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 52
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15 See Penna. Mag. of Hist. and Biog., XI, 324-326, and Transac. Morav. Hist. Soc., IT, 127-128.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
from personal jealousies and bickerings, the pursuit of selfish aims, and even the basest mercenary speculation on the distress of the country, on the part of some public men. There were among osten- sible patriots other traitors besides, later, Benedict Arnold, whose hearts were as base and their intrigues as perfidious, even if their offences were not of a nature that technically criminated them. There were also many who, although not weakening the cause by self-seek- ing, but goaded and exasperated by the situation of things-being also unreasonable, over-zealous and violent-expended energy in ways that effected nothing for the country, but rather created greater confusion and variance. Such awakened counter-resentment by indis- creet ardor, decrying every man as a Tory deserving extreme punish- ment who did not agree with their every wild and unjust project.
The more the whole truth and all sides of it become known, giving a correct view of the situation, the less does a position like that occupied by the Moravians seem to need being apologized for, and the less hesitancy need there be about stating facts in connection with their more immediate relations to those who were in a position to bring the militia and test acts to bear hard upon them, even if the facts are not to the credit of some of those, in their county, who flourished as the foremost agents of the patriot cause. Not all of these men were unselfish and unsullied patriots, with an eye single to the country's interests. There were a few who made the collection of the militia fines from the Moravians and the procuring of substi- tutes for those of them who were called out and failed to respond, a profitable traffic. They were authorized to hire such substitutes "as cheaply as they could," and this left them discretion-at the expense of the delinquent-and they could, of course, forcibly recover the amount, if necessary. One of these Lieutenants, already referred to, unblushingly drew the attention of men available as substitutes to this opportunity to make money. "I need a substitute for this or that man. Demand as much as you please for he must pay it." Then there was room for juggling with the transaction, between the actual sums extorted and the nominal sums that ultimately figured in the reports ; and for a deal between the substitute thus employed and the official who put him in the way of earning the amount. That under the circumstances then existing, appeals against this extortion and fraud availed little, and investigation of corrupt practices could not be secured, is not hard to understand.
Among the bugaboos that now and then served to keep alive suspicion and bitterness against Bethlehem, an interesting fiasco
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1772-1778.
engaged the county officials at Easton, the middle of November, 1777, and even called for the attention of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, in considering the deposition of one "Silas Burnet, of Hacketstown, in the County of Sussex, in the State of New Jersey, Waggoner," made "upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God" in reference to a mysterious small box conveyed by the deponent from Morristown to Easton in the autumn of 1776, and destined for Bethlehem, addressed-thought Col. Sidman, tavern-keeper at Easton, under whose counter the stage driver left the box, together with his tar bucket-to H. V. "supposed to be Mr. Vanfleck, of Beth- lehem," in care of Jost Jansen, tavern-keeper at the same place. This suspicious box, Mr. Sidman, as a vigilant patriot, "had the curiosity" to open "in the presence of Mr. Young," and he found "two bottles of simple water, sealed with several hundred of very treasonable printed papers, and signed I think"-writes Col. Robert Levers to Timothy Matlack-"Emerick." He adds: "I wish I had one to send you," but "Col. Sidman and Mr. Young burnt them, except a few, given to Col. Clem't Biddle, who happened to be in Easton at the time, who took them to Head Quarters, together with two written papers that were also in the box. The printed papers were calculated to excite the Germans to receive General Howe with open arms, and betray their Country. The written papers were a recommendation of the waters, as good to clear and open the eye-sight, and a direction to use them in the same manner that the former before sent were." A copy of Burnet's affidavit was sent for the perusal of the Council and to be laid before his Excellency General Washington. Col. Levers, who says he never saw the written papers, suggests in his letter: "It may lead to a great discovery, and unravel the cause of the Germans generally, at this time, being so inactive, rather unfriendly, if not inimical." Here the matter rested and apparently ended. The whole of it may be read in Volume VI, of the Pennsyl- vania Archives. This box of a year before simply contained some eye-water with written directions, and had been indiscreetly wrapped in some German copies of Lord Howe's propositions of September, 1776, which were circulated broadcast in some sections. While the sender may perhaps have wished to thus help circulate them-they merely related to the effort to yet compromise matters without further hostilities-their receipt by Henry Van Vleck, of Bethlehem, would have proven him a traitorous Tory as little as Franklin's consenting to the conference with Howe proved him to be one. An
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
occasional episode like this helped to keep the excitement against Bethlehem alive, when there was danger that it might subside, and furnished those who were keeping up the agitation, fresh material with which to incite the impetuous to menacing demonstrations.
