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 6
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5 This first Moravian sister who engaged in missionary work among the Indians was Catherine, m.n, Pudmensky, widow of Frederick Riedel, married to Rose at Savannah. She had emigrated from Moravia in 1725, was present at the organization of Herrnhut in 1727 and in 1742 was among the eighty people who entered into the first regular organiza- tion at Bethlehem. Her daughter, Mary Magdalen Rose, who in 1763 became the wife of the Rev. Paul Peter Bader, was the first Moravian child born in America. Rose died, March 12, 1740 at Germantown, Pa. In 1742 the widow was married to John Michael Huber, who in 1747 perished at sea in a hurricane on his way to the West Indies as a missionary. She was one of the original occupants of the Widows' House at Bethlehem, and served many years as a Deaconess. When the fiftieth anniversary of Bethlehem was celebrated in 1792, she was one of eight of the original eighty persons yet living. and the only one who participated in the festivities. She died in Bethlehem in 1798, in the ninety-fifth year of her age. There is an oil portrait of her in the archives of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
the Germantown printer; John Bechtel, the pious leader of the Ger- man Reformed people of Germantown, as well as with all of the Skip- pack Brethren, with the heads of the Ephrata Community on the Cocalico Creek and of other religious bodies, and with prominent members of the Society of Friends. Bishop Nitschmann followed him to Pennsylvania in April, 1736, and together they traversed many neighborhoods and visited all kinds of religionists. Nitsch- mann sailed for Europe, June 23, 1736, and Spangenberg, deputed by him, visited the mission on the Island of St. Thomas, sailing from New York in August and returning to Pennsylvania near the end of November. During his visit in New York he became acquainted with Abraham Boemper and Thomas Noble, merchants, and other substantial men of the city; with Timothy Horsfield, of Long Island, and Jacques Cortelyou, of Staten Island ; and on his return from the West Indies, with Captain Nicholas Garrison, also of Staten Island, having taken passage with him back to New York. These men, like most of the worthy Pennsylvanians mentioned, all subsequently ren- dered valuable service to the Moravian colonies and missions; the majority of those named eventually entering into full connection with the Church.
Meanwhile troubles had commenced which four years later brought the promising enterprise in Georgia to an untimely end and trans- ferred the settled work of the Brethren to Pennsylvania. War broke out between the English and the Spaniards of Florida Territory and because the Moravians, appealing to the exemption from military duty granted them by the Trustees, declined to join the militia, the authori- ties at Savannah became hostile to them, and the populace, unre- strained by the magistrates, proceeded to annoy them in all kinds of ways. Spangenberg, informed of these things by George Neisser, who arrived at Wiegner's with a letter from Toeltschig in February, 1737, wrote to the Trustees at once and boarded the first ship he found ready to sail for Savannah. He arrived there in mid-summer and tried to overcome the trouble. In response to his letter, the Trustees renewed the exemption of the Moravians from bearing arms, merely requiring that they provide two substitutes, one to represent each of their tracts of land, and the magistrates at Savannah were reprimanded for violating the agreement. Spangenberg returned to Pennsylvania in September, 1737, and was occupied as before until August, 1739, when he closed the first period of his activity in America and sailed for Europe.
