was finished, of A. Wolle, President; M. H. Snyder, Secretary; C. A. Lucken- bach, Treasurer ; C. E. Kummer. C. B. Daniel and A. Hesse. The following was the staff of teachers elected in July, 1871 ; A. A. Campbell, G. C. Souders, J. Nickum, Chas. H. Cline, Edward Cressman, Robert Lyttle, and the Misses Olivia Mease, Sarah Spinner, Ellen Ritter, Elma Chandlee, Emma Ritter and Virginia Huebener. The first janitor of the Franklin School House was Herman Schippang. BETHLEHEM VIEWS From Paintings by Grunewald 1846 1876. 709 as a teacher in the Seminary for Young Ladies, as organist and choir-master of the ^Moravian Church — succeeding Prof. Ernst F. Bleck — and in connection with the Philharmonic Society. There are many of his remaining musical associates and people of Bethle- hem generally, who will concur in the tribute due him in these pages. Closely associated with him for twenty years was one who entered the Seminary as professor of music in 1864 and is still con- nected with that institution. Prof. William K. Graber, organist and choir-master of the Church of the Holy Infancy in South Bethlehem. When the Philharmonic Society was re-organized in 1869, he became its conductor, and by his assiduous efforts brought its work to a standard which stood in widely acknowledged credit. His lead- ership is inseparably connected, in the minds of those who remem- ber them, with the numerous enjoyable performances of the organi- zation during the years of revival that followed.^" Another tradition of Bethlehem in the cultivation of accomplish- ments was perpetuated in that it did not cease, after it became a borough, to have those among its educators who delighted in work with the pencil and brush. There had been such at all periods. No relic remains of the work of Zinzendorf's artist, John Jacob Mueller, who furnished the first temporary adornment for Bethlehem's original chapel in the Community House, but many are the portraits and representations of Bible scenes painted in oil that were left by good Valentine Haidt. One of the treasured views of Bethlehem is the work of Nicholas Garrison, Jr. Others were produced by George Fetter, of later times, who also preserved the lineaments of many a revered face in water-color portraits ; which latter filial task was, likewise early in the nineteenth century, performed for the pos- terity of many a one by Bishop Samuel Reinke, when he was yet a young man. Gustavus Grunewald, who came to Bethlehem in 1 83 1, taught drawing and painting in the Young Ladies' Seminary, from 1836 to 1866, and returned to Europe in 1868, painted many pictures in oil, of scenes in and about Bethlehem, which remain to his credit and that of the school and town. More than one person in the place also possesses treasured specimens of the handiwork of two of his prominent Bethlehem pupils One was Reuben O. 10 In denying himself the pleasure of extending the mention of individuals among the singers and players on instruments to others of those years who ministered conspicuously to the enjoyment of music-loving people, the writer yields to the conviction that the space which can properly be given to this subject, as well as the limits of discretion, in view of their being so numerous and so recent, would be exceeded by its indulgence. 710 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Luckcnbach, who succeeded him at the Seminary as the drawing and painting-master of troops of girls and even kindly and patiently tried to teach some clumsy theological students to draw. The other was the Rev. William C. Reichel, who was an artist as well as a student of nature and, in his day, the chief writer of local and neighborhood history. Rufus A. Grider, in sundry pencil and water- color sketches now in the Moravian archives, preserved from oblivion the form and appearance of various historic buildings and picturesque places about the old town that have disappeared or have been altered beyond recognition. Another more prominent Beth- lehem artist, D. C. Boutelle, executed some work in oil which attained a distinct reputation, even among the critics, and is prized by those who possess pieces ; and sundry paintings by his son, Edward Boutelle, are preserved by Bethlehem people as creditable products of local talent." Many interesting pictures of buildings and places about Bethlehem made during the years here in review, existing in the form of lithograph, steel-plate or wood-cut, to be found in collections or as illustrations in the pages of publications, were the work of artists from other places. An easy transition from education and culture to more material business activity may be made in some reference to the press of Bethlehem, historically within the compass of this chapter, for viewed in different aspects it lies in both of those domains. It is a remarkable fact that Bethlehem had no established printing-press prior to 1830, when Henry Held, son-in-law of Joseph Till, the shoe- maker, who sold vinegar and was dubbed "Vinegar Till," began to do printing, in which occupation his better-known sons, the brothers Julius W. Held and William Held, were also later engaged. After the early achievements of John Brandmiller, the first printer in the Forks of the Delaware, referred to in a former chapter, and a little " This by no means completes the list of those who might be mentioned among teachers and amateurs. One of the valuable sketches of Bethlehem localities now greatly changed, South Main Street, east side from the church up towards Market Street, half a century ago, was made by the late Bishop A. A. Reinke and has been recently reproduced in tints by the Rev. Eugene Leibert, of Nazareth, whose choice rural views in water colors are in much repute. It is among the collections of such matter in the archives, which possess several specimens of local interest from other sources, one of these being a portrait of the old organist, John Christian Till, by H. E. Brown. The largest number of pictures there gathered, in the line of local topography and notable scenes, are, of course, products of the photographer's art, in more recent times, from the days of Osborne, Kleckner and Stuber to the present skillful professionals and amateurs diligently adding to the town's store. MAIN STREET, 1862 West Side East Side 1846 1876. 711 work done at Bethlehem lor a brief season by the famous Henry Miller on one of the small presses which he transferred from place to place before he settled in Philadelphia, all the Bethlehem printing was done by contract elsewhere, until the advent of the Helds. Prior to that time, miscellaneous job printing was not a branch of business which the authorities of Bethlehem would have deemed it desirable to have carried on in the town. In order to make it profit- able the degree of discrimination in the kind of work permissible, which they would have insisted on, could not have been observed, and the Moravian printing was not sufficient to incur the expense of maintaining a printing office. The first Moravian publicatioti ofificially issued at Bethlehem was a quarterly, "The United Brethren's Missionary Intelligencer and Religious Miscellany — Published quarterly for the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United Brethren." It was founded in 1822, continued until 1849, and was printed in city offices. It was edited by Moravian clergy and its first printer was John Binns, of Philadelphia. Its successor was a monthly called "TJie Moravian Church Miscellany;' from January, 1850, to Decem- ber. 1855. This was- both edited and pubhshed at Bethlehem, the printer being Julius Held, with Herman Ruede, teacher at Bethle- hem, but printer by trade, performing the functions of office-editor and proof-reader during part of its latter period. Its several editors were Moravian clergymen. The first local newspaper was a Ger- man bi-weekly called Die Biene (the Bee), undertaken by Julius Held and then continued in partnership with his brother, William Held, in 1846, with Dr. Abraham L. Huebener as editor. The first num- ber appeared, January 3, 1846. It was not a political paper nor to any considerable extent a mere chronicle of town and neighborhood happenings. Its purpose, as it announced under its heading, was "the propagation of the Kingdom of God, the advancement of pure morals, the improvement of educational work and the dissemination of useful general knowledge." It dealt, to a large extent, with Moravian Church affairs and missions, pubhshed many articles in the domain of natural history, advocated temperance reform, contained much interesting historical matter, treated of the most important events of the period — it being at the time of the Mexican War — and contained the advertisements of sundry Bethlehem business men. Dr. Huebener bought out the Held brothers in 1848, and became sole owner as well as editor, but it did not prosper financially, and at the end of 1848, he was compelled to suspend publication. The next in order Avas The Lehigh Valley Times, a weekly with more of the 712 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, general character of a village newspaper, founded by the late veteran editor,- Captain Edward H. Ranch, who removed to Beth- lehem from Lancaster in 1852, and established the paper. It dealt freely with political affairs and continued to be published until 1857 — during the latter part of this time by Gangewere and Masslich, as it seems, who in the autumn of 1856, attempted the publication also of a German bi-weekly under the name Ackcrbau Zeitung. What rela- tions may have existed with the publishers of the Easton Free Press at that time is not made quite clear by a paragraph of a correspondent in an issue of the next Bethlehem newspaper, T/i(? Advocate, on March 12, 1859, in which he refers to The Lehigh Valley Times as having "flourished a number of years" and then been "transferred over to the Easton Free Press, leaving Bethlehem without a newspaper." The first number of the weekly Bethlehem Advocate was issued, October 9, 1858, by Herman Ruede, editor and pubHsher. The existence of this paper was also brief. In 1861 it had ceased and in its place, The Lehigh Valley Times had reappeared, published by J. D. Laciar. How long it continued has not been ascertained. Mean- while the publication of The Moravian had, at the beginning of 1859, been transferred from Philadelphia to Bethlehem. This was a weekly paper which, by action of the Provincial Synod of the Moravian Church, had taken the place of the monthly Moravian Church Mis- cellany. Its first number was issued, January i, 1856, at Phila- delphia.^^ Herman Ruede, who had published The Advocate, became the printer of The Moravian and remained in the office until 1865, when Amos Comenius Clauder succeeded him. Subsequently associated with the latter was his brother, Henry T. Clauder, who after the death of the elder brother, in 1868, became his successor, as pub- lisher. The printing ofifice was removed, at the end of October, 1865, into apartments in the rear of the store of Wolle, Krause and Erwin, on Main Street, with its entrance from Market Street. There it remained until transferred to the new Publication Building, March 6, 1871. when the Rev. H. A. Brickenstein was Secretary of Publications. The book-store had been removed to the adjoining- Y. M. C. A. building not long after the completion of that structure in 1868. In the new pubhcation 12 Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, then pastor in Philadelphia, the Rev. L. F. Kamp- mann and the Rev. F. F. Hagen were jointly its first editors. Its printer, to the end of 1858, vfus Wm S. Young, 50 North 6th Street, Philadelphia. The Moravian Publication Office and book-store were at 241 Arch Street, Philadelphia, until removed, at the close of 1858, to 37 Broad Street, Bethlehem. 1846 1876. yiT) office were then concentrated, before the end of 1871, the printing office, the book-store and the old bindery, in charge of Anton Hesse. They have all remained in that building to the present time. In 1866, the publication of the new German Moravian Church paper called Dcr Brucdcr Botschafter, and at first issued bi-weekly, com- menced. It had been preceded by a monthly, from 1854 to 1861, called Das Brueder Blatt. Later periodicals issued from the Mora- vian Publication Office at Bethlehem are The Little Missionary, starttd in 1 87 1, and Der Missions Freund, 1889.^^ On January 27, 1866, was printed on the press of The Moravian, the first number of The Beth- lehem Chronicle, a new secular weekly, successor of The Lehigh Valley Times. Its publishers were D. J. Godshalk and Wilham Eichman. The latter withdrew six months later and D. J. Godshalk and Co. continued to publish it as The Lehigh Valley Chronicle to the end of the first year. Then, on February 4, 1867, they issued the first number of the first daily newspaper attempted in Bethlehem, The Daily Times. In 1869, the late Owen B. Sigley, who had worked in the offices of The Moravian and The Daily Times, founded, with the co-operation of several leading men on the south side, under the firm name of Owen B. Sigley and Co., The Weekly Progress, with Daniel E. Schoedler, previously connected with the Bethlehem public schools, as editor. Another weekly. The Northampton Conservative, started September 30, 1868, by M. F. Gushing, had an ephemeral existence on the south side. On April 3, 1871, The Progress began to be issued as a morning daily ; Th-e Times having, from the first, been an evening paper. In April, 1872, The Morning Progress estab- lished its office in the new "Anthracite Building," with Charles Hol- land Kidder as its new editor. In March, 1874, the paper passed into the hands of C. O. Ziegenfuss, previously connected with the Times, who secured control of the consolidated weekly, Spirit of the Times and Northampton Educator, that had been issued for a while from the office of the Daily Times, and named it The Weekly Standard. For a short time in April, 1874, the Times and Progress united their fortunes, but before the end of that month the Times resumed its distinct character on the north side, and the south side paper ceased. Subsequently appeared The Star, first, January 18, 1877, as a morn- ing dailv started by A. F. Yost, then as a weekly and then as an evening dailv, of which D. J. Godshalk, founder and first editor of 13 T//e Moravian and LiU/e Missionary continue to be published at Bethlehem ; the Brueder Botschafter and Missions Freund, since 1898, at Watertown, Wis. JACOB LEWIS DOSTER BENJAMIN EGGERT CHARLES AUGUSTUS LUCKENBACH JAMES GOTTHOLD LEIBERT HENRY BENJAMIN LUCKENBACH 1846 1876. 7^5 officially laid out and named up to 1858, have all been mentioned. On December 20 of that year, the Borough Council, for the first time, made the names of ten of the existing alleys official. The report of the committee which was adopted describes them as they yet exist with the names they now bear. They are, in the order given, Goundie's, Rubel's, Cunow's, School, Gas, Long, Guetter's, Raspberry, Steinman's Alleys and Spruce Alley, declared a street. Cedar Alley was first erected into a street, April 15, 1867. During the decade following the incorporation of the Borough, notwithstanding the disappearance of so much that was unique and the substitution of so many ordinary town ways, there was yet enough about Bethlehem of the former attractions for city people, that it continued to be a favorite summer resort, with its hotels usually filled during "the season." Of these there were, prior to i860, six in Bethlehem and at the canal, varying in their character from those most pretentious, catering to gentility, to those which wefe quite like the better sort of village and cross-road taverns so numerous about the country. The old Sun, after an unsuccessful attempt by the Moravian Congregation authorities to get the consent of the voting members to its sale in 1849, ^^^ finally sold in 185 1 to C. A. Luck- enbach, who disposed of a part interest to John Anderson, of New York, after which it was enlarged and refitted. In 1856, opened the administration of one of its most famous proprietors, James Leibert, who deceased in October, 1863. The following spring, the property was sold to Rufus A. Grider. who, in 1868, disposed of it to Charles Brodhead, its present owner. The Eagle, so long conducted by Caleb Yohe, did not pass into other hands until 1874, when it was purchased by George H. Myers, closed for extensive improvements, from April to July of that year, and then reopened by its lessee, George Hoppes. a well-known landlord previously of the Gettysburg Springs Hotel and formerly of the Mansion House of Mauch Chunk. The Anchor Hotel at the canal, for which, in July, 1845, a second lease for five years had been made to Andrew McCarty, and which, about 1850. received its next name, the South Bethlehem House, finally came into the hands of Herman Fetter, whose name, as that of a far-famed host, became permanently connected with it. The Pennsylvania House, built early in the fifties by George Steinman, on the south side of the canal — the present Keystone House — had as its first landlord George Meitzler, and, in 1858, Mr. Barnes. The next vear its proprietors, Leidy and Gernet, succumbed to financial stress. In April. 1861, Jesse Miller, of Mauch Chunk, began to dispense hos- 7l6 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. pitality there, and in 1862, its proprietor, George Steinman, was one of those whose property suffered from the raging flood to which refer- ence will further be made. The American House, one of the numerous buildings erected in the early fifties by John J. Levers — for two terms during its first decade in charge of Job Pharo, and then given the name Bethlehem House for a few years until its first name was restored — was purchased, early in 1861, by Israel O. Dissosway of Staten Island, a former New York Custom House official. It was conducted for a while by his two sisters as a select boarding-house, and then, in 1862, was enlarged and fitted up by him as a regular hotel. The next year it passed out of the hands of Mr. Dissosway into those of George Schweitzer, of the Union House, at Broad and Centre Streets, where, already prior to that time, entertainment for man and beast had been furnished. The many "summer guests," who in those years strolled about the environs of Bethlehem, seeking such picturesque' spots as industries and freshets had spared in their old beauty — the era of modern man-made attractions had not yet dawned — always found the Island — then, with reason, called Catalpa Island, previously and again since, without reason, called Calypso Island — one of the most charming resorts. Already before i860, the fleet of pleasure-boats controlled by Henry Fahs and his sons yielded a modest revenue and this more classic mode of conveyance had a monopoly until, in 1873, Wier's rope ferry began wholesale business between the north bank and the Island. Then, in 1874, steam navigation opened when, in Jvme of that year, the Calypso, plying between that resort and the south side — predecessor of the Lotta, remembered by more persons — was "christened" in the regu- lation Christ-profaning manner of naming merchant-vessels, battle- ships, steam-boats, yachts, tugs and dredges. The new business enterprises which appear upon the scene during the decade following the incorporation of the Borough, are so numerous that a detailed reference to them would hardly be expected and would not be prac- ticable. Two that were slightly out of the ordinary lines, founded before the borough history began and not yet alluded to, may be mentioned. One was the piano-factory,. which ceased to exist soon after the time to which this chapter runs, and. by many present resi- dents of Bethlehem, not known to have been for many years one of the industries of the town. John Christian Till, the organist, who was both a musician and an expert in fine cabinet-work, made sundry pianos : one of his latest contracts being to place one in the parlor of each of the hotels, the Sun and the Eagle. In 1830, the establish- 1846 1876. 717 ment of a piano-factory was had in mind in connection with negotia- tions for the lease of ground by George Haus, at the south-east corner of Broad and New Streets. In 1837, John Christian Mal- thaner, a piano-maker from New York, encouraged by C. A. Luck- enbach to settle at Bethlehem, came to the place with his family and had his first home and shop in the stone house at the west side of the grist-mill, which was then Mr. Luckenbach's property. He was among those who were driven from their houses by the flood of 1841. For a while he then occupied quarters in the Old Economy house on Main Street. He had brought with him from New York an unfinished piano, which was the first instrument he turned out at Bethlehem. It is still in existence and is not yet beyond being used. In 1842, he applied for lot No. 23 on the east side of New Street, near Broad. There, after all the agreements and stipulations about the building and other matters then yet required, had been arranged, he erected a suitable structure and opened the widely-known factory which he carried on until his death in 1873, after which his sons con- tinued it some years longer. The other establishment referred to was the copper and brass-working shop and subsequent brass- foundry, opened in 1832 by Ernst L. Lehman, well known in his day among the musicians and leading citizens of Bethlehem, like his son and successor, the late Bernhard E. Lehman, who became the owner and occupant of the premises at the north-west corner of Market and New Streets. From there he transferred the foundry and shop, in 1864, to the south side, and developed them into the substantial industry so long known under his name, and yet existing among the establishments that, in the course of fifty years, have taken the place of the more quiet agricultural activities which had been supplying so large a part of Bethlehem's subsistence for a hundred years. CHAPTER XVIII. Three Decades of Progress Continued. 1846— 1876. The town of about fifteen hundred people that had grown up, at the period last referred to in the preceding chapter, on the farms across the river; the smoke of furnaces, the rumble of mills, the shriek of locomotive whistles and the rushing of railway trains up and down the valley had for some years attracted attention, as the most conspicuous product of the new era that opened after the incor- poration of the Borough of Bethlehem. The bulk of the land sold by Administrator Goepp, in 1847, con- sisted of the four farms on the south side commonly spoken of as "The Fuehrer Farm," embracing the nearer portion of what is now called Fountain Hill and its north-eastern descent to and including the premises of the old Crown Inn; "The Luckenbach Farm," adjoin- ing it to the east and extending down the river ; "The Jacobi Farm," which lay south of this one along the sloping- upland to the base of the mountain, from about the present Five Points eastward far down into the heart of the town; and "The Hofifert Farm," stretching off to the south-west, over the farther part of Fountain Hill, down to the Emmaus Road and up to the present premises of the hospital and Bishopthorpe School and beyond to the Fountain Hill Cemetery.^ The original Hoffert farm-house stood far up the hill-side, a short distance north of east from Bishopthorpe. The Fuehrer farm-house was the Crown Inn. The Luckenbach farm-house near by, a little east, was replaced in 1849 by a brick house, which vwas eventually made to do duty as a railroad office building. The little stone house of the Jacobi farm is yet standing, with modern alterations, at the corner of Brodhead Avenue and Fourth Street. Excepting the buildings pertaining to those farms and several of the old log cabins. I Those who desire a more complete and exact delineation of the metes and bounds of those old farms, from the view-point of modern topography, will find it worked out with care in appendix 5 and map of The Croum Inn, by Wm. C. Reichel, 1872. Their par- tition and the conveyances of portions to different parties during the first years after their sale are also there set forth in detail. 718 1846 1876. 7^9 the only improvements within their bounds when the great sale was made in 1847, were those under way for the famous Hydropathic Institute — or in the sterling EngHsh of plain folk, the Water-Cure — projected in 1843, ^^Y Franz Heinrich Oppelt, who had come from Europe ; a man of former Moravian connection, which he resumed at Bethlehem. In June, 1843, lie wrote to the Supervising Board of the village : "The excellent water of the Lehigh Mountain and the prox- imity of Bethlehem, where patients could purchase or have made all necessaries, and those less seriously aihng could also secure board and lodging, has awakened in me the desire to establish a hydro- pathic institute if I could buy the springs and the necessary ground." He secured the use, rent free, that year, of a little over two acres on the mountain side which he began to improve and then purchased in April, 1846. Soon after that, he opened the Water-Cure, which acquired celebrity, not only as a sanitarium for invaUds, but also as a delightful summer-resort, with its magnificent view to the east and north. It was visited, at times, by people of note. The locality got the name Oppeltsville, and beginning, September 22, 1850, when Bishop Van Vleck ofBciated there the first time, stated services were held there by the Moravian clergy of Bethlehem for a few years, during the months when numerous guests were sojourning at the place. In 1845. Daniel Desh had purchased somewhat more than an acre, just across the river, on the west side of the road near the bridge, wdiere the old ferry house stood, and in 1846, another piece west of that, up the hill where the large railroad office buildings now stand. With the exception of these several parcels previously secured by Oppelt and Desh, the entire body of land included in the four farms conveyed to Philip H. Goepp.in 1847, was, soon after that, sold by him, to Charles Augustus Luckenbach, to whom the deeds were made on April i, 1848. The latter did not long retain possession of the whole. In the spring of 1848, he sold the entire Fuehrer farm to Daniel Desh. whose previous purchases lay in that tract, and a little more than 103 acres embraced in the Jacobi farm to Joseph Hess. The entire Hofifert farm was also disposed of in parcels to Charles and Oliver Tombler and F. H. Oppelt. In 1850 and 185 1, the Tombler purchases were conveyed, in part, to Daniel C. Freitag, but the larger portion to Augustus Fiot. of Philadelphia, who added a tract of wood-land — another purchase — and established an attractive country-seat, which he named Fontainebleau. This, after passing through other ownerships, became eventually, with the Freitag pur- 720 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. chase, the property of Tinsley Jeter, who thus, by successive pur- chases, acquired the entire Hofifert farm, apart from what was owned by Oppeh. In 1854, Daniel Desh disposed of his holdings — the Fuehrer farm — to Rudolph Kent, of Philadelphia, who sold ten acres, embracing the site of the old Crown Inn, to the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company and laid out the rest in town lots, covering the whole of east and north Fountain Hill. In 1852, C. A. Luckenbach, having, for the time being, retained the Luckenbach Farm, east of the former inn along the river, planned a town-plot which he named Augusta. He disposed of sundry parcels to different purchasers, the largest, upwards of 97 acres, to Charles W. and Ambrose H. Ranch, in 1854. In the summer of that year, Charles Brodhead purchased the Jacobi Farm, 103 acres, of Joseph Hess, and the portion of the Luckenbach Farm held by the Rauchs, enlarged the tovv^n plot and gave it the name Wetherill, in honor of John Price Wetherill, of Philadelphia. In 1855, however, Mr. Brodhead reconveyed to the Messrs. Rauch the tract purchased of them. Meanwhile, operations had commenced on a portion of the former Luckenbach Farm that were indicative of what that vicinity on the south bank of the river was to become. A strange mineral in the Saucon Valley that had attracted attention for more than twenty years, was examined in 1845, by William Theodore Roepper, of Beth- lehem, and by him first ascertained to be calamine — the hydro-silicate of zinc. An association, formed to mine and work the deposit, secured a site oji the Luckenbach tract for the necessary buildings, the first of which were erected in 1853, and, on October 13 of that year, produced there the first white oxide of zinc. The buildings were burned out in the following December but were soon restored, and operations progressed. May 2, ,1855, the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company was incorporated. Samuel Wetherill and Charles T. Gilbert had charge of the works from the beginning to September, 1857. In 1854, and the year following, Mr. Wetherill experimented in another building, near by, until he succeeded in producing the first spelter or metallic zinc, but the problem of cheap- ening the process to the extent of making it practicable remained to be solved. In 1859, Joseph Wharton, who managed the works from September, 1857, to September, i860, contracted with Belgian experts for the construction of works to manufacture spelter, and for their operation. This was successfully inaugurated in July, 1859. ^^ may yet be added, to complete this reference to the famous zinc works, that the third department of manufacture was introduced in 1865, JOHN LERCH DANIEL DESH SAMUEL BRUNNER JAMES ALEXANDER RICE JACOB LUCKENBACH 1846 1876. 721 when, in April, the first sheet zinc rolled in America was produced. The corporate title of the company was changed in i860, to The Lehigh Zinc Company. During the superintendency of Benjamin C. Webster, the largest steam-engine and pump in the country were put into operation, January 19, 1872, at the mines of the company at Friedensville. This great engine, named the President, has lately, after long standing idle, been dismantled, the ore being latterly all produced in the mines at Franklin, New Jersey. In 1881, the works were purchased by a new company called the Lehigh Zinc and Iron Company, the manufacture of spiegeleisen from some elements of the ore being added to the operations. Other activities of more extensive connection, and locally more revolutionizing, were in progress along the south bank of the Lehigh. In the very year with which this chapter opens, April 21, 1846, was chartered, by act of Legislature, "The Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company," modified in title by supple- mental act, January 7, 1853, to "The Lehigh Valley Railroad Com- pany." With this enterprise — the natural outcome of the pioneer activities in the anthracite coal regions half a century before, treated of in the preceding chapter — one name stands connected, pre-eminent in the modern development of the Lehigh Valley ; the name of Asa Packer. In 1852, the main line of this railroad was located, from Easton to Mauch Chunk, and work was commenced in November of that year, under Robert H. Sayre, Chief Engineer. The greatest change it wrought near Bethlehem was along the river bank west of the bridge. The picturesque resort around "the big spring," at the foot of the blufif across from the eastern end of the island, was ruined. The spring, yet remembered by many, was kept open and curbed with stones for a number of years, reminding people of the old-time beauties of the place. But now, for many years, it has been choked and buried under successive dumps of cinder and broken stone.- The last week in April, 1855, the rails were laid along the river east of the bridge. On June 4, the first .locomotive passed Bethlehem, between six and seven o'clock in the evening, and many people assembled to witness the novel sight; but not so many as gathered on June 9, when the first passenger car was drawn over the track bv the construction train. When the first passenger train passed from Easton to Allentown on June 11, it was given an ovation 2 There exists a sketch of the place as it formerly was, painted by Rufus A. Grider. 47 722 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. — nearly the entire population of the town turning out en masse. On September 12, the road was open for service to Mauch Chunk and, September 15, the first train of coal cars came down the valley. The first station and ofifice were opened in the brick house of 1849, on ^^^^ Luckenbach Farm, mentioned before, which was later (1864-1870) enlarged for additional office room. Two years after the consummation of that undertaking Bethlehem became the terminus of another railroad, built from Philadelphia by a corporation chartered, April 2, 1852, under the title "The Phila- delphia, Easton and Water Gap Railroad Company," which was changed the next year to "The North Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany." Its construction was commenced that year. Originally it was built to Freemansburg. The construction-train first ran through to that terminus, December 24, 1856, followed by the first passenger car, December 26. The first passenger train came through from Philadelphia, January i, 1857. In June the track was laid from Iron Hill to the new terminus on the south side at Bethlehem, and the first train ran through to this station, July i, 1857. A week later, the passenger trains stopped running over the Freemansburg section and all ran to Bethlehem. Then a station was constructed, in 1859, at the junction with the Lehigh Valley line, where the old ferry-house stood. The historic Crown Inn was doomed when the tracks of the North Pennsylvania line were located at the terminus, for it stood right in the way. The building was sold to David I. Yerkes for $30. He used most of its timber in building what was later called the Continental Hotel, on Second Street near New Street.