USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 14
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On the arrival of the first colonists, 1742, the community at Bethlehem con- sisted of fifteen married couples, five widows and twenty-two single men. That summer the "congregation house," a dwelling place for ministers and their fam- ilies, was built and is still used for that purpose. A large room in the second story was used as the church for nine years, and in it the first Indian convert was baptised, September 16, 1742. The old stone school building, was built 1745-46, a brass clock and three bells being put in the belfry, and additions were made in 1748 and 1749. A. boarding-school 2 for girls was opened in the old school building January 5, 1749, and was continued until 1815. The western end of the Sisters' House was built. 1742, the eastern end in 1752, and its occupation celebrated May 10, by a shad-dinner. Among those who accompanied Zinzendorf to America was David Bruce, a Scotchman, who afterward married Judith, daughter of John Stephen Benezet. He labored
2 Probably the first in the county.
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several years in the destitute English neighborhoods of Bucks county, and died in 1749.
In 1743 the Moravians built their first mill at Bethlehem on the Monock- asy creek, the site of Luckenbach's mill, was under roof in April and ground its first grist the 28th of June. The miller was Adam Schaus, who ground the grain for all the settlements to the north. It was rebuilt in 1751, and, under the same roof, was a flour and fulling-mill, clothier's shop and dye-house. The iron work came from the Durham furnace. This old mill ground its last grist the 27th of January, 1869, and the same night was burned to the ground. A mill for pressing linseed oil was built in 1745, and burned down in 1763. The water-works, the first in the United States, were projected and built in 1750, by Christian Christianson, a Moravian from Denmark who was the principal millwright in building the first mill. One account says Henry Antes, of Frederick, Montgomery county, was the millwright that built the mill. Antes immigrated prior to 1726, and settled at Falckner's swamp, where he died, 1755. He resided at Bethlehem between 1745 and 1750, and directed many of the improvements there. He had great influence among the Ger- mans, and his son, John Antes, was an accomplished musician. He was sent a missionary to Egypt, where the Turks punished him with the bastinado, and, while abroad made the acquaintance of Haydn, who played some of his compositions. The first store was opened in 1753. Soon after the place was settled a brick and tile-factory was erected on the Monockasy a mile north of the town, and here were made the first bricks used at Bethlehem. In October. 1752, a stone house, fifty-two by forty feet, was built on the west bank of the Monockasy to lodge Indian visitors, and a log building was afterward added for a chapel. In this building were accommodated all the Indians who es- caped from the massacre of 1756. Before 1752 the Moravians were raising silk-worms, and in that year, they were transferred to Christian spring by Philip C. Bader. The mulberry tree appears to have abounded at Bethlehem.
The Moravians established a missionary station, called Gnadenhutten, or "Tents"12 of Grace," on both sides of the Lehigh near the mouth of Monock- asy creek, and also another three miles northwest of Bethlehem, on the Geis- inger farm, near a village of Christian Indians called Nain. They were eva- cuated, 1765, on the removal of the Indians to the Susquehanna, when the chapel and several other buildings were taken down and re-erected at Bethle- hem. The society soon exercised a softening influence on the character of the Indians and many of them became converts. They visited the settlement in large delegations, and never went away without presents. Down to February 22, 1751, one hundred and fifty-three Indians were buried in the cemetery at Bethlehem ; and, among the Indian converts buried there, was "Brother Michael," a famous Munsey chief, whose face was covered with tattoo- marks. As late as 1756 Bethlehem was a frontier settlement. and. during the trouble of that period, the town was surrounded by a stockade for pro- tection from hostile Indians, with log watch-towers in which sentinels were stationed to give notice of the approach of the enemy. In 1754, the site of the present town was covered with a dense forest, and by 1751, the population had increased to two hundred, and to five hundred by 1756. There was a pros- perous shad-fishery in the Lehigh at that period, conducted by the Indians when they were refugees there and from fifteen to twenty thousand were caught in a season, and as many as two thousand in a single day. Large quan-
21/2 By some this missionary station is called "Hutts of Grace."
