USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86
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 effected 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.
John 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 Brandmüller 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 on 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, suffered 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.
75
1741-1742.
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 10. 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 different 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 18, the Count went out to Ger- mantown, where he lodged with John Bechtel, the faithful licensed 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 alliance of devout men of all persuasions in practical efforts for the common good, on the ground of some
76
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 reli- 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
77
1741-1742.
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.11
The first extant record after the mention of his arrival brings to view an interesting Christmas Eve scene.12 They were assembled in the little log house at the close of Sunday, December 24 N. S.,13 to observe the Vigils of Christmas on the same day on which their brethren in the far-off Fatherland were similarly engaged. Besides
II 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.
13 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 nach Stilo Novo in Gemeinschaft mit unsern Brüdern in Europa." 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.
78
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 hymn14 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 Hymns, published in 1891 at Bethlehem, hymn 511 is a free translation by S. C. Chitty, of six stanzas corresponding, as they there follow, to 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 7 of the original. Martin Mack mentions the lines "Nicht Jerusalem, sondern Bethlehem," of verse 2, and "Aus dir kommet was mir frommet," of verse 3, as the particular words treasured in memory in connection with the naming of the settlement. This old hymn 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 to make as literal as possible, while preserving their original structure.
Jesu rufe mich Von der Welt, dass ich Zu dir eile,
Nicht verweile ;
Jesus call Thou me From the world to flee, To Thee hasting ; Without resting ; Jesus call Thou me.
Jesu rufe mich. Nicht Jerusalem, Sondern Bethlehem Hat bescheret Was uns naehret ;
Not Jerusalem, Rather Bethlehem Gave us that which Maketh life rich ; Not Jerusalem. Honored Bethlehem,
Nicht Jerusalem. Werthes Bethlehem, Du bist angenehm ; Aus dir kommet Was mir frommet, Werthes Bethlehem. Du bist, wie man spricht, Nun die kleinste nicht ; Allen Leuten, Auch den Heiden
Pleasant I esteem ; From thee springeth What gain bringeth ; Honored Bethlehem.
Thou no more of right
Art called least in might ; Unto all men, Yea the heathen,
Bringst du Heil und Licht.
Zeige mir den Stern Der mich, aus der Fern, Von den Heiden Lehr abscheiden ; Zeige mir den Stern.
Brings't thou health and light.
Point me out the star Which my course, afar, Guides from pagan Ways forsaken ; Point me out the star.
79
1741-1742.
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."15
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.16
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.
16 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 1741, 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, 1748. 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 Lechem, 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 174I, 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 religious 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.
1
80
1742. SI
He got back to Germantown, 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: "I 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 religious 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 religious languages. Conceiving thus of unity in diversity, he cherished visions of the previous Babel producing a many-tongued pentecostal harmony around the cross.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.