-"' The site of the old hostelry is marked by a memorial stone placed as near the spot as possible, at the south-east corner of the platform of the union passenger station, erected for the joint use of the two roads in 1867, and opened on November 18 of that year. When the North Pennsylvania railroad was finished the era of the mail-stage from Bethlehem to Philadelphia and intermediate points closed. John David Whitesell, long proprietor of the old stage line in its latter days — the successor of his father, Andrew Whitesell — died at Beth- lehem, in 1854, while the railroads were being built, and was not permitted to see the new mode of conveyance inaugurated. 3 A writer later suggested that the name of the old inn which furnished timber for the new one, should have been retained, but perhaps Mr. Yerkes thought farther than the newspaper man, for did not the Continental Army and the Continental Congress supersede the Crown in the American colonies ? 1846 1876. 723 While these great enterprises were being planned, schemes for working iron at Bethlehem in a larger way than at the old Beckel foundry were afloat, prior to the establishment of a second foundry and machine shop by Abbott and Cortright on the south side in 1857. In April, 1849, the Supervising Board of the Moravian Congregation had under consideration an application for the purchase or lease of ground along the canal for an "anthracite furnace." The site in view was "between the Anchor Hotel and the east basin on the south side of the new road" (present Lehigh Avenue). Terms were dis- cussed, and in July it was resolved to sell the land "from the tavern to the aqueduct between the canal and the Monocacy, including the marsh meadow, on both sides of the new street, to Mr. Noble," for $2700, "reserving for Dosters and the Water Company" their rights along the bank of the Monocacy. The decision being subject to the concurrence of the Elders' Conference, failed to meet their approval, on account of the proximity of the proposed site to the Young Ladies' Seminary. Administrator Goepp, who favored the sale and believed that in course of time an unsuitable environment would inevitably crowd upon the school premises, broached the idea of ultimately transferring the institution to a new site on Nisky Hill, and then this and the cemetery project seem to have become for a while competitive schemes in official circles. There were among the people decided opinions for and against the sale of land for an iron furnace at that point and nothing came of it. In August, 1849, similar propositions by "the Messrs. Jones, of Philadelphia," and Samuel Lewis, of the new Allentown furnace, were considered, having sites farther up the canal in view, but did not result in an agreement. Mr. Lewis entertained the thought of purchasing "twentv acres along the canal from the upper basin north- ward." While such projects for new iron industries were further slum- bering, the actual beginning of the long-mooted railroad to run along the south bank of the Lehigh naturally suggested to men's minds that further such developments would arise on that side of the river. While various schemes were being talked of by the men already mentioned who had acquired the real estate on the south side, and by others, like Augustus W'olle, one of the enterprising and far- sighted men of the time, who also made considerable purchases while parcels on the Luckenbach Farm were first changing hands, a flutter was caused in the summer of 1854, by the circulation of a rumor that — as one record states it — "the LTnited States foundrv was to be 724 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. established south of the Lehigh at Bethlehem." A private chronicle of the time notes, in substantiation of the rumor, that "Mr. Charles Brodhead, a nephew of the Senator (^Richard Brodhead), had bought two farms" on the south side. The facts, as derived from first sources, are the following: During the years 1854 and 1855, Mr, Brodhead, having made the purchases of land on the south side already referred to, endeavored, through his uncle, Richard Brod- head, United States Senator, to secure the location of a government foundry on ■ the site of the former Luckenbach Farm. JefTerson Davis, then Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Pierce, favored the project and recommended it to the attention of Congress. The committee of the Senate reported in favor of it, but the plan failed to secure Congressional action on account of conflicting inter- ests in the matter of a location. Then the original mover was induced by Augustus WoUe to join with him in laying the foundation of another enterprise, which he and others had in view, and which eventually took the place of that one on the proposed site. Mr. Wolle had acquired possession of the deposit of iron ore known as the Gangewere mine and was proceeding to develop the property. He formed an organization to erect a blast furnace on the Saucon Creek, at the mine, and secured incorporation, April 8, 1857, under the name of "The Saucona Iron Company." He had, meanwhile, pur- chased the large portion of the Luckenbach Farm which Mr. Brod- head had conveyed back to Charles W. and Ambrose H. Ranch. Mr. Wolle was persuaded by Mr. Brodhead of the advisability of erecting the works south of the Lehigh at Bethlehem, rather than at the mine, and of having the Company authorized "to make and manufacture iron into any shape, form and condition, instead of limiting its output to that of simply a blast furnace." With Mr. Wolle's consent and approval, Mr. Brodhead drafted a supplement to the charter of the Company, embodying this expansion and changing its name to that of "The Bethlehem Rolling Mills and Iron Com- pany." This supplement became a law on March 31, 1857. Sub- scriptions were then started, the first subscriber being Augustus Wolle with the largest amount. The second was Charles Brodhead, and the next were Charles W. Rauch, Ambrose H. Ranch and Charles B. Daniel. All were Bethlehem men. These subscriptions, together with one by the Moravian Congre- gation, were all that were gotten for several years, in consequence of the financial crisis of the time. In 1859, efforts were renewed and in June, i860, the services of John Fritz, the noted iron-master. 1846 18/6. 725 of Johnstown, were secured to superintend the construction and then the operation of the works. The confidence inspired by this move resulted in the rapid raising of the required capital. On June 14, i860, the Company elected the first Board of Directors who, on July 7, organized with Alfred Hunt, President ; Augustus Wolle, Asa Packer, John Taylor Johnston, John Knecht, Edward Roberts, Charles B. Daniel and Charles W. Rauch, Directors; Charles B. Daniel, Secretary and Treasurer. The corporate title was again changed by Act of Legislature, May i, 1861, to "The Bethlehem Iron Company." Ground was broken for the first furnace, July 16, 1861, but then, in consequence of the outbreak of the Civil War, operations lagged and were not resumed with energy until the latter part of 1862. Fire to start the first blast furnace was lighted, January 4, 1863, and the next day the blast was put on. The rolling mill, com- menced in the spring of 1861, was finished in the summer of 1863. The first iron was puddled, July 27, and the first rails — for the Lehigh Valley Railroad — were rolled, September 26, of that year. The second furnace, commenced in May, 1864, was completed in March, 1867, and the first iron was drawn on the 30th of that month. The original machine shop was built and equipped in 1865, and the foundry in 1868. A furnace in process of construction by the Northampton Iron Company a little distance to the south-east of the new works and called The Northampton Furnace, was put into blast in Decem- ber, 1868, after this company had been merged with the Bethlehem Iron Company the previous September, and was afterwards known as furnace No. 3, in the succession of six eventually built or pur- chased. The erection of the large steel mill was commenced in September, 1868. The first heat of Bessemer steel was there blown, October 4, 1873, and the first steel rail was rolled, October 18. At this stage the plant stood at the period to which this chapter extends. Thus originated the enormous works which, after the lapse of thirty years, covered an area a mile and a quarter long and a quarter of a mile wide, having twenty-five acres of the space under roof, includ- ing the added works for producing government ordnance and armor- plate as well as the heaviest forgings and castings of every kind required on land and water. Erected and equipped at a cost of more than $5,000,000. containing among other notable features, manufac- tured at the spot, the largest hammer ever constructed, these works have fulfilled on a vast scale the thoughts of 1854, and have become famous beyond the bounds of the United States. The whole, from the first blast furnace to these latest magnificent achievements, was 726 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. designed, erected and pin into snccessfnl operation by the Company's first Chief Engineer and General Snperintendent, Mr. John Fritz, whom the men of his craft in Europe and America have united in according a foremost place among the great engineers of the world.* About the time when the first furnace of the Iron Company was being built, a period of much activity in the purchase of town-lots and the erection of buildings on the south side opened. In 1858, the Messrs. Charles Brodhead and Augustus Wolle, when making deeds for lots, began to designate the property as in "the southern addition to the Borough of Bethlehem." Both of the previous names, Augusta and Wetherill, were discarded and there seemed to be an anticipation of a time when a group of sundry Bethlehems would arise, prepar- atory to a yet more remote time when a natural and sensible develop- ment would consolidate them as one greater Bethlehem. Then the new town got its third name, Bethlehem South — this particular form distinguishing it from that section on the north side which was then yet commonly known as South Bethlehem. In '1865, the long-felt necessity of a borough organization led to action, and by decree of Court in August, such incorporation was authorized. The name South Bethlehem was chosen. The first borough election was held, September 19. 1865, at the Continental Hotel, with David I. Yerkes as Judge of Election. The first Burgess elected was James McMahon. The first Councilmen were Lewis F. Beckel, James McCoy, James Purcell, E. P. Wilbur and David I. Yerkes. In June of the next year, a separate post-ofifice was established with John Seem as the first postmaster. Already in 1864, in anticipation of a rapidly growing town, a few of the men who were prominently connected with the Lehigh "Vallev Railroad, the Bethlehem Iron Company and other important enterprises, and had established their residence in the new place, had, along with other foundation-laying movements, procured a charter of incorporation for a company to supply light and water 4 It is not the purpose of these pages to follow out the history of any of the great indus- tries nor of the churches, schools and other institutions of the Bethlehems that have come into existence in modern times, but rather to merely sketch their beginnings. More than this would not only require treatment of things outside the province of the writer, but would be impossible on account of the magnitude of the matter involved. Much of this, moreover, is recent and comprises facts well-known by all or easily obtainable from numer- ous sources, or is not yet settled into fixed shape in historical retrospect. These things may properly be left for writers of future years to compile, after they have receded farther into the back-ground like those which now stand anterior to the personal recollection and par- ticipation of present actors on the scenes. MERIT ABBOTT IRA CORTRIGHT SAMUEL WETHERILL JAMES THEODORE BORHEK BENJAMIN WILHELM 1846 1876. 727 to the town. It was named The Bethlehem South Gas and Water Company. The incorporators were E. P. Wilbur, Robert H. Sayre, William H. Sayre, John Smylie, James McMahon and H. Stanley Goodwin.^ They organized in 1867, with Mr. Wilbur as President, and Mr. Goodwin as Secretary and Treasurer and Bernard E. Lehman was elected Superintendent. Under his direction the original gas works were at once erected and the first gas was made before the end of that year. In the matter of a water supply, it is to be noted that, prior to this, Tinsley Jeter had con- structed a small reservoir to utilize the spring water above Fontaine- bleau, and laid pipes to supply some of the Fountain Hill residences, even down to the railway station, and that five years after the organ- ization of the above company, another called The Cold Spring Water Company was formed by the late Dr. G. B. Linderman, but its service did not extend beyond private requirements. The surviving company began to supply South Bethlehem with water by pumping from the river in 1875. Since that time its resources have been very much enlarged and another projected company. The Mountain Water Com- pany, secured a charter in 1894. The Fire Department of the south side had its beginning in the formation of the company called "Cen- tennial Hose, No. I," July 31, 1875. This was followed by "The Liberty Fire Company," May 3, 1876. "The Lehigh Hook and Ladder Company" was organized later — November 25. 1884. Others are still more recent. South side newspapers have been sufficiently referred to in treating of the local press generally in one connection. The educational work of South Bethlehem has grown from the most humble begin- ning to an extent and character of which its people may wath reason feel proud. When the Borough was incorporated, it contained the little brick school-house built in 1858, between the present Locust and Elm Streets, near the hne of what is now Packer Avenue, and another small one built in i860, in a field, some distance east of that and nearer the river. For a while an adjunct school was also kept in 5 The first three of these gentlemen, with the late Mr. McMahon, South Bethlehem's first Burgess, lived to see the extensive results which, at the close of the century, had issued from the various beginnings made in those years, in local enterprises as well as in the large general interests so intimately connected with the progress of the town and with which they have been so closely identified from the first. Their names have, from that lime, been inseparably connected with the great mining, manufacturing and transportation activities of the Lehigh Valley, as well as with the material advancement of South Bethlehem and with its educa- tional, charitable and ecclesiastical work. Mr. Goodwin was Burgess nearly twenty years. ^2% A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the grain-house of A. Wolle & Co., at the north-west corner of New and Second Streets." In 1869, the Penrose school-house was built on \'ine Street, and remained in use until replaced by the Central High School building in 1892. The next was the Melrose building, off to the east on the hill, at what is now the corner of Fourth and Poplar Streets. A High School was opened in 1872, in a room of the Penrose building, where it was continued until transferred, in 1886, to the Excelsior building on Fourth Street, erected in 1879, and enlarged in 1885. The Webster and Packer buildings have been erected since the consohdation and unification of the school-system of the Borough under a Superintendent in 1889, which was a very important and beneficial step. While the public schools of the south side were yet in the days of small things, the very year in which the Borough was incor- porated, there suddenly loomed up the prospect of a seat of learning which, like the great works of the Bethlehem Iron Company, has made South Bethlehem famous, even in far distant parts. In July, 1865, the announcement went forth that the Hon. Asa Packer pro- posed to crown his successful enterprises and public benefits in the Lehigh \'alley by founding, "in Bethlehem South," a great poly- technic institute ; to devote $500,000 and fifty-seven acres of land lying along the upper border of the new town at the base of the mountain to this purpose, and to call it the Lehigh University. Its story is well-known and may be read in many a publication. The munificent founder later added largely to the body of real estate and to the working endowment, with the purpose of making tuition in all departments free, and, in his will, left $1,500,000 of his estate to its use, with $500,000 as a library endowment. Others joined him in contributing to its equipment, adding ground, buildings and costly apparatus and endowing scholarships. His plan embraced provisions for literary, scientific and technical courses^ with the professions called into requisition in the surrounding region especiallv in view, as he contemplated the prospect of its further development : and with the young men of the Lehigh \"alley nearest his heart, as those 6 Three of the teachers, prior to and during the few years following the incorporation of the Borough, have been mentioned in connection with the Bethlehem schools — A. A. Camp- bell, C. H. Cline and Jacob Nickum. Some others were John D. Maughan, Griffith Perkin, George Getter, J. A. Campbell and the Misses Margaret Halpin, Sallie Bitters, Mary Naylor, Elmira Whitman. Yet another was'O. R. Wilt, the present Superintendent of the South Bethlehem public schools, the first incumbent of this office, elected in 1SS9. JOHN CHRISTIAN JACOBSON HENRY AUGUSTUS SCHULTZ CHARLES FREDERICK SEIDEL DAVID BIGLER SYLVESTER WOLLE 1846 1876. 729 he wished to benefit. Ground was broken, July i, 1866, to com- mence the erection of the original structure, which was given the name Packer Hall. Although not entirely finished, it was opened, March 4, 1869. Meanwhile, not waiting for satisfactory external appointments, a modest beginning was made with the work of the institution. The formal opening occurred on September i, 1866, with six professors, including the President, three additional instruc- tors and twenty-five students. The exercises took place in what was named and is yet called Christmas Hall, a building intended for a Moravian Church, and erected on a lot presented by Judge Packer for the purpose, but then purchased, together with the unfinished building, because it lay within the boundaries desired for the seat of the institution. Out of the work then organized, which was placed under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but in such a manner that it could develop on broad lines in the spirit and intent of the founder, has grown the splendid body of departments and courses, with their imposing group of buildings, now so familiar ac the Lehigh University.'^ The year following the opening of the University brought the inception of another educational institution on the south side, under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church, primarily at the instance of Tinsley Jeter who, in 1866, had become the owner of Fontainebleau. Conceiving that it would be a choice location for a girls' school, he broached this idea to Bishop Stevens who was favor- ably impressed by it. His tender of the property on favor- able terms for this pvirpose was formally accepted at a meeting of interested persons on December 11, 1867, and the necessary steps were at once taken. The school which, at the suggestion of the 7 The original Board of Trustees were — The Right Rev. William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., President; the Hon. Asa Packer; the Hon. J. W. Maynard ; Robert H. Sayre ; William H. Sayre; Robert A. Packer; G. B. Linderman, M. D.; John Fritz ; Harry E. Packer ; Joseph Harrison, Jr., with Robert A. Packer as Secretary and E. P. Wilbur as Treasurer. The faculty, when the opening took place, were the following: Henry Coppee, LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature, President ; the Rev. Eliphalet Nott Potter, M.A., Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy and of Christian Evidences; Charles Mayer Wetherill, Ph.D., M.D., Professor of Chemistry; Edwin Wright Morgan, LL.D., Professor of Mathematics and Mechanics; Alfred Marshall Mayer, Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Astronomy ; William Theodore Roepper, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology and Curator of the Museum. The Instructors were : George Thomas Graham, A.B., Latin, Greek and Mathematics; M. Henri Albert Rinck, French and German; Stephen Paschall Sharpless, S.B., Chemistry. 710 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Bishop, was called "Bishopthorpe" — the name of a country-seat of the Archbishop of York which had attracted his fancy — was opened, September 5, 1868, with Miss Edith L. Chase as first Principal.** Proximity of location suggests reference, at this point, to that beneficent institution, St. Luke's Hospital, so beautifully situated where once Dr. Oppelt's famous Water-Cure flourished. After the decline of the latter establishment and its purchase, in 1872, by James T. Borhek, it was sold by him to Tinsley Jeter, who had before possessed Fontainebleau. It was purchased of him in 1875, along with an adjacent tract, through the aid of gifts by Asa Packer and others, and conveyed to the Trustees of St. Luke's Hospital. Air. Jeter, the owner for a while of both of those picturesque hill-side properties, participated in founding both of the institutions there established ; having served with the rector of the Church of the Nativity, the Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, now Bishop of the Western Pennsylvania Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as the original committee to procure a charter, in 1872, for the "cottage hospital" which Mr. Whitehead had been zealously advocating as a feature of parish work. The charter extended ofBcial direction to include representatives of other Episcopal churches in the Valley. At the instance of leading men who became connected with the enterprise as Trustees, the base was broadened by an amendment to the charter in 1873, so that the selection of Trustees was not limited denominationally. The partici- pation of all the people of the Bethlehems and the surrounding region in its up-building was desired, just as its benign ministrations were to extend to people of all churches and of no church. In October, 1873, it was opened in a building that had been purchased and fitted up on Broad — then Carpenter — Street. South Bethlehem. On the 17th of that month the first patient was admitted. On May 24, 1876, it took possession of its new quarters, the Water-Cure property. There, through the further generosity of Judge Packer and of other large-hearted friends of the Hospital, its successive admirable build- ings were erected and gradually furnished in the course of vears. The efficient training-school for nurses was added, December i, 1884. The Ladies' Aid Society, organized, August 6, 1874, enlarged its valuable auxiliary activity, while the undiscriminating work of mercy employing a high order of medical and surgical skill and steadily 8 The first Board of Trustees were — besides Bishop Stevens and the local Rector, Rev. E. N. Potter — Dr. Coppee. President of Lehigh University, H. Stanley Goodwin, James Jen- kins, Tinsley Jeter, Robert H. Sayre, William H. Sayre and John Smylie. 1846 1876. ■ 731 growing — often extending beyond its resources in room and funds — has received loyal support from some churches, many industrial establishments, and very many benevolent persons of the Lehigh Valley. Yet another public enterprise that has taken possession of a portion of the old HofTert Farm, off to the west of the Hospital and Bishop- thorpe, is the Fountain Hill Cemetery. The company was incorpor- ated in June, 1872. The cemetery was dedicated, July 7, by a service at the site, in which Lutheran, Moravian, Reformed, and other min- isters participated, and the first interment was made, August 28, 1872. At that time all of the denominations which, since 1850, had organ- ized congregations or commenced services in Bethlehem were also represented in the new town on the south side. Some mention of several of them has been made in reviewing the beginnings of the Bethlehem churches, because of the intimate connection that existed. Several others were the fruit of efforts made by pastors and members of north side churches. The origin of the South Bethlehem churches which existed within the period embraced in this review may yet be given briefly in chronological order. On May i, 1859, a Sunday-school was opened in the first district school house on the south side by Miss Amanda Jones, a member of the Moravian Church in Bethlehem. This was the beginning of organized religious work south of the river. The following month, the first public services were held in that building by the Rev. Lewis F. Kampmann, President of the Moravian College and Theo- logical Seminary, assisted by several of the students. July 3, i860, a memorial signed by sixty persons, who hved south of the river, asking for the erection of a place of worship in Bethlehem South, was received and discussed by the Moravian Home Mission Society of Bethlehem. In September, 1861, the Sunday-school was transferred to the grain- depot at the corner of New and Second Streets, and services were held there with considerable regularity until the close of 1864, prin- cipally by the Rev. F. F. Hagen, a member of the Executive Board of the Moravian Church. In that grain-house a congregation was organized on Christmas Day, 1863. The population of the new town wdiich, at the close of 1861, was 947 persons, of whom 387 were mem- bers of the Roman CathoHc Church, had, as already noted, increased to about 1500 at the end of 1863. The corner-stone of the church — later "Christmas Hall," already referred to, which was sold unfinished to the Trustees of Lehigh University in April, 1866 — was laid, Nov- 732 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. ember 22, 1863, and its lower story was consecrated November 20, 1864. The corner-stone of the present church, at the corner of Elm Street and Packer Avenue, was laid, October 6, 1867, and its consecration took place, March 29, 1868. The first stationed min- ister was the Rev. Henry J. Van Vleck, who began his work on April 22, 1866. The congregation was German, but an English one in conjunction with it was organized, April 26, 1868, with twenty mem- bers under the Rev. J. Albert Rondthaler, as English pastor. Out of the latter undertaking proceeded the Presbyterian Church of South Bethlehem. Mr. Rondthaler and sundry English members — some of whom had previously been Presbyterians — transferred their connection to that denomination in 1869, and on April 29 of that year, organized, as such, under the name of "The Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem." Later developments on the north side have been related. The Presbyterian Church-edifice on Fourth Street, South Bethlehem, was commenced in 1870, began to be used unfin- ished in April, 1871, and on May 5, 1872, the first service was held in the main body of the church. The first services by bishops and clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Bethlehem and the lay services on the south side, prior to 1862. have already been mentioned. A Sunday-school was opened, May II, 1862, in the former North Pennsylvania railroad-station and in November of that year, steps towards building a church were taken, while services were being regularly held on the north side, as previously stated. The corner-stone of the Church of the Nativity, at the corner of Third and Wyandotte Streets, was laid on August 6, 1863, and significantly the first service in the church took place on Christmas Day in 1864. The completed edifice was consecrated by Bishop Stevens on April 19, 1865, a day made memorable by the funeral of the martyred President Lincoln, some of the clergy present on that occasion participating afterwards in the memorial services in the Moravian church of Bethlehem. The Rev. Eliphalet Nott Potter, who had been connected with the founding of the parish, as missionary in charge, became the first rector of the Church of the Nativity. On the site of the first church, with a portion of it retained, the present handsome edifice was commenced in 1885. The first service was held in the basement at Christmas of that year, and in the main body of the church, on Easter Day, 1887. The finished building was consecrated on All Saints' Day, November i, 1888. St. Marv's Chapel at Lechauweki Springs, where Mr. John Smylie, one of the earlv prominent residents of Fountain Hill, with others brought y^^^-T^^f^ ^ty^^^/y y^y". 1846 1876. 733 about the establishment of the governor works in 1872, and opened an attractive sunnner resort, was built in 1874-1875. St. Joseph's Chapel, on Iron Hill, also connected with the parish, was built in 1884. The massive and beautiful Packer Memorial Church of Lehigh University, the gift of Mrs. Mary Packer Cummings, daughter of the founder, was consecrated, October 13, 1887. The erection of the Church of the Holy Infancy'' for the Roman Catholic population of South Bethlehem which had, for a season, worshiped in the church on Union Street, Bethlehem, as already stated, was naturally called for by the large increase of membership on the south side. The church was commenced in the autunm of 1863, the corner-stone being laid on October 4, by Archbishop Wood, of Philadelphia. The consecration of the church in 1864, was also performed by him. The first pastor was the Rev. Michael McEnroe, brother of his successor, the present pastor. The present fine large edifice, on which work was commenced in 1882, arose on the site of the first which was demolished in 1883. The corner-stone of the new church was laid September 17, 1882, the basement was occupied at Christmas, 1883, and the finished church was consecrated, May 23, 1886. The parochial school work and other organized activities that have arisen in connection with that large parish in recent years, stand prominent on the south side, where also the second German Catholic Church of the Bethlehems has been founded ; besides one for the Slavic population, commenced in 1891, the name of which honors Cyrill and Methodius, the illustrious missionaries who, a thousand years ago, carried the gospel to the Slavonians of Bohemia and Moravia, among whom, in days of decline five hundred years ago, the martyr John Hus tried to restore that gospel, and a half a century later the Church whose representatives founded Bethlehem arose out of his labors. The beginning of Lutheran work in South Bethlehem was made by the Rev. A. T. Geissenhainer who, with several other clergy, on August 30, 1863. laid the corner-stone of a church on Vine Street in which the first service was held on March 13, 1864, and which was dedicated and received the name St. Peter's Church on the following 26th of June — the first consecrated house of worship on the south side. Mr. Geissenhainer ministered there gratuitously until 1867, 9 The interesting historic Christmas associations of Bethlehem are signalized in the names of some modern churches and chapels — "The Nativity of our Lord," '' The Holy Infancy," and " The Nativity," with " St. Mary's" and " St. Joseph's" chapels. 734 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. when he transferred his residence elsewhere and Pastor Rath, of Bethlehem, cared for the congregation until the Rev. C. J. Cooper became pastor in 1870. The present church, on the same site, was commenced in 1873, the corner-stone being laid on June 22. The basement was occupied for worship, March 29, 1874, and the finished church was finally consecrated. May 4, 1879. St. Mark's Church on Fourth Street was built in 1895, by a colony from St. Peter's, formed in 1888 for English services, and incorporated. May 6, 1889. The chapel, immediately built, was first occupied for worship on January 20, 1889. Regular preaching by the Rev. I. K. Loos, of Bethlehem, was begun on the south side, January 20, 1867, and this led to the founding of the Reformed Church of South Bethlehem, the first officers of which were installed, November 10, 1867. The Rev. N. Z. Snyder was pastor from September i, 1870, to September i, 1892. The church on Fourth Street, the corner-stone of which was laid Septem- ber II, 1870, was consecrated, October 22, 1871. It was demolished in April, 1896. On May 4, of that year, work was commenced on the present church, the corner-stone was laid on June 7, and the edifice was consecrated. May 30, 1897. The work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in South Bethlehem began with prayer-meetings in 1887, followed by the first preaching in July, 1888, in Brinker's Hall, when the first class was formed and a Sunday-school was organized, both being in charge of Charles Laramy, of Bethlehem. He, with the Rev. J. B. Graff and the Rev. E. E. Burriss, pastors of Wesley M. E. Church, Bethlehem, built up the new work which in 1889, was put in the care of the Rev. A. M. Strayhorn as a separate congregation. A building-site was soon purchased on Packer Avenue and on June 28, 1891, the corner-stone of the church was laid. This commodious and attractive edifice was the gift of Mr. John Fritz, of Bethlehem, in memory of a pious mother. It came naturally to be called The Fritz Memorial Church, although it is known officially as The Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church. The church was consecrated, March 26, 1893. The efiforts to establish an African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Beth- lehem lie within the closing years of the century. St. Luke's Church of the Evangelical Association at the corner of Pawnee and Seminole Streets, was the outcome of efiforts commenced in 1885, by the Rev. O. L. Saylor, then pastor of St. John's Church. Bethlehem, and later of the new congregation on the south side, until the appointment of the Rev. W. H. Staufifer in 1889. Work at the church was com- 1846 1876. 