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 82
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The other notable observance referred to was the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus, which gave occasion to the great Columbian Exposition at Chicago during the following year. The anniversary, very generally observed through- out the country on October 21, 1892, brought together another assembly of boys and girls which entirely filled the Moravian church. A committee composed of Thomas Farquhar, Superintendent of the Public Schools; William Ulrich, Principal of the Lehigh University
almost unqualified praise from eminent musical critics who were present ; when, as the reward of Mr. Wolle's ability and perseverence, the Christmas Oratorio, the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor were all rendered complete by his well-trained choir, belongs to the events of the new century into which this history does not enter.
4 The characterization of him by Cotton Mather in the "Magnalia."
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Preparatory School, and Albert G. Rau, Superintendent of the Mora- vian Parochial School, had arranged the program. The several schools met in the morning at their respective places, then massed at the corner of Broad and New Streets and there, headed by a band of music and a color guard of the Grand Army Post, started in procession- each person, old and young, carrying a flag-down Broad Street and Main Street to the Moravian church and then to the square between the church and the Parochial school buildings, where the proclam- ation of the President of the United States in reference to the observance of the day was read and the national colors were saluted. After that ceremony, all filed into the church, where the concluding exercises were held, consisting of hymns, a prayer and several suitable addresses. The sight of the great throng of children with flags, entirely filling the spacious church, was one not soon forgotten. Later in the day, a large gathering took place in the Fountain Hill Opera House, where an oration was delivered by the late Henry Coppee, LL. D., of Lehigh University.
It now remains to record the crowning anniversary celebrations, of greatest local interest, which marked the completion of a century and a half since the beginning of things at Bethlehem. Plans for a suitable observance of the time gradually took shape during 1891. On July 24, the matter was first officially discussed by the Board of Elders of the Moravian Congregation. On August 6, at a joint meeting of the Elders and Trustees, a committee of five was appointed to frame a general plan. In accordance with the sug- gestions of this committee, the Elders and Trustees, at another joint meeting on August 21, took action which resulted in the formation of a more permanent and larger "Sesqui-Centennial Committee." This committee organized on August 29, and appointed a sub-committee to formulate and report detailed plans. These related to the proposed celebration and to the preparation of a "Memorial Volume." Then a special Editorial Committee was appointed. On September 17, a consultation took place between a deputation from the Sesqui- Centennial Committee and one from the Bethlehem Town Council. With this the working out of plans started for a proper co-operation of ecclesiastical and municipal authorities, and a proper adjustment of the religious and civic elements of the proposed celebration. After that, the various features were left in charge of sundry smaller com- mittees, each responsible for its share of preparation, when the time should come.
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Meanwhile, the actual commemoration of beginnings at Beth- lehem commenced at Christmas, 1891 ; for it was then a hundred and fifty years since the memorable Christmas Eve service took place in the original log cabin which suggested the name that was given the settlement. More or less reference was made to this at the Christmas festivities in various churches of the town. Naturally the most attention was paid to it in the Moravian church. The decoration of the church was more elaborate than usual and some- what unique in design. Inscriptions of various kinds, with particular historical significance, predominated; many of them selected and arranged with a view to making the whole an appropriate object- study for the occasion, rather than to merely producing artistic effect,. as ordinarily.5 The two services of Christmas Eve were those that are always held, but the hymns and anthems were specially selected for the occasion and printed in a shape to be preserved as mementos. On the evening of Christmas Day, there was a joint celebration by the three Sunday-schools of the Moravian Congregation, in the church. More than a thousand scholars and teachers participated. In order to leave room for a large miscellaneous assemblage besides the schools, over two hundred children of the primary classes were placed on elevated tiers of seats to the right and left of the pulpit, facing the congregation, while all the available space about the table below the pulpit was occupied. In this way nearly two thousand persons were gathered in the church. The same plan in seating the children was followed at the services in which they participated when the Sesqui-Centennial Anniversary of the regular organization of the settlement was celebrated in June, 1892.