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tities were salted down. The country abounded in all kinds of game, and at intervals, there was a large pigeon-roost on the Lehigh above Bethlehem.
For the first twenty years after its foundation, the inhabitants of Bethle- hem were united as one family with a community of labor and housekeeping. All worked for the church, and the church gave to each a support. The com- munity system was dissolved, 1762. During the "Economy" period the train- ing of the Moravians was strict. The children were taken from their parents when very young, and given into the care of disabled brethren and sisters ap- pointed to watch over them. They were not allowed to be out of their sight a moment, even at recreation. The boys were prohibited associating with the girls in any wise, and if they ever met they were not permitted to look at each other, and punishment was sure to follow such offending. If a grown girl were caught looking toward the men's side at church, she was called to account for the misdemeanor. When they took walks along the Lehigh Sunday after- noon, attended by their keepers, the sexes walked in opposite. directions, so as not to meet, but if, perchance, they should meet, both parties were com- manded to look down or sideways. The girls were never allowed to mention the name of any male, and it seems an effort was made to have the sexes for- get each other. The clothing of the sexes was not allowed to be put into the same tub to be washed. The society tried to make worldly angels of these young Moravians, beings which have no place on this planet ; but while the girls were brought up in pristine innocence and simplicity they were kept in ignorance as well. The males were kept less strict than the females, as they were obliged to come more in contact with the outer world. When the Mora- vians first settled on the Lehigh there were but few white families in that vicinity on either side of the river. In 1747 Bethlehem was visited by Bishop John de Watteville, son-in-law of Count Zinzendorf, who held the first synod there in 1748.
The cultivation of music was an early feature of Moravian life. Instru- mental music was used in their religious services as early as 1743, and three years later a noted Indian chief was buried amid strains of music. The first organ was set up in 1751, in the old chapel, where it still stands. When the first harvest was ready for the sickle a procession of reapers, male and female, proceeded to the harvest-field where South Bethlehem now stands, accompanied by the clergy and a band of musicians, the occasion being gratefully celebrated by religious exercises. Troops of reapers, with their musical instruments, met to repair to Nazareth and other points to assist their brethren in harvest- ing their crops. Great attention has always been paid to the cultivation of music, and to the Moravians at Bethlehem belong the honor of having intro- duced into America Haydn's Creation, the score being furnished by one of her inhabitants. We are told that an Indian attack was averted, 1755, by the sound of the trombones, the savages supposing it to be an alarm.
The site for the ferry across the Lehigh was chosen January, 1743, and the first ferry-boat passed over on the 11th of March. The grant and patent were obtained from the Proprietaries, March, 1756. for the term of seven years, at an annual rent of five English shillings in silver." The ferry-house,
3 "For the better convenience of communication with the capital. the prospective purchase of lands on the south side of the Lehigh, and at the solicitation of the settlers in the neighborhood, in January of 1743 a ferry was located near the present railroad bridge which spans the river. A boat. to operate the ferry, was finished in March, hauled to the river by eight horses and successfully launched. Prior to the epoch of the ferry
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which stood just above the railroad bridge, was torn down, 1853, when work was commenced on the Lehigh Valley railroad. Adam Schaus was ferryman for one year from February, 1745. In 1794, immediately before the building of the first bridge,31/2 there was a rope-ferry across the river, a strong rope being stretched from bank to bank, along which a large flat-boat was run by the force of the current. The ferries on the Lehigh nearest to Bethlehem, except the one at that place, were Calder's, now Allentown, and Currie's, now Freemansburg, "assessed at three-fifths of the sums they do, or may, rent for."
Nicholas Garrison, Junior's, paintings of some of the Moravian settle- ments have preserved to us the appearance of these pioneer towns in the wilderness north of the Lehigh. That of Bethlehem, painted 1757, is a picture of exceeding interest. Besides this, he published one of Nazareth, a second of Bethlehem, 1761, and a third, 1784. The artist was the son of Captain Nicholas Garrison, who commanded the "Little Strength," which sailed from Cowes, England, 1743, with what was called, by early Moravian writers, "the second sea congregation." He followed the sea for a number of years, accompanying his father on important voyages for the missions of the Brethren's church to Greenland and Dutch Guiana. He was educated in the Moravian school, and an - excellent draftsman.