735 menced in June, 1887, the corner-stone was laid, August 7, and the basement dedicated, December 11, of that year. The dedication of the completed church took place, November 3, 1889. Added to this ecclesiastical diversity even organized Hebrew work, with a syna- gogue has come into existence among the mixed population during the last two decades of the century. Closing this survey of beginnings on the south side, attention may turn back again some years to the old town on the north side. The river may be recrossed this time not on the old Main Street bridge, built after its predecessor had been swept away in 1841, but on the New Street bridge, which came into existence to meet manifest needs, when the forward strides along the river on the south side were being taken and the people were pouring rapidly into the place at the time of the Borough organization. The project began to be agitated in 1863, and definite steps were taken early in 1864. The New Street Bridge Company was chartered. May 3, 1864. The Commissioners were Aaron W. Radley, John J. Levers, Richard W. Leibert, Herman A. Doster. The first Directors of the Company were Charles N. Beckel, President ; Robert H. Sayre, Elisha P. Wilbur, John J. Levers, Robert A. Abbott and Herman A. Doster, Secretary and Treasurer. Three years elapsed before the new bridge was a reality. The piers were finished, the second week in April, 1867, the timbers were laid before the end of that month and. the last week in June, it was open for travel. The next great freshet in the Lehigh, October 4, 1869. seriously damaged one span and the following year an iron span was built by Charles N. Beckel, at the old works on Sand Island. It was finished in November. It may be remarked that Mr. Beckel's reputation as a constructor of iron bridges was quite extensive at that time. The following year, 1871, in August, he commenced the erection of the Union Street bridge across the Monocacy. The inception of the Broad Street bridge project dates from soon after the completion of the New Street bridge. The company was incorporated, May i, 1869. and commenced operations at once, pur- chasing portions of the Dixon and Luckenbach properties on Main Street to open an approach, and settling upon designs and materials. Work at the foundations was commenced on June 10, and in October, of that year, the masonry was finished. After a long delay in conse- quence of various impeding circumstances, the work was started anew in August, 1870. The second week in May, 1871, teams began to cross and on the 17th of that month the finished bridge was for- mally opened to the public. "J-i^d A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. If the New Street bridge, so severely tested in 1869, had been built seven years sooner than it was, it would probably have shared the fate of all the bridges which then crossed the Lehigh, in the most disastrous flood on record in the valley. It came on June 4 and 5, 1862. The description of the havoc wrought in January, 1841, which has been transferred to these pages from the records of the time, tells, in the main, what the inundated district at Bethlehem suffered on this occasion. The water rose only a little higher at this point than in 1841, but the ruin was very much greater, not only because there was more property and a larger population to be imperiled, but because the chief flood was occasioned by the breaking of a succes- sion of great dams far up the river, and the unprecedented rise of the water came with appalling suddenness. ^° This caused serious loss of life at some places, which was not the case in 1841, when the water rose more gradually and the people were better prepared. More than a hundred and fifty persons perished in the Valley in 1862, and the pecuniary loss was variously estimated at between two and three million dollars. It is recorded that seventeen bodies were buried at the Lehigh County Poor House. Seven lives were. lost in Old South Bethlehem and, many days after the water had subsided, unknown bodies were found amid the debris being cleared away in the grounds of the Young Ladies' Seminary and elsewhere in the neighborhood. The need was great among the poor at many places. About $500 in cash and large quantities of provis- ions were collected at Bethlehem for local relief. Charitable people in Philadelphia contributed more than $4000, which was entrusted to a committee of seven in the Lehigh Valley for distribution. Two members of the committee, Mr. Jacob Rice and the Rev. Sylvester Wolle, were, in charge at Bethlehem, as one of the distributing centers, where $400 of the fund were disbursed. The committee, when it rendered its account, reported that a hundred and eighty-six families in the Valley had been recipients. 10 The records of the Bethlehem Bridge Company report the gauge at the old bridge as 20 feet in 1841 and 20 feet 6 inches in 1862. Careful comparisons made after 1862 reveal that farther up towards the region of the dams, the excess of 1862 above 1841 gradually in- creased, in the nature of things, while below Bethlehem it was less than at this point, be- cause in 1841 more water poured into the Lehigh from tributaries farther down and the Delaware was higher than in 1862. It was stated at the time that, in consequence of a great dam of wreckage extending from the river bridge to Water Street, the back-water on the Monocacy flats rose from 8 to 10 inches higher than in 1841. 1846 1876. 737 Besides the damage done to the old bridge, one span of which was carried away, and the great loss suffered by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company and the Lehigh Zinc Company, the heaviest losers at Bethlehem were naturally those who owned industries in the old part of Bethlehem, along the Monocacy, in Old South Bethlehem and on the Sand Island. The old flour-mill was then already the property ot David and Andrew Luckenbach, the present owners of the rebuilt mill who, the previous year, had purchased the property of their father, the late Jacob Luck- enbach, to whom, in 1847, it had been sold by Charles Augustus Luckenbach. The severe ordeal of water suffered by the new firm was followed, in 1869, by one of fire, when, in the night of January T.'j, the historic old mill was burned to the ground. While the new one was being gotten into operation the freshet of 1869 occurred, subjecting it to the first of a number of inundations. The tannery was owned, in 1862, by the late William Leibert who, in 1846, after it had lain idle for some time, purchased it in company with Adam Giering and, in 1848, became its sole owner. The loss and damage suffered were serious. David Taylor, the lessee of the saw-mill, Lewis Doster, Jr., Levi Ott, and the firm of Borhek, Knauss and Miksch, all of whom were engaged in btisiness along the canal as lumber and coal-dealers, were among those most severely affected. As for the canal, it was in ruins over a great part of its course. Constrained to abandon the thought of rebuilding the fatal dams, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company which owned the canal secured, that year, railway privileges above Alauch Chunk, as a sub- stitute for the previous water transportation on that section, while proceeding to repair the canal from there down. Out of all this grew, finally, the construction of the next railroad past Bethlehem. A bill authorizing the company to build a railroad also below Mauch Chunk, all the way to Easton, was passed in March, 1864. This was the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, now a division of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. At first, it was very commonly referred to along its course as "The Lehigh Navigation Company's Railroad." Before the close of that year the construction of the new road was progressing vigorously at some points. The building of the section past Bethlehem — commenced in 1866 — changed the topography far more than the opening of the canal had done many years before. There are none who remember "Bartow's path" ruined by the canal, but many remember the meandering walk above it of which traces 48 y^8 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. yet remain, and the various other attractive features along the brow and base of Nisky Hill into which the railroad cut so ruthlessly. The slow and laborious work, performed there by the forces employed by Contractor Ira Cortright, was finished early in 1867. The rails were laid past Bethlehem in October of that year and, at the end of the month, the track was finished from Easton to Mauch Chunk. On November 25, the first train, consisting of sixty cars of coal, four loaded with lumber and four passenger cars, passed down the new road. On March 31, 1871, it was leased by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and in 1873, the present passenger station at Bethlehem was built. At the time when the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was com- pleted, another, of more purely local associations — with Bethlehem as not merely a station but a terminus — was opened. This was the Lehigh and Lackawanna Railroad — its eventual corporate title. On May I, 1862, an act was approved, incorporating a company "for the purpose of constructing a railroad from the North Pennsylvania and Lehigh Valley Railroad Junction at Bethlehem to the Borough of Bath in Northampton County." The incorporators were James Vleit, Samuel Straub, James Kennedy, Conrad Shinier, Charles Augustus Luckenbach, James Leibert, John Fritz, James Jenkins and Charles Brodhead. They had organized, in April, 1862, as "The Bethlehem Railroad Company," with Charles Brodhead, President ; Conrad Shimer, Treasurer; James Vleit, Secretary; Conrad Shinier, James Vleit, Samuel Straub, Samuel C. Shinier, James Jenkins, Charles Brodhead and John Fritz, Directors. Early in 1867, after operations were well on the way, "The Monocacy Iron and Steel Company," associated with the enterprise, was chartered, with Charles Brodhead, Augustus Wolle, and others, as incorporators, for the purpose of establishing a furnace up the Monocacy. In the spring of 1867, the completion of the section at the Bethlehem end was in progress. The site of a station in West Bethlehem was purchased in April, and in May the trestle across the Monocacy was built. The purpose at that time was stated to be the opening of the road as far as the Chapman slate quarries as soon as possible. The middle of Septem- ber, the first locomotive was run as far as Shimer's, to which point slate was carted from Chapman's and thence conveyed by rail to Bethlehem. October 10, the road was finished to "the Half Way House." which then received the name Brodhead's Station. On Nov- ember 28, 1867, the completion of the road to Chapman's was cele- brated bv running an excursion train to that place from Bethlehem. 1846 1876. 739 May 5, 1868, mail stage connection was opened between Brodhead's and Nazareth. The great increase of business which resulted from these many enterprises and public improvements naturally led to the establish- ment of banks at^ Bethlehem. The First National Bank was char- tered in 1863, and commenced business with Charles Augustus Luck- enbach the first President, and Rudolph Rauch the first Cashier. The same year The Dimes Savings Institution was founded, with Dr. William Wilson, and after his death, Charles B. Daniel, as Presi- dent, and James T. Borhek as Cashier. In 1870, E. P. Wilbur & Co. opened banking business on the south side, with Mr. Wilbur as President and William L. Dunglison as Cashier. They re-organized in 1887 as The E. P. Wilbur Trust Company. The Lehigh Valley National Bank of Bethlehem was incorporated in 1872. The late Dr. G. B. Linderman was its first President and A. N. Cleaver its first Cashier. All of these institvitions, excepting the Dimes Savings Bank, still exist, and, in 1889, a new one, the South Bethlehem National Bank, was added on the south side. At this point the Bethlehem post-oi^ce may once more be referred to. Just before the incorporation of the Borough, it was in charge of Jacob Kummer, May 3, 1841, to March 24, 1845. Then Charles C. Tombler became post-master the second time, to March i, 1848, when he was followed by William D. Tombler to May 7, 1849. His successors were James A. Rice and, from his death in October, 1850, his widow, Mrs. Josephine Rice, to May 26, 1853; William F. Miller to August 11, 1856; C. A. Luckenbach to October 15, i860; William H. Bush to April 2, 1861 ; Robert Peysert, the post-master during the Civil War, to April 10, 1877, beyond the period of this chapter — the longest and most eventful term." The foregoing subjects having all been disposed of, so far as the design of this chapter extends, and the most of them finally, it n He was followed by John Lerch to June 27, 1881 ; Owen A. Luckenbach to November 16, 1885 ; George F. Herman to July 19, 1889 ; Owen A. Luckenbach again to his death, October 16, 1890, and his widow, Mrs. Jane Luckenbach, to January 26, 1891 ; Henry A. Groman to the time when this history closes. The oldest residents may now remember eight places where the post-office has been quartered : prior to 1845 ^^^ again, 1849 ^o 1853, ^t the site of the present Bee Hive Building; 1845 to 1849, the site of the Myers Building; 1853 to 1856, the Sun Hotel; to 1861, near it south where the drug store is; to 1872, yet farther south at the site of the Globe Store; to 1877, in the present Peyseit Building; then across the street adjoining J. S. Krause's hardware store, to 1885, when it was moved to its present place, corner of Main and Market Streets. 740 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. remains to bring together the leading features and incidents of Bethlehem's connection with the great Civil W ar, out of which the Nation, that celebrated its centennial anniversary in the year with which the chapter closes, arose new-born, and all of its sections, all of its cities and towns, every particular community and institution entered a new era. Many of the most prominent things that have been treated of in this chapter occurred in the years of the war. To this, mere allusion has been made, for the plan has been to group subjects and treat the several classes of matter somewhat distinctly as the easier way to cover, in two chapters, the range and variety of thirty important years, so full of beginnings and changed situations. Long before the great conflict drew near, the people of Bethle- hem had ceased to stand aloof in principle from those claims of citi- zenship that called for militia service. Although the militia system of Pennsylvania was in a state of general decay, and to a great extent an object of ridicule by the people, yet even Bethlehem had several military companies, after a fashion, and that they were not quite without iron in their l^lood soon appeared when the test of sterner duty than holiday parades suddenly came. Captain Woehler's Bethlehem Guard was obsolete, but on May 28, 1859, ^^e old German soldier made a speech at the anniversary of a new company, "The Washington Grays," then being drilled in the manual of arms by Captain James L. Self ridge. Another, "The Bethlehem Artillerists," also existed, with Dr. William Wilson in command, and for a while "The Bethlehem Cavalry" had cut a figure under George Wenner. The Armory, of which the volunteer company formed in 1848 cher- ished visions when it applied for two lots on Broad Street on which to erect such a building, was sometimes more than a name, even when the Mexican War was being forgotten and no other war was expected ; and only an occasional exciting Presidential campaign in which men waxed warm over controversies that, at last, did bring a long and awful war, awakened new interest in drill and parade. When the shots fired at Fort Sumter on April 12 and 13, 1861, following those that had challenged the Star of the West in Charles- ton harbor, startled the country, and revealed that the worst fore- bodings were realized, there was, of course, sensation at Bethlehem as elsewhere. Captain Selfridge, with his lieutenants, Frueaufif and Goundie, and the Washington Grays, w^ere at once ready to ofifer their services, and the same day on which President Lincoln issued his first call for seventy-five thousand volunteers for thirty days, they could telegraph to the Governor of Pennsylvania that they would be 1846 1876. 741 prepared to march when wanted. Four days later, April 19, they started. An affecting- service was held before they left, in which several clergymen participated and about two thousand people gath- ered at the railway station to bid them God-speed. They were mus- tered in on April 23, as Company A of the First Regiment of Penn- sylvania Volunteers. The four companies recruited at once in and about Easton largely composed the remainder of the regiment, under Col. Samuel Yohe of Easton. From camp at Fort Scott, at York, they sent their complete muster-roll the following week. It was published in the next issue of the Bethlehem newspaper. On April 22, at a large gathering of men in Citizens' Hall, the recruit- ing of a proposed Company B of the Washington Grays was com- menced, while the Artillery Company, ■ beginning w'ith the existing nucleus, was nearly up to the requisite number and was drilling assiduously. The same day, a meethig of men above the age for military service at that time — forty-five years — was held at the Sun Hotel to organize a Home Guard. A committee was appointed to draft a constitution and another to ascertain whether government arms could be procured. Forty-five men were present and all but two signified their readiness to join at once. These two were under the age-limit and declared their willingness to go into the field if needed. Jedediah Weiss was chairman and Reuben Ranch secre- tary. Ira Cortright, Henry B. Luckenbach and Christian F. Luch were the committee on arms. Charles F. Beckel, Matthew Krause, Nathan Bartlett, Thomas W. Jones and the Rev. Ambrose Rond- thaler were the committee on constitution. With all this, there were, of course, those at Bethlehem, as else- where, who doubted the right of the Federal Government to proceed against the secession movement with armed force, even if they did not sympathize with the movement, just as political opinion had always been divided on the question of national sovereignty and state rights. There were those who failed to see the inevitable out- come of temporizing with slavery, that national incubus wdiich pro- duced it all. The situation having become acute, intensifying feel- ing and putting those whose loyal blood was stirred, out of patience with those who halted between two opinions, s«me citizens of Beth- lehem, as well as of other places, came under sharp censure. There were even some who denounced the Government and spoke in terms of disparagement of the men who were ready to rally at their country's call ; and soon the significant term "copperhead" came into vogue at Bethlehem also — deserved undoubtedly in some cases. 742 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. but probably not in others. Furthermore, in the midst of all anxiety and deeply serious patriotism, the situation was not too grave to be subjected to flippant jest^- or to be turned to business account in the form of sensational advertising,^^ even in staid old Bethlehem. It is of interest to scan the war-time newspaper-files and observe how everywhere even solid and decorous business men fell into the habit of turning their advertisements into the prevailing language of "war-talk," and taking on the style of the startling headlines. The prevailing spirit of Bethlehem, however, which, with a parting hymn and prayer, sent the first company of the first Pennsylvania regiment to answer the call, was sustained. The boys also caught the patriotic and martial fervor, and organized the "Union Guards" — afterwards the "Union Cadets" — and "The Indestructible Lancers" — boys from twelve to fifteen years old. The former, twenty strong, went into camp in July, 1861, in a field of Herman Fetter, on the Monocacy Flats and, in his honor, named their rendezvous "Camp Fetter." Bethlehem also became a source of military supplies. Doster's "Moravian Woolen Mills" turned out a high grade of government 12 Before the actual beginning of hostilities, at the March election in 1 861, a burlesque borough ticket was circulated " by parties unknown to the jury " — so one account — headed "Palmetto Rattlesnake Ticket," on which the fictitious candidates — reputable citizens asso- ciated with worthless characters and " half-witted fellows," — stood pledged " irrevocably for the Union, Tonnage Tax, Market House and Fort Charles Augustus." 13 One specimen is this : "The Difficulties Settled ! Hostile Parties Reconciled ! No War ! ! Chairs ! Chairs ! Chairs !— C. W. Rauch's old stand, No. 38 South Main Street — Michael Stuber." Another, when the first draft came : " Bethlehem Quota Filled ! Readers, you are all safe from the present Draft ! Now is the time to provide yourself and family with Fall and Winter Goods." One announces "Another Raid on the Mammoth Store ! Excitements being the order of the day we would inform the Public that the excitement in Dry Goods, Hardware, Groceries, Carpets, Wall Paper, Zephyrs, etc., etc., is as great as ever." Another proclaims " The latest Intelligence ! The Undersigned invites the Attention of the Pubhc to his elegant new place of business, No. 66 S. Main St." After the "slump" of mflated prices, when the value of gold reacted from its skyward maximum, following decisive battles, one firm gave out the bulletin : " Great Fall in Dry Goods and Groceries ! The Crash has come ! Speculators alarmed ! Good Times Coming ! Owing to our recent brilliant Victories and the consequent general feeling and anticipation of an early closing of the War, and the heavy fall in Gold, a great panic has been caused in the market in all kinds of Merchandise." One, with more enterprise than delicacy, hastens, after a great battle which filled the land with weeping, to shout into stricken homes— " Mourning Goods of every Description ! Prices to suit the Times!" 1846 1876. 743 goods. In August, 1861, a large contract for "heavy blue kersey" to be made up into army overcoats set the mills going, full force, day and night ; a contract which the local newspaper stated it would take ninety days to fill. The establishment, containing a large quantity of such goods, was destroyed by fire, March 22, 1862. Partially rebuilt, it was again ruined by water in the great freshet of June, 1862. Later, operations were transferred back to the old mill on the Sand Island for a few years and then closed. The first grief and mourning of the w^ar came to the community when, on July 25, 1861, Lieutenant Goundie arrived with the body of William Harrison Haus, of the Washington Grays, who, the pre- vious evening, had died of fever on board the cars between Baltimore and York, cu route for Harrisburg with the company returning from the thirty days' service. The whole company reached home on the 27th, were met at the station by an immense concourse and were escorted to Citizens' Hall, where an address of welcome followed by prayer was made by the Rev. H, A. Shultz and a luncheon was served by Bethlehem ladies. The next day the remains of their comrade Haus were laid to rest in the Old Moravian Cemetery. Several thousand people attended the funeral of this first Bethlehem man who died in military service. The next one was Urias Bodder, who died in August and was interred in the Union Cemetery. The next body of troops raised in the Lehigh Valley that gathered at Bethlehem and started from this point, was the famous cavalry company recruited by William Emil Doster who, at the very outset, had turned from his studies in the law-ofifice and come to Bethlehem to raise a troop of cavalry, but because there was no call at first for mounted volunteers, was prevented from executing his purpose until mid-summer. Edward Tombler assisted him in the effort. On August 10, 1861, they went into camp on Sand Island and named it Camp Doster. They were joined by about forty men brought down the valley by Mr. Tombler. August 15, they elected Mr. Doster, Captain ; Herman Horn, of Weissport, First Lieutenant, and Mr. Tombler, Second Lieutenant ; and after parading the streets started that day — a hundred and sixteen men — for Philadelphia. They were mustered in as Company A, of Col. Josiah Harlan's Light Cavalry, but later became Company A, of the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry. They were in twenty-seven engagements. After the pro- motion of Captain Doster, who later became Colonel and eventually a Brevet Brigadier General, Lieutenant Tombler succeeded him in command of the company. During that same month of August, 1861, 744 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Mr. Samuel VVetherill recruited another troop of cavalry with head- quarters at Bethlehem and, on August 28, left for camp with about thirty men. Captain Wetherill subsequently rose to the rank of Major and the company was at first attached, as Company H, to Col. Harlan's Light Horse, which was later registered as the Eleventh Cavalry and the One Hundred and Eighth Regiment of Pennsyl- vania V'olunteers, while that of Captain Tombler had, before that, been embodied in the Fourth Cavalry and Sixty Fourth Regiment. At the same time Captain James L. Selfridge, who had become Lieutenant Colonel of the Ninth Pennsylvania Regiment, with Col. — afterwards General Joseph Knipe, was busy recruiting at Bethle- hem and in the vicinity for that regiment, and one after another of the Washington Grays re-enlisted for the three years' service. Owen A. Luckenbach, who had enlisted with a Philadelphia company for the thirty days' term, now became Captain of that original com- pany, as newly recruited and afterwards incorporated as Company C. in the Forty-sixth Pennsylvania Regiment, which later saw very hard service, did signally valiant duty and, like many others, was finally much depleted.^* On October 21, 1861, nearly two hundred ladies met in the Old Moravian Chapel and organized a Relief Association, to co-operate for the care and comfort of wounded soldiers, and on Thanksgiving Day a collection was taken to provide them with funds. This kind of w^ork became extensive in Bethlehem as the need grew and appealed to women throughout the country ; and increasing exper- ience in camp and field and hospital, in selecting things that were most required, enabled people at home to apply their efiforts more systematically and effectively. It enlisted the activity even of the scholars in the Parochial School and the public schools, and many a woman of Bethlehem doubtless remembers how she, when a school- girl, helped to scrape and pick lint, to make bandages and to prepare bags and cases of useful little things for the soldiers, and how their mothers taxed their time, strength and supply of high-priced sugar and other concomitants, with fruit from the orchard and garden, to prepare delicacies in great quantities for convalescents in the hos- 14 Some of the men who formed the original company of Washington Grays, later re-en- tered the service several times under later calls. To follow the transfers, shiftings and mergings, in the course of the war, in the case of different sets of men or even of single officers cannot be attempted here. This difficulty and lack of space prevents the insertion of muster-rolls which would be of no value for reference unless complete and accurate. 1846 1876. 745 pitals. The interest of the Parochial School children was greatly increased by a visit, on January 3, 1862, by Major Robert Anderson, the gallant defender of old Fort Sumter. They sang for him and he made a fervent address to them. August 8, 1862, was another notable day, when, in response to renewed calls for troops in July — which took forty-three new regi- ments, embracing over forty thousand men, followed under spur of a draft by fifteen more of about fifteen thousand men, from Penn- sylvania — Captain Jonathan K. Taylor and his Lieutenants, Andrew A. Luckenbach, afterwards Captain, and Orville A. Grider, and Ser- geant Franklin C. Stout, who later became a Lieutenant and ulti- mately Captain, left Bethlehem with their fine company of men. They mustered in the morning in front of Ambrose H. Ranch's Confec- tionery — frequently the point of such gatherings — surrounded by a vast throng of people. There a solemn service was held by the Moravian clergy and Pastor Welden of the Lutheran Church, whose son was among the volunteers, and who, as President of the Beth- lehem Bible Society, gave each man a copy of the Holy Scriptures. The Chaplain-elect of the company, William Henry Rice, who had left his studies to enter the service of the country ; who on August 17, was ordained at Bethlehem by the venerable Bishop Samuel Reinke and then served as Chaplain until May, 1863, responded, in behalf of the company, to the warm farewell words that had been spoken and the whole assembly, soldiers and civilians, stood with uncovered heads in the street and joined at the close in the Lord's Prayer. Then a procession was formed and the large throng, mar- shalled by David O. Luckenbach, escorted the company to the rail- way station, where the volunteers took the train for Camp Curtin at Harrisburg — the greatest rendezvous of recruits, military storage- point and hospital-center in the country. They were mustered in as Company C of the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania Regiment, organized, August 15. Four companies of this regiment were raised in Northampton County. No regiment's movements and experiences became a more familiar story to the people of Beth- lehem than those of this strong body of men. The very next day after their departure, the sharp battle of Cedar Mountain was fought, in which the 46th suffered and Captain O. A. Luckenbach received the wound which compelled his retirement and left him a cripple. His place was filled by the promotion of Lieutenant William Stolzenbach. August 2T, 1862. a union meeting of the religious denominations of Bethlehem was held in the Moravian 746 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. church to organize a "Chaplain's Aid Society," the object of which was explained by Chaplain Rice, who was present. September 8, 1862. a mass-meeting was held in Citizens' ilall to adopt measures for raising bounty money, and that evening the order of Governor Curtin for all able-bodied men to be ready to turn out within twenty-four hours as State Guards, to repel a threatened invasion by General Lee's army, was received. Ope company of the F'ifth Regiment of militia called out at this time — Company D — was composed entirely of Bethlehem men, under Captain Joseph Peters, with Lieutenants Franklin J. Haus and Abraham S. Schropp — David O. Luckenbach being First Sergeant. On September 13, the marching orders came and at eleven o'clock, sixty men started, including even professors and students of the Theological Seminary, who had been aroused from their scholastic pursuits by the great excitement. After the battle of Antietam, four days later, they were not needed and returned. September 22 — the day of President Lincoln's immortal war meas- ure, destined to mark an epoch in the history of the world, the proclamation emancipating all slaves in the United States, to go into effect January i, 1863 — the sixth notable departure of troops from Bethlehem took place. This was a part of the regiment raised for the nine months' service, entirely in Northampton County, by Col. Charles Glanz — volunteers and hired substitutes — at the time when the draft was pending. They first took the name of "The First Pennsylvania Regiment in Lieu of Draft," but were afterwards enrolled as the One Hundred and Fifty-third Regiment of F'ennsyl- vania Volunteers. Captain Joseph Frey's company started that day from Bethlehem. From Nazareth came a company under Captain Owen Rice. They were joined by another, largely recruited in the Saucon Valley, under Captain Henry Oerter. Again there was a meeting in front of Ambrose Ranch's and a farewell service took place, participated in by sundry clergy, with addresses by the Rev. F. F. Hagen and Dr. Frederick Fickardt.^'^ Dr. Abram Stout, of 15 Dr. Fickardt, who figured often on such and a variety of other kinds of occasions as a favorite speaker, had been a resident and practitioner at Bethlehem since 1843, when he re- moved to the place from Easton and occupied part of the house of Dr. Abraham Stout, the elder, who had been established at Bethlehem since 1821. Dr. Stout was the next in the succession of regular Bethlehem physicians, after Dr. Freitag. He died in 1857. Cotem- porary with Dr. Fickardt was Dr. Wm. Wilson who. in 1844, came to Bethlehem from Bath and first opened his office in a part of Dr. Fickardt's house which had previously been occupied, for a while, by Stout and Dixon as a drug-store. Dr. John J. Wilson, deceased, and Dr. J. H. Wilson were the second and third of the name in Bethlehem. Another prom- FREDERICK AUGUSTUS MARTIN ABRAHAM LEWIS HUEBENER JOHN EBERHARD FREYTAG FREDERICK AUGUSTUS FICKARDT AUGUSTINE NATHANIEL LEINBACH 1 846 1 876. 