PETER BOEHLER
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October 15, 1738, the Rev. Peter Boehler, already referred to, who became the leader of the Brethren in America for two years, landed at Savannah. He had been a student at Jena when Spangenberg was lecturing there and was himself a professor at that seat of learning when he was invited to join in the evangelistic work of the Brethren with whom he was in close sympathy. Having received the ordina- tion of the Moravian Church, he went to England early in 1738 and there, prior to sailing for his new field of labor, that intercourse with the young men of Oxford, and particularly with the Wesleys, took place which formed such a conspicuous episode in the movements which gave rise to the Methodist Church. Like Spangenberg he be- came a leading bishop of the Church, was scarcely less closely iden- tified with its work in America during the first two decades and, as theologian, preacher, evangelist and administrator ranks near him in its history. He was accompanied to America by George Schulius, a Moravian emigrant who had been converted by the first sermon he preached at Herrnhut. Besides assuming the pastorate at Savan- nah, he was to found a mission among the negro slaves, for which Zinzendorf had promised the English originators of the project to find a man, and Schulius was to be his assistant. They soon discov- ered that they would not be able to carry out this intention on ac- count of obstacles put in their way. They also found the Moravian colony at Savannah in process of dissolution under the adverse con- ditions. A number had left and others had died. They located tem- porarily at Purysburg, about twenty miles from Savannah, in Beau- fort County, South Carolina, a village founded in 1733 by John Peter Pury, from Switzerland, and inhabited by Swiss· and German fami- lies. While there ministering to these people, they both fell sick and on August 4, 1739, Schulius died. His remains were laid in their lonely grave by Boehler, himself almost too feeble to stand, assisted by Martin Mack, one of the Savannah colonists who had gone to their assistance with young David Zeisberger,6 who remained with Boehler until he left the place some weeks later and returned to Savannah. Only Anton Seiffert, John Boehner, Martin Mack and
6 Young Zeisberger, a son of David and Rosina Zeisberger of the Georgia colony, a lad of sixteen years when he arrived at Savannah in August, 1737, to the great astonishment of his parents, was the future distinguished missionary to the Indians. He and a youthful com- panion, John Michael Schober, had fled from the Moravian school at Herrndyk, in Holland, on account of harsh and unjust treatment. made their way to London and from there across the ocean to Savannah. Young Schober died there not long after their arrival.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
David Zeisberger with his wife and their son David remained, await- ing developments but utterly discouraged. Hostilities with the Spaniards had opened anew and the situation was rendered unbear- able for the non-combatant Moravians. Early in January, 1740, John Boehner was sent to Pennsylvania to ascertain how those of their number fared who had gone there, and to seek a temporary location for the rest of them. The same month the Rev. George Whitefield, the famous evangelist, arrived the second time at Savannah on his sloop, the Savannah, navigated by Captain Thomas Gladman. When he sailed again for Philadelphia, April 13, he took Boehler and the remaining Moravian colonists with him as passengers. Three other persons, whose names figure among the pioneers of Bethlehem, ac- companied them ; a young woman, Johanna Hummel, of Purysburg, and two indentured lads from Savannah, probably orphans, Benjamin Sommers and a certain James, mentioned in all of the records by this name only. They landed at Philadelphia, April 25, 1740. With their departure the Moravian enterprise in Georgia came to an end. Their land and improvements were taken in charge by an agent and White- field's adherents were given possession of their town house for hos- pital purposes. This collapse of their undertaking was much regret- ted by the Trustees of Georgia, who a few years later, when giving testimony about the Moravians in connection with the question of the formal recognition of their Church by the British government, bore evidence to their value as colonists and declared that in Georgia they "had done the government great service in labor and other mat- ters, equal and superior to the service they could have done as mili- tia." The situation was like that which later arose in Pennsylvania when a better understanding existed in their relations with the higher authorities than with subordinates.
Meanwhile the leaders in Europe, encouraged by the reports of Nitschmann and Spangenberg and a letter from Whitefield urging that preachers be sent to the Germans of Pennsylvania, despatched three more men to America, all of whom arrived in 1740. The first was John Hagen, who reached Savannah, May 18, intending to labor among the Indians. The second was Christian Henry Rauch, the first Moravian missionary to the northern Indians, who landed at New York, July 21. The third was Andrew Eschenbach who arrived at Philadelphia in October to itinerate among the Germans. Rauch and Eschenbach had received ordination before leaving Europe. Another representative of the Moravian Church who passed a brief
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season in Pennsylvania at this time was the successful West India missionary Frederick Martin, later Missionary Bishop, who in May took passage to New York with Captain Nicholas Garrison to seek rest and recuperation after much toil and hardship, hoping also to meet Count Zinzendorf who intended, after his visit to the Island of St. Thomas in 1739, to proceed to Pennsylvania, but had been compelled to change his plan. Martin was waiting in New York for a ship back to the West Indies when Rauch arrived and met him on the dock. Hagen finding the settlement at Savannah abandoned, associated with Whitefield's converts, worked at his orphanage "Bethesda" and tried to be of spiritual service to some German families, being brought meanwhile to the point of death by fever. A dispute arose between him and Whitefield on the doctrine of repro- bation which the latter held tenaciously and with singular uncharit- ableness towards those who disagreed with him. The German mis- sionary, who believed that all could be saved who would, was ordered off of the fiery preacher's premises, and his converts were warned to have nothing to do with the man. Some were disobedient, however, and continued to fraternize with Hagen to their mutual benefit until he left for Pennsylvania, in February, 1742.