We owe the Moravians a debt of gratitude for what they did for educa- tion in the upper end of this county, and the counties carved out of it. As early as 1746 they had established fifteen schools among the Scotch-Irish settlers where their children were taught gratis, as well as those of German parents outside of the Moravian communion. Between 1742 and 1746 at least six hundred Moravians had settled north of the Lehigh, and being educated, many of them highly cultivated, they exerted a powerful influence in mould- ing the future generations of Germans and Scotch-Irish in Northampton and adjoining counties-an influence felt to the present day.
The 10th of March, 1746, the inhabitants of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Gnaden petitioned the court of quarter sessions to lay off and organize a town- ship north of the Lehigh, "to run in breadth east and west about seven miles across the Managust creek, and in length about nine or ten miles toward the Blue mountains." The prayer of the petitioners was granted.5 The report and draft of the township were presented at the June term following. The draft places the Moravian tract in the southwest corner of the township, but the number of acres is not given. On it Robert Eastburn is marked one hundred and fifty acres at the head of the "Manakasie:" Thomas Græme, five hundred, John George, "now William Allen," five hundred, and William Allen six hun- dred and seventy-three. The survey and draft included the Nazareth tract, but the number of acres is not mentioned. The township was again surveyed 1762, by George Golkowsky.6
the ferry the river was forded, and in times of high water travelers were conveyed across in canoes."-The Bethlehem Ferry, 1743-94, by John W,. Jordan, Pennsylvania Maga- zine, April, 1897.
31/2 The first foot-bridge across the Monockasy was built August 19, 1741.
4 Monockasy.
5 The signers of the petition included all the leading men of the Moravians, such as Spangenburg, Antes, Weis, Neisser, Brownfield, Pyrlaeus, Camerhoff, Seidel, and Burnside.
6 The Moravians were not the first land-owners on the Monockasy. Jeremiah Langhorne owned five hundred acres on that stream as early as 1736, John George,
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In April, 1749, John Jones, Upper Merion township, Montgomery coun- ty, settled with his family near Bethlehem. In 1751 he bought five hundred acres on the left bank of the Lehigh of Patrick Græme, a brother of Doctor Thomas, which touched the east line of the Moravian tract. Doctor Matthew Otto, supposed to have been the first regular apothecary in the county, and cer- tainly north of the Lehigh, opened his laboratory at Bethlehem about 1745. As early as May, 1746, we find him called to attend the sick and disabled at Durham furnace, and the doctor's bill against one Marcus Duling was £3. 5s. Joseph Keller, an early settler in Plainfield township, five miles northeast of Nazareth, supplied the brethren at Bethlehem with butter as early as 1746.
SUN INN, BETHLEHEM.
A notice of early Bethlehem would not be complete without mention of the "Sun Inn," one of the oldest and most historic public houses in the coun- try. The matter of a house of entertainment, on the north bank of the Lehigh was agitated as early as 1754, but the project did not take shape until four years later. The plans were submitted, January, 1758, cellar dug and walled up the following May, and the house opened, May, 1760, but license was not obtained until June, 1761. It was furnished at an expense of £39. 17s. 2d., and its cellar well stocked with liquors. At this time Bethlehem was a small vil- lage, consisting of the old pile on Church street, with the middle building of the seminary, the out-buildings that clustered around the first house, in the rear of the Eagle hotel, the mills and workshops on the Monockasy, a dwelling . on Market street and a second in course of erection on the site of the Moravian publication house-with a population of four hundred. During the Revolu- tionary war this inn was visited by all the leading characters of the period, civil and military, including Washington and Hancock. Among its guests were most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many distinguished men from other parts of the world. In May, 1777, Lady Washington, with her retinue, under the escort of Colonel McClean, traveled from Bethlehem down the Durham road through Bucks county to join the General at Philadelphia.
one thousand, and Thomas Clark, five hundred. It is not known that any of these . tracts were settled upon, and probably were not.