747 Bethlehem entered the service as surgeon of this regiment. On September 25, the "'emergency men," who went out as State Guards returned and were given a demonstrative reception with an eloquent speech by Dr. Fickardt. On November 21, the need of better facilities for private convey- ance between Bethlehem friends and troops from the town, occa- sioned a meeting at the Sun Hotel to institute an "Army Express" for regular trips to camp. On Thanksgiving Day, November 2j, a mass-meeting was held in Citizens' Hall in the interest of measures for the assistance of families from which the bread-winners had been taken. A cotemporary record states that $2,200 had been raised in Bethlehem during the year for that purpose and $2,000 of that sum had been disbursed. Great battles like that of Antietam, September 17-18, 1862, in which the late Captain Robert Abbott was severely wounded, had left many a wife in the Lehigh V'alley a widow. December 13, of that year, occurred another of the notable engagements in which many Bethlehem men participated, that of Fredericksburg, where some were wounded and others were taken prisoners. Captain Jonathan Taylor was so severely wounded that he died in the hospital at Georgetown on March 28, 1863. His body was brought to Bethlehem on the 30th. A great mass of people accompanied the hearse from the railroad station, in silent sorrow, to the home of his parents on Market Street, the Moravian church bell tolling while the procession moved. On April i, the funeral and the interment in the old cemeter}' took place. At that period the National Union League of Bethlehem was formed. Copies of its constitution and rules printed by Herman Ruede still exist. Ira Cortright was President ; William W. Selfridge, John P. Cox, Robert H. Sayre, C. A. Luckenbach and John C. Weber w^ere V^ice-Presidents ; David Rau was Treas- urer ; C. Edward Kummer was Recording Secretary, and Dr. Robert J. McClatchey was Corresponding Secretary. It was the most critical time of the war, with the most unsatisfactory situa- tion, the most serious dissension and the most damaging inent physician during those years was Dr. Benjamin Wilhelm, who came to Bethlehem in 1845 and died in 1870, father of Dr. E. T. Wilhelm, of South Bethlehem. Yet another, for a number of years was Dr. F. A. Martin, well-remembered by older residents of Bethlehem. Dr. P. Breinig, Dr. A. N. Leinbach and Dr. E. H. Jacobson who began practice somewhat later, survived among the older physicians until recent years. Dr. Abram Stout, who with Dr. J. H. Wilson, remain of those who are known by the present generation as the older doctors, is a nephew of Dr. Stout the elder. 748 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. activity, with tongue and pen, on the part of those in the north who favored ending the war on ahiiost any terms. A day of fasting and prayer was observed, in accordance with the proclamation of the President, on April 30, 1863. A few days later, came new anxiety with the tidings of the bloody battle of Chancellorsville, in which, again, many Bethlehem men were engaged. On May 20, an enor- mous crowd gathered to greet the returning Company C of the 129th Regiment, in command of Captain A. A. Luckenbach, at the close of their nine months' service. There were addresses and a prayer of thanksgiving for their safe return; the fact that no JBethlehem men were killed or even wounded in the battle of Chan- cellorsville being particularly remarked. Then, in June, came the call of the President for a hundred thousand more volunteers and the proclamation of Governor Curtin ordering out the full militia force of Pennsylvania, in view of the threatening nature of General Lee's movements. Captain F. C. Stout and former Chaplain W. H. Rice were particularly energetic in recruiting a new company of "emergency men." Some complications ensued because of the objection of the Government at this time to accepting enlistments for less than six months, but this was modified to admit enrollment for ninety-day service. Suddenly, while this recruiting was in pro- gress, the climax of excitement and anxiety for eastern Pennsyl- vania came. On Sunday morning, June 28, when the anniversary festival of the Moravian Congregation was being observed and Bishop Peter Wolle was preaching in the church, the announcement reached Beth- lehem that Lee's army had invaded Pennsylvania. Excited men hurried unceremoniously into the church, one going up to the pulpit with the message, while another commenced to ring the bell. The service was immediately concluded and the people dispersed in a state of much agitation. Directly, a mass-meeting was held in front of the Eagle Hotel ; speeches were made by Dr. Fickardt, the Rev. F. F. Hagen, the Rev. W. H. Rice, Jedediah Weiss and Dr. Wilson ; and in a short time forty men had enlisted. The next day was one of intense excitement. All business was suspended and, for the first time since the days of the Revolutionary War, Bethlehem was one of the objective points for panic-stricken, fleeing people — not, as then, and in the earlier Indian wars, hungry, ragged, unkempt, for this time- they could afiford to come well-dressed and fed, but refugees, nevertheless — for the great Confederate army that had crossed the Potomac, was now in Pennsvlvania. At four o'clock in 1846 1876. 749 the afternoon about a hundred men, a number of whom had seen service before, left Bethlehem under Captain Stout — business men, mechanics and laborers, professors and students — to enter the emer- gency service in the 34th Militia Regiment under Colonel Charles Albright, of which Robert E. Taylor was Alajor and Abraham S. Schropp, Adjutant. Then came the awful battle of Gettysburg, July 2 and 3, the repulse of the Confederate forces after frightful slaughter on both sides, and the turning-point in the fortunes of the war ; being directly followed by the fall of Vicksburg before General Grant's persistent siege. On July 6, many Bethlehem men went to Reading, where the most recent volunteers were in camp, and some went on to the ghastly battlefield. Hardly had the feeling of relief, in the midst of sorrow over the slain and anxiety about the wounded, set in, when new consterna- tion was occasioned at Bethlehem, as elsewhere, by the "draft riots" in New York City, under the common impression that it was planned to take place simultaneously with Lee's invasion. But this excite- ment, in turn, subsided and, after the battle of Gettysburg — although some of the most tremendous scenes of the war were later enacted — there w^as, on to its close, far less of turmoil at Bethlehem than previously. The "emergency men" returned in August. During 1864, when the coming and going between home and camp was an every-day occurrence and people had become accustomed to much that had earlier created sensation, one of the local incidents was the organization, in March, of an auxiliary branch of the United States Christian Commission. A first large gathering took place on the 8th, in the Moravian Church, when the matter was presented and the initial steps were taken. The final mass-meeting was held at the same place on the 26th, when a constitution was adopted and a large committee w'as appointed in charge, with a central executive committee, composed of the Rev. Sylvester WoUe, Chairman ; Jonas Snyder, Secretary, and Mahlon Taylor, Treasurer. Just at that time occurred one of the most pathetic funerals at Bethlehem during the war, that, on March 16, 1864, of Frederick and Augustus Fickardt, sons of Doctor Fickardt, aged respectively twenty and eighteen years, who died in the army after brief service ; the first on jMarch 4, and the second on March 9. The first had joined Company G, recruited mainly in and about Bethlehem by Lieutenant Moulton Goundie for the Second Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery. They were interred in the old cemetery, as were also Lieutenant Lawson Merrill, of the United States Navy, who died 750 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. at the Sun Hotel on August 9; John Bloom Vail, who served in the navy, and Charles Edmund Doster, a Bethlehem volunteer, who died at home that year. Another interesting aspect of the situation, in the matter of demands which the war put upon people, is presented by the recorded statement that, up to February 25, 1864, the sum of $10,200 had been raised in Bethlehem to pay bounties and to hire substitutes, when the quota of thirty-four men had been made up to fill the draft of that month. Yet another draft came a year later, and it was then stated that the entire amount thus raised at Beth- lehem was $81,365.00, and in Northampton County $1,193,674.00. At last, on April 3, 1865, came a day of rejoicing, when the news of the fall of Richmond was confirmed, for this was taken as indi- cating the end of the war. The announcement of General Lee's surrender to General Grant was made at the close of the service in the Moravian church, on Monday evening of the Passion Week, April 10, and a special hymn was sung. Then, at half-past nine o'clock on the morning of Great Sabbath, April 15, came the appalling message that President Lincoln had been assassinated the previous night, and on the funeral day, the Wednesday after Easter, April 19 — in compliance with the proclamation of President John- son calling for the observance of the time from noon until two o'clock as a time of special mourning — the memorial services already referred to were held. In accordance with arrangements made by a committee, there was a gathering at the Market Street front of the cemetery, where an address was made by Dr. Fickardt. Then followed a procession to New Street, to Broad Street, to Main Street and down Main Street to the Moravian church, where the service was conducted by Bishop H. A. Shultz. Addresses were made by the Rev. E. deSchweinitz and the Rev. D. F. Brendle, while the Rev. E. N. Potter and other clergymen took part, otherwise, in the service. The war was ended, but a strange mingling of great joy and great sorrow marked its close. On June 10, 1865, Governor Curtin issued his proclamation making formal announcement of the end and recom- mending a special observance of Independence Day suitable to the occasion. At a meeting of the citizens of Bethlehem on June 22, held at the Eagle Hotel, the arrangement of a programme was put in charge of a committee, with C. A. Luckenbach as Chairman and O. B. Desh as Secretary. The leading features of the celebration were a general illumination on the evening of July 3, beginning at half-past eight o'clock, firing of a salute and ringing of bells at four 1846 18/6. 751 o'clock oil the nioniing of the 4th, the reading of the Declaration of Independence by Alajor Samuel Wetherill and an oration by Dr. Fickardt on the lawn below the Eagle Hotel — the exercises begin- ning at ten o'clock — and fireworks at the river in the evening. On the evening of July 22, the remnant of Company C, of the Forty- sixth Regiment, after serving throughout the war, arrived home under Captain Stolzenbach. A stirring reception was tendered them at the railroad station. They were escorted up Main Street to the point in front of Ambrose Ranch's, where the several memorable farewell gatherings had taken place. There they were welcomed by Dr. Fickardt in an eloquent address, to which General James L. Selfridge responded. A banquet at the Eagle Hotel followed. Then came again other closing scenes, solemn and sad. On August 10, occurred the funeral of the young student, John C. Hagen, who had died in the service of the country. The funeral service and the interment in the old Moravian Cemetery were attended by General Selfridge, ]\Iajor Wetherill, Captain Stolzenbach, Captain Alexander Selfridge, and nearly all of the returned soldiers, all in full uniform. Another such occasion came on October 27, when the remains of Clarence Kampmann, who died, June 4, on board the United States vessel, the Red Rover, in service as Admiral's clerk, and had been temporarily buried at Mound City, Illinois, were laid to rest in the old cemetery. Eight men who had served in the war had been given graves there before the close of its last year. Others were interred there later and, up to the time when the soldiers' plot in Nisky Hill Ceme- tery began to fill up, more graves in the old cemetery than in any other were marked by the little flag and the floral tribute each year on "Memorial Day" — or as it was first more commonly called, "Decoration Day" — May 30. It was observed at Bethlehem the first time in 1868. A procession was formed on Main Street in the following order: the brass band, the clergy, the committee of arrangements, former soldiers, representatives of civic organiza- tions, school children, citizens. The first halt was made in the old burial-ground, where a brief service was held. The Rev. Edmund deSchweinitz, after a few suitable remarks, read the names of all the soldiers buried there with a succinct statement of the military career of each one, and the flowers were placed upon the graves. Then the procession moved on to the other cemeteries, at each of which a similar order was observed. Meanwhile, that National organization of war veterans. The Grand Army of the Republic,. 752 A mSTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. having" come into existence, the JJethleheni Tost was formally estab- lished, May 25, 18O9. It was registered as Xo. 182, and, in honor of the one commissioned officer of Uelhlchem who died of wounds received in battle, was named The J. K. Taylor i'osl. After that, they took charge of the Decoration Da}- ceremonies which, in the following years, were not conmienced, but concluded, in the old Moravian Cemeter}-, where, excepting several times at the Lj. A. R. plot in Nisky Hill Cemetery, the principal exercises, with an oration, took place — after 1887 around the monument at the Market Street front of the cemetery, erected in memory of deceased soldiers and sailors of the Civil War antl unveiled. C)ctober 11, 1887 — until, in 1895. the concluding exercises of the day began to be regularly held in the Moravian church. The South Bethlehem organization, Robert Oldham Post, No. $2-, dates from August 2, 1886. The transition is easy, from the beginning of those observances in sacred memory of the great struggle that left the Nation re-estab- lished and re-united, to the triumphant celebration of the centennial anniversary of Independence Day. with which the chapter may close. Nothing that has not already been alluded to in the course of things at Bethlehem, during the intervening years, needs to be particularly mentioned. The effects of the great financial crash, precipitated on the memorable "black Friday." September 19, 1873, which spread over tlie country, were fell with peculiar severity at Bethlehem, in the collapse of business concerns, the wreck of fortunes, the sweep- ing away of many a one's little savings and the stand-still of great industries, leaving hundreds without employment and bringing a protracted season of "hard times." These things are recent and well- remembered history. Their w'eight was yet keenly felt wdien the year 187O dawned, but they tlid not seem to suppress the enthusiasm with which that notable year in the history of the Ignited States was greeted. The opening of the centennial year was distinguished by special features that marked the customary vigils of New Year in the Mora- vian church. \\'hen the great congregation poured out of the church after the first hour of January 1. ^Syh, hatl been entered, a "centennial parade" took place, in spite of inclement weather and muddy streets, led by a chief marshal, the Bethlehem Cornet Band discoursing patriotic and martial music. The bells of the tow'n were rimg while the paraile was forming. Many residences and business places were illuminated along the line of march. There was an abimdance of red light, with continual tlischarge of fire-arms EDMUND ALEXANDER DESCHWEINITZ 1846 1876. 753 and much cheering, until nearl}- three o'clock. Before four o'clock the streets were deserted and quiet reigned. Alany will remember how the early part of that famous year was marked by an almost unprecedented manifestation of religious interest which spread through the country from the great meetings commenced by Moody and Sankey in the centennial city of Philadelphia. It touched Beth- lehem also and brought an epoch in the religious annals of the town. May 10, the opening day of the great Centennial Exposition, was a general holiday, and the spirit in which the people of the old town hung out the country's flag from windows and doorways contrasted strongly with the misgivings and fears with which on that day, a century before, the village fathers deliberated on the signs of the times, spoke of the consternation occasioned by the reported approach of hostile ships at Philadelphia and "doubted whereunto this would grow." The next day of note was June 27, when the famous centennial reunion took place at the Seminary for Young- Ladies, in which at least two hundred and fifty former pupils par- ticipated ; the oldest alumnae who registered being ladies who were in the school between the years 1800 and 1810. Inspiring exercises took place in the Moravian church, attended by more than six hun- dred invited guests from near and distant places. On Sunday, July 2, memorial services were held in all of the churches. Those in the Moravian church were notably elaborate. The centennial sermon was preached by Bishop Edmund deSchweinitz. The chief feature of the handsome decorations was a floral bell in imitation of the his- toric "liberty bell." Its ground was rhododendron blossoms bor- dered with arbor vitae, having the figures of the inscription set in red geranium. At midnight, from the 3d to the 4th of July, services were held, not only in the Moravian church, but also in other churches of the town. At nine o'clock on the morning of the great anniversary, another vast concourse attended a service in the Mora- vian church, arranged by the Young Men's Christian Association. It was conducted by Bishop deSchweinitz. The Declaration of Independence was read by the Rev. J. T. Swindells, of the Metho- dist Church, a historical sketch of Bethlehem, compiled by the Rev. WilHam C. Reichel, was read by U. J. Wenner, and an oration was delivered by the Rev. J. M. Leavitt, D.D.. President of Lehigh Uni- versity. The prayer was offered by the Rev. A. D. Moore, of the Presbyterian Church. There was elaborate music, directed by Prof. Theodore F. Wolle. Miss Kate Selfridge sang "The Star Spangled 49 754 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Banner" as a special feature of the occasion. There were very elaborate exterior decorations in many places, one of the most notable being that at the union passenger station in South Beth- lehem. Among the parades that took place a conspicuous one was that of the "Centennial Cadets," organized and drilled by Col. \V. L. Bear, Superintendent of the Moravian I'arochial School. In the evening, the linest exhibition of fireworks ever witnessed at Beth- lehem was given by Mr. E. P. Wilbur and Mr. Harry E. i'acker. The local newspapers recorded the fact that no arrests for drunken- ness or disorderly conduct had become necessary and that the "lock- up" of the Borough was empty on the morning after the celebration. Bethlehem was a very different town from what it was when the Declaration of Independence was read the first time, a hundred years before; different even from what it was before the great Civil War; for when it settled down, after that momentous period, to pursue the even tenor of its way, it did not slide back into the grooves of ante- bellum days. Much in the details of its town life had passed away in the turmoil of those years. Much that was new had come in. It had entered what may be called its most modern period, that in which its present younger citizens have grown up from infancy. But with all the change, some essentials of character and tone had been carried with it, in wdiich the spirit of the fathers yet lived in the general standard of sobriety and order. CHAPTER XIX. A Century and a Half Completed. 1877 — 1892. The final period of a decade and a half that remains to be reviewed being so recent, this long story of Bethlehem may be brought rapidly to a close ; especially in view of the fact that, in the preced- ing two chapters, many of the subjects treated of have been followed into this last period, so that they need not be further adverted to. The years which succeeded the centennial anniversary of the United States were not eventful years at Bethlehem, or years that marked important beginnings like many of those before. They constituted rather a period of slow recuperation after the great financial and industrial prostration that had existed from 1873. When aggressive activity, engaged with new undertakings, again appeared, many of the men who had before been in the lead were no longer so. Some succumbed in the financial ordeal and lost their grasp. Others had been removed by death, and yet others who had survived, with property and influence, represented rather a mere conservative con- trol of remaining interests and lines of business, with little specula- tive disposition or inclination to pioneer work in new things. Those who were associated with the undertakings that originated after this time were rather, for the most part, the younger citizens of the place who had not before been leading, or new men from elsewhere who had come into connection with local affairs. The great industries on the south side had gradually resumed normal activity and all classes were beginning to experience better times when an unprecedented ordeal of dread disease visited the community, especially South Bethlehem. This was the memorable small-pox scourge of 1882. Already before the close of the previous vear, cases occurred here and there. In January it increased to an extent that caused uneasiness. Suddenly it became epidemic on the south side in March, spreading at an appalHng rate, while many cases appeared in West Bethlehem and some in the old town. Many 755 756 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. weeks of tribulation passed before it disappeared. A hundred and twenty deaths occurred in the Borough of South Bethlehem, thir- teen in the adjacent part of Lower Saucon Township, four in Salis- bury Township, eighteen in West Bethlehem and twelve in Bethle- hem — a total of a hundred and sixty-seven. Among them was the faithful sexton of Nisky Hill Cemetery, Charles Groman, who, after helping to inter many of the unfortunates, was stricken down by the contagion. The pathetic sight of many helpless orphans, after the scourge subsided, moved the late W. W. Thurston, then Vice- President of the Bethlehem Iron Company, to found the Children's Home, which yet exists among the local charities, incorporated in 1886 and occupying its present quarters since 1888. It was opened on June i, 1882, and for some time was entirely stipported by Mr. Thurston, in a btiilding on Cherokee Street, South Bethlehem, which he purchased and fitted up. Several organizations that were formed, on both sides of the river, for relief, continued to exist for some years and to engage in charitable work in emergencies. The lesson of stricter regulations and better precautionary measures, on the part of the local authorities, in the matter of guarding the health of the community, was also learned. It began to be realized that the towns had grown to a size which, in many particulars, required methods different from those of the village, and that there had been a large increase in that class of the population which, in its own interests as well as for the good of the whole, has to be dealt with by law in nearly all things. A conspicuous feature of the general development, not long after that time, was the organization of West Bethlehem as a distinct municipality. On March 15, 1886, a meeting of citizens discussed the question of securing incorporation as a Borough, and appointed a committee to ascertain the opinions of the tax-payers of the dis- trict. At another meeting, on May 4. this committee reported a hvmdred and fifty-three in favor of the proposition and forty-two opposed to it, and it was resolved to proceed at once. The charter of incorporation included the district formerly called South Bethlehem in the Borough, and went into efifect, Sep- tember 16, 1886. The first Borough election was held on Novem- ber 2. The first Burgess was Marcus C. Fetter. The first Council- men were William H. Foltz, George W. Grube, Charles Hess, Asher Hower, William Mann and William Walp. In 1887. a fire depart- ment was instituted. The organization, which it was proposed first to call "Fetter Hose, No. i," eventually received the name 1877 1892. 757 "Monocacy Hose Company." The municipal building, commenced in the autumn of 1887, on "The Old Allentown Road" — later named Prospect Avenue, because more euphonious — was completed and formally occupied in April, 1888. In that year the new Borough was also divided into two wards. Various improvements werej introduced. Among these was a better organization of the pubHc schools under a Principal, in 1887. The first who held this office was C. T. Bender. In 1884, the Fairview School-house had been built on a lot purchased of William Leibert, at the corner of Market Street and Fourth Avenue. The school-house on Spring Street which, fifteen years before, had taken the place of the original one, called "The Vineyard Street School-house" — although it did not stand on Mneyard Street — had long been inadequate. So rapidly did the population increase, that very soon yet more ample school accommodations became necessary and, in 1891, the handsome large Higbee School-house on Spring Street stood ready for use. The mention of the old Vineyard Street School-house calls up its association with religious work on the west side, referred to in a previous chapter. The West Bethlehem Moravian Sunday-school was transferred from that to the two-story school-house on Spring Street, and at intervals stated preaching took place there also. In 1877, the late Levin J. Krause ofTered to present a lot on the Allen- town Road, at the corner of the third intersecting new street — now Third Avenue — for a Sunday-school chapel, if one should be erected within five years. It was not until after the expiration of that time that the enterprise was undertaken. The corner-stone of the chapel was laid on August 26, 1883. Through a special gift by the late George W. Dixon, a better building was erected than had been planned. It was dedicated on January 27, 1884, and on the 27th of May, 1885, the old bell that had long lain unused in the cellar of the Moravian Church was hung in the belfry of the new chapel. The building was enlarged and improved, the latter part of 1890, and was formally re-opened on January 25, 1891. The Lutheran membership living in West Bethlehem organized a separate congregation, July 29, 1887, in charge of the Rev. W. D. C. Keiter. The building-site on Third Avenue was secured in Sep- tember and the erection of a church was at once proceeded with. It was finished and consecrated, April 8, 1888, receiving the name Holy Trinity Church. In like manner some of the members of the Reformed Church living on the west side opened a Sunday- school, on ^lay 20. 1888, and out of this grew the organization of 758 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. a congregation, December ii, 1891, the first pastor of which was the Rev. J. F. DeLong. The chapel on Fourth Avenue was com- menced in 1890, and occupied by the Sunday-school in February, 1891. It was consecrated, June 28, 1891, and called Bethany Chapel. These two places of worship, together with the Moravian chapel, then met the religious requirements of by far the larger part of the population that had denominational preferences. The period at which these West Bethlehem developments took place was one of renewed activity and progress generally. On the south side, the new era of the Bethlehem Iron Company, as a manu- facturer of government ordnance, had opened. It was on March 22., 1887, that the Company, relying on the progress it had made in its equipment for such work and the ability of its Superintendent and Engineer to provide what was further needed, submitted its first proposals to supply gun-forgings and armor-plate, in response to the circular issued by the Secretary of the Navy in August, 1886, inviting such bids. This was one of the most notable industrial epochs at Bethlehem. Other prominent new enterprises had made their appearance on both sides of the river as a result, to a consid- erable extent, of the efforts made by the Boards of Trade that had been organized by business men. Foremost among these was the silk manufacturing industry, on a scale that would have amazed good PhiUp Bader nursing his brood of silk-worms in the Brethren's House at Bethlehem and at Christiansbrunn, a century and a quarter before, or Ettwein who, nearly a hundred years before, had, under the stimulus of premiums offered by scientific and industrial organi- zations, produced silk in profitable quantities at Bethlehem ; or even James Whittemore, of fifty years before, when "the Morus Multicoidis craze" was making men's heads whirl with visions of silk and wealth. He had his cocoonery, in 1837, in the little frame house on Church Street, known to many as the Neisser house, and his orchard of mulberry trees, to furnish food for the worms, on one of the lots near the canal and within call of where one of the great silk mills has arisen. Subscriptions for the Bethlehem Silk Mill on Goepp Street were opened in 1885. Ground was broken for the foundations of the building on February 24, 1886, and, already on November 3, the machinery was started in the finished structure. The first section of the extensive Lipps and Sutton mill on Seneca Street, South Bethlehem, was built in the Spring of 1886, and started in July. In May, 1886, negotiations were concluded for the establishment of the third, now called the Sauquoit Mill, between the canal and the river, 1877 1892. 759 above the railroad bridge. The building was commenced in July. In February, 1887, the mill was under roof and, the following Sep- tember, it was completed and put into operation. The era of electricity had also dawned at Bethlehem. The enter- prising promoters of the Bethlehem Electric Light Company first had the Armaux Light on exhibition in June, 1883. They were legally incorporated in September, and at the close of the year their first private service was introduced in the town. Certain street lights were paid for by individual subscription for about a year. In February, 1885, a large majority of voters declared in favor of having the streets lighted by electricity at the public expense, and in April the first contract was made with the Company by the Borough authorities. "The Saucon Electric Light Company of South Beth- lehem" was incorporated in April, 1886. That decade was a period also of other municipal enterprises and public improvements, in response to demands that had become imper- ious ; of plans and projects numerous, sweeping and occasionally clashing. The clamor of years, from some quarters, brought Beth- lehem's "curb-stone market" to an end and gave the town a market house which was formally opened, November 10, and first occupied by venders, November 13, 1884. The south side, however, surpassed the old town in the imposing dimensions and appearance of its market. The chronic complaints about the streets also began, at last, to bear fruit in satisfactory street improvements in the three Boroughs. In Bethlehem, the agitation began to be serious in 1884. The proposition to macadamize the streets was opposed by many tax-payers, before whose eyes the vision of results was shut out by the nearer, bulky figure of first cost that stood before them, but it finally became clear that a move must be made. An extensive plan found endorsement in a count of votes and the necessary steps to secure the required resources could be legally taken. The steam stone-crusher, purchased by Town Council in the summer of 1887, was given its first experimental test on December 8, of that year. The records tell of a visit to Reading by a committee of Councilmen in October, 1887, to inspect street work being done by a steam roller. The result was the purchase of one for the Borough. It arrived from England in July, 1888, and was put to work tearing up a street surface experimentally and trying the nerves of the horses, on August 16. However varying opinions may stand on the subject of the cost, the details of management and other features in which people always claim the privilege of differing, as they look at things 760 A HISTORV OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. from their respective points of view, the outcome in the present streets of Bethlehem probably leaves none who would take their money back and have them as they were before. Then came the intricate process of street car and bridge projects, the incorporation of sundry companies to do various things — or to prevent others from doing things — the maneuvers, compromisings, mergings and successive actions at law which eventually resulted in the street car and bridge service as they stood as the close of the century. The first charter for a street railway in the towns was taken out in 1887. The same year, a company was incorporated for the purpose of constructing a bridge across the canal and river east of Nisky Hill Cemetery. It was called "The Nisky Hill Bridge Company." In 1887, the Broad Street bridge was made free. The last toll was taken on May 14. Complications delayed the effort to secure a free bridge across the river. Some thought a more satisfactory solution of the problem of closer relations between the north and south sides, of street car service and other dcsidcrafa lay in a new bridge to be constructed from a proposed extension of Main Street, Bethlehem, from its intersection with Church Street, southward to the Monocacy, straight across the river. This large plan, starting with measures by the Bethlehem Town Council to open the street extension referred to, took precedence, for a season, of efforts to free one or the other existing bridge. After its abandonment, these efforts resvilted in the entire freeing of the old Main Street bridge on which toll was yet taken for vehicles. It was traveled free by teams, the first time, on November 8, 1892. In April, 1891, the electric railway on the streets of Bethlehem was legally authorized. Work at its construction in the town was commenced in June. On August i, 1891, the first electric car entered Bethlehem across the Broad Street bridge from Allentown and was run up Broad Street to New Street. On October 8, the first car passed over the Church Street and Main Street tracks. The grounds of the Bethlehem Fair and Driving Park Association where, in 1891, work was commenced in April and the first exhibition took place in Se]itember, were a terminus of the first local line. From that beginning the existing situation has developed. Several other municipal improvements may be referred to. In 1884, a new fire company was formed in the north part of the Borough and named the Fairview Hose Company. No. 4. Its hose house on Fairview Street was built in 1885. The Central Fire Sta- tion, on Broad Street, was built in 1892. and the various new arrange- ments and equipments to make the department more efficient were JEFFERSON SCHOOL HOUSE FRANKLIN SCHOOL HOUSE 1877 1892. 