Besides Johanna Hummel and the two boys already mentioned, ten other persons who had become attached to the Brethren at Savannah and Purysburg followed them to Pennsylvania in the course of the next few years. They were Abraham Bueninger and Anna Catharine Kremper, of Purysburg, and John Brownfield, James Burnside, his daughter Rebecca, Henry Ferdinand Beck, his wife Barbara, their daughter Maria Christina and their sons Jonathan and David, all of Savannah. In the acquisition of these people, the most of whom became eminently useful at Bethlehem and in Moravian work else- where, the only tangible fruit of the Georgia undertaking proved to be serviceable in connection with the enterprises in Pennsylvania.7
7 Johanna Hummel was married to the missionary John Boehner and died at sea in 1742 on the way to St. Thomas.
Benjamin Sommers and James were troublesome lads. The former, after various efforts with him, was eventually bound out to Christopher Naumann, a Schwenkfelder of Marburg in Old Goshenhoppen in 1748. James, about that time, was figuring in the quality of a boy preacher beyond the Blue Mountains, having strayed away to escape watchful oversight. There is no mention of either of them after 1750.
Bueninger came to Pennsylvania with Hagen in 1742, was ordained, 1756, labored among Indians and white settlers and in the West Indies, rendering valuable service. He was a
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Boehler and his company expected, on their arrival from Georgia, to find Nitschmann or Spangenberg in Pennsylvania with instructions about their further movements, but were disappointed and passed the first weeks in great perplexity.
Those who had preceded them to the Province advised them to settle at Germantown as they had done and turn attention to their own interests, but they considered themselves under commission to make the propagation of the gospel their chief pursuit and deemed it their duty to await instructions. They passed the time mainly in Germantown, partly also at Christopher Wiegner's and with Henry Antes. There they were promised by Boehner and George Neisser that they would not forsake them, but would likewise remain faithful. The Demuths, Tanneberger and several others who had found tem- porary employment also signified their intention to remain in con-
native of Buloch, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, and died in 1811 at Salem, Washington Co., N.Y., in his 91st year. His descendants of New York spelled the name Bininger.
Brownfield, a native of Greenwich, England, was raised in the family of Gen. Oglethorpe, accompanied him to Georgia as secretary, came to Bethlehem, 1745, was appointed general accountant, served for a time as head steward, was an original officer and a few years secre- tary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel organized, 1745, was ordained, 1749, itinerated somewhat among English settlers, died at Bethlehem, 1752.
Burnside from County Meath, Leinster, Ireland, was shop-keeper and accountant for the Trustees at Savannah and then manager of Whitefield's orphanage. After the death of his wife at Savannah he visited Bethlehem, 1744, became a resident with his daughter Rebecca, 1745, married Mary Wendover, one of the first Moravian converts in New York City, ren- dered Bethlehem much service in business affairs and public relations, labored a short time as an itinerant evangelist, located on a farm just north of Bethlehem on the Monocacy, where he died, 1755. He was the first representative of Northampton Co. in the Pennsyl- vania Assembly in 1752. His widow contributed the first £50 for the building of the Widows' House at Bethlehem.
Beck, who hailed from Pfluellingen in Würtemberg, emigrated to Georgia, 1738, joined Whitefield's society at Savannah, came to Bethlehem, 1745, was ordained, 1754, labored in various country charges and in New York City and died at Bethlehem, 1783. His son David died while laboring as a missionary on the Island of St. Thomas.
Anna Catherine Kremper (also Krump or Kremp) came to Bethlehem with Becks, mar- ried Samuel Mau, served faithfully as a nurse in later years and died at Bethlehem, 1798.
The following resume from records shows to what extent the personnel of the Georgia colony entered into that of Bethlehem and what became of the rest. It also clears up some confusion and error in sundry printed statements. Leaving out of the count Spangenberg, Nitschmann and Boehler-also John Francis Regnier who went from Pennsylvania, was there 1735-38, later missionary in Surinam, then after his return to Pennsylvania, an enemy of the Moravians-thirty-seven persons emigrated from Europe to Georgia. Eight died there : 1735, Frederick Riedel ; 1736, Matthias Boehnisch, Jacob Frank, Henry Rascher, Rosina Haberecht; 1737, George Haberland and the boy John Michael Schober, all at
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nection with their brethren and to locate with them if they colonized in Pennsylvania.