In the midst of this Bethlehem was not only suffering an almost complete paralysis of all its productive industries and the depletion of its stores of grain-making the payment of the oppressive fines doubly hard-but was gradually reduced to the most meager supplies of bedding and raiment, in the effort to do everything that humanity dictated for the suffering multitude of the country's martyrs, on its hands. Long before the winter passed, the chests and drawers of the houses in Bethlehem were emptied of all the material that could be spared for lint and bandages, in the preparation of which women in the Sisters' House and the Widows' House contributed their share to the public service. "Three or four times," says Ettwein, "we begged blankets from our people for the soldiers and distributed them to the needy; likewise shoes and stockings and old trousers for the convalescents whose clothing had been stolen in the hospital, or who had come into it with nothing but a pair of ragged trousers full of vermin." The condition of things in the hospital became appalling towards the close of the year 1777. As already stated, the number of patients had increased beyond the facilities of the staff of physicians and surgeons to properly care for them, when additional wagons loaded with suffering men began to arrive after the battle of Germantown. How many of these had to continue their wretched journey farther to Easton at that time does not appear. Some were so near their end that they could not be taken any farther. In the tents behind the Brethren's House, where many had been placed for whom there was declared to be no room in the house, some of these newly-arrived ones were laid upon the ground in the rain to die. Seventy were conveyed, on November 3, to the Geissinger farm, up the river. And yet, owing apparently to a lack of proper under- standing and arrangement, those who were sending the sick to interior hospital points continued to pour them into Bethlehem, where, even if every house in the village had been turned into a hospital, the lack of provision for their care and treatment in other respects would have subjected them to almost the same degree of privation as right on the field of battle.16
16 November 12, 1777, Dr. Shippen wrote to Congress : "The pressing necessity of the Hospitals which begin to feel the effects of cold and dirt (I foretold in my last to the
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1772-1778.
When the rainy weather came on, which continued a week, at the end of October, a hundred who had been lying in tents were crowded into the garret of the house in order to leave the kitchen available for other use. A frame building was ordered to be erected in the rear garden, to relieve the congestion. Dr. Benjamin Rush, Surgeon and Physician General, who had sent instructions to provide accom- modations for an additional hundred, after the battle of German- town, arrived in Bethlehem on November 3, and it was at his sug- gestion apparently that the seventy were conveyed to the Geissinger farm. And still they came during December. On the 15th, "many sick from Buckingham meeting," says the Bethlehem diarist, were taken through the place, but to what point is not stated. Again on the 27th, "came fifty wagons with sick from Princeton." On the 28th, seven hundred were crowded into the Brethren's House alone. Its capacity had been estimated, on the basis of humane and orderly attention, at two hundred, by the physicians. In addition to this there were a number of sick officers in other buildings and a number of cases among the guards stationed yet near the saw-mill on the Sand Island. There were more sick distributed at other places in Bethlehem than has commonly been supposed by those who have studied and written on the subject. No wonder that some of the physicians, in their desperation, urged the extension of the hospital to the Widows' House, in spite of the Congressional order for its protection, for they thought the widows could crowd into the Sisters' House.
One of the sick officers at Bethlehem, Col. Joseph Wood, of Virginia, who at the end of November had succeeded Col. William Polk, of North Carolina, in command of the guard at the place, and who when taken sick was quartered, part of the time, in the room of the Boeckel house which LaFayette had occupied, left on January 4, 1778. He had, as it seems, added his testimony to convince those at a distance who were responsible for this over-crowding, that, on the one hand, the condition of things in the hospital was frightful and that, on the other hand, to compel the people at Bethlehem to vacate any more buildings would be ruthless oppression, when there were many other places, at ·which the sick could be distributed. While
Medical Committee) calls on me to address you in a serious manner and urge you to furnish us with immediate supply of clothing requisite for the very existence of the sick now in the greatest distress in the Hospitals, and indispensably necessary to enable many who are now well, and detained solely for want of clothing, to return to the field."
