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 51
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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 16th, 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. While 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.ยบ 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 official 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 18th, 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.
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them to indulge in unrestrained boisterousness, shooting in all directions, and causing general uneasiness.
On the 19th, 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 "der Plats" or the Square,10 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.11
10 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.
11 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 1761, 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. Tommerup, Bethlehem, fuer Leon. Harbatel n. Salome Berlin, 1769." 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
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
But more important and productive of more consequences than any of these arrivals was a letter12 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 difficulty 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, 1871.
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
Trenton Sep. 18, 1777.
humble Serv't
W. SHIPPEN,
D. G.
John Christian Hasse referred to in the letter was accountant, scrivener and Notary Public at Bethlehem.
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Four members of Congress came in the evening, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Cornelius 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,13 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 sufferers, 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.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Obethlehem September the 22 1777
Having here observed a humane and diligent attention to the wich and wounded, and a benevolent desire to make the necessary provision for the relief of the distrofred , as far as the powers of the Mutheren enable them We desire that all continental officers may refrain from disturbing the persons or property of the Moravian in Bethlehem, and particularly that they do not disturb or surles the flowers where the women are afsembled . Given under our hands the time and peace above mentional
NathanBrownson Richard Henry Lee
Nath & Holsom
Quer
Richard Law
our Family
John Hancock Samuel Adams
omLaurens.
Delegates to Congrys
Lypar Dyen Ja: Duane&
John Adams Henry March ante
Ma Williamy
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1772-1778.
to be the means of averting what would have been a far greater hard- ship than the vacating of the Brethren's House. After inspecting these buildings, examining into their arrangements and getting an insight into all that would be involved in appropriating them to such use, as this was earnestly represented to them by Ettwein, they consulted together when they returned to the inn, and issued an order14 which set this critical question at rest and removed all danger of such seizure from those buildings. The members of Congress were so much pleased with Bethlehem that they seriously considered the idea of establishing their quarters at the place, under the circum- stances that had arisen. This was not regarded with much satisfac- tion by the village fathers, for all that would be associated with such a move and would follow upon it, would inevitably revolutionize the character of the place. In the spring of 1780 this idea was broached again. It was advocated with sufficient zeal that it caused the authorities at Bethlehem some uneasiness and led Ettwein, upon the information given him by Attorney Lewis Weiss, of Philadelphia, in reference to the agitation of the project, to write a letter strongly deprecating it.
Besides issuing that important order, the members of Congress interfered in other ways to relieve Bethlehem in the turmoil of that trying September, 1777. The throng and confusion became very
14 This order, which has so often been reproduced in print and in fac-simile, and which is preserved, with other manuscript relics of that time, in the Moravian archives at Bethlehem, reads as follows :
BETHLEHEM, SEPTEMBER the 22d, 1777.
Having here observed a diligent attention to the sick and wounded, and a benevolent desire to make the necessary provision for the relief of the distressed, as far as the power of the Brethren enable them, we desire that all Continental Officers may refrain from dis- turbing the persons or property of the Moravians in Bethlehem, and particularly, that they do not disturb or molest the Houses where the women are assembled.
Given under our hands at the time and place above mentioned,
Nathan Brownson,
Richard Henry Lee,
Nath'l Folsom,
Wm. Duer,
Richard Law, Corn'1 Harnett,
Henry Laurens,
John Hancock, Samuel Adams,
Benj. Harrison,
Eliph't Dyer, Jas. Duane,
Jos. Jones,
John Adams,
Henry Marchant,
Wm. Williams,
Delegates to Congress.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
great. Many apartments in private houses were invaded to make room for depositing luggage and effects which had to be put under roof and watch. Over seven hundred wagons with munitions and baggage came to the place inside of twenty-four hours, with an escort of about two hundred men. They halted at first on the south side of the river, where all the remaining fences, the large field of buckwheat and other things were destroyed over night. Two days later, September 26, when about two hundred more wagons arrived, and all were brought across the river and parked in the fields to the north-west of the town, the quality of this added throng and confusion was fully realized. The troops assigned to this kind of duty were naturally not the pick of the army. The men gathered up to do service as teamsters were not likely to be of the more orderly class. When the statement is added in the records that a rabble of the lowest character, male and female, fol- lowed the wagon trains, it is not difficult to imagine the sights and sounds that prevailed by day and night. At the same time, amid wild rumors that the main army was approaching, General de Kalb, with a corps of engineers, was engaged in surveying the higher points in the vicinity, with a view to planning defences if necessary. That, in the midst of all this, the many British prisoners who had been quartered upon Bethlehem, and who might quite as well have been kept at another place not so sorely taxed, should remain to burden the town, was more than any one would desire unless delib- erately seeking to oppress the people. The Congressmen took speedy steps to secure their removal, which occurred on September 25. Through their efforts also, the dangerous powder magazine was transferred to a spot at some distance from the buildings sooner than would otherwise have been the case. Their presence and represen- tations led furthermore to all possible concentration of baggage and stores that had to be kept under roof, by direction of the officers now assuming police command, thus releasing many apartments that had been invaded.
Loud cannonading was again heard on October 4, and the next day came the account of the battle of Germantown, in which the movements of the army, at first thought to be planned towards the back country, had issued. Ten days after the battle, came orders for the collection of clothing and blankets for the destitute and suffer- ing troops, issued by General Washington on the 6th.