Before any word from Europe reached them they were, without suspecting it, led through the instrumentality of George Whitefield to the neighborhood in which their settlement would at last be founded. During the voyage from Savannah, Whitefield determined, as his financial agent William Seward states in his journal, to establish "a Negro school in Pennsylvania where he proposed to take up land in order to settle a town for the reception of such English friends whose heart God should incline to come and settle there." On board ship the evangelist wrote to the Secretary of the English Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel in Foreign Parts : "To me Pennsylvania seems to be the best Province in America for such an undertaking. The Negroes meet there with the best usage, and I believe many of my acquaintance will either give me or let me purchase their young slaves at a very easy rate. I intend taking up a tract of land far
Savannah; 1739, George Schulius at Purysburg. Six returned to Europe: 1737, von Hermsdorf, Andrew and Anna Dober; 1738, John Toeltschig; 1739, Michael Haberland and his sister Judith, wife of Toeltschig. Twenty-three came to Pennsylvania : 1737, George Neisser ; 1738, Gotthard and Regina Demuth, Gottlieb Demuth, Gottfried Haberecht, David Jag, John Michael Meyer, Augustin Neisser, David Tanneberger, John Tanneberger, George and Juliana Waschke and his mother Anna Waschke; 1739, Peter and Catherine Rose, their child Mary Magdalen and Matthias Seybold; 1740, John Boehner, John Martin Mack, Anton Seiffert, David and Rosina Zeisberger and their son David; 1742, John Hagen. Ten located at Germantown : Gotthard and Regina Demuth, Augustin Neisser, Peter and Catherine Rose and child, George, Juliana and Anna Waschke. Gottlieb Demuth went to Matetsche, Jag to Goshenhoppen, Haberecht to Ephrata. Eight clung together with Boehler and were the nucleus of the first Moravian settlement in Pennsylvania, viz. : Boehner, Mack, George Neisser, Seiffert, Seybold and the Zeisbergers, having with them Johanna Hummel and the boys Sommers and James from Georgia.
Five of those who settled at Germantown subsequently removed to Bethlehem : David and John Tanneberger, Catherine Rose (widow 1740) with her child, Regina Demuth (widowed, 1744, at Germantown, married, 1745, to David Tanneberger). Haberecht left Ephrata, 1741, and rejoined his brethren at Bethlehem. Gottlieb Demuth lived in Frederick Township and the Saucon Valley, married Eva Gutsler, lived at intervals at Bethlehem, at Allemaengel or Lynn and settled finally at Schoeneck above Nazareth. Jag, Meyer, Aug- ustin Neisser and the Waschkes remained where they settled when they came from Georgia, never rejoining the Church. The missionary Hagen died at Shamokin in 1747.
Thus all are accounted for. Eight died in Georgia, two, Rose and Gotthard Demuth, died at Germantown prior to 1745. Six returned to Europe. Seven who settled in Penn- sylvania forsook the Moravian Church. Fourteen with their seven converts from Georgia and their children, a company of thirty persons became identified with Bethlehem and Nazareth, and fifteen of these were employed in the service of the church.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
back in the country." An agreement for the purchase of five thousand acres of land recommended to him by Scotch Irish settlers in "the Forks of the Delaware," was made with William Allen, of Phila- delphia, on May 3, 1740. Two days later when Whitefield and Boehler jointly conducted services at the houses of Wiegner and Antes, Whitefield proposed to Boehler that he undertake to superintend the erection of the contemplated house on his land and employ the Moravians who were with him, several of them being carpenters and masons. The proposition was regarded favorably and on May 6 Boehler and Seiffert accompanied by Antes set out on horseback to inspect the locality. They passed a night at the place and the next day, after examining the timber, stone and springs of water, and discussing various eligible building sites, they returned to the home of Antes where on May 10 the contract with Whitefield was definitely concluded. May 29, Boehner, Mack, Seiffert, the Zeisbergers, Johanna Hummel and the boys Benjamin and James, provided with tools, a meager stock of eatables and the barest necessaries for camping in the woods, started from Germantown for this tract which William Allen and wife had on May II deeded to Whitefield and which he with the intended school and village in mind had named Nazareth.8