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
this officer, who is referred to as a fine man, was lying sick at Beth- lehem, the inevitable consequence of the state of things came in ghastly shape. The Brethren's House, especially the crowded and unventilated attic-floor, had become a reeking hole of indescribable filth. The intolerable stench polluted the air to some distance around it. A malignant putrid fever broke out and spread its contagion from ward to ward. The physicians were helpless and the situation became demoralized. Men died at the rate of five, six and even a dozen during one day or night. The carpenters and laborers of Bethlehem were not asked to make coffins and help bury the dead, as in the previous winter. This was now done by the soldiers, as quickly and secretly as possible. At last no coffins were made. Now and then, at dawn of day, a cart piled full of dead bodies would be seen hurrying away from the door of the hospital to the trenches on the hill-side across the Monocacy. Statistics of the mortality were not procurable. Unnamed and unnumbered they were laid, side by side, in those trenches.
The plague spread out of the building into the town, among the single men first-some of whom had come into contact with the infected building-and then among some others. Even a girl in the boarding-school who had been sent to Bethlehem from Philadelphia for safety, Hannah Dean, was taken down with it and died. It carried off seven of the single men in a short time. One of these was Ettwein's estimable son, John, nineteen years of age, who had been risking his life in helping the hospital nurses amid the misery, and on December 31, passed away under the last blessing of his grief-stricken father. The latter had been fearlessly moving about in that hot-bed of contagion, penetrating to every dark and suffo- cating corner of the noisome attic, bravely assisted by the Rev. Jacob Friis, who was serving as one of the chaplains of the single men. They did what they could to minister the consolations of religion under the awful conditions. Time and again, at all hours of the day and night, Ettwein responded to a sudden summons in behalf of some poor fellow lying gasping on his bed of filthy straw, whose soul yearned for a word of comfort or peace or for the sound of prayer. In his records of those awful months, Ettwein mentions five particu- lar cases of death, and of these he gives the names of only four. The first was Robert Lepus, who he says was a member of the Church of England. He died, November 4, 1777. The next was one of the hospital physicians, Dr. Aquila Wilmot, from Maryland. He died,
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November II. At his earnest wish and at the request of his col- leagues, he was interred in the Bethlehem cemetery. With this inter- ment, says Ettwein, the row for strangers, which it had long been had in mind to open in the cemetery, was commenced.17 The third was the hospital steward, Robert Gillespie, a Presbyterian from County Carlow, Ireland, a widower about forty years old, who was much affected by the scene at the death-bed of Lepus and then, the same day, was taken down with the fever and died, November 14. He was also buried in the new "strangers' row." The next was a Narragansett Indian connected with the Continental service, who died, November 25, a baptized man and, as he stated, a backslidden believer. He had called for Ettwein in much distress of soul. His name is not given. On December II, Richard Thompson, a Virginia soldier, passed away, believing and in peace. The sixth, who died January 3, 1778, was James Chaffs, of Drumargan, Ireland, who, as Ettwein discovered, had once served as cook for an establishment of single men of the Moravian Church in Europe, had subsequently been mentally deranged, had then wandered about as a straying sheep, and now, under such strange and melancholy circumstances, ended his days in a Moravian Single Brethren's House in America, after all his aberrations. One more mentioned was Lucas Sherman, a Virginian, who died, January 4. Only these are mentioned by name among all the victims of those months; more than three hun- dred, Ettwein estimated-and no one was better able to judge, out- side of those who buried the dead. Only these and three of the pre- vious year out of a total of about five hundred! Only thirteen pri- vates, a corporal, a hospital physician and a hospital steward known by name out of a full thousand Continental troops who were patients
17 From this time dates the use of the term " Strangers' Row"- Fremden Reihe - as applied to the row of graves near the Market Street line of the old cemetery. While the term suggests a harsh discrimination, its real intent was the reverse. It originated in a relaxation of the previous more rigid regulation which permitted only members to be interred there, and left others who died at Bethlehem, to be buried in the grave-yard on the south side, or quite outside of consecrated ground, which in those days was far more common about the country than is probably supposed by many. It is erroneous to think that such a special strangers' row remained to the end a feature of that cemetery. Persons who were not Moravians and have been given burial there by special arrangement, have been interred among the other graves since the last of the 31 graves was made in that row about fifty years ago.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
I have received your Letter of the 25℃ instant by MI Hafre; sitting forth the injury that will be done to the Inhabitants of Letia by establish. ing a General Hospital there- it is needless to explain- hour essential an establishment of this hans. is to the welfare of the army, and you must be sensible that it cannot be made any wheres . without occasioning inconvenience to some set of people or other at the same time it is ever my wish and arm that the public good be effected with as little sacrifice as possible of individual interests_ and I would by no means sanction the imposing any burtheus on the people in whose favor you remonstrate, which The public Services does not require. - The arrangement and distribution of Hospitals depends entirely on Doctor Shippen ,, and I am persuaded that he will not exert the authority vested . in him unnecessarily to your prejudice. It would be proper however to represent. to him the circumstances of the inhabitants of Liter ; and you may if you choose it , communicate the contents of this letter to him. I am Sir Your most abedt forat
REDUCED FAC-SIMILE OF LETTER OF GEN. WASHINGTON TO BISHOP ETTWEIN, MARCH 28, 1778, WRITTEN BY JOS. REED, SEC., SIGNED BY WASHINGTON.