The days from the beginning of that month were busily occupied in preparations of various kinds by committees and individuals. On June 6, a notice to the citizens of the town, signed by Paul Kemp- smith, Burgess, and Theodore O. Fradeneck, Secretary of Town Council, was issued. It formally announced the civic celebration planned for Saturday, June 25. It called upon the people to observe the day as a general holiday; to decorate their homes and places of business; to engage, with the schools of the Borough, in the ceremony of marking historic buildings and spots with suitable memorials ; to join the organizations of the town in the parade that
5 Those who wish to know particulars will find them described in minute detail in the diary of the congregation and in the next following number of The Moravian, preserved in the archives.
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was planned and in gathering to hear the oration; and to illuminate their houses from eight to ten o'clock, at the close of the day. The municipalities of West Bethlehem and South Bethlehem were officially invited by the Borough authorities to participate in the celebration. Suitable formal announcements and invitations of several classes, prepared by an appointed committee, were specially sent to digni- taries and executive officials of the Nation, the State, the County and other Boroughs of the County; to neighboring institutions of learn- ing, to the clergy, within certain limits ; and to representatives of the press. The order of all the religious and secular functions that entered into the celebration, as planned to extend from Friday evening, June 24, to Sunday evening, June 26, was printed for distri- bution at the proper time by the persons in charge of the several sections.
Various private enterprises to add interest to the occasion, or to turn it to pecuniary profit, were also undertaken, by photographers, by certain organizations and by persons in different lines of business. One of these was the preparation of a neat sesqui-centennial medal, cast in bronze and in cheaper metal, of which very many were sold as souvenirs of the occasion.
The most conspicuous undertaking, apart from what entered into the official programs, was the issue, by The Bethlehem Daily Times, of a Sesqui-Centennial Industrial Edition, of thirty-six pages, pro- fusely illustrated with portraits and buildings, old and new, in the Boroughs. A variety of historical articles by a corps of contributors dealt with every special theme that would be looked for in such a publication, and filled its pages with interesting matter, much of it permanently valuable for reference; most of the articles being remarkably accurate.
The exterior decorations, mainly of bunting in the national colors and flags in abundance, displayed on nearly all places of business and on hundreds of residences-many of them in very artistic designs arranged by professional decorators-surpassed in profusion anything of the kind that had ever before been attempted in Bethlehem. The fronts of the historic old buildings on Church Street were almost completely covered with bright colors. The interior of the Mora- vian church was suitably adorned. The celebrated painting by Schuessele of "Zeisberger preaching to the Indians" formed the center-piece in the pulpit alcove. Against the wall, on one side of the pulpit, was a large representation of the first house of Bethlehem and, on the other side, a similar one of the old Community House
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(Gemeinhaus), in which the organization took place in June, 1742, as it originally appeared. Both were the work of Charles Wollmuth, of Bethlehem. Some other features were the same as at Christmas, 1891. Large quantities of rhododendron, arbor vitae and Florida moss were used in the decoration which, like that of the preceding Christmas, was arranged under the experienced and skillful direction of Charles H. Eggert.
Prior to the approach of the festivities, all of the educational insti- tutions of the three Boroughs, excepting the Public Schools, had closed for the summer. In most cases, their final exercises included some reference to the notable year 1892, in the history of education, of America and of Bethlehem. Those of the Moravian Parochial School were brought into such close relation to the Sesqui-Centennial cele- bration that they may almost be regarded as the beginning of it. The customary closing entertainment took place on Thursday evening, June 23. The recitation of sundry poems, both serious and facetious, relating to Bethlehem, written by persons at different periods of the town, was introduced, under the head of "Memories," as a part of the program. At the close of the exercises, the school and large audience were addressed by Bishop Edward Rondthaler, of Salem, North Carolina, who, as the representative of that old Moravian settlement and of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church, had been invited to Bethlehem to participate in the festivities. The commencement exercises of the school took place on the morning of Friday, June 24, the opening day of the celebration. The essays by members of the graduating class-several of them were read-all treated of topics associated with the history and traditions of Bethlehem.