7^1 then introduced. In 1889, the third of the successive pumps for Bethlehem's water supply that have followed the old machinery of Christiansen, a Dean pump of far greater capacity than the preced- ing ones, was placed in the works ajid was tested on October 24, of that year. At the same time a considerably larger iron storage tank was built near that erected in 1872 above North Street, east of High, to which, in 1885, an additional height had been given. The Bethlehem South Gas and Water Company, which has to serve a much larger population/ including West Bethlehem, since its incorporation, has constructed, since 1885, the two large reservoirs above St. Luke's Hospital to the west, completed in 1886, and a yet larger one com- pleted in 1893. The pumping station on the south bank of the river, across from the western end of Calypso Island — on which, in 1898 and 1899, experimental excavations were made to ascertain the prac- ticability of drawing water filtered through the gravel from the river-bed — was built in 1886, and contains two pumps with a com- bined capacity of seven million gallons daily, feeding a reservoir capacity of fifteen million gallons. Yet another noteworthy step forward has been taken in the greatly improved postal facilities since the occupation of its present quarters, at the north-east corner of Alain and Market Streets, by the Bethlehem post-ofBce, in 1885, and the erection of the new post-ofifice building on the south side in 1891. The free postal delivery was introduced on the north side in Septem- ber, 1887, and on the south side in November, 1890. Meanwhile, an extension and improvement of Bethlehem's public school accommodations — those of South Bethlehem were treated of finally in the preceding chapter — has taken place since their last men- tion, corresponding to other forward movements. In 1883, the office of Superintendent of Schools was instituted, the Principal of that time, George H. Desh, being the first to fill the position. After his death in 1888, he was succeeded by Thomas Farquhar. An intelli- gent and energetic Board of Directors gave careful attention to all matters that had to do with the internal and external advancement of the schools, and surprising elaborations in both respects took place in a few years. The Franklin School-house supplemented by I In 1876 Bethlehem had a population of 5000, South Bethlehem less and West Bethle- hem only a few hundred. The census of 1890 gave Bethlehem 6750, South Bethlehem 10386, and West Bethlehem 2757, a total of 19893 in the three Boroughs. With the adja- cent outskirts there was in 1892 a population of probably 21000 in " the Bethlehems" and their suburbs. The new Boroughs of West Fountain Hill and Northampton Heights did not vet exist at that time. 762 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the old one on Wall Street no longer sufficed, and inside of four years three hne, large school-houses were added. The Penn build- ing, at the north-east corner of Main and Fairview Streets, was finished and opened in the siminxer of 1888. The Jefferson building, at the corner of Maple and North Streets, was finished and ready for use in 1890. Then it was concluded that the old Wall Street build- ing was no longer either sightly, sanitary or safe. It was demolished and, on its site, arose, in 1892, the handsome structure which, with sesqui-centennial associations in mind, was named the George Neisser School-house, in honor of Bethlehem's first school-master of 1742. A notable occurrence in connection with Moravian school work in Bethlehem, during the years now under review, was the elaborate celebration, by the Seminary for Young Ladies, in 1885, of the centennial anniversary of its re-establishment as a general boarding-school for girls. A prominent educational institution had been added to those of the town. "The Preparatory School for Lehigh University," founded on the south side on September 16, 1878, by Prof. William Ulrich, was transferred across the river, in May, 1883, into the "Captain Dutch house" on New Street — once had in mind for the Moravian Theo- logical Seminary — which he had purchased. After Prof. Ulrich's death he was succeeded in the charge of this school by his principal instructor, H. A. Foering, who has quite recently transferred it to a new building on the west side. On September t. 1885. a class preparatory to Lehigh University was formed in the Moravian Parochial School. Provisions were later introduced in the Bethlehem High School course for boys to prepare for the entrance examin- ations at Lehigh. Large-minded men connected with the manage- ment of these several schools, and with the faculty of the University, have been disposed to foster such natural and proper relations. No marks of progress, so far as externals are concerned, on the part of Bethlehem's educational institutions are more conspicuous than those which appear in connection with the Moravian College and Theological Seminary during the last years with which this chapter deals. The old Nisky Hill Seminary on Church Street, which had served the institution since 1858, had become inadequate and discreditable, and in 1890. steps were taken to secure the erec- tion of new quarters equal to its needs and an honor to the Church and the town. The fine block of lots on North Main Street was presented to the authorities by the Trustees of the Moravian Con- gregation of Bethlehem. An energetic and capable committee took i877 1892. 763 charge of the enterprise, with the Rev. Robert deSchweinitz, so long connected with executive and financial management, serving as Treasurer. Building operations were commenced in the summer of 1891. (3n Sunday afternoon, August 2, the corner-stone of the large building, which afterwards received the name Comenius Hall, was laid. Meanwhile the other building, to contain the refectory and infirmary, was erected and the near-by dwelling-house, which was purchased, was remodeled as a home for the resident professor, the Rev. J. Taylor Hamilton. Then came the generous proposition of the late Ashton C. Borhek and his wife to build a chapel, as a gift to the institution, in memory of a deceased daughter. On Septem- ber 18, 1892, the corner-stone of the Helen Stadiger Borhek Memo- rial Chapel was laid. On the 27th of the same month, Comenius Hall, built to a large extent by the voluntary contributions of Mora- vians of Bethlehem and other places, was dedicated with solemn ceremonies. The beautiful chapel was consecrated on October 22, 1893. In this connection mention may be made of the newest chapel of the Moravian Congregation, with which many of the students of The Theological Seminary have been associated, the Laurel Street Chapel. Its corner-stone was laid on October 9, 1887, and in Decem- ber of that year it was completed. Its consecration took place on the nth of December. The late Bishop Edmund deSchweinitz, President of the Executive Board, who from 1864 to 1880 had been pastor at Bethlehem, ofificiated on that occasion, and on the evening of the following Sunday, December 18, died suddenly at his home on Church Street. His last literary work had been the preparation of a historical sketch of the Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen, which was read at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the organization of that society, which took place on November i of that year. This occasion, following the centennial at the Young Ladies' Seminary in 1885, was the third in a succession of notable anniversaries observed, in the course of a few years, by Moravians in Bethlehem. The first was the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Moravian missions to the heathen, which was observed on August 21, 1882. So conspicuously were the musical elements of these and subse- quent notable festivities brought out, that a reference yet to some of the more recent musical efforts at Bethlehem may not be out of place here. The old Philharmonic Society was partially restored after a season of decline and, as late as 1884 and 1885, gave several concerts. Then its orchestra co-operated with the new organiza- 764 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. tion- called the Bethlehem Choral Union, formed on September 28, 1882, by J. Fred Wolle who, after the death of Prof. Theodore F, Wolle in 1885, became organist and choir-master of the Moravian Church, a position which he continues to hold while serving the Packer Memorial Church of Lehigh University in the same capacity ; Prof. H. A. Jacobson, one of the most proficient organists of Beth- lehem, sharing his duties in the church during all the years since then. The Choral Union gave its first concert on March 27, 1883. It consisted of parts of Haydn's "Creation," and some lighter selec- tions. Among the many public efiforts that followed, some have a prominent place among the musical events of Bethlehem. One was the rendition of the "Messiah," on December 14, 1886, followed by the "Elijah," November 29, 1887, both in the Moravian church. Another was the first attempt to produce the music of John Sebas- tian Bach, in parts of the Passion according to St. John, on June 5, 1888, in the chapel of the Moravian Parochial School. Mendels- sohn's "Christus" and Rheinberger's "Christophorus" were also given, to the pleasure of music-loving people. Its most ambitious undertaking was the St. Matthew Passion of Bach, on April 8, 1892, given so successfully that it was a revelation of possibilities at Beth- lehem in compositions considered beyond the abilities of any chorus that could be gotten together in a place of such size, even with the cultivation of a high order of music as a tradition of the town for more than a century. Then came a merging of the Choral Union in a new organization of November 15, 1892, called The Oratorio Society, which, however, did not last long in the character then taken, and was eventually succeeded by the formation of The Bach Choir out of its elements as a nucleus. Further work in Bach was the production, in part, of The Christmas Oratorio, December 18, 1894; and then, after long and assiduous labor, the most elaborate and difficult composition of all, the Mass in B. Minor — again in the Moravian church — on March 27, 1900. This was its first complete production in America, and in the closing year of the centurv, grandly crowned the musical work of Bethlehem.'' 2 The Bethlehem Liederkranz formed by C. W. Roepper in October, 1 870 — followed, after an existence of many years, by the Bethlehem Maennerchor — and the Concordia Glee Club which existed for a few years after 1882, were other modern musical organizations. The Beth- lehem Cornet Band of 1875 ^^^ a longer career than the majority of bands and the Fairview Band which developed out of a serenading organization early in 1884, was long a credit to Bethlehem. 3 That superb achievement, the three days' Bach Festival of May 23-25, 1901, which attracted the Pttention of musicians throughout the country and even in Europe, and elicited WESTON DODSON ROBERT WILLIAM DESCHWEINITZ WILLIAM LEIBERT BERNHARD EUGENE LEHMAN OWEN AUGUSTUS LUCKENBACH 1877 1S92. 7^5 Several notable anniversary occasions have been referred to. The sesqui-centennial year of Bethlehem abounded in occasions of histor- ical significance. Two conspicuous ones may — discarding chrono- logical order — be referred to before the chief one engages attention. Both of them were remarkable for the largest gatherings of children from the schools and students of the several institutions of learning that have ever occurred in Bethlehem. The first took place on March 28, 1892. It was the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of "that incomparable Moravian,"* Bishop John Amos Comenius — ecclesiastic, patriot, philosopher and most eminent pioneer of modern pedagogics — an occasion observed by universities and colleges and by organizations that foster learning, throughout Europe and Am- erica. In the forenoon, at half past ten o'clock, representatives of all the schools of Bethlehem, to the number of about fifteen hundred, assembled in the Moravian Church, with the several principals, pro- fessors and teachers, boards of directors and the clergy of the town. Addresses were delivered by several clergymen and by a representa- tive of the Public Schools. The Choral Union furnished the musical part of the program. In the afternoon, special exercises were held by the Moravian Parochial School and by the Moravian College and Theological Seminary. The latter consisted of a contest in oratory for a prize offered by an alumnus, the Hon. James M. Beck, at present Assistant Attorney General of the United States. The prize was called The John Beck Prize, in honor of his grandfather, the founder of the once celebrated Academy for Boys at Lititz, Pa. Such an oratorical contest then became a regular feature of the annual obser- vance of Comenius Day. Memorial services in the Moravian church in the evening concluded the celebration of the day in Bethlehem. The other notable observance referred to was the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus, which gave occasion to the great Columbian Exposition at Chicago during the following year. The anniversary, very generally observed through- out the country on October 21, 1892, brought together another assembly of boys and girls which entirely filled the Moravian church. A committee composed of Thomas Farquhar, Superintendent of the Public Schools ; William Ulrich, Principal of the Lehigh University almost unqualified praise from eminent musical critics who were present ; when, as the reward of Mr. Wolle's ability and perse verence, the Christmas Oratorio, the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor were all rendered complete by his well-trained choir, belongs to the events of the new century into which this history does not enter. 4 The characterization of him by Cotton Mather in the " J/agna/ia." 766 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Preparatory School, and Albert G. Rau, Superintendent of the Mora- vian Parochial School, had arranged the program. The several schools met in the morning at their respective places, then massed at the corner of Broad and New Streets and there, headed by a band of music and a color guard of the Grand Army Post, started in procession — • each person, old and young, carrying a flag — down Broad Street and Main Street to the Moravian church and then to the square between the church and the Parochial school buildings, where the proclam- ation of the President of the United States in reference to the observance of the day was read and the national colors were saluted. After that ceremony, all filed into the church, where the concluding exercises were held, consisting of hymns, a prayer and several suitable addresses. The sight of the great throng of children with flags, entirely filling the spacious church, was one not soon forgotten. Later in the day, a large gathering took place in the Fountain Hill Opera House, where an oration was delivered by the late Henry Coppee, LL. D., of Lehigh University. It now remains to record the crowning anniversary celebrations, of greatest local interest, which marked the completion of a century and a half since the beginning of things at Bethlehem. Plans for a suitable observance of the time gradually took shape during 1891. On July 24, the matter was first officially discussed by the Board of Elders of the Moravian Congregation. On August 6, at a joint meeting of the Elders and Trustees, a committee of five was appointed to frame a general plan. In accordance with the sug- gestions of this committee, the Elders and Trustees, at another joint meeting on August 21, took action which resulted in the formation of a more permanent and larger "Sesqui-Centennial Committee." This committee organized on August 29, and appointed a sub-committee to formulate and report detailed plans. These related to the proposed celebration and to the preparation of a ''Memorial Volume." Then a special Editorial Committee was appointed. On September 17, a consultation took place between a deputation from the Sesqui- Centennial Committee and one from the Bethlehem Town Council. With this the working out of plans started for a proper co-operation of ecclesiastical and municipal authorities, and a proper adjustment of the religious and civic elements of the proposed celebration. After that, the various features were left in charge of sundry smaller com- mittees, each responsible for its share of preparation, when the time should come. 1877 1892. yty Meanwhile, the actual commemoration of beginnings at Beth- lehem commenced at Christmas, 1891 ; for it was then a hundred and fifty years since the memorable Christmas Eve service took place in the original log cabin which suggested the name that was given the settlement. More or less reference was made to this at the Christmas festivities in various churches of the town. Naturally the most attention was paid to it in the Moravian church. The decoration of the church was more elaborate than usual and some- what unique in design. Inscriptions of various kinds, with particular historical significance, predominated; many of them selected and arranged with a view to making the whole an appropriate object- study for the occasion, rather than to merely producing artistic effect, as ordinarily." The two services of Christmas Eve were those that are always held, but the hymns and anthems were specially selected for the occasion and printed in a shape to be preserved as mementos. On the evening of Christmas Day, there was a joint celebration by the three Sunday-schools of the Moravian Congregation, in the church. More than a thousand scholars and teachers participated. In order to leave room for a large miscellaneous assemblage besides the schools, over two hundred children of the primary classes were placed on elevated tiers of seats to the right and left of the pulpit, facing the congregation, while all the available space about the table below the pulpit was occupied. In this way nearly two thousand persons were gathered in the church. The same plan in seating the children was followed at the services in which they participated when the Sesqui-Centennial Anniversary of the regular organization of the settlement was celebrated in June, 1892. The days from the beginning of that month were busily occupied in preparations of various kinds by committees and individuals. On June 6, a notice to the citizens of the town, signed by Paul Kemp- smith, Burgess, and Theodore O. Fradeneck, Secretary of Town Council, was issued. It formally announced the civic celebration planned for Saturday, June 25. It called upon the people to observe the day as a general holiday ; to decorate their homes and places of business ; to engage, with the schools of the Borough, in the ceremony of marking historic buildings and spots with suitable memorials; to join the organizations of the town in the parade that 5 Those who wish to know particulars will find them described in minute detail in the diary of the congregation and in the next following number of The Moravian^ preserved in the archives. 768 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. was planned and in gathering to liear the oration; and to illuminate tlieir houses from eight to ten o'elock, at the elose of the day. The municipalities of West Uethlehem and South Bethlehem were officially invited by the Borough authorities to participate in the celebration. Suitable formal announcements and invitations of several classes, prepared by an appointed committee, were specially sent to digni- taries and executive officials of the Nation, the State, the County and other Ijoroughs of the County ; to neighboring institutions of learn- ing, to the clergy, within certain limits ; and to representatives of the press. The order of all the religious and secular functions that entered into the celebration, as planned to extend from Friday evening, June 24, to Sunday evening, June 26, was printed for distri- bution at the proper time by the persons in charge of the several sections. Various private enterprises to add interest to the occasion, or to turn it to pecuniary profit, were also undertaken, by photographers, by certain organizations and by persons in different lines of business. One of these was the preparation of a neat sesqui-centennial medal, cast in bronze and in cheaper metal, of which very many were sold as souvenirs of the occasion. The most conspicuous undertaking, apart from what entered into the official programs, was the issue, by TJic Bethlehem Daily Times, of a Sesqui-Centennial Industrial Edition, of thirty-six pages, pro- fusely illustrated with portraits and buildings, old and new, in the Boroughs. A variety of historical articles by a corps of contributors dealt with every special theme that would be looked for in such a publication, and filled its pages with interesting matter, much of it permanently valuable for reference ; most of the articles being remarkably accurate. The exterior decorations, mainly of bunting in the national colors and flags in abundance, displayed on nearly all places of business and on hundreds of residences — many of them in very artistic designs arranged by professional decorators — surpassed in profusion anything of the kind that had ever before been attempted in Bethlehem. The fronts of the historic old buildings on Church Street were almost completely covered with bright colors. The interior of the Mora- vian church was suitably adorned. The celebrated painting by Schuessele of "Zeisberger preaching to the Indians" formed the center-piece in the pulpit alcove. Against the wall, on one side of the pulpit, was a large representation of the first house of Bethlehem and. on the other side, a similar one of the old Communitv House 1877 1892. 7^9 (Genicinliaus), in which the organization took place in June, 1742, as it originally appeared. Both were the work of Charles Wollmuth, of Bethlehem. Some other features were the same as at Christmas, 1891. Large quantities of rhododendron, arbor vitae and Florida moss were used in the decoration which, like that of the preceding Christmas, was arranged under the experienced and skillful direction of Charles H. Eggert. Prior to the approach of the festivities, all of the educational insti- tutions of the three Boroughs, excepting the Public Schools, had closed for the summer. In most cases, their final exercises included some reference to the notable year 1892, in the history of education, of America and of Bethlehem. Those of the Moravian Parochial School were brought into such close relation to the Sesqui-Centennial cele- bration that they may almost be regarded as the beginning of it. The customary closing entertainment took place on Thursday evening, June 23. The recitation of sundry poems, both serious and facetious, relating to Bethlehem, written by persons at different periods of the town, was introduced, under the head of "Memories," as a part of the program. At the close of the exercises, the school and large audience were addressed by Bishop Edward Rondthaler, of Salem, North CaroHna, who, as the representative of that old Moravian settlement and of the Southern Province of the Aloravian Church, had been invited to Bethlehem to participate in the festivities. The commencement exercises of the school took place on the morning of Friday, June 24, the opening day of the celebration. The essays by members of the graduating class — several of them were read — all treated of topics associated with the history and traditions of Bethlehem. At seven o'clock on Friday evening, the trombonists assembled in the belfry of the church and announced the beginning of the cele- bration by playing four selected chorales, and soon the throngs wf;re pouring into the church which was crowded in a short time. A great troop of children occupied the raised tiers of seats which filled the corner spaces to the right and left of the pulpit. At half past seven o'clock the Festal Eve Service was opened by the Senior Pastor, Bishop J. M. Levering. He was assisted in the service by his colleagues in the pastorate, the Rev. Morris W. Leibert and the Rev. William H. Oerter. A number of clergymen of Bethlehem and other places who had previously assembled in the vestry, filed into the church in procession and occupied seats about 50 770 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. the table in the space in front of the pulpit, between the raised plat- forms. This order was observed at five services of the occasion. In connection with his opening address, the leader of the service com- municated three greetings received by cable from Europe in the course of the afternoon. The first was from the old Congregation of Herrnhut, Saxony. The second was from the Moravian Congre- gation in London, organized in the same year with that of Bethlehem. The third was from the Moravian Synod in Germany, then in session. Salutatory addresses with discourses on three appropriate themes by the pastors of three of the four oldest Moravian Churches in Penn- sylvania, next to Bethlehem, were combined with the Festal Eve Service.'' The first was by the Rev. Charles Nagel, Pastor of the First Moravian Church of Philadelphia, who spoke of "The Distinc- tive Position and Character of the Bethlehem Congregation." He was followed by the Rev. Paul de Schweinitz, Pastor at Nazareth, whose subject was "The Bethlehem Moravian Pastorate of an Hun- dred and Fifty Years." The closing address was given by the Rev. Charles L. M'oench, Pastor at Lititz, on "Bethlehem's Great Congre- gation of the Departed" — a topic which appealed sensibly to the people amid the associations of the hour, and suitably rounded out the thought of the occasion. The music of the large choir and orchestra, for which careful preparation had been made, fully met the expectations of the people, and its character was sustained through- out in the subsequent services. One of the selections, rendered with impressive efifect, was a composition by the choir-master, J. Fred Wolle, produced for the first time on that occasion. The text, in three stanzas, opened with the words : "He leads us on by paths we do not knowf." One of the hymns sung by the children was the English rendering — to the original rugged old Bohemian chorale — of one of Bishop John Augusta's hymns, beginning "How blest and lovely Th^ earthly dwellings are." Saturday, June 25, was devoted to what was distinguished from the church services as the civic celebration, arranged by a committee of Town Council and a deputation of the Moravian Sesqui-Centennial Committee, as a joint committee, augmented by nine other repre- sentative citizens, with the Burgess of Bethlehem as chairman. Nearly all places of business were closed in the afternoon and many 6 The original plan, to have addresses at the opening service by the three former pastors of the Bethlehem Congregation, yet living at the time, had to be abandoned because the par- ticipation of two of them could not be secured. These three were Bishop H. T. Bachman, 1870-79; the Rev. E. T. Kluge, 1879-83; the Rev. C. B. Shultz, 1880-84. 1877 1892. TJi the entire day. In view of the occasion, the Bethlehem Iron Com- pany transferred pay-day to Friday. The festivities were opened by the rendition of chorales from the belfry of the church by the trom- bonists at eight o'clock. What was perhaps the most interesting feature of the entire festival occupied the forenoon of this day. This was the vmveiling of memorial tablets and stones by the school boys and girls of Bethlehem. There were thirteen bronze tablets, one marble tablet and seven granite markers, suitably inscribed, all pre- viously placed in position on buildings and at sites of historic interest. The scholars with their teachers first gathered in their respective school-houses and then assembled at the intersection of Broad and Center Streets. Eight boys and seven girls of the Moravian Parochial School had been appointed by the Superintendent, the Rev. C. B. Shultz ; twenty boys and six girls of the Public Schools had been likewise appointed by Superintendent Thomas Farquhar to perform the unveiling and to repeat, in connection with each memorial, a few words of historical statement and suitable comment which had been prepared for the purpose and assigned according to a fixed order. A procession was formed at the rallying-point and marched down Broad Street in the following order : the Fairview Band ; the Chief Marshal, Albert G. Rau, Superintendent-elect of the Parochial School, with five aides ; the boys and girls selected to take distinct part ; the pupils of the Parochial School with their teachers ; the pupils of the Public Schools with their teachers ; all other persons who might fall into line. The buildings and sites thus marked were the following, at eighteen stations, named in the order in which the route was taken — several of the more distant points being visited only by detachments of boys accompanied by the men in charge: i. The Sun Inn. 2. The last of the houses moved to Bethlehem from the Indian mission, Nain, standing at the south-west corner of Market and Cedar Streets. 3. The "Horsfield house," a little farther up Market Street, on the north side, in a section of which the first store in Bethlehem and in the Lehigh Valley was opened. 4. The site of the second Seminary for Girls (1790) at the south side of the main building of the Parochial School. 5. The Community House, later Clergy House (Gcmcinhatis) at the corner of Church and Cedar Streets. 6. The first Seminary for Girls, the "bell house" on Church Street. 7. The Sisters' House ; three tablets on the three sections of the building erected at different times. 8. The Old Chapel. 9. The Widows' House. 10. The original pharmacy of Bethlehem, ■on the premises of the present pharmacy of Simon Rau & Co. 11. ■JJI A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. The site of the first house of Bethlehem on Rubel's Alley, in the rear of the Eagle Hotel. 12. The oldest building — "Colonial Hall" — of the present Seminary for Young Ladies. 13. The site of the sign- board which once pointed out "the main road to Ohio," on south Main Street, where the road leads down to the mill. 14. The burial place of continental troops who died in the hospital at Bethlehem during the Revolutionary War, on the east side of First Avenue, West Bethlehem, north of Prospect Avenue. 15. The point where the first "Kings Road" crossed the river. 16. The landing place of the old ferry. 17. The site of the Crown Inn at the south-east corner of the union passenger station in South Bethlehem. 18. The original water works of Bethlehem across the way from the present works on Water Street.'