1772-1778. 479
in that hospital during the two periods !18 In the unmarked rows on that hillside the dust of those hundreds who sacrificed their lives on the altar of the young Nation mouldered forgotten, until a town began to occupy the fields in which the plow-share had long turned the soil over their graves, and men, in digging deeper to build houses, came upon the residue of their bones. A modest stone inscribed with a brief story of the historic spot reminds the passer-by, since the year of Bethlehem's sesqui-centennial, that it should be set apart as holy ground. Perhaps, before a full hundred and fifty years will have passed since those graves were dug, a sightly monument to the mem- ory of those unnamed dead will have taken the place of the little marker, with the space about it that has not yet been invaded by the pick and mattock, left sacred for the grass to grow and the flowers to bloom over their resting-places, no more to be disturbed.
As the first dreary months of 1778 wore on, the appalling mor- tality decreased. The epidemic spent itself and men began to recover. On March 22, definite information was received that the hospital was to be removed. While this naturally caused much satis- faction, the report that Lititz was to be taken possession of, caused, on the other hand, grave anxiety and led to an attempt to prevent this ; but circumstances were thought by those in authority to make it imperative, and it had to be submitted to. As for Bethlehem, the prospect of the removal of the hospital included the removal of all soldiers and of various trying things that had to be experienced while they were at the place. Disorders and petty depredations could not be entirely restrained. Thus, on March 6, it is recorded that some of the guard even broke into the hospital stores, and on March 17, some, in celebrating St. Patrick's Day, in a manner not much to the honor of the Apostle of Ireland, occasioned a riot that at first threat- ened to have very bad consequences, but the worst damage wrought was that which the revelers finally inflicted upon each other. Another kind of an incident reveals also that occasionally unwarrantable authority was assumed by some officers, and shows the spirit of
18 In an article on " the Hospitals at Bethlehem and Lititz during the Revolution," com- piled by John W. Jordan, from the Moravian records and all other accessible sources of possible information, including the archives of the United States Government, and published, in 1896, in the Pa. Mag. of Hist. and Biog., Vol. XX, a list of thirteen names is given as
the result of all search. To this list one. Nathaniel McNee, is to be added. Of these fourteen soldiers the names of six who died are known only from the Moravian records. Perhaps official lists were preserved by the Government and were destroyed at Washington by fire in 1814.
22 am with respect e
Col. Proffer
andfinally
In complyance within the request of. There to certify that AVKou is not to be more cortile my orders. Given under my hand of Bethlehem 6 Jan.
Andw. Pol. tropper has nothing to date) in Bath but the Soldiers, therefore we can not receive his ordre, win Carr does not belong to the Hospital, we want the Place where he is the most move without Delay Ileutbol. A. was visually fitted away by MI Finley ans to The Hospital, I. E.
1772-1778. 481
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.19 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 :
(I) 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. COL. CROPPER.
SAMUEL FINLEY.
(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 heet in Ettwein's handwriting : "N.B. Was directly fetched away by Mr. Finley into the Ho pital.'
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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 officer, 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 1, 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.20 The
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