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 46
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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 Gemcinhaus 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 Lieberkühn'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 Hoffert, successively, was last known as the " Hoffert Farm."
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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.15
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.
15 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 1755, 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.
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1762-1771.
The Governor of Pennsylvania and his suite were in Bethlehem again from April 27 to May 1, 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
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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 1, 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 staff 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
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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, 1771, 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 were 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, affecting 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
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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 life, 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.
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The people of the village were represented by the Village or Con- gregation Council-Gemeinrath-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 officio 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 Gemeinrath to represent the Vox 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 effects 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
,
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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 Gemeinhelfer-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-
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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 Pfleger-Fosterers or Curates. Later the term Helper was, in their case, dropped and they were again called Pfleger. 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 Pfleger, 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 Pfleger 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 Aufseher Collegium or Board of Super- vision in externals, the successor of the Richter 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 meeting. The function of this board was
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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 and of 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 1771, the Aufscher Collegium 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.
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