^ The next part of the day's program was the parade in charge of Chief Marshal Captain H. L. Jewett and his aides, with upwards of two thousand men in line. The order of divisions was: i. MiH- tary and civic organizations ; 2. the Fire Department ; 3. the municipal authorities and guests in carriages. Several South and West Beth- lehem organizations participated. The route was from Broad and Centre Streets, where the procession formed, to Linden, to Market, to New, to Fairview, to Main, to Church Street, where the several divisions were dismissed. Then the large groups of people who had been thronging various points along the line of march, and many others directly from their homes, assembled at four o'clock on the green, between the Moravian church and the Parochial school-house where seats had been arranged for as many as possible, and at the north side of which a platform had been built. On that the Burgess and Town Council, the Senior Pastor of the Moravian Church, as a participant in the exercises. General W^ E. Doster, the orator of the day, and invited guests representing neighboring towns, took their places, with the Fairview Band, that furnished music, occupying 7 In connection with the final wording of the inscriptions and the preparation of the parts to be repeated by the boys and girls, the writer was assisted by the late Prof. Edwin G. Klose, who took a zealous interest in all the details of the festival and was the most efficient helper the Moravian pastors had in the great mass and variety of preparatory work that necessarily fell to their lot. The work of getting the tablets and stone markers made and put in place was taken charge of by Mr. James S. Dodson and Mr. Harry E. Brown as a sub-committee. They were all produced at home. The tablets were cast at the Lehman brass foundry in South Bethlehem. Of the above list Nos. 4, 13, 14. 15. 16, 17 are stones, I is a marble tablet, all the rest are bronze tablets. This, for information when, after the lapse of years, some may have disappeared. i877 1892. 773 a section. The exercises were conducted by Chief Burgess Kemp- smith who spoke the words of salutation and w^elcome which were followed by an invocation. After further music, the oration was delivered by General Doster w^io, in succinct and comprehensive manner, brought out the salient points in the scheme of the founders and builders of Bethlehem ; the genesis and results of the successive changes through which the town had passed ; the serious and the comical aspects of its experiences ; and the elements in which its primitive ideals might even yet be cherished and applied to latter- day situations. While not dealing with many details, the oration was replete with historical information worth the attention of citizens of Bethlehem. Brief addresses of greeting by Ex-Mayor Charles F. Chidsey, of Easton, and the Rev. Dr. A. R. Horn, of Allentown, followed the oration. Before dispersing, the assembly joined in singing the hymn "My Country 'tis of thee," and was dismissed wdth the benediction. At the same time, another company had been drawn to another part of Bethlehem where an unofficial program of exercises was carried out, arranged by William McCormick, editor of the Times, who had organized and drilled a company of boys, known as the Y. M. C. A. Cadets. An interesting feature of the day's observance was a Loan Exhibi- tion, arranged by C. H. Eggert and a corps of assistants, in three rooms of the Parochial school building. The Moravian Archives, the Museum of the Young Men's Missionary Society and many a home in the three Boroughs contributed articles of local and general historical interest, from precious manuscripts and pictures, to pieces of earthen and wooden ware that had survived from the olden times of Bethlehem. The collection brought out of hiding many a quaint and treasured heirloom and many a curio that revealed how Beth- lehem abounds in "old things" that are interesting and that have both sentimental and market value. The day closed with a grand illumination which was participated in by a very large number of citizens, some in the old-time manner by placing rows of candles in the windows, others in the most modern style with colored lantern effects and artistic use of electric light. Parts of the old cemetery, the fronts of the old Church Street buildings and the Moravian church presented a beautiful sight produced by rows of many hun- dreds of Chinese lanterns. For nearly two hours after night-fall, a large part of the population of Bethlehem were on the streets roaming hither and thither without the slightest disorder or disturbance, and seemingly without fear that so many deserted homes might be 774 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. invaded by the sneak-thief. The almost entire absence of drunken- ness or riotous conduct, as well as of depredations, throughout the festival, was highly creditable to the town and a testimony to the lofty and sacred associations awakened by the occasion, imbuing it with a tone somewhat in harmony with the spirit of the early days. This subdued the disposition to grosser forms of demonstration and offered little attraction to persons whose presence is always undesirable, although the visitors were very numerous. There was, therefore, no abrupt transition from the scenes at the end of that day to the festivities which followed on the Lord's Day and brought the commemorative celebration to a close. At half past eight o'clock on Sunday morning, the trombonists once more ascended the belfry of the church to introduce the final day of the festival with stately chorales of suitable character and associations. The customary services of the Anniversary Festival furnished the skeleton of the day's order, with elaboration of details for this distinguished occasion, and one extraordinary service was added. Morning Prayer at nine o'clock was in charge of the Rev. Morris W. Leibert, who combined with the service a morning discourse on "Bethlehem's three Jubilees," 1792, 1842, 1892; producing from the records many interesting details of the fiftieth anniversary and of the centennial, the latter remem- bered by many people of the Congregation. Several other ministers took part in this service, and the large company of children, again filling the raised seats in front, sang with surprising ease another of the old Bohemian chorales which probably no one present remem- bered having ever heard sung in Bethlehem. It was also one of the hymns of Bishop John Augusta, the translation of which begins with the lines ''Praise God forever; Boundless is His favor" — hymn and tune of a character to rank with Luther's immortal hymn. The interest in re-learning fine old chorales, long forgotten at Bethlehem, was strongly stimulated by the services of this notable festival. At the next service, which took place at half past ten o'clock, the mem- orial sermon was preached by the Senior Pastor ; his two colleagues taking part in the service and Bishop Rondthaler offering the closing prayer. At this service further greetings from the General Directing Board of the Church in Europe, from that of the English branch of the Church and from the Moravian Ministers' Conference of New York, were communicated — also the courteous response of the Presi- dent of the United States to the invitation officially sent him by the committee in charge. Special exercises were held by the Central Sundav-school in the afternoon, with brief addresses bv several i877 1892. 775 visiting clergymen, and at half past two o'clock the love-feast was held in the church, which was yet more densely crowded than at the preceding service. The Rev. W. H. Oerter officiated and made a short opening address. In addition to the greetings and responses already communicated, those offered in person and others more briefly and informally sent, letters from some other persons were read at this service, one being from the Rev. Benjamin LaTrobe, then Moravian Secretary of Missions in London. Addresses were made at the love-feast by Bishop Rondthaler, who brought greetings in the name of North Carolina Moravians, and by the Rev. W. H. Rice, of New York City. The special service that was introduced took place at five o'clock. It was held entirely in German, but its character awakened so much interest that fully six hundred persons attended. Nothing in the course of the festival revived such pleasing memories of former days, when similar services were a part of the regular order at Bethlehem. It consisted principally of one of the old services from the German "liturgy book," treating of the departed ones and the fellowship with the Church Triumphant — chorales and responsive recitative sung throughout, solo leader, choir and congregation alternating, with full orchestral accompaniment. The sentences intended to be sung, under the old arrangement, by the "Liturgus" — the minister leading the service — were taken on this occasion by Robert Rau who, in his long previous connection with the choir as leading tenor, had often rendered this kind of service. When it was decided to introduce this feature, it was presumed that it would probably be the last time that one of these particular services of the olden times, thus elaborately rendered, would be heard in the church. This "Liturgy" was preceded by an introductory part led by the Rev. Morris W. Leibert, at which the Rev. Dr. Schultze, President of the Moravian College and Theo- logical Seminary, and the Rev. George F. Bahnson, Pastor of the Schoeneck Church near Nazareth, made addresses. At eight o'clock the festival closed with the Holy Communion. The three pastors of the congregation participated in the service, with two other ministers helping to distribute the elements to a very large number of communi- cants who, at the conclusion of this final service, pledged the hand of fellowship while they sang the old covenant hymn — renewing the ideal bonds of a hundred and fifty years : We who here tog^ether are assembled, Joining hearts and hands in one, Bind ourselves with love that's undis-sembled, Christ to love and serve alone : 776 A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA. Oh, may our imperfect songs and praises Be well-pleasing unto Thee, Lord Jesus ; Say, " My peace 1 leave with you." Amen, Amen, be it so. This story of Bethlehem is finished. The years which followed its hundred and fiftieth anniversary present nothing, as yet not alluded to, that needs to be introduced in these final pages. The century has come to an end since that great festival and, in its closing year, there were notable memorial services in the church in which the members of the original religious household of Bethlehem have wor- shiped since the opening decade of the century — services which once more carried the mind back to the pioneers, the first house, the first Christmas and the naming of the place. Moravians throughout the w^orld remembered, on May 26, 1900, that on that day two hundred years before, Nicholas Lewis Count of Zinzendorf was born. In appreciative recognition of what he did to restore the ancient pros- trate Church of the Brethren, to found its modern villages, schools and congregations, in the Old World and the New, and to start it on the way to its most distinguished modern work — pioneer evangeliza- tion in heathen lands — memorial services were held at many a place and these things were spoken about. So at Bethlehem the Zinzen- dorf Bi-Centenary called up again the memorable scenes of December 24, 1 741, and June 25, 1742, when his presence graced and his spirit ruled the two most notable days in the first years of the goodly town. On December 31, 1900, not only Moravians, but large numbers of other Christian people, gathered in one and another sanctuary at midnight, or kept vigil in many a home, to do homage, at the going out of the century, to Him, before Whom Zinzendorf and his brethren bowed as the supremely Adorable One, in Whose Name the founda- tions of Bethlehem were laid and Who is "the same yesterday, today and forever." Marvelous are the changes that time has wrought on the historic acres which became the first Moravian property in America, since David Nitschmann felled the first tree on the hill above the spring, in the conviction that here was the best place yet found at which to build the town and that here it would arise. The essen- tial ideals of religion and brotherhood, of sanctified learning, conse- crated toil and highest community of interests that gave genius, aim and form to the Christian commonwealth of which those founders conceived, are as unchanging and perpetual as the existence of Him to Whose glory they built the House of Bread by the springs of living water. GENERAL INDEX. The references refer to page numbers. Accounts, System of, 183. Administrator, 269 ; J. C. A. de Schweinitz, 431 ; L. D. de Schweinitz settles with Bethlehem, 684; office ceases, 689. Agapae, 66. Allemaengel in danger, 306. Allen tract, 57, 61. Allentown, 408, 415. Alleys, named, 715. American Colonization Society, 647. American House, see Hotel. Anchor Hotel, see Hotel. Antes, Henry, first meets with Moravians, 32. Justice of the Peace, 211 ; ordained, 227; protests, 248, 249; builds Friedensthal mill, 250; as a Moravian, 251 ; leaves Bethlehem, 251 ; death of, 295. Apothecary shop, see pharmacy. Arawacks at Bethlehem, 240. Archives catalogued, 409. Archives and library, 701. Arks on the Lehigh, 642. Arrivals from Europe, 1 783-1 800, noted, 569. Artist, J. J. Mueller, 73, 145; J. V. Haidt, 278; others, 709. 710. Associators, 216, 217. Aufseher Collegium instituted, 421, 514, 550, 666, 677, 681, 688. Augsburg Confession received, 27. Banks, 739. Baptism of Indian converts at Oley, 104. Baptist church, 698. Baron de Kalb at Bethlehem, 462, 468. Bartow s path, 737. Bechtel, John, ordained, 96. Bell-house, 191. Bells, on old Seminary, 191 ; transported from Philadelphia, 463. Bethlehem, lands, first purchase, 56, 57, 61 ; first house 61, 62, 148; named, 79; con- gregation organized, 137, 138, 139, 140; center of Moravian work, 148; period of extreme exclusivism, 53^; fiftieth anni- versary, 537; officials, end of eighteenth century, 540; dominated by Administrator Cunow, 568, 595, 607, Oio, 615, 636; characteristics early in nineteenth century, 583-586; controversy about real estate, 606-608; changes agitated, 609-618; anniversary festival, 621 ; clergy, active in neighborhood, 628; first house demolished, 633 ; controversy with Cunow acute, 636 ; L. D. de Schweinitz succeeds him, 637 \ new era opens, 639; financial reaction, 650; complications with insolvent house- owners, 650 ; lease-system becoming im- practicable, 652 ; de Schweinitz dies when reconstruction pending, 653 ; official changes, 654; P H. Goepp, administrator, 654 : gradual change, village organization, 665 ; water and fire departments, 666— 668 ; financial depression and great flood, 671-673, 676; centennial of the town, 673-675 ; church-village system no lon- ger possible, 678-679; lease-system abol- ished, 679 ; Borough incorporated, 680, 681 ; population, 682 ; ground rents and sales, 683 ; ecclesiastical re-organization, and incorporation, 684-687; population, 1847, by streets, 689 ; census 1890. given, 760; sesqui-centennial celebration, 766- 775; close of nineteenth century. 776; artillerists, 740 ; guard, 740 ; Iron Com- pany, 723, 26, 758. Bible, Bohemian, 15. Bible Society, Northampton County, 626; Bethlehem Auxiliary, 627, 700. Birth, first in Bethlehem, 142. Bishop, first of renewed Church, 30. Bishopthorpe School, 730. Bleck's Academy, 659, 705. Boarding-school at Bethlehem, 149. Boards, general executive, 616. Book-store, 191. Book bindery, Oerter, 671. Braddock, defeat, 297. Brass foundry, Lehman, 717. Brethren's House, located. 144 ; built, 197, 198, 199; declines, 567, 594; financial straits, 594, 595 ; plans to meet crisis, 598; plans for use of building, 599; establishment closed, S99 ; building re- modeled and occupied by boarding- school, 600. Brewery becomes paper-mill, 643. Bridge, Monocacy, 202. 119 78o GENERAL INDEX. Bridges, Lehigh, the first, 545-546 ; canal, 644 ; New Street, 735 ; Broad Street, 735 ; Union Street, 735 ; Main Street, new one proposed, 760; tolls cease. Main and Broad. 760. Brodhead's Station, 738. Brotherly Agreement, 24, 292, 511. Bruederpfleger^ last at Bethlehem, 603. Burgomasters, 665. Business, varieties opened, 634, 635. Butchering stand, l\rause's, 671. Calendar, O. S. and N. S., 56, 57, 98. Calixtines, 9. Cammerhoff, Bishop, arrives, 1 85. Camp Fetter, 742. Canal, Lehigh, constructed, 643 ; followed by speculation, 650. Capt. John, 154, 155 ; death of, 196. Catalpa (Calypso) Island, 632, 716; boats and ferries, 716. Catechism issued by Bechtel, 96, 97. Catherine, the ship and its fate, 108. Cavalry, Doster, Wetherill, 743, 744. Cemetery, Bethlehem, opened in, 142, 204; South side, 191, 389; improved, 434; on West side hill, 454, 456, 476, 479 ; the "strangers' row," 477; Nisky Hill; 691 ; Fountain Hill, 731. Census of Bethlehem, 378 ; in 1771, 425. Centennial of Bethlehem, 675 ; of United States, 752; cadets. 754; Exposition opened, 753; celebrated at Bethlehem, 754. Chastellux, Marquis de, visits Bethlehem, 517 ; his account of Bethlehem, 518-521. Children's Home, South Bethlehem, 756. Children's services, 620, 621. Choirs, origin of, 197. Christiansbrunn, 190 ; Brethren's House closed at, 540. Christmas Eve vigils, 77. 78, 157. Church, second, built, 255. Church, the third, building of planned, 569; different sites dicussed, 570-572; need of large church argued, 572; John Ettwein's interest, 570-573; combined water-tower and belfry proposed, 573 » financial plans and estimates, 574; site cleared, 574; contracts let, 573, 574; corner-stone laid, 575 ; master-workmen, 576; building described, 576, 577; later change of roof, 576; organ built, 578; total cost. 578 ; consecration described, 578-581 ; later alterations, 690-691. Church, Christ Reformed, 694. Churches, surrounding country, 563, 628. Churches, South Bethlehem, Moravian, 731 ; Presbyterian, 732; Episcopal, 732; Ro- man Catholic, 733 ; Lutheran, 733 ; Re- formed, 733 ; Methodist, 733 ; Evangelical Association, 734; Hebrew, 735. Cicerone, 140. Cicerones, Bethlehem, 632. Citizen's Hall, 70S, 708, 746, 747. Civil War, beginning of, 740; first Bethle- hem volunteers, 740 ; home guards, 741 ; divergent sentiments 741 ; war-time ad- vertisements, 742 ; woolen army goods, 743 ; first deaths, Bethlehem troops, 743 ; cavalry companies, 743 ; relief association, 744; sciiool children assist, 744; notable gatherings, 745 ; chaplain's aid society, 746 ; army express, 747 ; funerals of sol- diers, 747, 749, 751 ; Union League, 747 ; Gettysburg battle panic, 748 ; Christian Commission, 749 ; large sums of money, bounty, 750; Lincoln Memorial service, 750 ; close of the war celebrated, 750 ; decoration of graves, 751 ; Grand Army of the Republic, 752. Clergy house, 68. Coal, anthracite, discovery of, 640 ; first mining company, 641 ; Bethlehem men take shares, 641; experimented with at Henry's forge, 641. Colh'gii elucidated, 263. Colony of Moravians in Georgia, 106; at Heerendyk, 106; to Holstein, 106; at St. Croix, 106; the Henry Jorde, 253. Columbus Day, four hundredth anniversary, 7^5- Comenius, John Amos, maintained the epis- copacy, 19; as educator, 19; invited by Harvard, 20; his hopes fulfilled, 20; death of, 20; three hundredth anniver- sary, 765. Community House at Bethlehem, 68; en- larged, 144. Conference of Religions called, 97. Congregation Festival changed, 621. Congress, Continental, convened, 446 ; mem- bers of take refuge in Bethlehem, 465 ; delegates issue order of safe-guard, 467. Congressmen at Bethlehem, diary of, 470. Continental Hotel, see Hotel. Council, Congregation, 550, 615, 619 Counter-Reformation, 17. Craig's Settlement, 46. Credit System, Bethlehem, tog. Crown Inn, see Hotel. Culture, in community, 708. Customs, antiquated, distasteful, 583. Dansbury, massacre at. 327. Deaths, 1785 to 1805, noted, 568. Debts diaconies and church building,6o7,6o9. Decoration Day, 751. Delawares, alleged conveyance, 48, 49. GENERAL INDEX. 781 Diacony, General, organized, 380; estab- lished, 385. Diaconies, special, 380. Diary, George Neisser's, 71 ; Neisser begins, ^33> I34> '35- 140; Bethlehem, kept by Immanuel Nitschmann, 512; Jacob Van Vleck, 512; period of little interest, 513. Drylands Church, 563. Dutch settlements on the Delaware, 23. Dutch W. I. Company invites colonists for America, 20. Dye houses, 253. Eagle Hotel, see Hotel. Easton, laid out, 264, 266; lots purchased, 267 ; Indian Council, 343, 347 ; second Indian Council. 351 ; third Indian Coun- cil. 355 ; Indian treaty, 388. Economy, 178, 293 ; General, 179, 180, 181 ; house built, 28 ^ ; House, changes in, 382 ; General, abrogation of, 365, 378-382. Eighteenth century, close of, 567. Elder, General, 177. Eldership, 223, 224, 226. Elders' Conference defined, 420 ; Provincial, (Provincial Board) 677, 679, 684, 685 ; Unity, 677 ; village, 677. Electric light, 759. Electric cars, 760. Emmaus, 156. England, first steps in Moravian establish- ment, 26. English preaching, 150. Ephrata Community, Lancaster Co., 80. Ephrata House, Nazareth. 427. Ettwein, John, arrives, 278. Evangelical Association church, Bethlehem, 696. Evangelistic plans, 156. Exclusive System, extreme stage of, 538 ; effects of paternalism, 539 ; decadence, 583 ; people dissatisfied, 585; strong move- ment to shatter system, 590-592; transi- tion period opens, 6 ^9 ; complication with house owners, 650; financial conditions hasten dissolution, 678, 079 ; lease system abolished, 679 ; Borough incorporated, 680, 681 ; church re-organized and incor- porated. 684-687. E.xecutive Authorities, re-organization of desired, 616. Expenditures, reckless, 270. Farm Bethlehem, end of, 629 ; south side, sold, 718. Farms, laid out, 162, 163, 413. Ferry, 161. Ferry, rope, 359, Ferry, abandoned, 546. Fetter House, see Hotel. Financial Crisis, 270.274; 1836-44, 671- 677. Fire-engine, first brought, 400. Fire-engines, names and quarters, 667, 668, 714, 756, 760. First house, Bethlehem, demolished, 633. Fishers, the, 130. Fontainebleau, 719, 730. Foot- washing, 169. Forks of the Delaware, bounds, 45. Fort Charles Augustus, 742. Forts, frontier, built, 325, 327; evacuated, 370. Foundries, iron, 634, 669, 723. Fourth of July, 1826, celebrated, 646. Freshet, 202; 1 841, described, 672 ; those of 1862 and 1869, 736, 737. Friedenshuetten at Bethlehem, 192; Indians, 670. Friedensville, zinc mines and great engine, 721. Fries, insurrection, 564. Funeral first in Bethlehem, 142. Garrison, engaged by Zinzendorf, 159; Cap- tain, 166; Captain, to Bethlehem, 237. Gas works, Bethlehem and South Bethle- hem, 714, 761. Gemeintag^ 67. Gemein Haus at Bethlehem, 68. Getneinrath, 550, 615, 619, 665. Georgia, first Moravian colony, 34 ; grant of land, 33. 35 ; John Wesley in, 35 ; first Indian School, 37 ; Spanish hostilities, 38, 40 ; Moravian colony breaking up, 39, 40 ; Second Moravian colony, 35 ; Moravians to Pennsylvania, 41. Gerard, Chevalier, at Bethlehem ; visit an- nounced by Henry Laurens, 489. Gnadcnhoeh, 426. Gnadenhuetten, Mahoning, 193 ; begun, 193 ; Indian visitors, 238 ; massacre, 310- 318; destroyed, 332; new, 243; Ohio, massacre of Moravian Indians, 523. Gnadeiistadt^ 426. Gnadeiithal, commenced, 190; sold for poor house, 668. Goepp's financial measures, 668. Grace Church, Lutheran, 694. Grand Army Post, 752. Greenland, mission begun, 29 , N. J., 236 ; converts at Bethlehem, 233. Greenlanders, at Bethlehem, 240. H Half-way house, 738. Harvard College invites Comenius, 20. 782 GENERAL INDEX. Harvest, first in Bethlehem, 145. Nausgftneine, 1 29, 17S. Heckewelder, John, arrives, 278 ; enters mission service, 387. Helpers' Conference Provincial, (see Pro- vincial Elders Conference). Helpers' General Conference of, 616, 619. Herrnhut, beginning of, 22; relation to Ber- thelsdorf, 24. Hiiten Lieder von Bethlehem 97. Historic establishments, 670, 671. Hoeth's, massacre at, 327. Holland, a refuge for persecuted religion- ists, 2. Home Mission Society, Bethlehem, 649. Hope, ship launched, 375. Hope, N. J., 236, 543; established, 416; settlement abandoned. 586; property sold, 587 ; Ettwein resides at, 511. Horsfield, Timothy, Sr., to Bethlehem, 237 ; builds house, 257 ; death, 432. Hospital, military, moved to Bethlehem, 45 1 ; interments on west side hill, 454 ; Chap- lain, Ettwein, 454; second time at Beth- lehem, 464 ; overcrowded, 474 ; fever spreads into the town, 476 ; deaths, few on record, 477, 479; tinal removal, 482; expenses claimed by Bethlehem, 482, 730. Hotel, the Crown, 190, 359, 360 ; closed, 546; sold and demolished, 722; for In- dians, 192; Indian, 258; the Sun, 360, 408 ; Gov. John Penn, at, 433 ; crowded with military, 455 ; high stand- ard of, 494; prominent guests, 515, 544; insurrectionists in custody at, 564 ; fictions about dungeons, 565 ; remodeled, 630 ; habitues, 631, 632; sold and refitted, 715 ; Eagle, 547, 633, 634, 670 ; modern im- provements, 715 ; Anchor, 645, 715 ; Fetter House, 645,715; Keystone House, 715 ; Pennsylvania House, 715 ; American House, 716; Union House, 716; Conti- nental, 722. Hourly intercession, 141. House leases, church-villages, 611. Hunter's .Settlement, 46. Hydropathic Institute, 719. Hymnal, Bohemian, 15. I Indian Mission in Georgia, 29 ; languages, students of, 70 ; Mission work planned, 133; baptism, first in Bethlehem, 143; Missions planned, 155 ; languages studied, 165; Mission in New York, 184; houses at Bethlehem, 192; Missions extended, 237 ; Missions in New York and Con- necticut abandoned, 239 ; names for mis- sionaries, 242 ; Renatus, trial, 401 ; Renatua, killed, 496 ; converts to Wyom- ing Valley, 406; converts to Ohio, 407; Indians at Bethlehem, 152; from Sheko- meko, 177 ; last notable visit of, 561, 562; Friedenshuetten, t^o. Independence, Declaration of, 446. Indestructible Lancers, 742. Industries, reviewed, 388, 389, 390 ; more liberty in, sought, 614 ; varieties of, 634, 635 ; established at canal, 645 ; sale of concerns to individuals, 669. Irene, ship built, 200, 20I ; launched, 288; wrecked, 363. Irish Settlement, 46, 150; refugees in Beth- lehem, 308. Iron foundry, the first, 634 ; Beckel's, 669, 723, 735 ; Abbott and Cortright's, 723. Iron furnaces at canal, projected, 723. Iron works, South Bethlehem, 723, 758. Jefferson School-house, 762. John Wasamapah (Tschoop), 113; death of, 193. Jones, Paul, at Bethlehem, 521 ; as volunteer police officer, 522. Justice of the Peace, 139. K Keystone House, see Hotel. Kinderhaiis, old and new, 702. Kirchentag, Maehrischer, 621. Kobatch, Col., (^Kowats,) at Bethlehem, 4S6. La Fayette at Bethlehem. 465. Land, Bethlehem, proposed sale of, 606 ; relation, Bethlehem Boards, Proprietor, Administrator, Unity's \Vardens, 606, 607 ; opposition of Administrator Cunow, 607 ; his methods, 608 ; crisis, 637 ; he is retired, 637 ; is succeeded by L. D. de Schweinitz, 637 ; new Administrator ends controversy 638; new agreements signed, 638; large sales by P. H. Goepp, 685, 718. Lapland, Mission attempted, 29. Laurel Street Chapel, 763. Laurens, Henry, at Bethlehem, 465. Law, fight of resort to, claimed, 612. Lease system, abolition of desired, 611 ; effected, 679. Lehigh Coal Company, 641. Lehigh Navigation Company, 642 ; com- bined with Coal Company, 642. Lehigh University founded. 72S. Library, Congregation and archives, 661. Library Association, Bethlehem, 701. Limitation clause, house leases, 611. Lissa folios found, 1 2. Lissa, burnt, 18. GENERAL INDEX. 783 Little Strength, 1 66 ; captured by privateer, .174- Liquidation Committee, Moravian property, 686, 687. Log houses, present church site, demolished, 574- London, first Sea-Congregation organized, 107. Losung, 69. Lot, use of the, 102, 103 ; objected to, 590, 591, 611. Lovefeasts, 183 ; explained, 66. Lutheran Church, Bethlehem, beginning of, 692-694. M Maguntsche, 156. Mail stage, 544, 630, 722, 730. Market house opened, 759. Marriage, first in Bethlehem, 142. Marschall, F. W. von, and party receive passports, 507. May twelfth, significance of, 621. Meniolagomeka, Mission, 244. Mennonite Church, 699. Methodist, Thomas Webb at Bethlehem, 458. Methodists, first movements, 3 ; beginning of Methodist Church, 695, 696. Militia service, 440 ; inhibition of resisted, 612. Mill, grist, built, 161 ; rebuilt, 256; leased, 635; sold to C. A. Luckenbach, 652; burnt and rebuilt, 737; saw^, 173, 192; at Gnadenhuetten, 195, 196 ; Christians- brunn, 195, 196; Friedensthal, built, 250 ; oil, 192; burnt, 400 ; rebuilt, 410; at Bethlehem, enlarged, 253 ; fulling, built, 253 ; started, 256, 635, 669 ; road de- clared public, 636 ; Owen Rice, up the Monocacy. 643; buckwheat 667 ; woolen, Doster's, 669, 742. Mills, woolen, Monocacy and Moravian, 669, 742. Mission work, plans for, 104; Indian, in Ohio, 387. Missionaries suspected as Papists, 174, 175, 176 ; imprisoned in New York, 177 ; at Wyoming in danger, 305. Missionary Society, Women's, 625 ; Young Men's, 648. Monopolies, relaxation of desired, 613, Moravian Congregation, settlement with Administration and Sustentation, 684- 686 ; legal incorporation, 687 ; first offi- cers under charter, 687 ; last officers under old system, 688 ; pastoral changes, 689. Moravian Church, titles of, 7 ; sketch of, 7, 8, 9; Episcopate, 8, il ; Churchmen, the five, 22, 28, 30. Musgrave Chapel, Presbyterian, 698. Music, organ, 171 ; spinet, 171 ; trombones, 331 ; organ-builder, Klemm, 363; Tanne- berger, 364 ; organ by Tanneberger, 45 1 ; musicians serve country churches, 563, 62S ; Singstiuidcn and Litzirgien, 581 ; devotion to music, 584 ; first rendition of "The Creation," 584; Philharmonic So- ciety, 661 ; uses Old Chapel, 661 ; musi- cal developments reviewed, 662 ; the IVassej-farth, 662 ; notable musical per- formances, 662 ; W. T. Roepper as musi- cal director, 662 ; Jedediah Weiss, basso, 662 ; ''band music," 663; trombone choir, 663 ; first ''band," David Moritz Michael, 663 ; Columbia Band and Beckel's Band, 664 ; Ambrose H. Rauch, musical patri- arch, 664; Philharmonic Society, decline and revival, 708, 763 ; Theodore F. Wolle and William K. Graber, 708, 709 ; Choral Union, Liederkranz, Concordia Glee Club, Cornet Band, Fairview Band, 764 ; Ora- torios directed by J. Fred, Wolle, 7t>4; The Oratorio Society, 764; Bach Choir and Festival, 764. Musicum, Collegiui7i, organized, 172, 205. N Nain, planned, 353 ; Indians threatened, 393 ; abandoned, 402 ; houses removed to Bethlehem, 407. Nativity of our Lord, Church of, 697. Naturalization Act, 214, 215, 216. Nazareth tract. The Rose, purchased by Whitefield, 44 ; Moravian mechanics, 44, 51 ; Court Baron, 147; Congregation organized, 147, 170; places consolidated, 378. Nazareth Hall planned, 280 ; finished, 282 ; dedicated, 348 ; boys' school, 366 ; plans elaborated, 404. Neisser, George, School-house, 762. New-Born, the, 80. New Haven, Conn., Sea-Congregation lands, III. New London, Conn., Sea - Congregation lands, no. New Mooners, 80. Newspapers, 711-714. Nineteenth Century, close of, 776. Nisky Hill Bridge Company, 760 ; Ceme- tery, 691 ; Seminary, 705, 723, 762. Nitschraann, John, regime, 246 ; recalled, 261 ; David, Sr., death of, 365 ; Bishop David, death of, 432. Noah's Ark, 670. Non-combatants, Moravians as, 38, 336, 337, 434 ; Franklin's letter on, 437. Northampton County erected, 266. Northampton town, 408. Nursery, 231. 784 GENERAL INDEX. Oath, taking of, 2i6, 217. Odd Fellows' Hall, 695. Official changes, 1834-1835, reviewed, 675- 676. Old Chapel, inconvenient entrance, 572 ; former interior of, 572 ; becomes library and concert hall, 66i ; renovated for wor- ship, 691 ; organ in, 691. Old Man's place, 209. Old South Bethlehem, 645. Onondago, Zeisberger visits, 245, 304 ; Cam- merhoft" visits, 245. Oppeltsville, 719. Ordination, first Moravian in America, 36 ; first in Bethlehem, 143. Organization, interlinked, objected to, 615. Overseers, Board of, instituted, 421. Oxford, Peter Boehler at, 39. Palmetto rattlesnake ticket, 742. Paper mill at canal, 643 ; its later uses, 644. Park, Main and Church Streets proposed, 571- Parliament, English, and the Moravians, 27, 28 ; recognizes Moravian Church, 218-222. Parsons, William, sketch of, 265. Paternalism, "Pappy Schaaf," 620. Patriotic demonstrations, 646, 750, 752, 753. Paxton rangers, 403. Penn, John, poem on Bethlehem, 552. Penn School-house, 762. Pennsylvania experiment, Penn's, I, 2, 4. Pennsylvania House, see Hotel. Pennsylvania Synods, 98, 99, 100, 102. Pharmacy, 140, 203 ; built, 256 ; apothe- cary shop, 543; Otto, Freitag, Rau, 671. Philadelphia Koad, 545. Physician, Meyer, 146, 150; J. F. and J. M. Otto, 167, 171, 253; J. M. Schmidt, 279, 355; others, 543. 544, 746, 747. Piano factory, Malthaner, 716. Pilgergemeine, 129. Political excitement, 563-565. Polyglot singing, 204, 205. Population, 1876, 1890, the Bethlehems, 761. Portraits. Abbott, Merit, 726. Anders, Rosina, 190. Beckel, C. F., 686. Benade, Andrew, 580. Bigler, David, 728. Bishop, Chas. D., 666, 686. Bishop, D. IL, 700. Bishop, J. D., 580. Bleck, E. F., 662. Boehler, P., 38. Boehler, Elizabeth, 190. Borhek, J. T., 726. Brickenstein, J. C, 598. Brunner, S., 720. Cammerhoff, J. C. F., 184. Cortright, Ira, 726. Day, M. A., 694. Desh, D., 720. Dodson, W., 764. Doster, J. L., 714. Eggert, B . 714. Ettwein, J., 504. Fickardt, F. A., 746. Freytag, J. E., 746. Frueauff, E. A., 674. Garrison, N., 266. Goepp, P. H., 674. Goundie, J. S., 686. Grube, B. A., 266. Guetter, H. G., 686. Haidt, J. v., 266. Heckewelder, J., 522. Herman, J. G., 674. Horsfield, T., 266. Huebener, A. L., 746. Jacobson, J. C, 728. Jones, M. C, 700. Kampmann, L. F., 674. Lawatsch, A. Mar., 190. Krause, Matth., 674. Lehman, B. E., 764. Lehman, E. L., 662. Leibert, Jas. G., 714. Leibert, William, 764. Leinbach, A. N., 746. Lerch, John, 720. Loos, L K., 694. Loskiel, G. H., 580. Luckenbach, Abr., 522. Luckenbach, C. Aug., 714. Luckenbach, J. Chr., 680. Luckenbach, H. B., 7 1 4. Luckenbach, Jacob, 720. Luckenbach, O. A., 764. Mack, Anna, 190. Mack, J. M., 522. Martin, F. A., 746. Neisser, Geo., 184. Nitschmann, Anna, 190. Nitschmann, D., Sr., 64. Nitschmann, D., Episc, 30. Nitschmann, John, 184. Oerter, Jos., 2 6. Pyrlaeus, J. C, 184. Ranch, C. W., 700. Rath, J. B,, 700. Reichel, C. G., 580. Reichel, Wm. C, 694. Rice, Jacob, 680. Rice, Jas. A., 720. GENERAL INDEX. 