At seven o'clock on Friday evening, the trombonists assembled in the belfry of the church and announced the beginning of the cele- bration by playing four selected chorales, and soon the throngs were pouring into the church which was crowded in a short time. A great troop of children occupied the raised tiers of seats which filled the corner spaces to the right and left of the pulpit. At half past seven o'clock the Festal Eve Service was opened by the Senior Pastor, Bishop J. M. Levering. He was assisted in the service by his colleagues in the pastorate, the Rev. Morris W. Leibert and the Rev. William H. Oerter. A number of clergymen of Bethlehem and other places who had previously assembled in the vestry, filed into the church in procession and occupied seats about
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the table in the space in front of the pulpit, between the raised plat- forms. This order was observed at five services of the occasion. In connection with his opening address, the leader of the service com- municated three greetings received by cable from Europe in the course of the afternoon. The first was from the old Congregation of Herrnhut, Saxony. The second was from the Moravian Congre- gation in London, organized in the same year with that of Bethlehem. The third was from the Moravian Synod in Germany, then in session. Salutatory addresses with discourses on three appropriate themes by the pastors of three of the four oldest Moravian Churches in Penn- sylvania, next to Bethlehem, were combined with the Festal Eve Service.6 The first was by the Rev. Charles Nagel, Pastor of the First Moravian Church of Philadelphia, who spoke of "The Distinc- tive Position and Character of the Bethlehem Congregation." He was followed by the Rev. Paul de Schweinitz, Pastor at Nazareth, whose subject was "The Bethlehem Moravian Pastorate of an Hun- dred and Fifty Years." The closing address was given by the Rev. Charles L. M'oench, Pastor at Lititz, on "Bethlehem's Great Congre- gation of the Departed"-a topic which appealed sensibly to the people amid the associations of the hour, and suitably rounded out the thought of the occasion. The music of the large choir and orchestra, for which careful preparation had been made, fully met the expectations of the people, and its character was sustained through- out in the subsequent' services. One of the selections, rendered with impressive effect, was a composition by the choir-master, J. Fred Wolle, produced for the first time on that occasion. The text, in three stanzas, opened with the words: "He leads us on by paths we do not know." One of the hymns sung by the children was the English rendering-to the original rugged old Bohemian chorale-of one of Bishop John Augusta's hymns, beginning "How blest and lovely Thy earthly dwellings are."
Saturday, June 25, was devoted to what was distinguished from the church services as the civic celebration, arranged by a committee of Town Council and a deputation of the Moravian Sesqui-Centennial Committee, as a joint committee, augmented by nine other repre- sentative citizens, with the Burgess of Bethlehem as chairman. Nearly all places of business were closed in the afternoon and many
6 The original plan, to have addresses at the opening service by the three former pastors of the Bethlehem Congregation, yet living at the time, had to be abandoned because the par- ticipation of two of them could not be secured. These three were Bishop H. T. Bachman, 1870-79; the Rev. E. T. Kluge, 1879-83; the Rev. C. B. Shultz, 1880-84.