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The Sun Inn has been in charge of twenty landlords, since it was first opened in 1760, and is yet maintained as one of the best public houses in the state.
Among the early Moravians, who settled at Bethlehem and vicinity and were largely influential in shaping the destinies of the infant colony, were a number of able and useful men. Some contributed to its success by their learning, all by their industry and economy. Among them, few, if any, occupy a more prominent place than August Gottlieb Spangenberg. In this same connection may be mentioned William Edwards, Jasper Payne, John Christo- pher Pyrlacus, Timothy Horsfield and a number of others. Spangenberg was born at Klettenberg, 1704, educated at Jena, converted by Zinzendorf, 1729, appointed professor at Halle, in 1732, and subsequently joined the Mora- vians at Hernhutt. In 1735 he conducted a colony of the brethren to Georgia, and in 1736, coming to Pennsylvania to look after a colony of Schwenkfelders settled in Philadelphia, now Montgomery county. After a second visit to this colony, and one to the West Indies, he went to Europe whence he returned a bishop in 1744, and visited Bethlehem. He spent about thirteen years there, and in missionary labor in the colonies, between 1744 and 1760, when he re- turned to Europe where he died, 1792. William Edwards was born in Glouces- tershire, England, October 24, 1708, came to America, 1736, joined the Mora- vians, 1741, and removed to Bethlehem, 1749. He was elected to the Assembly from Northampton, 1755, and died at Nazareth, 1786. Jasper Payne, born at Twickenham, county of Middlesex, England, immigrated to America and settled at Bethlehem, in 1743, where he was steward and accountant. He was at the mission on Brodhead's creek, 1755, where he made a narrow escape from the Indians, and in August, 1762, was appointed superintendent of the Sun Inn. John Christopher Pyrlaeus, who married the youngest daughter of John Stephen Benezet, was born at Pausa, Voightland, in 1713, and reached Bethlehem October 19, 1740. He was prominent among the Moravians as a preacher, and became a great Mohawk scholar, dying at Hernhutt, Germany, May 28, 1785. Timothy Horsfield was born at Liverpool, England, in 1708, immigrated to America, 1725, became a Moravian, in 1741, and removed from Long Island to Bethlehem, in 1749. He was appointed one of the first justices- of the peace in Northampton county, and died, 1773. The early Moravians had no warmer friend than John Stephen Benezet, a Huguenot refugee who immigrated to Pennsylvania and settled at Philadelphia, 1731. Zinzendorf was his guest on his arrival, and his three daughters married Moravians at. Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now a populous and flourishing town connected by rail with the great centres of business. The population, on both sides of the river is about thirty thousand.
NAZARETH .- Sometime before his death, William Penn released and con- firmed to Sir John Fagg "for the sole use and behoof" of his daughter Letetia, five thousand acres in the upper end of Bucks. It embraced rich, rolling coun- try with numerous springs and water courses, and lay in the heart of what is now Northampton county. She had the privilege of erecting it into a Manor, and holding courts for the preservation of the peace. On September 25, 1731,. John, Thomas and Richard Penn released and confirmed this tract to their sister, on condition of her paying to them, their heirs and assigns "one red rose on the 24th of June each year, if the same shall be demanded, in full for all services, customs and rents." Sometime after this tract was purchased by William Allen for f2.200, who, in April, 1740, sold it to the Reverend George Whitefield, who wished to establish upon it a school for colored orphan chil- dren. A portion of Nazareth township is included in this tract.