785 Rice, Owen I, 522. Rice, Owen II, 680. Roepper, W. Th., 662. Rondthaler, A., 694. Schropp, John, 598. Shultz, H. A., 728. Schweinitz, de, E. A., 752. Schweinitz de, L. D., 598. Schweinitz, de, R. W., 764. Seidel, Anna J., 190. Seidel, C. F.,"728. Seidel, Nath., 184. Spangenberg, A. G., 178. Spangenberg, Mary E., 190. Stadiger, J. F., 598. Till, J. C, 662. Van Vleck, Jacob, 580. Van Vleck, W. H., 598. Washington, George, 518. Weiss, Jed., 662. Welden, C. F., 694. Wetherill, S., 726. Wilhelm, B., 726. WoUe, Aug., 700. WoUe, Francis, 732. Wolle, Jacob, 680. Wolle, Sylvester, 728. Wolle, Theo. F., 686. Zeisberger, D., 522. Zinzendorf, N. L., 20. Post, Frederick, his services, 361, 362. Postillion, 140. Postmasters, 140, 543, 739. Fost-office, 739, 761. Post roads, 545. Potter, first in Bethlehem, 145. Prague, ''the day of blood," 17. Preparatory School, Lehigh University, 762. Presbyterian Church, Bethlehem, beginning of, 698. Presidents Adams and Jefferson die, sud- denly, 646. Printer, Brandmiller, 413 ; others, 710-714. Printing, by J. Henry Miller, 74, 95 ; Brand- miller's text-book. 120. Proprietor, D. Nitschmann, 269; N. Seidel, 379 ; church estates, final settlements, 684 ; office ceases, 689. Protestant Episcopal Church, first services, 697. Provincial Board (Provincial Helpers' Con- ference — General Helpers' Conference — Provincial Elders' Conference), 616, 619, 677, 679 684, 685 ; legally incorporated, 687. Publication Office, Moravian, 712. Publications, Bethlehem, 711-714. Pulaski, Count Casimir, at Bethlehem, 485 ; his banner, 487. Purysburg, S. C, 39. 51 Railroads, Lehigh Valley, 721 ; North Penn- sylvania, 722 ; Lehigh and Susquehanna, 737 : Lehigh and Lackawanna, 738. Ratio Disdplinae, 13, 18, 25, 86. Redemptioners, 112, i Si- Reformed Church; Bethlehem, beginning of, 692-694; of Poland absorbs Moravian refugees, 19. Refugees, 329, 334, 342, 347, 398, 399 ; 495, first from Moravia to Berthelsdorf, 22 ; from Philadelphia and New York, 454, 465. Renewed Church, birthday of, 24. Revolution, soldiers pass through, 441, 449, 450, 453; prisoners are quartered, 442, 461, 462 ; prices of commodities, 445, 451, 460, 493; prisoners pass through, 448, 461 ; militia called, 448; militia service declined, 449, 472 ; Generals Gates and Sullivan at Bethlehem, 455 ; military stores deposited, 457, 462, 468, 470 ; military supplies furnished, 458, 468, 469, 474 ; Moravians harassed by neighboring squires 461, 472, 473, 496- 502 ; riotous conduct of soldiers, 479 ; arbitrary orders of petty officers, 481 ; end of causes rejoicing, 526. Riedesel, General and Madam, 490-493. River bank changed by railroad, 721. Road, public, 170 ; Easton to Reading, 287 ; roller, steam, 759; to mill and tannery, 635 ; to Nazareth, 259. Roads, public. 212, 213. Roman Catholic Church, Bethlehem, 697. Rose, the inn, 257. Sabbath, 150, 152; observance of, 211 ; Association, canal boat mission, 699. Sacristan, 139. Salem Church built and consecrated, 692- 694. Sand Island, industrial and other associa- tions, 669. 670. Saturday, Sabbatarian observance of, 67, 77, 132, 133- Saucon Valley Churches, 563. Saxon Commission, 27. Sckneppel-Hanbe discarded, 617, 618. Schoepf, Dr. T- D., naturalist, at Bethlehem, 524. School-master, George Neisser, 149. Schools at Bethlehem, 149, 166; Frederick- town, 207 ; closed, 25 1 ; Germantown, 104, 105, 149, 207; Nazareth, 165; boarding, for girls, 231 ; first Indian, in Georgia, 37; in Pennsylvania, 104; for boys, 206, 231 ; south side, 208; girls, 205, 173; work in Pennsylvania, 149; 786 GENERAL INDEX. plans enlarged at close of Revolu- tion, 528 ; ne\V era in, 533-535 ; various transfers, 252, 253; Seminary, Girls, second building, 548 551 ; school moved into Brethren's House, 600 ; use made of previous building, 601 ; condition of boys' school, 601 ; teachers of boys, 602 ; im- provements, School Board, 604 ; Cedar Street school-house, 605 ; Principals Young Ladies' Seminary, 605 ; further improve- ment, day-schools, 654, 655 ; era of Public Schools, 656 ; Bethlehem school district and directors, 656; school tax, 657; public and parochial schools combined, 657; teachers, 658, Bleck's Academy, 659; sold to Van Kirk, 660 ; citizens vote to maintain school system, 660 ; Parochial school re-organized separately, 661 ; dis- trict school retrogrades, 661 ; day school, girls, re-organized, 702 ; various teachers Church schools, 702, 703 ; new Parochial school building, 703, 704 ; old building demolished, 704; Ambrose Rondthaler and teachers, 704, 705 ; Van Kirk's Nisky Hill Seminary, 705 ; Schwartz's Academy, 705 ; public schools and teachers, 706- 708; teachers' association, 706; Wall Street school-house, 706; Franklin school- house, 707 ; most recent improvements and buildings, 761, 762 ; Centennial, re- organization, Young Ladies' Seminary, 762. Schuessele's painting, Zeisberger, Indians, 701, 768. Schwenkfelder, colony to Penna., 31, 32 ; visited by Spangenberg, 37. Scripture texts or watchword, 69. Sea- Congregation, first, announced, 105 ; fitted out in London, 107 ; arrives at New York, III ; at Bethlehem, 127; second, 166; arrives at Bethlehem, 169, third, 218, 234. Seal of Unitas Fratrum, 5, 6. Secret Societies, 694. Seminary for Young Ladies," 231 ; the old, 191. Sendomir, Consensus of, 13. Sesqui-Centennial, Bethlehem, committees and preparations, 766 ; Christmas, 1 89 1, specially observed, 767 ; program for June 24-26, 768 ; medals, 768 ; Bethlehem Times, industrial edition, 768; decorations, 768 ; observance by schools, 771 ; festal eve service, 769; memorial tablets and stones unveiled by school children, 771; civic celebration, parade, oration, 773 ; loan exhibition, 773; illumination, 773; church services, Sunday, 774. Shad fishing, 256, 429. Shamokin, 194. Shekomeko, baptism of Indians, 154; Chr. II. Ranch at, 59; Bishop Nitschmann at, 67. Sifting, time of, 186. Silk culture, 290, 291. Silk industry, 758; Moms Miilticaulis craae, 758; cocoonery, Neisser house, 758; silk mills, 758. Silver smiths, 614. Simpson tract, purchased, 163. Sisters' House occupied, 199; wing built, 256 ; addition to, 425 ; eastern section, 431 ; guarded, 455 ; Longfellow's poem, ,.485- . Six Nations vs. Delawares, 48 ; land treaty, 48 ; treaty with, 245. Skippack, Associated Brethren of, 32; Wiegner settles in, 32. Small-pox, epidemic, 193, 369, 370, 432, 457 ; inoculation, 432 ; scourge, 755. Smithy, 254. Society for Propagating the Gospel, 555, 558; communications of, with public men, 558; with Washington, 559 ; suffers financially, 677; centennial anniversary, 763; Fur- therance of the (iospel, 70, 149. Sons of Temperance, 697. South Bethlehem beginnings, 718 ; first plots, Augusta, Wetherill, 720; called Bethle- hem South, 726; Borough incorporated, 726; post-office, 726; Gas and Water Company, 727 ; fire department, 727 ; public schools and school houses, 727- 728; population, 731, 761. South Bethlehem House, 715. South Bethlehem, Old, 645, 715. Spangenberg consecrated bishop, 177; re- signs inspectorship, 226 ; to Philadelphia, 230; returns, 262; final leave, 385. Stage, line to Philadelphia, 408. Steam wagon, coal regions, 642. Steel works. South Bethlehem, 725, 758. Stenton massacre, 397. Store, first general, 257 ; from Oberlin to Chr. I lecke welder, 514; new, 547; Chr. Heckewelder and Owen Rice, 547, 5^8; competition, 633 ; building converted into hotel, 633. St. Croix, mission begun, 29. St. John's Church, Evangelical Association, 696. St. Luke's Hospital, 730. St. Paul's Church, Reformed, 694. St. Thomas, mission begun, 28 ; Zinzendorf visits, 41. Streets named, 636 ; population by, 689 ; additions, 715; modern improvements, , 759- Sullivan, Gen., campaign against the Indians, 495- GENERAL INDEX. 787 Sunday, observance of, 131. Sunday-schools, epoch of, 622 ; in Pennsyl- vania, 623 ; by Moravians, 623 ; first opened at Bethlehem, 624 ; at Old South Bethlehem, 185 1, and at West Bethlehem, 1856, 699. Sun Inn, see Hotel. Supervising Board, externals, Aufieher Col- ^ legiiwi, 139, 550, 666, 677, 681, 688. Surinam, mission begun, 29. Sustentation Diacony established, 424 ; en- dowed by Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz, 6S5, 689. Swedish settlements on the Delaware, 3. Synod, first Moravian, 226; Synod, 1 81 7, and General Synod, 1818, changes at Bethle- hem, 609-619. Taborites, 9. Tannery, sold to Joseph and James Leibert, 652; to William Leibert and Adam Giering, 737. Tavern, planned, 146. Tax Board, 665. Taxes, 272. Teedyuscung baptized, 244 ; on South side, 357 ; death of, 358. Temperance Hall, 696, 697 Test Act pressed upon Bethlehem, 459, 471, 498. Text-book, 69. Theological Seminary founded at Nazareth, 587 ; first professors and students, 587, 588; close regime resisted by Prof. Haze- lius, 58S ; controversy with authorities, 589 ; Nazareth men participate, 59^^ i Cunow's ill advised stringency, 590, 592 ; Hazelius and others withdraw, 592 ; insti- tution re-opened, 593 ; its different quar- ters to 1858, Nazareth, Philadelphia, Beth- lehem, 593; on Broad Street, 660; on Church Street, 706 ; in new buildings. Main Street, 762 ; Memorial Chapel, 763. Timber yard, 570. Tinsmith shop, Christian Luckenbach, 670. Tory, word in vogue, 434. Township, Bethlehem, erected, 213. Tract Society, 699. Trinity Church, Episcopal, 698. Tropes, 23, 177, 227, 228. Trout Hall, 408. U Ulster Scots' Settlement, 46. Union Guards and Cadets, 742. Union House, 716. Unitas Fratrum, Seal of, 5, 6. Unity's Elders' Conference, deputies of, in Pennsylvania, 581, 586. Utraquists, 9. Village government in transition, 665 ; new plan of streets, 665 ; village functionaries, 665 ; town meetings, 665 ; forerunners of town council, 666. Vineyard street school house, Sunday-school in, 699, 757- Visitors, 156, 236, 275, 388, 408, 430 433 ; B. Franklin, 327 ; Governor Hamil ton, 371 ; Governor of Pennsylvania 266, 415 ; Governor of South Carolina 415 ; Rev. C. Oldendorp, 415 ; Governor of New Jersey, 416 ; Hannah Callender, 371-374 ; notable, 551 ; Duke de la Ro chefoucauld (Liancourt), 552; Portugese minister, 629 ; Joseph Bonaparte, 629 Duke of Saxe Weimar, 629 ; Prince of Wied, 645 ; to Bethlehem, 62, 63, 489 prominent men, 485 ; of note, 521. W Wachovia, N. C, surveyed, 271. Walking purchase, 49, 50. Wall Street school house, 706, 762. War, Civil, see Civil War; English and French, 174; of 1812, one Moravian in, 612. Wardens' Unity, financial relations to, 594, 597, 679, 685. Washington, Bushrod, mentioned, 505 ; Gen. George, visits Bethlehem, 515-517 ; letter from, 559; death of, 566 ; Lady, at Bethlehem, 495; Wm. Augustine, at Beth- lehem, 505. Washington Greys, 740. Watchmakers, 634 ; shop of Jedediah Weiss, 734- Water cure, Oppelt's, 719, 730. Water supply, 202 ; old wooden tower, 573; new stone tower. Market Street, 573, 667 ; water tower at new church proposed, 573 ; iron pipes laid, 666 ; reservoirs, Market Street, north of Broad Street, on Church Street, 667 ; new pumps, 667, 761; South Bethlehem, 761. Waterways made available, 428. Water-works, 288, 289, 290. Watteville, John de, arrives, 226 ; second visit to America, 528; results of, 530. Webb, Thomas, at Bethlehem, 458. Wechquadnach, Mission at, 73. Wechquetank, occupied, 368, 369 ; Indians threatened, 393 ; abandoned, 399. Wedding, the great, 166. Weinland house, butcher-shop in, 671. Welagomeka, village, 50 ; Capt. John, 59, 64; Zinzendorf at, 133, 195. Wesley, John, in Georgia, 35 ; Methodist Church, 696. 788 GENERAL INDEX. West Bethlehem, Borough incorporated, fire department, 756 ; school houses and churches, 757 ; Moravian Chapel, 691, 757- Wetteravia, settlement of, 106 ; enthusiasts, 187. Whitefield, Geo., controversy with, 41,52, 54; house, 51, 53, 64 ; negro school in Penna., 43; work resumed, 162; finished, 170; visits Nazareth, 206. White Mountain, battle of, 1 7. Widows' House built, 410; Society insti- tuted, 411. Women's Missionary Society founded, 625 ; publishes Indian literature, 626. Wyalusing, Indians al, 407. Wyoming, massacre, 398. Young Ladies' Seminary, second building, 548-551 ; moved into ISrethren's House, 600 ; proposed removal to Nisky Hill, 723 ; centennial of re-establishment, 762. Young Men's Christian Association, 698, 700, 708. Young Men's Missionary Society, 648, 708. Young Women's Christian Association, 702. Zinzendorf arrives in America, 72 ; at Phila- delphia, 75 ; Germantown, 75, 81 ; eti- quette towards Governor, 75 ; with Antes, 76; to Bethlehem, 77; Bi-Centenary, 776; at Oley and Conestoga, 80 ; broad evan- gelistic plans of, 81, 82, 83,84,85; as Lutheran divine, 512. 542. Denny, William, 343, 348, 350. Desh, Daniel, 719, 720. Desh, George H., 761. Desh, O. B., 750. Deshler, Lieutenant, 461. Desmond, Anna, 105. D'Estaing, Count, 489. Dettmers (Detmers), Ferdinand Philip Jacob, 377,414, 431, 568. Detweiler. Jacob, (also Dudweiler), 114, "5, 136. Deventer, John van, (see Van Deventer, John). Dickinson, John, 401, 433, 515, INDEX OF PERSONS. 793 Diemer, Franz Christopher, 279. Dietz, Maria Catherine, 273. Dietz, Rosina, 235. Digeon, David, 168. Digeon, Mary, 168. Disman, Anna Margaret, 136. Disman, Margaret (Desmond), IF4. Dissoway, Israel O., 716. Dixon, George W., 660, 757. Dixon, Joseph, 544. Dixon, William, 236. Dober, Andrew, 35, 43. Dober, Anna, 35 43. Dober, Charles Christlieb, 676. Dober, Leonhard, 28, 36, 204. Dodson, James S., 772. Doehling, John Jacob, 168. Doerrbaum. John Philip, 234, 262. Dominick, Maria, 235. Dommes, August Frederick, 492. Doster, Charles Edmund, 750. Doster, Herman A., 735. Doster, Lewis, 669, 673, 677, 681 Doster, Lewis, Jr., 737. Doster, Paulina L., 701. Doster, William Emil, 488, 743, 772, 773. Dotterer, George Philip, 563. Drese, Adam, 78. Dressier, Sophia Margaret, 235. Drews, Margaret, 235. Drews, Peter, 234, 288. Dreyspring, Carl Joseph, 279. Dreyspring, Charles Jacob, 543. Duane, James, 465, 467. Dubbs, j. S., 693, 69^. Dubois, Abraham, 77. Duche, Jacob, 415. Duer, William, 465, 467, 507. Dunglison, W. L., 739. Duponceau, Peter Stephen, 629. Durlach, 261. Dust, Gottfried, 279. Dyer, Eliphalet, 465, 467. Eastwick, Stephen, 576. Ebbecke, John Christian, 569, 592. Eberhardt, Nicholas Henry, 262, 273 Eberman, Sarah, 658. Eberman, William, 661, 686, 688, 699. Ebermeyer, Maria Margaret, 273. Ebert, John Christian, 361, 514, 515, 519, 544, 550- Eckerlin, Emmanuel, 156. Eckesparre. Adolph, 349, 367. Eckhard, Zacharias, 253. Edmonds, William, 201, 257, 279, 323, 324, 335. 343, 359, 370, 433, 445- Edward VI, King, 13. Eggert, Benjamin, 681. Eggert, Charles H., 769, 773. Eggert, Christian, 239, 610. 52 Eggert, Matthew, 574, 602, 635, 669. Ehrenhardt, Jacob, 261. Ehrhardt, John Christian, 167, 168, 20I. Eichman, Elizabeth, 119. Eichman, William, 713. Eilerts, John Christopher, 569, 602, 603. Eis, Charlotte, 235. Elias of Chrenovic, II. Elimalech, Brother, (see Emmanuel Eck- erlin). Elizabeth (Arawack Indian girl), 239, 240. Elizabeth, (wife of Teedyuscung,) 244. Ellery, William, 470. Ellis, F, 267, 268. Endt, Theobald, 72, 98, 127. Endter, John George, 122, 123, 136. Enersen, Enert, 234. Engel, John Godfrey, 234. Engfer, Maria Elizabeth, 235. Erd, Justina, 401. Erd, Justus, 253. Ernst, Conrad, 413. Ernst, Jacob, 279. Ernst, "Walter, 253. Erwin, J. F., 701. Eschenbach, Andrew, 40, 54, 56, 64, 69, 72, 75, 77, 129, 136, M3- Estaing, Count d', (see d'Estaing Count), 489. Ettwein, Benigna, 625. Ettwein, Benigna, (2), 625. Ettwein, Christian, 278. Ettwein, Joanetta Maria, 278. Ettwein, John, Jr., 476. Ettwein, John, 253, 278, 282, 291, 414, 416, 431, 439, 441, 444, 449, 45°. 45i, 453, 454, 456, 462, 464, 465, 467, 469, 474, 476, 477, 481, 482, 489, 490, 495, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 511, 515, 516, 517,525, 529, 540, 541, 545, 546, 551, 553,555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 562, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573- Euler, Nicholas, 253. Evans, Edward, 98, 105. Eyerie, Jacob, 276, 564. Fabricius, George Christian, 276, 282, 317, 318, 319, 332. Fahs, Henry, 716. Fahs, John, (see Vaas), 210. Farquhar, Thomas, 761, 765, 771. Feldhausen, Christopher, 254. Feldhausen, Henry, 253. Feldhausen, John George, 253. Feltus, Rev Mr., 628. Fend, Ferdinand (Vend), 262. Fend, (" Kiefer") (Vend), 262. Fenner, Josephine, 703, 705. Fenstermacher, Barbara, 568. Ferdinand, II, 17. Fermor, Lady Juliana, 281. 794 INDEX OF PERSONS. Fermoy, Roche ile, 470. Fetter, Cieorge, 654, 709. Fetter, Herman, 715, 742. Fetter, Marcus C, 756. Fetter, Salome, 704. Fichte, Catharine, 235. Fickardt, Augustus, 749. Fickardt, Frederick, Dr., 746, 747, 748, 749, 750, 75 1 • Fickardt, Frederick, 2nd., 749. Finley, Samuel, 481. Fiot, Augustus, 719. Fischer, Agnes, 167. Fischer, Caspar, 279. Fischer, Catherine, 235. Fischer, Thomas, 167. Fissler, Elizabeth, 124. Fockel, Godfrey, 253. Fockel, John Godfrey, 253. Fockel, Samuel, 252, 253. Foelker, Adam, 261. F"oering, II. A., 762. Folsom, Nathaniel, 465, 467. Foltz, William H., 756. Forbes, General, 362. Forstier, Charles von, 581, 586, 587. Fox, Joseph, 327. Fox, Nicholas, 501. Fradeneck, Theodore 767. Franck, Jacob, 35, 42. Francke, August Henry, 279, 454. Francke, August Herman, 360. Francke, John Christopher, 165, 206, 367. Franklin, Benjamin, 74, 95, 97, 326, 333, 334, 33^, 338, 405, 416, 437, 489, 510, 521. Frederick, William I, 91. Freeman, Jacob, 634. Freitag, Daniel C, 719. Freitag, John Caspar, 569, 602, 603. Freitag, John Eberhard, 544, 569, 671, 704, 746. Frey, Andrew, 32, 160. Frey, Henry, 32, 306, 332. Frey, Joseph, 746. Frey, Veronica, (Verona,) 160, 233, Frey, William, 32, 160, 202, 213. Freydeck, Von, see Zinzendorf, 89, 92. Freyhube, Andrew, 253. Friebele, Christian, 279. Friederich, Carl, 304. Friedman, Rosina, 534. Friis, Jacob, 275, 276, 399, 476, 512, 562. Fries, John, 564, 565. Fritsche, Henry, 234. Fritsche, Anna Margaret, 167. Fritsche, John Christian, 167. Fritz, Henry, 253. Fritz, John, 724, 726, 729, 734, 738. Froehlich, Christian, 54, 59, 61, 64, 69, 71, 75, 77, 115, 142, 143, 176, 185, 444. Froehlich, Esther Mary, 185. Fromelt, John^ 400. Frueaufll', Eugene A., 653. Frueauff, John Frederick, S42, 562, .563, 569, 605, 606, 620, 653, 654. Frueauff, I-ieutenant, 740. Fuehrer, Frederick, 518. Fuehrer, Harriet, 703, 704, 705, Fuehrer, Margaret, 518. Fuehrer, Valentine, 518, 522, 545, 550. Funck, Elizabeth, 123. Funck, Hans Nicholas, 279. Fuss, l.ucas, 253. Gabriel, (Wanab), 143. Gallagher, 497. Galle, Rosina, 235. Gambold, Hector, 123, 168. Gambold, John, 123, 513, 542. Gammern, Abraham van, 377. Ganimern, Juliana van, 550. Gangewere, 712. Gardiner, John, 521. Gardiner, Sylvester, 521. Garrison, Benjamin, 363. Garrison, Grace, 373, 519. Garrison, John, 360. Garrison, Lambert, 288, 349, 400. Garrison, Nicholas, 38, 41, 124, 159, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 176, 189, 200, 201, 202, 218, 237, 241, 247, 253, 260, 261, 262, 265, 272, 279, 294, 295, 390, 400, 416, 430, 519, 523. Garrison, Nicholas, Jr., 167, 168, 265, 279, 294, 373, .5 19, 709. Garrison, Nicholas, 3rd, 519. Gates, Horatio, 454, 455, 456, 484,489, 490- Gattermeyer, John Leonhard, 234, 316. Gaupp, Dorothea, 273. Gebes, J. Y., 482. Geehr, Balthaser, 450. Gehbe, Ernst, 569. Geib, John, 578. Geiger, Valentine, 71. Geissenhainer, A. T., 733. Geissinger, George, 353. Geitner, John George, 200. Gender, Elizabeth, 398. George, Emma J., 707, George, Josiah, 693, George, I'rince, of Anhalt, 90. Gerard, Conrad Alexander, 489, 490. Gerhardt, Catharine, 273. Gerhardt, Mary Catharine, 550. Gernet, 715. Gersdorff, Susan von, 401, 487, 519, 536. Gerstberger, Henry, 253, 428. Getter, George, 728. Gideon, (see Teedyuscung,) 244, Giering, Adam, 737. INDEX OF PERSONS. 795 Giering, Andrew, 261. Giers, Joseph, 279. Giersch, Christian, 254. Gilbert, Charles T., 720. Gillespie, Robert, 477. Gimmele, Matthias, 279. Ginter, Philip, 641. Gladman, Thomas, 40, 109, 167, 168, 169, 170. Glanz, Charles, 746. Glover, 455. Gmelen, Matthias, 32. Godshalk, D. J., 713. Goedecke, Lieutenant, 492. Goelet, Captain, 260. Goepp, Philip H., 654, 668, 674, 675, 681, 684, 685, 686, 687, 688, 689, 693, 714, 718, 719, 723. Goetge, Anna Barbara, 167. Goetge, Peter, 167, 361. Gold, George, 234. Gold, Salome, 576. Golkowsky, George Wenceslaus, 214, 276. Goll, Jaroslav, 12. Goodwin, H. S., 698, 727, 730. Gottlieb (an Indian), 196. Gottschalk, Matthias Gottlieb, 185. Goundie, Moulton, 740, 743, 749. Goundie, Sebastian, 610. Grabenstein (missionary), 239, 240, 241. Graber, William K., 709. Grabs, Anna Mary, 167. Grabs, John Godfrey, 1 67, 360. Graeme, Thomas, 235, 266. Graeff, Margaret, 124. Graeff, Matthew, 124. (jraham, George Thomas, 729. Grant, U. S., 750. Graff, Gertrude, 261. Graff, J. B., 734. Graff, John Michael, 261, 282, 327, 329, 367, 386, 529. ^ Graff, Justina, 528. Granville, Lord, 220. Grassman, Andrew, 29, 121. Green, Abigail, 236. Green, Daniel, 632. Green, John, 575. Green, Nathaniel, Gen., 461, 484. Green, Samuel, 236. Greening, Elizabeth, 168. Greening, James, 168, 202, 207, 262. Gregg, Eleanor, 123. Gregor, Christian, 423, 431. Gregory, 9. Grider, Orville A., 745. Grider, Rufus A., 710, 714, 715, 721. Grieve, George, 517. Groen, John George, 254. Groesser, Margaret, 235. Groman, Charles, 756. Groman, Henry A., 739. Grosh, Peter, 634. Gross, Andrew, 254. Grube, Bernhard Adam, 200, 241, 282, 301, 307, 315, 369, 395, 398, 402, 403, 413. 542, 557- Grube, George W., 756. Gruber, John Adam, 32. Gruendberg, Helena, 235. Gruenewald, Colonel, 450. Gruenewald, John Henry, 279. Grunewald, Gustavus, 62, 709. Guenther, 450. Guetter, Henry Gottlob, 634, 645, 681, 701. Guth, Henry, 210. Gutsier, Eva, 43. Haberecht, Gottfried, (Gottlieb,) 34, 43, 63, 77, 128, 136, 160. Haberecht, Rosina, 35, 42. Haberland, Anna Helena, 234. Haberland, George, 34, 42. Haberland, Joseph, 276. Haberland, Juliana, 235, 260. Haberland, Michael, 34, 43, 234, 524. Haensel, John Christian, 254. Haga, Godfrey, 569. Hagen, F. F., 712, 731, 746, 748. Hagen, John, 40, 41, 43, 51, 54, 56, 70, 136, 147, 241- Hagen, John C, 751. Haidt, Catherine, 278. Haidt, John Valentine, 278, 331, 467, 523, 709. Halifax, Lord, 214, 220. Halftown, (Indian chief), 561. Hall, James, 295, 481, 518. Hall, William, 160. Halpin, Margaret, 728. Haman, Adam, 602, 603. Hamilton, James, 229, 240, 266, 267, 327, 371.388, 394- Hamilton, J. Taylor, 763. Hammer, Anna Maria, 235. Hammer, Maria Agatha, 377. Hance, William, 699. Hancke, Elizabeth, 167. Hancke, Matthew, 167, 205. Hancock, John, 465, 467, 485. Hand, Edward, 484. Handrup, Mary, 185. Handrup, Vitus, 185, 201. Hanke, Anna Catharine, 580. Hans, Rosina, 235. Hantsch, Anna Regina, 168. Hantsch, John George, 168, 169. Hantsch, Regina, 168. Harbatel, Leon, 463. Hardie, Thomas, 71, 115, 136, 164. 796 INDEX OF PERSONS. Harding, Conrad, 164, 168. Hardy, Charles, 343. Harnett, Cornelius, 465. Harris, Captain, 50. Harris, Dr., 415. Harrison, Benjamin, 465, 467. Harrison, Joseph, Jr., 729. Harten, Elizabeth, 119, 136. Harten, George, 119, 136, 173. Hartman, Squire, ^bi. Hartmann, Frederick, 164, 191. Hartlafel, Robt., 364. Hartzel, Jonas, 214. Hasse, John, 464, 549, 568. Hasselberg, Abraham, 254. Hasselius, Gustavus, 364. Hasselmann, Miss, 226. Hassfeldt, John Adam, 279. Haus, Franklin J., 741. Haus, George, 717. Haus, William Harrison, 743. Hauto, Cieorge F. A., 642. Haven, Benjamin, 602. Haydn, 662. Hazard, Erskine, 642. Hazelius, Ernst Lewis, 569, 588, 589, 590, 592, 593- Healy, Joseph, 236. Heap, Mary, 125. Hecht, Pastor, 628. Heckewelder, Christian Kenatus, 278, $14, 547, 548, 550, 570, 633. Heckewelder, David, 278. Heckewelder, John, 124, 278, 387, 389, 514, 522, 549. 595, 629, 704. Heckewelder, Johanna Maria, 534, 704. Heckewelder, Mary, 278. Heckewelder, Regina, 278. Hege, Ballhasar, 254 Hehl, Matthew, 262, 273, 277, 282, 303, 349, 355, 529- Heindel, Margaret, 235. lleisler, D. Y., 694 Held, Henry, 710. Held, Julius W., 710, 711. Held, William, 710, 711. Hellerman, Caspar George, 295. Hencke, Christopher, 168. Hencke, Elizabeth, 168. Hendel, Maria Barbara, 235. Hennig, Paul, 254. Henry, (an Indian), 209. Henry, Miss, 658. Henry, Matthew, 268, 339 439, 517. Henry, William, 501, 502, 503, 590, 641. Hent, Valentine, 702. Herbst, John, 5S0, 581, 590, 596. Herbst, John Henry, 254. Herman, George P\, 739. Herman, John Gottlieb, 653, 674, 675, 676. Hermann, Frederick Emmanuel, 253, 261, 263, 273, 274. Hermann, Jacob, 254. Hermann, Susan Maria, 253. Hermelin, Baron von, 521, 525. Hermsdorf, Christian Adolph, 35, 43. Herr, Jacob, 276. Herr, Samuel, 254. Hertzer, Barbara Elizabeth, 168. Hertzer, John Henry, 168. Hess, Charles, 756. Hess, Joseph, 693, 719, 720. Hesse, Anton, 707, 708, 713. Hessler, Abraham, 167, 513. Hessler, Anna Mary, 167. Heyd, Inger, 273. Heydecker, Jacob, 254. Heydecker, John George, 136, 142. Heyne, John Christopher, 123, 136, 207. Hickel, Judith, 185. Hicks, John A., 627. High, 255. Hilburn, Valentine, 706 Hillegas, Michael, 641. Hillman, John, 574. Hinkel, Michael, 630. Hinter, Adam, 115. Hirst, John, 236. Hirte, John Tobias, 167. Hirte, Mary, 167. Hobsch, Joseph, 200. Hoeger, Andrew, 268, 278. Hoepfner, Christian Henry, 254. Hoepfner, John Christopher, 167, 170. Hoepfner, Mary Magdalena 167. Hoest, Jan Hendrick de, 332. Hoeth, Frederick, 368. Hoeth, Mariana, 36S. Hoffert, John, 413. Hoffert, Samuel, 413. Hoffmann, Gottfried, 200, 241. Hoffmann, John Gottlob, 254. Hoffmann, Thomas, 254. Hofmeyer, Pastor, 563. Hohmann, John Peter, 234. Holland, Samuel, 74. Holleschke, Judith 73. Holstein, Henry, ^2, 140. ^ Home, Elizabeth, 124. Honest John, (Indian,) 243. Hooper, Robert Lett is, 458, 461, 492. Hoppes, George, 715. Hopson, Ann, 122. Hopson, Elizabeth, 107, 119. Hopson, John, 105, 114, 332. Horn, Andrew, 176, 360, 370. Horn, A. R., 773. Horn, Herman, 743 Horn, Maria Barbara, 401. Ilornig, Christian, 550. INDEX OF PERSONS. 797 Horsfield, Joseph, 214, 543, 549, 550, 573. Horsfield, Timothy, 38, 201, 237, 247, 257, 258, 261, 265, 266, 267, 271, 273, 274, 275, 278, 287, 296, 301, 306, 310, 313, 315, 323, 324, 326, 327, 332, 335, 33^, 339, 341, 342, 343, 350, 370, 394, 395, 397, 398, 432- Horsfield, Timothy, Jr., 265, 543, 568. Houston, James, 456. Howe, Bishop, 698. Howe, General, 473 Hower, Asher, 756. Huber, Catharine, 568. Huber, George, 514, 543, 574. Huber, John Michael, 37, 123, 125, 136. Huber, Mary Magdalen, 37. Hiickel, Rosina, 122. Huebener, Abraham L , 655, 656, 657, 660, 711. Huebener, Lewis, 535, 596. Huebener, Ludwig, 145, 164, 389, 482. Huebener, Virginia, 708. Huebner, George, 98. Huebner, John Andrew, 512, 525, 529, 535, 541, 549, 559. Hueffel, Christian Gottlieb, 618, 629, 637, 654. Huepsch, Joseph, 279. Hummel, Johanna, 40, 41, 43, 44, 64, 69, 136, 149. Hundsecker, Lieutenant, 407. Hunt, Alfred, 725. Hunt, Samuel, 276. Hunter, Alexander, 46. Hus, John, 7, 9, 16, 733. Hussey, Anna, 488. Hussey, Martha, 121. Hussey, Robert, 121. Hutton, James, 166, 510, 521. Ignatius, 271. Immig, (Spangenberg,) Eva Mary, 177. Ingebretsen, Eric, 254. Ingham, Benjamin, 35, 36. Irish, Nathaniel, 52, 56, 57, 61, 72, 76, 139, 154, 161, 163, 164. Irwin, Samuel, 696. Isaac, (Indian,) 104. Israel, Christian Gottlieb, 104, 114, 136. Jablonsky, Daniel Ernst, 29, 30, 86, gi. Jackson, General, 647. Jackson, Hall, 464. Jacob, (an Indian,) 104, 40I. Jacobi, Henry, 71. Jacobsen, Christian, 201, 279, 295, 349, 351, 3*^3, 374, 375, 400, 401. Jacobson, £. H., 747. Jacobson, H. A., 764. Jacobson, John Christian, 593, 685, 693, 696. Jaeger, Conrad, 563, 628. Jaeger, Joshua, 625, 693. Jaehne, Mary Elizabeth, 278. Jaencke, Andrew, 254. Jaeschke, Juliana, 35. Jag, David, 35, 43. Jag, John, 279. James, (a boy,) 41, 43, 44, 64, 136. Jansen, (Jensen,) Jost, 279, 351, 361, 430, 473,490,494, 514, 568. Jaquette, Pierre, 562. Jefiterson, Thomas, 646. Jenkins, James, 730, 738. Jennings, John, 401, 461. Jennings, Solomon, 49, 213, 266. Jeter, Tinsley, 720, 727, 729, 730. Jewett, H. L., 772. Joachim, (Indian,) 316, 317. Job, (Tschoop,) 113. Johanan, (Zinzendorf,) 242. Johannes, (Indian,) 113. Johannes, Samuel, 279. John, Captain, (Indian,) 50, 59, 133, 154, 155, 195, 196. John, (Greenlander,) 233. John, Honest (Indian), 243. John, Renatus (Arawack boy), 240, 241. John, Wasamapah (Tschoop), 113, 136,137. Johnson, Andrew, 750. Johnson, William, 349. Johnston, John Taylor, 725. Johnston, William, 390, 392. Jonathan, (an Indian,) 358. Jones, Amanda, 731. Jones, John, 235, 260, 266, 286, 355, 465, 467, 523. Jones, Mary, 125. Jones, M. C, 648, 701. Jones, Paul, 521, 522. Jones, Thomas W., 741. Jones, William, 653. Jordan, John, Jr., 411. Jordan, John W., 479. Jorde, Anna Margaret, 167. Jorde, Henry, 253, 262. Jorde, John, 167. Joshua, (Indian,) 143. Judith, (a Greenlander,) 233. Jundt, John Jacob, 605. Jung, Marcus, 332. Jungman, Christian, 633. Jungmann, Anna Margaret, 568. Jungmann, John, 550, 672. Jungmann, John George, 70, 672. Juergensen, Jacob, 276. Kalb, Baron John de, 462, 468. Kalberlahn, Hans Martin, 275, 276. Kampmann, Christian Frederick, 506, 543, 55°- 798 INDEX OF PERSONS. Kampmann, Elizabeth, 704. Kampmann, Clarence, 751. Kampmann, Lewis F., 689, 690, 706, 712, 731- Kannhaeuser, Elizabeth, 377. Kaske, George, 123. Keiter, \V. U. C, 757. Keller, Catharine Barbara, 226. Kemper, Thomas, 201. Kempsmith, Paul, 767, 773. Kennedy, , 255. Kennedy, James, 738. Kennedy, William, 626. Kent, Rudolph, 720. Kern, John Christian, 665. ' Kern, John Michael, 512. Kern, Maria E., 701. Kerner, Anna Rosina, 235. Ketteltas, Captain, 160. Kiak, (the Indian,) 104. Kichiine, Colonel, 448. Kichline, Sheriff", 407. Kidd, Alice, 707. Kidder, Charles Holland, 713. Kiefer, Marcus, 306, 314, 413, 568. Kindt, Abraham, 706. Kiop (the Indian), 104. Kirkland, Samuel, 562. Klein, George, 277, 332, 360, 401, 404, 408, 524, 544- Klein, John, 279. Klemm, John Gottlob, 171, 363, 364. Kliest, Daniel, 234, 568. Klingelstein, Margaret Catharine, 273. Klingsohr, John Augustus, 541, 563, 569. Kloets, Christopher, 279. Klose, Edwin G., 772. Kluge, E. T , 770. Kluge, John Peter, 515, 581. Knauss, Charles L., 681, 688, 701. Knauss, C'hristian, 634. Knauss, James Edward, 706. Knecht, John, 52, 725. Knipe, Joseph, 744. Knolton, Hannah, 185. Knolton, William Peter, 171, 185. Knox, Henry, 461. Knox, John, 150. Kobatsch, Colonel, 486. Koch, Catharine, 123. Koehler, John Daniel, 528, 529. Koenigsdoerfer, Gottlob, 275. Koffler, Adam, 279. Koffler, Anna Maria, 235. Kogen, John, 32. Kohn, Anna Margaret, 165. Kohn, Jacob, 165. Koortz, Ellert, 295. Kornnian, Anna Rosina, 704. Kornman, John, 550. Kornman, John Theobald, 254. Kraemer, Nicholas, 632 633. KraiTt, Christina, 123. Kramer, J., 696. Kramsch, Samuel Gottlieb, 542 569. Krause, Andrew, 234. Krause, Anna Maria 235. Krause, Barbara, 235. Krause, Christina, 167. Krause, Henry, 276, 671. Krause, Henry S., 634. Krause, John, 671, 688, 701. Krause, J. S., 701. Krause, John Samuel, 634. Krause, Levin J., 757. Krause, Matthew, 167, 681, 687, 692, 704, 7'4 741- . Krause, Rosina, 234. Krause, Samuel, 234, 250, 273. Krecker, F., 696. Kremper, (Kremp, Krump,) Anna Catharine, 41, 42, 492. Kremser, Andrew, 167. Kremser, Anna Maria, 167. Kremser, George, 167. Kremser, Matthew, 262. Kremser, Rosina, 167. Kreutzer, Conrad, 569. Kriegbaum, John George, 279. Krogstrup, Otto Christian, 275, 276, 524. Kuehn, Johanna Maria, 121. Kuehnest, Christopher, 234. Kuerschner, Christopher, 279. Kummer, Charles Edward, 705, 707, 70S, 747. Kummer, John Jacob, 595, 604, 605, 654, 656, 658, 659, 665, 739. Kummer, John Gottlob, 658, 675, 676. Kunckler, Anna Mary, 167. Kunckler, Daniel, 167. 361, 372. Kunkel, Frank, 369. Kuntz, Matthew, 262. Kuntz, Melchior, 73. Kunz, David, 234, 279. Kunz, Matthew, 200. La, Balm, Mons de, 489. Laciar, J. D., 712. Lafayette, Marquis de, 416, 462, 465, 475, 485, 487, 488. Liancourt, Monsieur (Rochefoucauld), 552, 553- Langaard, Andrew, 377. Langaard, Susan, 534. Lange, John Gottlieb, 254, 568. Langley, Erdmuth, 488. Langley, Rebecca, 373, 487. Laiigulh, John Michael, 72. Lanius, Eva, 55°- Larisch, Christian von, 29. INDEX OF PERSONS. 799 Laramy, Charles, 734. Latimer, Mr., 697. Latrobe, Benjamin, 160, 775. Lauck, John Samuel, 254. Laurens, Henry, 465, 467, 489, 490. Law, Richard, 465, 467. Lawall, Henry, 214. Lawatsch, Andrew Anthony, 267, 272, 273, 274, 386. Lawatsch, Anna Maria, 272. Lawrence, Justice, 415. Lawrence, Mr., 238, 398. Leathes, John, 168. Leavitt, J. M., 753. Lee, Arthur, 489. Lee, Charles, 455. Lee, Richard Henry 446, 462, 465, 467. Lee, William, 454. Lefferts, 241. Lehman, Bernhard E., 701, 717, 727. Lehman, Ernst, 682, 717. Lehn, Adam, 575. Leibert, Barbara, 207, 568. Leibert, Eugene, 710. Leibert, James, 652, 673, 677, 688, 714, 715, 738. Leibert, Joseph, 319, 652, 673, 677 Leibert, Josephine, 658. Leibert, Michael, 207, 568. Leibert, Morris W., 769, 774, 775. Leibert, Richard W., 701, 735. Leibert, "William, 707, 708, 737, 757. Leidy, 715. Leighton, John, 168, 257, 360. Leighton, Sarah, i68. Leinbach, A. N., 747. Leinbach, Elizabeth, 114. Leinbach, Frederick, 416. Leinbach, Johanna, 114 Leinbach, Mary Barbara, 278. Lelansky, William, 705. Lembke, Catharine, 551. Lembke, Francis Christian, 278, 282. ^^emmert, Joseph, 276. Lennert, John, 361, 544. Lenzner, John Henry, 279. Lepus, Robert, 476, 477. Lerch, John, 739. Leschinsky, Siegmund, 497, 506, 513. Lesley, John, 316. Leslie, Jesse, 160. Levering, Abraham, 361, 544, 592, 602. Levering, Charles Joseph, 603. Levering, J. M., 769. Levering, John, 121, 207, 213, 252, 329,592. Levering, Susanna, 592. Levers, Colonel, 473. Levers, John J., 716, 735. Levers, Robert, 486. Levers, Theodore F., 714. Lewis, Elizabeth, 550, 569. Lewis, John, 569. Lewis, Samuel, 723. Liebisch, Anna, 165. Liebisch, Anna Maria, 165. Lilliencron, Charles William, 605. Limbach, Frederick, 501. Lincoln, Abraham, 732, 741, 750. Lindenmeyer, Henry, 254, 461, 550. Linderman, G. B., 727, 729, 739. Linstroem, Michael, 279. Lisberger, Elizabeth, 226, 241. Lischer, John, 360. Lischy, John Jacob, 123, 136. Little Billy (or Billy Little), 562. Livingston, Mr., 277. Livingston, Governor, 507. Livingstone, Robert, 485. Lloyd, H. Evans, 645. Lockwood, J. P., 1 19. Loeffler, Dorothea, 401. Loeffler, Jacob (John) Frederick, 595, 542. Loehans, Valentine, 122, 159. Loesch, Herman, 271, 413, 550, 568. Loesch, Maria, 706. Loescher, Valentine Ernst, 90, 209. Loether, Christian Henry, 254. London (the negro), 253, 254. Longfellow, H. W., 485, 488. Loos, L K., 694, 734. Loretz, John, 423, 431. Loskiel, George Henry, 541, 573, 575, 578, 579, 580, 589, 595. Lossing, Benson J., 488. Lowther, John, 61. Luch, Christian F., 633, 664 741. Luch, John Jacob, 633. Luckenbach, Abraham, 515, 581: Luckenbach, Adam, 413, 524. Luckenbach, Andrew, 737, 745, 748. Luckenbach, Charles Augustus, 652, 655, 661, 673, 681, 686, 688, 704, 708, 714, 715. 