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the entire day. In view of the occasion, the Bethlehem Iron Com- pany transferred pay-day to Friday. The festivities were opened by the rendition of chorales from the belfry of the church by the trom- bonists at eight o'clock. What was perhaps the most interesting feature of the entire festival occupied the forenoon of this day. This was the unveiling of memorial tablets and stones by the school boys and girls of Bethlehem. There were thirteen bronze tablets, one marble tablet and seven granite markers, suitably inscribed, all pre- viously placed in position on buildings and at sites of historic interest. The scholars with their teachers first gathered in their respective school-houses and then assembled at the intersection of Broad and Center Streets. Eight boys and seven girls of the Moravian Parochial School had been appointed by the Superintendent, the Rev. C. B. Shultz; twenty boys and six girls of the Public Schools had been likewise appointed by Superintendent Thomas Farquhar to perform the unveiling and to repeat, in connection with each memorial, a few words of historical statement and suitable comment which had been prepared for the purpose and assigned according to a fixed order. A procession was formed at the rallying-point and marched down Broad Street in the following order: the Fairview Band; the Chief Marshal, Albert G. Rau, Superintendent-elect of the Parochial School, with five aides; the boys and girls selected to take distinct part ; the pupils of the Parochial School with their teachers; the pupils of the Public Schools with their teachers; all other persons who might fall into line. The buildings and sites thus marked were the following, at eighteen stations, named in the order in which the route was taken-several of the more distant points being visited only by detachments of boys accompanied by the men in charge: I. The Sun Inn. 2. The last of the houses moved to Bethlehem from the Indian mission, Nain, standing at the south-west corner of Market and Cedar Streets. 3. The "Horsfield house," a little farther up Market Street, on the north side, in a section of which the first store in Bethlehem and in the Lehigh Valley was opened. 4. The site of the second Seminary for Girls (1790) at the south side of the main building of the Parochial School. 5. The Community House, later Clergy House (Gemeinhaus) at the corner of Church and Cedar Streets. 6. The first Seminary for Girls, the "bell house" on Church Street. 7. The Sisters' House; three tablets on the three sections of the building erected at different times. 8. The Old Chapel. 9. The Widows' House. 10. The original pharmacy of Bethlehem, on the premises of the present pharmacy of Simon Rau & Co. II.
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The site of the first house of Bethlehem on Rubel's Alley, in the rear of the Eagle Hotel. 12. The oldest building-"Colonial Hall"-of the present Seminary for Young Ladies. 13. The site of the sign- board which once pointed out "the main road to Ohio," on south Main Street, where the road leads down to the mill. 14. The burial place of continental troops who died in the hospital at Bethlehem during the Revolutionary War, on the east side of First Avenue, West Bethlehem, north of Prospect Avenue. 15. The point where the first "Kings Road" crossed the river. 16. The landing place of the old ferry. 17. The site of the Crown Inn at the south-east corner of the union passenger station in South Bethlehem. 18. The original water works of Bethlehem across the way from the present works on Water Street.7
The next part of the day's program was the parade in charge of Chief Marshal Captain H. L. Jewett and his aides, with upwards of two thousand men in line. The order of divisions was: I. Mili- tary and civic organizations ; 2. the Fire Department ; 3. the municipal authorities and guests in carriages. Several South and West Beth- lehem organizations participated. The route was from Broad and Centre Streets, where the procession formed, to Linden, to Market, to New, to Fairview, to Main, to Church Street, where the several divisions were dismissed. Then the large groups of people who had been thronging various points along the line of march, and many others directly from their homes, assembled at four o'clock on the green, between the Moravian church and the Parochial school-house where seats had been arranged for as many as possible, and at the north side of which a platform had been built. On that the Burgess and Town Council, the Senior Pastor of the Moravian Church, as a participant in the exercises, General W. E. Doster, the orator of the day, and invited guests representing neighboring towns, took their places, with the Fairview Band, that furnished music, occupying
7 In connection with the final wording of the inscriptions and the preparation of the parts to be repeated by the boys and girls, the writer was assisted by the late Prof. Edwin G. Klose, who took a zealous interest in all the details of the festival and was the most efficient helper the Moravian pastors had in the great mass and variety of preparatory work that necessarily fell to their lot. The work of getting the tablets and stone markers made and put in place was taken charge of by Mr. James S. Dodson and Mr. Harry E. Brown as a sub-committee. They were all produced at home. The tablets were cast at the Lehman brass foundry in South Bethlehem. Of the above list Nos. 4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 are stones, I is a marble tablet, all the rest are bronze tablets. This, for information when, after the lapse of years, some may have disappeared.