8 This tract of 5000 acres - almost identical in its metes and bounds with the present Upper Nazareth Township-which the next year came into the possession of the Moravian Church, with title held by the Countess Zinzendorf, who provided the purchase-money, is occasionally called " The Barony of Nazareth " in records of colonial times, because its title carried with it certain old seignioral prerogatives of the Hundreds and Baronies of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the final parcel of a grant of 25,000 acres made in 1682 by William Penn to his daughter Laetitia Aubry and conveyed to her September 24-25, 1731, by John, Thomas and Richard Penn. The deed granted "the Franchise, Royalty, Right, Privilege Liberty and Immunity to erect the said 5000 acres of land, or any part or parts thereof, into a manor, and to have and to hold Court Baron therein with all things whatso- ever which to a Court Baron do belong; and also to have and to hold Views of Frank- pledge for the conservation of the peace and better government by the said Laetitia Aubry, her heirs and assigns, or by her or their steward or stewards, and to use all things belonging to Frankpledge." It was to "be holden of the said John Penn and Thomas Penn (Pro- prietary Governors) in free and common socage as of the Seigniory of Windsor free and discharged of and from the debts and legacies of the said William Penn, Sr., yielding and paying therefor one Red Rose on the 24th day of June yearly, if the same shall be demanded, in full of all services, customs and rents." Its lines were run by Benjamin Eastburn, Surveyor General of Pennsylvania, "on or about the 4th day of June, 1735,'' for William Allen who purchased it with the franchises and obligations for £500 sterling. These dignities and privileges of the manor passed with the title through the several con- veyances and nominally pertained to it until the termination of Proprietary government in Pennsylvania rendered them null and void.
They were never exercised or claimed, but under Moravian ownership were referred to
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They reached their destination the next day towards evening. When the sun went down and night gathered around them this little band of homeless wanderers broke the silence of the dark, wild forest with an evening hymn of praise, committed themselves to the Keeper of Israel who never slumbers nor sleeps, and stretched their weary limbs to rest beneath the spreading branches of a giant oak under which, some weeks before, the three riders had lain down to sleep, and which for more than six decades after it first sheltered these pilgrims remained standing, a venerable landmark known as "Boehler's Oak."
Thus began Moravian history in the Forks of the Delaware. So thoroughly are the institutions and activities which arose out of that humble beginning identified with this interesting region, with the fortunes of its tawny natives retreating before the white man's ad- vance, with the associations of its streams and hills and with memor- able events in the course of years involving relations to all the ele- ments of its population, that a few salient features of its general situ- ation and early opening up to settlement naturally come into view to be noted here as background and border to the sketch which these pages are designed to present.
Narrowly understood, the term "Forks of the Delaware" meant the locality just within the confluence of the Delaware River and the Lehigh or "West Fork of the Delaware,"9 and a few miles up these
on occasions as privileges in reserve in connection with questions of legal status, magisterial jurisdiction, militia duty, and the like. They were apparently in mind in 1742 in connection with the thought of founding the chief establishment on this manor as contemplated at one time ; and again in 1754 when it was confidently expected that Count Zinzendorf would take up his residence in Pennsylvania, and the building of his large manor house, later called Nazareth Hall, was finally commenced. The romantic quit-rent-a red rose in June -led to naming the Moravian hostelry on the northern border of the Barony "The Rose." In the archives at Bethlehem there remains, on an old list of Moravian taxables with memoranda, evidence of a little "War of the Roses," waged not with the sword, but with the pen, in that the scrivener who drew up the document, in alluding to this token, wrote by mistake "a white rose," and another, objecting to this unauthorized transfer of fealty from Lancaster to York, ran his quill through the word " white " and wrote above it "red."
9 The principal names given the Delaware River by the Unami tribe of the Lenape or Delawares living in the Forks were Lenape-wihittuck, meaning river of the Lenape; and Kit-hanne, or in the dialect of the Minsi tribe of the upland Minisinks beyond the Kitta- tinny hills, Gicht-hanne, meaning the principal stream. The Dutch in 1609 named it Zuydt, i.e. South River. They also spoke of it as Nassau River and Prince Hendrick's River. The Swedes, thirty years later, gave it the name Swenska Revier, i.e. Swedes' River, while they also referred to it as the South River. Meanwhile the English, who ultimately forced their claim and name, called it the Delaware after Lord de la Ware, sup-
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