Under the circumstances then existing, the methods of making these collections were naturally not well organized and disciplined in
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detail, and the manner in which the people of Bethlehem were first addressed by the persons in charge in the county again showed a dis- position to make use of the opportunity in as oppressive a way as possible, with very rough men at hand to help execute instructions in their style. Here the good offices of General Woodford prevented what might readily have descended to wholesale loot and pillage. The people were given the opportunity to first produce what they were willing to contribute, before any search was made. Enough blankets, shoes, stockings and other wearing apparel were voluntarily brought together to at once satisfy the expectations of those in charge. This, as they had to acknowledge, was more than could be said of many other people who were not decried as Tories but, on the contrary, had talked vehement patriotism. An evidence of what kind of men some were, who were doing guard duty in connection with the baggage at Bethlehem, and what might have been expected if the execution of the order for blankets and clothing had not been thus carefully regulated, was furnished on the evening of October 9, when one of the soldiers entered the rooms of the Community House, although a guard was stationed there, broke open a clothes-press and appropriated what he could seize. Being evidently not very valorous, he fled when pursued by Ettwein with the cry "stop, thief," and dropped his plunder outside the house, while the guard remained in hiding. In like manner, ten days later, a window was broken open in the Sisters' House, but the miscreant made away with one woman's effects only, being frightened off before he could proceed further. Although but trifling incidents, amid the scenes and experiences of those times, such exploits, and other similar ones mentioned, reveal what would have been perpetrated by the unruly element among the soldiers who had come to Bethlehem with the wagon trains, to say nothing of the disreputable herd of camp-followers, if they had been unrestrained. As to the collection of blankets, clothing and other necessities, it may be added that instructions from headquarters required the commissary officials to give receipts, so that ultimately equitable settlement might be made. It appears that this was not
carefully observed about the country. The articles gathered up in Bethlehem on this occasion were regarded by the people as dona- tions, like quantities of things furnished for the use of the hospital, and did not figure in the bills of damages later presented. In November, 1777, an appeal was sent to Washington's headquarters to be relieved of the baggage and stores yet remaining at Bethlehem, and not
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
belonging to the hospital department, so that the more undesirable class of soldiers and the riff-raff that had followed the wagon trains might be gotten rid of. It was felt that the presence of the hospital, with all that this brought with it, was a sufficient tax upon the people. The removal of these things took place gradually, after the middle of November. General Washington's baggage and other belongings of his headquarters that had been brought to Bethlehem on September 24, and kept under a guard of forty men at the tile kiln near the Burnside house, up the Monocacy, were taken away on Christmas Eve, 1777.
Encouragement to send such a petition to headquarters was appar- ently given by several of the delegates to Congress who passed through during the early part of November. On the day on which the message was sent, November 10, two Congressmen from New England, who left a diary of their journey, which has been published, arrived. They were William Ellery, of Rhode Island, who had been in Bethlehem with William Whipple, the previous June, and his son- in-law, Francis Dana, later Chief Justice of Massachusetts, accom- panied by the French General Roche de Fermoy, to whom, however, they had not made themselves known. Mr. Ellery records that on November 10, they rode in the rain from Easton to Bethlehem "for the sake of good accommodation." They remained over the next day on account of the rain and their tired horses. He says that at the Sun Inn they "fared exceedingly well, drank excellent Madeira and fine green tea, and ate a variety of well-cooked food of a good quality, and lodged well." He refers to the fact that the Congress had "ordered that the house of the single women should not be occu- pied by the soldiery, or in any way put to the use of the army." One passage in his diary has some significance when taken in connection with the very plain intimation given, at a later time, by various Con- gressmen, that the petitions of the Moravians for relief from the rigors of the militia and test laws would meet with more favorable treatment if they ceased to make common cause with other non- Associators en masse, and were to present their case on their own dis- tinct ground. He says : "A number of light horse were at Nazareth feeding on the hay and grain of the Society, which I found was dis- agreeable, but at the same time perceived that they did not choose to complain much, lest their complaints should be thought to proceed not so much from their sufferings as from a dislike to the American cause. This people, like the Quakers, are principled against bearing
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arms, but are unlike them in this respect, they are not against paying such taxes as government may order them to pay towards carrying on war, and do not, I believe, in a sly, underhand way, aid and assist the enemy, while they cry peace, peace, as the manner of some Quakers is, not to impeach the whole body of them." His desire to find good accommodations at Bethlehem can be appreciated when he describes another tavern, towards Reading, as "infamous" and "a sink of filth and abomination," and the landlady as "a mass of filth," with "avarice as great as her sluttishness ;" they having had of her "but a bit of a hock of pork, boiled a second time and some bread and butter," for they found their own tea, coffee and horse-feed, and slept in a room that "admitted the cold air at a thousand chinks," and on a bed that had "only a thin rug and one sheet." For this, he says, "this daughter of Lycurgus charged Mr. Dana, myself and servant, thirty-eight shillings, lawful money."15
During the closing months of 1777 and the early part of 1778, the severity of the militia and test acts was felt most keenly and was pressed most ruthlessly by the County Lieutenants and Justices. At that time all appeal was fruitless, for the exasperation felt at the fate of Philadelphia ; the terrible sufferings of Washington's heroic army at Valley Forge; the heartless indifference and base treachery mani- fested by so many who had been loyalists or became such when Howe took Philadelphia-courting the British officers when the Revolution seemed almost to be a lost cause-reduced the disposition to make concessions on the ground of professed conscientious scruples to a minimum in almost every quarter. At the same time, as a careful and critical examination of the situation by writers, bringing forth not only some but all classes of facts, has often shown, not every Revolutionist was true and good and not every anti-Revol- utionist was perfidious and base. Not all who were ready, in the time of excitement and enthusiasm, to go to all lengths; not all who without hesitation took the oath and turned out at call to drill or even to go to the front for a while; not all who entered the service of the country in high or petty positions, were noble-minded, unselfish, heroic patriots, as it would be pleasant to believe. Wash- ington and his most valuable officers, as well as the best men in Congress and connected with the government of Pennsylvania, were constrained to strongly set forth the detriment to the cause resulting
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