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a section. The exercises were conducted by Chief Burgess Kemp- smith who spoke the words of salutation and welcome which were followed by an invocation. After further music, the oration was delivered by General Doster who, in succinct and comprehensive manner, brought out the salient points in the scheme of the founders and builders of Bethlehem; the genesis and results of the successive changes through which the town had passed; the serious and the comical aspects of its experiences; and the elements in which its primitive ideals might even yet be cherished and applied to latter- day situations. While not dealing with many details, the oration was replete with historical information worth the attention of citizens of Bethlehem. Brief addresses of greeting by Ex-Mayor Charles F. Chidsey, of Easton, and the Rev. Dr. A. R. Horn, of Allentown, followed the oration. Before dispersing, the assembly joined in singing the hymn "My Country 'tis of thee," and was dismissed with the benediction. At the same time, another company had been drawn to another part of Bethlehem where an unofficial program of exercises was carried out, arranged by William McCormick, editor of the Times, who had organized and drilled a company of boys, known as the Y. M. C. A. Cadets.
An interesting feature of the day's observance was a Loan Exhibi- tion, arranged by C. H. Eggert and a corps of assistants, in three rooms of the Parochial school building. The Moravian Archives, the Museum of the Young Men's Missionary Society and many a home in the three Boroughs contributed articles of local and general historical interest, from precious manuscripts and pictures, to pieces of earthen and wooden ware that had survived from the olden times of Bethlehem. The collection brought out of hiding many a quaint and treasured heirloom and many a curio that revealed how Beth- lehem abounds in "old things" that are interesting and that have both sentimental and market value. The day closed with a grand illumination which was participated in by a very large number of citizens, some in the old-time manner by placing rows of candles in the windows, others in the most modern style with colored lantern effects and artistic use of electric light. Parts of the old cemetery, the fronts of the old Church Street buildings and the Moravian church presented a beautiful sight produced by rows of many hun- dreds of Chinese lanterns. For nearly two hours after night-fall, a large part of the population of Bethlehem were on the streets roaming hither and thither without the slightest disorder or disturbance, and seemingly without fear that so many deserted homes might be
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invaded by the sneak-thief. The almost entire absence of drunken- ness or riotous conduct, as well as of depredations, throughout the festival, was highly creditable to the town and a testimony to the lofty and sacred associations awakened by the occasion, imbuing it with a tone somewhat in harmony with the spirit of the early days. This subdued the disposition to grosser forms of demonstration and offered little attraction to persons whose presence is always undesirable, although the visitors were very numerous.
There was, therefore, no abrupt transition from the scenes at the end of that day to the festivities which followed on the Lord's Day and brought the commemorative celebration to a close. At half past eight o'clock on Sunday morning, the trombonists once more ascended the belfry of the church to introduce the final day of the festival with stately chorales of suitable character and associations. The customary services of the Anniversary Festival furnished the skeleton of the day's order, with elaboration of details for this distinguished occasion, and one extraordinary service was added. Morning Prayer at nine o'clock was in charge of the Rev. Morris W. Leibert, who combined with the service a morning discourse on "Bethlehem's three Jubilees," 1792, 1842, 1892 ; producing from the records many interesting details of the fiftieth anniversary and of the centennial, the latter remem- bered by many people of the Congregation. Several other ministers took part in this service, and the large company of children, again filling the raised seats in front, sang with surprising ease another of the old Bohemian chorales which probably no one present remem- bered having ever heard sung in Bethlehem. It was also one of the hymns of Bishop John Augusta, the translation of which begins with the lines "Praise God forever ; Boundless is His favor"-hymn and tune of a character to rank with Luther's immortal hymn. The interest in re-learning fine old chorales, long forgotten at Bethlehem, was strongly stimulated by the services of this notable festival. At the next service, which took place at half past ten o'clock, the mem- orial sermon was preached by the Senior Pastor ; his two colleagues taking part in the service and Bishop Rondthaler offering the closing prayer. At this service further greetings from the General Directing Board of the Church in Europe, from that of the English branch of the Church and from the Moravian Ministers' Conference of New York, were communicated-also the courteous response of the Presi- dent of the United States to the invitation officially sent him by the committee in charge. Special exercises were held by the Central Sunday-school in the afternoon, with brief addresses by several
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