717, 719, 720, 737, 738, 739, 747, 750. Luckenbach, David O., 737, 745, 746. Luckenbach, Henry B., 595, 664, 681, 687, 688, 701, 704, 741. Luckenbach, Jacob, 634, 637, 681. Luckenbach, Jacob Christian, 595, 670, 68 1. Luckenbach, J. Edward, 595. Luckenbach, Jane, 739. Luckenbach, John Adam, 156, 413. Luckenbach, John David, 413 Luckenbach, John Lewis, 413. Luckenbach, Owen A., 739, 744, 745. Luckenbach, Reuben O., 595, 690, 710. Luckenbach, Samuel, 604. Luckenbach, Thomas David, 413. Luckenbach, William, 660, 661, 688, 690. Ludwig, Anna Catharine, 122. 8oo INDEX OF PERSONS. Ludwig, Carl, 254. Lueders, Thomas Christian, 575, 596, 598, 599, 603. Lung, Jacob, 254. Luther, Martin, 13, 16, 28, 87, loi. Lyttle, Robert, 708. Maans, Martha, 235. Mack, John Martin, 35, 39, 43, 57, 64, 65, 69, 78, 79. 153, 193. 198, 242, 307. 308, 311, 315, 352, 36^ 369,386. Mack, Owen, 353. Mackinet, Blasius, 32. Magilalena (alias Beulah) 123. Magdalena (negro girl), 136. Maibaum, Just von, 492. Malthaner, John Christian, 717. Mann, Anna, 273. Mann, William, 756. Marchant, Henry, 465, 467. Maria (the negro), 163. Marschall, Anna Dorothea von, 550. Marschall, Frederick von, 376, 378, 380, 401, 506, 507. Marschall, Hedwig Elizabeth, 376. Marshall, Edward, 48. Martens, Barbara, 512. Martin, David, 202. Martin, F. A., 747. Martin, Frederick, 41, 167, 278. Martin, James, 266. Martin, John Hill, 517, 518. Martin, Mary Barbara, 278. Mary (an Indian), 174. Mary Magdalena 122. Massner, John George, 254. Masslich, 7J2. Mather, Cotton, 20. Matlack, Timothy, 473, 502. Matthew, (Greenlander,) 233 Matthias of Kunewald, 11. Matthiesen, Christopher, 254. Matthiesen, Nicholas, 254. Mau, Agnes, 492. Mau, Samuel, 42, 492 Maughan, John D., 728. Maxamilian, Prince of Wied, 645 Maxwell, William, 495, 507. May, George, 449. Mayer, Alfred Marshall, 729. Maynard, J. W., 729. McCarty, Andrew E., 714, 715. McClatchey, Robert J., 747. McCormick, William, 773. McCoy, James, 726. McEnroe, Michael, 733. Mcintosh, Lachlin, 482. McMahon, James, 726, 727. McMinn, 563. McNee, Nathaniel, 457, 479. Mease, Olivia, 707, 70S. Meder, John, 569 Meeks, L P., 698. Meinung, Abraham, 72, 73, 136, 273. Meinung, Charles Lewis, 73. Meinung, Judith, 72, 73, 136, 273. Meisser, Henry George, 279. Meitzler, ( icorge, 715. Mellick, Andrew G., Jr., 495. Melzheimer, (Chaplain,) 492. Meinzinger, George Ernest, 295, 351. Merck, John, 271. Merck, John Henry, 254 Merkel, George, 32. Merkle, Christopher, 254. Merrick, David. 706. Merrill, Lawson, 749. Methodius, 7, 733. Meurer, John Philip, no, 112, 113, 123, 136, 140. Meyer, John Adolph, 121, 126, 136, 137, 140, 146, 149, 163, 16S, 168, 169, 171, 198, 203, 206, 231, 252, 262, 296. Meyer, Jacob, 254. Meyer, John Michael, 35, 43. Meyer, John Stephen, 254. Meyer, Lieutenant, 495. Meyer, Maria Agnes, 273. Meyer, Maria Dorothea, 121, 165. Meyerhoff, Maria, 235. Michael of Bradac, 10. Michael, David Moritz, 602, 663. Michler, Barbara, 167. Michler, John, 167. 250. Michler, John Wolfgang, 167, 170. Michler, Rosina, 107. Mifflin, Thomas, 458, 546, 552, 561. Miksch, Johanna Maria, 110, 121, 136. Miksch, John Matthew, 279, 634, 655, 656, 660, 681,686, 688, 714. Miksch Joseph, 634, 669. Miksch, (Spangenberg,) Mary Elizabeth, 278. Miksch, Michael, no, 121, 126, 136, 148. Milchsack, Augustus, 665, 681. Milius, John August, 490. Miller, George Benjamin, 582, 593. Miller, George Godfrey, 535, 592. Miller, John Henry, 72, 74, 95, 114, 262, 273, 373,414, 524, 711- Miller, L L. C, 706. Miller, Jacob, 499. Miller, Jesse 715. Miller, Johanna, 70, 105, 114, 136, 239, 273. Miller, Peter, 47, 70. Miller, William F., 739. Mingo, Magdalena, 234, 235. Miralles, Don Juan de, 489, 490. Moehring. John Frederick, 319, 569. Moeller, John Henry, 167. INDEX OF PERSONS. 80 1 Moeller, Joseph, 126, 132, 136. Moeller, Rosina, 167. Moench, Charles L., 770. MoUher, Johanna Sophia, 54, 55, 64, 63, 75. MoUher, John, 569. Molther, Phihp Henry, 55. Montague, Lord, 415. Montgomery, General, 442. Montmorenci, Marquis de Laval, 515. Moore, Alexander D., 698, 753. Moore, James, 168. Moore, Justice, 407. Mordick, Peter, 234. Morey, Jacob, 461, 496, 499, 501. Morgan, Captain, 441. Morgan, Edwin Wright, 729. Morgan, John, 456. Morgan, Thomas, 634. Morhardt, Christina. 273. Morris, Anthony, 236. Morris, Governor, 303, 322, 325, 333, 341, 343, 485- Morrison, Charles, 698. Mortimer, Benjamin, 569. Motz, Anna Margaret, 434. Mozer, John, 167. Mozer, Mary Philippina, 167. Muecke, Catharine, 167. Muecke, John Michael, 167. Mueller, Abraham, 354. Mueller, Brother, 515. Mueller, George Godfrey, 542, 569. Mueller, Johanna Magdalene, 142. Mueller, John, 136, 142, 295. Mueller, John Bernhard, 234. Mueller, John Constantine, 542. Mueller, John Jacob, 72, 73, 145, 160, 709. Mueller, Joseph, 62, 77, 127, 160, 233, 271, 274. Muensch, John, 254. Muenster, John, 168. Muenster, Melchior, 254. Muenster, Michael, 234. Muenster, Paul, 377, 444, 493. 512, 542, 545, 549, 550, 559- Muenster, Rosina, 168. Muhlenberg, Gotthilf Henry Ernest, 524. Musch, Jacob, 380. Musgrave, G. W., 698. Musselman, W. B , 699. Myers, George H., 715. Nace, John, 693. Nagle, Charles, 770. Nagle, Christian, 574. Nagle, John Jacob, 254. Napoleon, 629. Nathaniel, (an Indian,) 358. Naumann, Christopher, 41. Naylor, Mary, 728. 53 Neilhock, 254. Neisser, Augustin, 22, 35, 43, 69, 71, 127, 191. Neisser, George, 35, 38, 42, 43, 64, 65, 69, 71, 77, 79, 95, 105, 133, 136, 139, MO, 149, 160, 168, 176, 205, 282, 706. Neisser, Jacob, 22. Neisser, Joseph, 409. Neisser, Wenzel, 26. Nelson, John, 168. Nemez, Frederick, 9. Neubert, Daniel, 125, 126, 165. Neubert, Rosina, 165. Neuman, Regina, 273. Neuville, Chevalier de La, 489. Newbury, Dr., 544. Newcastle, Captain, (an Indian,) 342. Newton, Alvin, 644. Newton, John, 168. Nickum, Jacob, 707, 708, 728. Nicodemus, (an Indian,) 243, 341, 358. Nicke, George, 168. Nicke, Johanna EHzabeth, 168. Nielsen, Hans, 363. Nielsen, Jeppe, 512. Nielsen, Lawrence, 279. Nilson, Jonas, 122, 167. Nilson, Margaret, 167. Nimsch, Emil F., 706. Nitschke, Anna Maria, 235. Nitschmann, Anna, 54, 55, 63, 64, 75, 136, 152, 160, 249, 260, 290. Nitschmann, Anna Dorothea, 377. Nitschmann, Anna Mary, 278. Nitschmann, Christian David, 72. Nitschmann, David (Bishop,) 8, 22, 26, 28, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 54, 59, 61, 63, 64, 67, 69. 72, 75, 91, 96, 104, "6, 123, 143, 144, 162, 170, 173, 174, 204, 218, 233, 241, 276, 277, 278, 283, 290, 409, 431. Nitschmann, David, Senior, 54, 55, 57, 65, 93, 107, 125, 127, 137, 139, 144, 158, 160, 190, 261, 269, 273, 274, 283, 288, 365, 376, 377, 409, 633, 776. Nitschmann, David, Junior, 409, 410. Nitschmann, Immanuel, 260, 377, 444, 512, 542, 568. Nitschmann, John, 29, 218, 233, 235, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 255, 259, 260, 261, 262, 264, 364, 377. Nitschmann, Juliana, 55. Nitschmann, Martin, 234, 316, 319. Nitschmann, Rosina, 72, 136, 160, 278. Nitschmann, Susanna, 316, 319, 359. Nixdorff, John George, 168, 524. Nixdorff, John Gottlob, 168. Nixdorff, Susanna, 168. Noble, Bally, 273. Noble, James, 262. Noble, Mr., 723. 802 INDEX OF PERSONS. Noble, Thomas, 38, 74, 123, 168, 200, 201. Nuernberg, Dorothea, 235. Nuss, Helena, 235. Nyberg, Laurentius, Thorstansen, 227, 260, 363- Nyberg, Sulamith, 534. Nyce, William, 575. Oberlin, John Francis, 377, 414, 440, 445, 497, 5'4- Odenwald, John Michael, 254. O'Donnel, Mr., 416. Oerter, Christian Frederick, 168, 183, 205, 282, 384, 512, 542, 550, 568. Oerter, Elizabeth, 235. Oerter, Henry, 746. Oerter, John, 654, 671. Oerter, Joseph, 610, 671. Oerter, William H., 769, 775. Oesterlein, Daniel, 114, 136. Oglethorpe, James, 35, 37, 214, 215, 219. Ohneberg, John George, 167, 190. Ohneberg, Susan, 167. Okely, John, 124, 257, 261, 266, 269, 273, 274, 275, 281, 432, 433, 441, 442, 451, 462, 481, 501, 502, 568. Okely, William, 124, 201, 273. Old, John, 449. Oldendorp, Christian George Andrew, 415, 416. Oliver, Christina, 569. Ollendorf, Carl, 280. Ollringshaw, Henry, 295, 363. Opitz, Carl, 234. Opitz, Elizabeth, 167. Opitz, Leopold, 167, 170. Opitz, Margaret, 657. Opitz, Mary Elizabeth, 235. Oppelt, Franz Heinrich, 719. Oppelt, Gottfried Sebastian, 569. Ortlieb, John, 254. Osgood, Rev. Mr., 697. Ostrum, Andrew, 168. Ott, Levi, 737. Otto, John Frederick, 73, 167, 170, 171, 568. Otto, John Matthew, 171, 203, 253, 254, 256, 296, 304, 355, 356, 3^^, 404. 432, 521, 524, 525, 543, 671. Otto, Judith Benezet, 568. Otto, Mary, 167. Otto, Matthew, Jr., 544. Packer, Asa, 721, 725, 728, 729, 730. Packer, Harry E,, 729, 754. Packer, Robert A., 729. Packwood, E., 698. Pahlen, Anna von, 185. Palmer, Elizabeth, 226. Palmer, Levic, 576. Papunhank, (Monsey Chief,) 395. Parsons, Anna Mary, 265. Parsons, Johanna Grace, 265. Parsons, Juliana Sarah, 265. Parsons, Robert, 265. Parsons, Susan, 265. Parsons, William, 26s, 266, 268, 272, 281, 308, 313, 323, 326, 332, 340, 342, 343, 373,386, 519,568. Partsch, John George, 167, 311, 312, 316, 317,318. Paitsch, Susanna Louisa, 167, 316, 317. Paulsen, Catharine, 2co, 235, 241. Paulus, Christian Gottlob, 544, 569, 630, 633, 634, 642. Payne, Elizabeth, 168. Pa)ne, Jasper, 168, 182, 207, 213, 237, 247, 263, 266, 310, 361. Paxnous, (Paxinosa,) 300, 305, 306, 340, 341, 356. Peale, Edmund, 488. Pech, Catharine, 119. Pell, John Peter, 254. Pendleton, Edmund, 521. Penn, John, 44, 47, 275, 40I, 404, 408, 433, 445, 515- Penn, John, (poet,) 552. Penn, Richard, 44, 275, 433. Penn, Thomas, 37, 44, 214, 215, 220, 236, 265, 266, 280, 281, 552. Penn, William, 3, 44, 48, 61. Penry, Polly, 373. Pepy, Jo, (an Indian,) 341. Perkin, Griffith, 728. Peter, (an Indian,) 243. Peter, Good, 562. Peter, Christian Godfrey, 569. Peter, John Frederick, 377, 444, 512, 535, 541, 557, 559, 603. Petermann, Henrietta, 262. Peters, Joseph, 746. Peters, Richard, 211, 235, 243, 297, 323, 326. Petersen, Hans, 252, 254, 280. Peterson, Gertrude, 125. Petrus, (an Indian,) 395. Peysert, Robert, 739. I'ezold, John Gottlieb, 124, 136, 260, 263, 268, 273, 279, 370, 386, 387. Pfaff, Christopher Matthew, 90. Pfahl, Rosina, 122, 272. Pfeiffer, Christian, 200. Pfeil, Frederick Jacob, 254. Pfohl, Christian Thomas, 569. Pfohl, Samuel Thomas, 593. Pharo, Job, 716. Phillips, William, 490, 493, 494. Pierce, President, 724. Piesch, Anna Johanna, 125, 273, 376. Piesch, John George, 29, 107, 114, 125, 273. Pitschmann, George, 234. INDEX OF PERSONS. S03 Pitzmann, John Michael, 254. Fleischer, Fredericka, 401. Podiebrad, George, 9, 21. Polk, William, 475. Pomfret, Lord, 266. Pomp, Nicholas, 563, 628. Pomp, Thomas, 563. Poor, Enoch, 495. Poppelwell, Richard, 263. Post, Christian Frederick, 124, 136, 177, 242, 262, 279, 301, 304, 305, 309, 310, 361, 362, 387. Pott, William, 32. Potter, Alonzo, 697. Potter, Eliphalet Nott, 729, 730, 732, 750. Powell, Martha, 121. Powell, Joseph, 73, 121, 154, 155, 202, 257, 315,332. Powell, Samuel, 108, 121, 191, 260, 464. Powell, Thomas, 457. Presser, Martin, 254, 316. Preston, Colonel, 451. Preuss, 457. Price, Thomas, 442. Pricket, Josiah, 235. Priessing, Jacob, 254. Pritchett, Martha, 121. Pudmensky, Catharine, 37. Pulaski, Count Casimir, 462, 485, 486, 487, 488. Purcell, James, 726. Pury, John Peter, 39. Pyrlaeus, John Christopher, 70, 77, 94, 95, 104, 112, 127, 136, 140, 160, 165, 172, 177, 204, 205, 242, 251, 262. Pyrlaeus, John Christopher, Jr., 482, 513, S^i- Pyrlaeus, Sarah, 581. Radley, A. W., 714, 735. Raikes, Robert, 622, 623. Ralffs, Marcus, 254. Ralston, Robert, 627. Ramsburger, Anna, 235. Randolph, John, 647. Rantzau, von, 492. Rascher, Henry, 35, 42. Rath, J. B., 694, 69s, 734. Rau, Albert G., 766, 771. Rau, David, 747. Rau, Robert, 775. Rau, Simon, 649, 664,1671, 687. Rauch, Ambrose H., 664, 701, 704, 714. 720, 724. Rauch, Charles W., 714, 720, 724, 725. Rauch, Christian Henry, 40, 41, 54, 56, 59, 67, 70, 77, J04, 112, 114, 136, 142, 152, 154, 157, 165, 242, 401. Rauch, Edward H., 712. Rauch, John Frederick, 465, 604, 605, 610, 638, 65s, 656, 657, 686, 687. Rauch, Reuben, 741. Rauch, Rudolph, 739. Rauch, William, 704. Rauschenberger, Jacob, 603. Rebstock, Anna Catharine, 235. Redelerburg, Helena, 273. Red Jacket, (Indian chief,) 562. Reed, Isaac, 452, 458, 462. Reed, John, 508. Reed, Joseph, 457, 507, 514. Regnier, John Francis, 42. Reich, Anna M., 706. Reich, Clara V., 707. Reich, John Christian, 542, 543, 547, 550, 573- Reichard, David, 167. Reichard, Elizabeth, 167. Reichel, Charies Gotthold, 535, 559, 569, 596, 610. Reichel, Dorothea Sophia, 704. Reichel, Edward H., 648. Reichel, John Frederick, 506, 507, 508, 509, 5", 514, 599, 619, 621, 625. Reichel, Levin T., 93. Reichel, William C, 153, 190, 251, 258, 268, 339,397,518,703, 710,718, 753- Reincke, (Keinke,) Abraham, 176, 295, 296, 588. Reinke, Abraham, Jr., 513, 588,596, 597. Reinke, Amadeus A., 648, 700, 710. Reinke, Samuel, 588, 602, 603, 676, 689, 709, 745- Renatus, (an Indian,) 401, 402, 404. Renner, John George, 234 RepsdoriT, Baron von, 433. Reuss, Count XXVIII, 271. Reuss, Countess Erdmuth Dorothea, 21. Reuss, Magdalena Elizabeth, 234. Reuter, Christian Gottlieb, 349 Reuz, Magdalena, 167. Reuz, Matthew, 167, 205, 240. Rice, Edward, 676. Rice, Elizabeth, 121. Rice, Jacob, 610, 633, 638, 686, 687, 688, 714, 736. Rice, James A., 633, 714, 739. Rice, Joseph, 604, 605, 630. Rice, Joseph A., 701. Rice, Josephine C, 701, 739. Rice, Lydia, 703. Rice, Owen, 1st, 121, 126, 203. Rice, Owen, 2nd, 547, 548. Rice, Owen, 3rd, 548, 604, 605, 610, 618, (>33, 638, 656, 657, 660, 676. Rice, Owen, Capt., 746. Rice, Sarah, 658. Rice, William, 633 Rice, William Henry, 745, 746, 748, 775. Richards, J. W., 693. Richling, John Henry, 254. 8o4 INDEX OF PERSONS. Richter, John, 254. Richter, John Christopher, 234. Ricksecker, Jacob, 550. Ricksecker, John, 664. Riedel, Catharine, 35, 37. Riedel, Frederick, 34, 35, 37, 42 Riedesel, Frederick Adolph, 490, 492, 493. Riedesel, Madame, 490, 492, 493, 494, 505. Rieser, George Charles, 706. Rilhnann, Andrew, 234. Rinck, M. Henri Albert, 729. Ring, Pliilip Henry, 2S0. Rippel, John Michael, 295, Risler, Jeremiah, 339, 595. Ritner, Joseph, 656. Rittenhouse, David, 462, 515. Ritter, Ellen, 707, 70S. Ritter, Emma, 708. Ritter, Francis, 32. Ritter, Rebecca S., 707. Robbins, Gottlieb, 201. Robins, Esther Mary, 115, 136, 143. Robins, Johanna, 124. Roberts, Edward, 725. Rochambeau, 517. Rochefoucauld, Duke de la, 552. Rodney, Rev. Mr., 629. Roebuck, Jarvis, 168, 185, 201. Roemelt, Gottfried, 200. Roepper, C. W., 764. Roepper, William Theodore, 661, 662, 682, 688, 689, 701, 714, 720, 729. Roesler, (Roessler,) Godfrey, 254, 306, 332. Rogers, Jacob, 265, 272, 303, 386, 387. Rohleder, Martin, 280. Rokycana, 9, 10, il. Rondtlialer, Ambrose, 704, 705, 741. Rondthaler, Edward, 769, 774, 775. Rondthaler, Emanuel, 582, 588. Rondthaler, J. Albert, 732. Ronner, John Reinhold, 124, 136. Ro.se, Catharine, 43, 123. Rose, Joseph, 612. Rose, Mary, 37. Rose, Peter, 34, 37, 43. Roseen, Anna Margaret, 185. Roseen, Sven, 185. Rosengarten, J. G., 462, 515, 524. Roth, Anna Maria, 235. Roth, John, 295, 403, 630. Rothe, Pastor, 27. Rothrock, Sarah, 582. Rubel, Christina, 122. Rubel, John, 361. Ruch, Catherine, 273. Ruch, Michael, 29s. Rudolphi, John Frederick, 544, 569, 596. Ruede, Herman, 703, 704, 705, 706,711, 712, 747. Ruenger, Daniel, 254. Ruetschi, Conrad, 146, 163, 173. Ruhe, Joseph, 463. Rundt, Carl Godfrey, 262. Rupp, Daniel, 268. Rush, Benjamin, 438 475. Rusmeyer, Albrecht Ludolph, 275, 276. Russell, Pastor, 628. Samuel, (an Indian,) 174. Sandys, Lord, 220. Sangerhausen, Anna Margaret, 234. Sankey, 693, 694. Saur, Christopher, 37, 74, 97, loi. Sauter, Michael, 254. Sarah, (an Indian,) 317. Savitz, George, 574. Saylor, (). L., 734. Sayre, Robert H., 721, 727, 729, 730, 735, 747- Sayre, William H., 727. Saxon, Samuel, 280. Schaaf, Anna Catherine, 167. Schaaf, Christian Frederick, 541, 542, 569, 596, 620, 622. Schaaf, Jeremiah, 200. Schaaf, John, 167. Schaefier, Margaret, 123. Schaeffer, Nicholas, 360. Schaemel, 261. Schaub, Divert Mary, 167, 257. Schaub, John, 167, 207,257. Schaus, Frederick, 268. Schaus, John Adam, 146, 161, 163, 169, 195, 268. Schenk, Martin, 280. Schilling, Regina Dorothea, 119. Schindler, George, 280, 482, 546. Schindler, Thomas, 72. Schippang, Herman, 708. Schlabach, George, 668. Schlagenteufel, Captain, 492. Sclilagentruft, Captain, 492. Schiegel, John Frederick, 234, 513. Schlosser, 261. Schmaling, William Christopher, 295, 363. Schmatter, Anna Maria, 235. Schmich, Anna B., 707. Schniick, John Jacob, 261, 282, 306, 307, 315, 369,403. 407, 550. Schmidt, Anton, 242, 306, 314, 318, 482, 573- Schmidt, Benjamin, 244. Schmidt, Christian, 200. Schmidt, Hans Jacob, 295. Schmidt, Henry Immanuel, 593. Schmidt, John, 234, 330. Schmidt, John Christopher, 234. Schmidt, John Michael, 203, 279, 404, 590, 593- Schmidt, Jost, 32. INDEX OF PERSONS. S05 Schmidt, Melchior, 234, 348. Schnall, John, 165. Schnall, Michael, 165. Schneider, Daniel, 29. Schneider, George, 121, 125, 140. Schneider, Jacob, 574. Schneider, John, 234, 635. Schneider, Martin, 234. Schneider, Paul, 200. Schneider, Verona, 550. Schnell, Leonard, 121, 125, 136. Schneller, Charles, 605. Schneller, David Peter, 602, 604, 605, 638, 654, 656. Schober, Andrew, 167. Schober, Hedwig Regina, 167. Schober, John Michael, 39, 42. Schoedler, Daniel E., 707, 713. Schoen, Henry, 254. Schoepf, John David, 524, 645. Schoute, Andrew, 201, 279, 287, 288, 351, 363- Schropp, Abraham S., 746, 749. Schropp, Anna Margaret, 167. Schropp, John, (Warden,) 380, 513, 541, 545, 547, 549, 568, 573, 574, 576, 577, 641, 660. Schropp, Matthew, 167, 190. Schubert, Augustus, 374. Schuepge, Anna Rosina, 119. Schuetze, Anna Dorothea, 168. Schuetze, Christian, 168. Schuling, Rosina, 235. Schulius, George, 38, 39, 43. Schultz, John Henry, 569. Schultz, Maria Rosina, 488. Schultz, Samuel, 682. Schultz, Theodore, 653. Schultz, (a widow,) 273. Schultze, Carl, 234. Schultze, Godfrey, 234. Schultze, Rev. Dr. (Augustus), 775. Schuster, FeHcitas, 273. Schuyler, Philip, 457. Schwartz, Charles H., 705. Schwartz, Christian, 254. Schwartz, Gottfried, 254. Schwartz, Magdalena, 235. Schweigert, George, 254, 317. Schweinitz, Christian Frederick von, 514. Schweinitz, Edmund de, 12, 556, 700, 713, 750, 751. 753. 763. Schweinitz, Emil A. de, 676. Schweinitz, John (Hans) Christian Alexan- der de, 376, 423, 431, 461, 503, 505, 506, 507, 528, 543, 550, 557, 559, 561, 637, 647, 654, 668. Schweinitz, Lewis David de, 227, 606, 618, 629, 637, 638, 646, 652, 653, 675. Schweinitz, Paul de, 770. Schweinitz, Robert de, 763. 'j Schweisshaupt, John, 234. Schweitzer, George, 716. Schweitzer, Lawrence, 98. Scott, Moses, 481. Scull, Nicholas, 49, 209, 266, 297, 302. Seaman, Henry J., 714. Seem, John, 726. Seidel, Anna, 377. Seidel, Charles Frederick, 63, 517, 582, 588, 591. 603, 604, 605,, 606, 625, 626, 628, 630, 646, 647, 654, 674, 675, 676, 6S9, 690, 691, 693. 694, 704. Seidel, Christian, 304, 305. 306. Seidel, John Henry, 295. Seidel, Juliana, 235. Seidel, Nathanael, 47, 125, 136, 170, 241, 250, 260, 261, 269, 273, 327, 343, 351, 366, 376, 377, 414, 415, 417, 423, 437, 444, 445, 446, 452, 454, 506, 523, 529, 541, 570. Seidensticker, Oswald, 74. Seidlitz, Elizabeth, 401. Seidner, Margaret Barbara, 273. Seiffert, Andrew, 234. Seiffert, Anton, 34, 36, 39, 43, 44, 57, 62, 64, 69, 105, 116, 127, 133, 136, 139, 149, 152, 162, 165, 170, 172, 189. Seiffert, John, 200. Sehner, 251. Selfridge, Alexander, 751. Selfridge, James L., 740, 744, 751. Selfridge, Kate, 753. Selfridge, William W., 747. Seneff, George, 295. Sensemann, Anna Catharine, 122, 136, 317. Sensemann, Christian, 590. Sensemann, Gottlob, 122. Sensemann, Henry Joachim 122, 126, 136, 141, 203, 209, 253, 311, 312, 315, 316, 317, 368, 369, 522. Serra, Gomez, 274. Serra, Joseph Correa de, 629. Seward, William, 43, 64. Seybold, Anna Maria, 136. Seybold, Matthias, 35, 43, 64, 65, 69, 128, 136, 145, 148. Shabash, (Abraham,) the Indian, 104. Shanks, Captain, 562. Sharpless, Stephen Paschall, 729. Shaw, Joseph, 125. Shebosh, (John Joseph Bull,) 143, 213. 307, 318, 343, 369- Sherbeck, Paul Jansen, 254. Sherman, Lucas, 477 Shewkirk, Gustavus, 439. Shikellimy, John (old chief) Thachnachtoris, 306, 307. " Shimer, Conrad, 738. Shingas, the terrible, 306. 8o6 INDEX OF PERSONS. Shippen, William, 415, 451, 454, 456, 464, 474- Shirley, General, 297. Shultz, C. B., 770,771. Shultz, Henry A., 676, 686, 689, 690, 693, 694, 702, 743, 750. Sidman, Colonel, 473. Sieg, Paul, 209. Siegmund, Jacob, 634. Siever, Carl, 528. Sigley, Owen B., 713. Simpson, Bishop, 696. Sinclair, Sir John, 388. Sitgreaves, Samuel, 626. Sitgreaves, Susan, 626, 627. Sitkovius, Bishop, 30. Skinner, Alexander, 459. Smith, David Zeisberger, 64S, 703. Smith, Sam Captain, 53b. Smouth, Anna Elizabeth, 404. Smouth, Edward, 194, 404. Smylie, John, 727, 730, 732. Snyder, Jonas, 749. Snyder, M. H., 708. Snyder, N. Z., 734. Soelle, George 275, 276. Sommers, Benjamin, 40, 41, 43, 44, 64, 136. Souders, Gottlieb C, 707, 708. Spangenberg, Augustus Gottlieb, 32, 34, 35, 36. 37, 38, 39. 55. 65, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 79,80,90, 92, 107, 108, 109, 119, 123, 125, 127, 152, 159, 160, 168, 172, 173, 176, 177, 178, 179. 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 189, 194, 197, 198, 201, 202, 205, 209, 217, 223, 225, 226 228, 229, 230, 233, 241, 242, 245, 246, 247, 259, 262, 263, 264, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 288, 290, 291, 292, 294, 295, 302, 307, 308, 313, 315, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 330, 333, 334, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 343, 344, 349, 35°, 355, 356, 366, 369, 376, 377, 384, 385, 386, 387, 404, 437, 505, S'o. Sperbach, Johanna Rebecca, 273. Spinner, Sarah E., 707, 708. Spinner, Susan, 706. Sprogle, Christian Ludwig, 265, 332. Sprogle, John Henry, 265. Sproh, Christian, 280. Stach, Christian, 29. Stach, Matthew, 28, 233, 241. Stach, Thomas, 226, 233, 234, 240, 241. Stadiger, John Frederick, 542, 569, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 638, 653. 676. Staehle, Balzer, 575. Stauber, Paul Christian, 254. Stauffer, W. H., 734. Stark, John George, 280. Steckel, John Frederick August, 632. Stedman, John, 32. Steinhauer, Daniel, 604. Steinhauer, Henry, 603, 604. Steinman, Anna Regina, 234. Steinman, Anna Salome, 401. Steinman, Christian Frederick, 234. Steinman, George, 715, 716. Stenton, John, 191, 397, 401. Sterling, General, 455. Stern, Pastor, 693. Stephen, Bishop, (Waldenses,) il. Stettner, John, 280. Steuben, Frederick von, 462, 485. Steup, Francis, 253. Steup, Samuel, 574, 604, 633, 665. Steup, Sophia, 253. Stevens, William Bacon, 697, 729, 732. Stiefel, George, 32. Stiemer, Anton, 280. Stiles, President Ezra, 291, 551. Stirling, Thomas, 408. StoU, Anna, 234. Stoll, John George, 234, 550, 568. Stoltzenbach, Augusta, 703. Stoltzenbach, William, 745, 751. Stonehouse, George, 108. Stout, Abraham, 746, 747. Stout, Franklin C, 745, 748, 749. Straehle, Rudolph, 234. Straub, Samuel, 738. Strasburger, Pastor, 628. Strauss, Abraham, 254. Strayhom, A. M. 734. Stuber, Michael, 742. Sturgis, Joseph, 311, 312,314,316,317,318, 450. Stutzer, Captain, 492. St. Maine, Count de, 515. St. Victor, Count de, 515. Sullivan, John, (Gen.), 455, 495, 496. Sutton, Mr., 459, 503. Swihola, John Jacob, 506, 507. Swindells, J. T., 753. Sydrich, John Daniel, 47, 254. Talbot, Dr., 36. Tamaqua, (an Indian,) 306. Tanneberger, Anna Rosina, 122, 136. Tanneberger, David, 35, 43, 234, 363, 364, 451, 578. Tanneberger, John, 35, 43. Tanneberger, Michael, 122, 123, 136. Tassawachamen, (an Indian,) (Joseph,) 143. Tatemy, (Moses,) (Indian chief,) 154, 155, 195, 355 Tatemy, (^William,) (an Indian,) 355, 356. Taussig, Lizzie, 707. Taylor, David, 737. Taylor, George, 448,451. Taylor, Jonathan K., 745, 747. Taylor, Mahlon, 749. INDEX OF PERSONS. 807 Taylor, Ralph, 36. Taylor, Robert E., 749 Teedyuscung, (an Indian,) 50, 244, 299, 305, 306, 339, 342, 343, 347, 348, 353, 354, 356, 357, 35^ 359, 395- Tennent, Gilbert, 238. Theodorus, Brother, 164, 254. Thomas, David R., 695. Thomas, Francis, 545, 550, 632. Thomas, (Captain,) 34. Thomas, Governor, 93, 154, 174, 214. Thomas, John, 254, 482. Thomas, (the negro,) 287. Thomas of Prelouc, 1 1 . Thompson, Charles, 557. Thompson, Richard, 477, Thorn, William, 294. Thorpe, Edward, 280, 495. Thrane, Amadeus Paulinus, 377, 444, 512. Thumhardt, Godfrey Henry, 544. Thiirnstein, von, (see Zinzendorf,) 92, 552. Thurston, W. W., 756. Tiersch, Mary, 442. Tiersch, Paul, 400, 442. Tiersch, Elizabeth, 275. Till, Jacob, 275, 664. Till, John Christian, 602, 603, 610,654, 710, 716. Till, Joseph, 664. Tillofson, Nils, 569. Tietze, Herman J., 702. Toellner, Christian Frederick, 276. Toeltschig, John, 22, 26, 34, 38, 43, 273, 409. Toeltschig, Judith, 35, 43. Tombler, Charles C, 635, 655, 656, 719, 739 Tombler, Edward, 743, 744. Tombler, Oliver, 719. Tombler, William D., 739. Tommerup, Matthias, 377, 463. Togood, Notley, 168. Traeger, Fredericka, 701, 703, 704. Tschatschi, Tomo, Chief, 36. Tschoop, (Job, John, Wasamapah,) 113, 137, 142, 193, 596. Turck, John de, 98, 104. Turk, Daniel de, 449. Turner, Elizabeth, 122. Turner, John, 122. Turner, Joseph, 61. Turner, Joshua, 695. Uhlmann, Dorothea, 235. Ulrich, William, 762, 765. Unander, Eric, 290. Unger, Anna, 534. Unger, Maria, 534. Utley, Richard, 168. Utley, Sarah, 168. Vaas, John, (Fahs,) 210. Vail, John Bloom, 750. Valentine, 115, 136. Van der Bilt, Jacobus, 201. Van der Bilt, Jean, 201. Van de Venter, John, 200. Van Kirk, Benjamin, 660, 705, 706. Van Vleck, Charles A., 592, 593, 676 Van Vleck, Henry, 260, 375, 432, 473, S^Z, 568. Van Vleck, Henry J., 648, 649, 690, 732. Van Vleck, Jacob, 260, 506, 507, 512, 515, 516, 520, S4I, 542, 545- 549, 557, 562, 566, 587, 588, 589, 590, 591, 596, 607, 638, 653. Van Vleck, Maria, 260, Van Vleck, William Henry, 577, 587, 592, 603, 625, 628, 681, 687, 689, 690, 694, 704, 719. Vaux, George, 372. Vend, Ferdinand (Fend), 262. Verbeek, John Renatus, 581, 586, 587. Verdriess, Hartmann, 360. - Vetter, Jacob, (Fetter,) 162, 164, 332. Vleit, James, 738. ^^ Vogt, Divert, 235. Volck, Cari, 316. Vollert, Jost, 209, 268. Vreda, Lieutenant, 492. Vriehuis, Margaret Catherine, 704. Wade, Johanna, 185. Wade, John, 185, 226. / Wade, Mary, 569. / Waeckler, Juliana, 273. Wagenseil, John Andrew, 254. Wagner, Abraham, 32. Wagner, Anton, 167, 1 70. Wagner, Daniel, 575. Wagner, Elizabeth, 167. Wahl, George, 695. Wahnert, David, 122, 136, 160, 167, 169, 170, 173, 234, 241, 272, 273, 275, 279, 377, 387- Wahnert, Mary Elizabeth, 122, 136, 147, 167, 234. Walker, William N., 706. Wallace, Captain, 71. Walp, Isaac, 714. Walp, Jost, 500, 501. Walp, William, 756. Wanab, (Gabriel,) 143. Wapler, Juliana Esther, 377, 534- Warner, Anna Dorothea, 704. Warner, John C, 634, 654, 657. Warner, Massa, 545, 550. Warner, Miss, 658. Warner, Samuel S., 705. Warner, William H., 648. Warrall, Hanna, 265. 8o8 INDEX OF PERSONS. Warren, John, 451, 452, Wasamapah, John, (Tschoop,), IJ7, 142, 154, 193. Waschkc, Anna, 35, 43. Waschke, Cleorge, 34, 43. Wasclike, Juliana, 43. Washington, Bushrocl, 505, 647. Washington, George, 361, 455, 462, 468, 471, 473, 484, 495, 505, 507, 5'5, 516, 517, 518, 544. 558, 559. 561, 562, 566. Washington, Martha, 457, 495, 505. Washington, William Augustine, 505. Watleville, Anna Dorothea, de, 506. Watteville, Frederick de. Baron, 72. Watteville, John de, 72, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 237, 241, 242, 246, 274, 506, 528, 529,531,532, 533 536, 555- Weaver, Lizzie J., 707. Webb, Thomas, 458, 461, 695. Weber, Andrew, 254. Weber, Christian, 32. Weber, George, 104, 114, 136, 174. W^eber, John C, 688, 701, 704, 747. Weber, Mary Apollonia, 550. Weber, Mary Elizabeth, 104, 136. Weber, Tobias, 209. Webster, Benjamin C, 721. Wedsted, Christian, 276, 319, 332. Weicht, Peter, 276. Weicht, Susanna, 235. Weigand, John, 522. Weinecke, Charles, 2S0, 496, 550. Weinert, Dorothea, 167. Weinert, John Christopher, 167. Weinland, David, 576, 681, 688. Weinland, John Nicholas, 234. Weiser, Conrad, 37, 152, 153, 156, 165,699. Weiser, George, 125. Weiser, Reuben, 699. Weiskotten, F. W., 695. W^eiss, Anna Maria, 488. Weiss, Elizabeth, 658. Weiss, PVancis, 575. Weiss, Frederick, 368. Weiss, Jacob, 641. Weiss, Jedediah, 634, 655, 660, 662, 664, 682, 687, 701, 741, 748. Weiss, John George, 602. Weiss, Jonas Paulus, 160. Weiss, Lewis William, 294, 467, 482. Weiss, Margaret Catharine, 167. Weiss, Matthew, 167, 202, 550, 568. Weiss, Paul, 602. W^eiss, Timothy, 645, 654, 656, 664, 673. Welden, C. F., 694, 700, 745. Welden, Frederick A., 707. Wells, Zebulon, 634. Welton, Dr., 36. Wend, Magdalena, (Fend, Vend,) 115, 136, 160. Wendover, Mary, 42. Wennel, .Samuel, 168. Wenner, U. J., 753. Wenz, Jacob, 32. Wenzel, Catherine, 235. Wenzel, Pastor, 693. Werner, Christian, 125, 136. Wenihamer, Margaret, 272. Wertz, Gertrude, 707. Werwing, Maria Wilhelmina, 401, 410. Wesa, Peter, 306. Wesley, Charles, 35. Wesley, John, 35, 695. Westmann, John Eric, 1S5, 201, 205, 262. Wetherhold, Jacob, (Wetterhold,) 191, 396, 397- Wetherill, John Price, 720. Wetherill, Samuel, 701, 720, 729, 744, 751. Wetzel, John, 461, 497, 498, 499, 500, 502. Wharton, Joseph, 720. Wharton, Thomas, 499. Whipple, William, 470. White, Bishop, 628. White, Josiah, 642. Whitehead, Cortlandt, 730. Whitesell, Andrew, 722. Whitesell, John David, 722. Whitefield, George, 40, 41, 43. 44, 51, 52, 51, 62, 63, 64, loi, 109, 206, 230, 270. Whitman, Elmira, 728. Whittemore, James, 758. Wiegner, Christopher, 32, 34, 37, 38, 42,44, 56, 57, 62, 76, 77. Wiesner, George, 136, 160. Wilbur, Elisha P., 726, 727, 735, 739, 754. Wilhelm, Benjamin, 747. Wilhelm, E. T., 747. Wilkes, Martha, 121. Will, George, 449. Wilier, Lorenz van, 239. William, Frederick I, 91. Williams, William, 465, 467. Willy, Joseph, 280. Wilmot, Aquila, 476. Wilson, Hugh, 266. Wilson, J. H., 707, 747. Wilson, John J., 746. Wilson, Justice, 296, 326. Wilson, William, 714, 739, 740, 746, 748. Wilt, Owen R., 728. Wittenberg, Jens, 280. Wittke, Matthew, 125, 136, 550. Wlach, John, 9. Woehler, George Henry, 635, 645, 646, 682. Wolf, George, 656. Wolle, Augustus, 633, 648, 707, 708, 723, 724, 725, 726. Wolle, Francis, 658, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704. Wolle, Jacob, 630. Wolle, J. Fred., 764, 770. INDEX OF PERSONS. 809 \Volle, John Frederick, 6';3, 661. Wolle, Peter, 587, 5S8, 674, 748. Wolle, Sabina, 707. WoUe, Sylvester, 702, 714, 736, 749. Wolle, Theodore F., 708, 753, 764. \Vollniuth, Charles, 769. Wolson, George Stephen, 275. Wolson, Susan Rebecca, 275. Wood, Archbishop, 733. Wood, Joseph, 475,481. Woodford, General, 465, 469. W^oodring, Nicholas, 575. Worbass, Peter, 276, 314, 361, 374, 416. W'uertele, John, 280. Wuetke, Samuel, 200. Yarrell, Ann, 122. Yarrell, Anna Maria, 514. Yarrell, Thomas, 375. Yeates, Edmund, 49. Yerkes, David I., 190, 722, 726. Yerkes, Sarah, 624. Yohe, Caleb, 634, 670, 681, 715, 741. Young, Mr., 473. Yost, A. F., 713. Yungberg, John, 541. Ysselstein, Isaac Martens, 62, 142, 146, 158, 208, 210, 231, 232, 242, 254, 672. Zaeslein, Joseph, 569, 592. Zander, John William, 70, 77, 105, 136, 142, 143, 239, 240, 241. Zeidig, Johanna Christiana, 265. Zeisberger, Anna, 69. Zeisberger, Anna Dorothea, 168, Zeisberger, David, 35, 39, 40, 43, 64, 398. Zeisberger, David, (the missionary,) 43, 44, 57, 64, 65, 69, 136, 148, 154, 158, 177, 242, 243, 259, 261, 277, 279, 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 312, 315, 343, 387, 395, 398, 403, 407, 409, 506, 522, 559, 568, 626, 629. Zeisberger, David, (No. 3,) 291, 377, 398, 512. Zeisberger, George, 69, 168. Zeisberger, Melchior, 22. Zeisberger, Rosina, 35, 43, 64, 69, 1 36. Zentler, Conrad, 625. Ziegelbauer, Eva Mary, 177. Ziegenfuss, C. O., 713. Ziegler, Curtius Frederick, 276. Ziegler, David, 515. Ziegler, Samuel, 634. Zillman, Henry, 280. Zinzendorf, Benigna, von 72, 89, 105, 107, 136, 149, 160, 226, 230, 233, 271. Zinzendorf, Christian Renatus von, 187. Zinzendorf, Erdmuth Dorothea von, 44, 281. Zinzendorf, Nicholas Lewis von, 8, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38, 41, 45, 55, 56, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73. 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 1°° loi, I02, 103, 104, 105, III, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 125, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159- 160, 162, 165, 169, 170, 171, 176, 177, 179, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 197, 199, 200, 207, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 226, 228, 233, 234, 237, 242, 246, 249, 250, 264, 270, 273, 277, 280, 281, 290, 349, 352, 353, 363, 376, 384, 409, 417, 418, 423, 506, 525, 533, 552, 562, 633, 776. Zorn, Jacob, 593. Zwingle, 13. 54 ibS'25