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About this time Peter Bohler arrived at Skippack, Montgomery, then Philadelphia county, with the last of the Moravians from Georgia, met there Mr. Whitefield and bargained with him to erect the building on the Nazareth tract. Work was commenced in May, 1740, but the season was so far ad- vanced, and so wet, the cellar walls were only up by September. Seeing the building could not be finished before cold weather, it was covered in when the first story was up, and a two-story log house was erected in which Bohler and the Moravians spent the winter. Before work could be resumed on the building, Whitefield drove the Moravians from the tract on account of some theological dispute. This house still stands on the edge of the present town of Nazareth in a good state of preservation.
In 1742 Peter Bohler and August Gottlieb Spangenberg bought the Nazareth tract of Whitefield for the Moravians, giving him the same that he paid, and paying the cost of the building in addition. The house was finished the fall of 1743, and the first religious meeting held in it the second of Janu- ary following. A considerable number of German immigrants had arrived the previous December. After the founding of Bethlehem, immigrants began to flock to Nazareth, and dwellings were erected. Among others, Christian Freylich, of Hesse, came to Pennsylvania, 1741, and joined the brethren on the Whitefield tract, but his subsequent career is not known. Improvements were made at Ephrata in 1743, at what is known as Old Nazareth, 1744, at Gnaden- thal. the site of the Northampton county alms-house. 1745. at Christian spring, 1748, and Friedenthal, 1749. An attempt was made to lay out the town of Gnadenstadt, adjoining Old Nazareth, 1751, but, meeting with opposition, it was abandoned. Of the two houses erected at Gnadenstadt, one of them, a mile north of the Whitefield house, became the "Rose tavern," famous in local history. The first orchard was set out by Owen Rice, who arrived in June, 1745. The trees grew thriftily, and the first cider was made from their apples August, 1755. Rice's example was followed by others, and soon apple trees were set out on all the farms of the Nazareth tract. There were but two dwellings at Nazareth, July, 1742, one of which was the log house built, 1740, to winter Bohler's colony in. Some English immigrants arriving in the Cath- arine in June, 1742, arrangements were made to settle them at Nazareth and Zinzendorf, and a number of brethren, of both sexes, went up there to pre- pare for their reception. In the spring or summer of 1750, a grist-mill, known as the Friedenthal mill, was erected on the bank of the Bushkill creek." and ground its first grist in August. The first miller was Hartmann Verdries. During the Indian war, 1756, the mill was enclosed by a stockade, four hun- dred by two hundred and fifty feet, with log houses at the corners for bas- tions, and was a place of refuge for the frontier inhabitants when threatened by the Indians. The Moravians' sold the mill, 1771, and it is now known as Mann's mill.
The foundation of the Rose tavern, adjacent to Nazareth on the King's highway leading over the mountains to the Minisink settlement. was laid the 27th of March, 1752, and the house completed the following summer.212 It
7 The Indian name of the Bushkill was Lchietan, but it is called Tatemy's creek on early maps; also Lefevre's creek, after a French Huguenot, who immigrated to New York, 1689, and settled a few miles above Easton.
712 The petitioners for the license say "the inhabitants of this country greatly in- crease and many travelers pass to and from the Blue mountains, so that it is too much for the brethren (Moravians) at Nazareth to give them proper lodging and entertain-
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was a two-story frame building, and upon the ancient sign was emblazoned a red rose. The first landlord was John Frederick Schwab, who occupied it the 15th of September, and retired from the Rose August 4, 1754. Schwab was born in Switzerland, 1717, and, with his wife, Divert Mary, came to America with a party of thirty-three Moravian couples in the autumn of 1743 and settled at Nazareth. Their son John was the first child born of white parents at that place. This old tavern was several times a place of refuge for the frontier inhabitants when driven in by Indians, and the troops operating against them frequently made it their place of rendezvous. A tavern was kept in it many years, under the direction of a number of landlords and it was demolished in the summer of 1858. Tradition says that all the cakes used at the Rose were supplied from the old Nazareth bakery, and Indians frequently attacked the wheelbarrow that was conveying them from the bakery to the tavern. Nazar- eth Hall, designed as a residence for Count Zinzendorf, was erected, 1755, and was under roof by the 24th of September, but not finished and dedicated until September 13, 1756. As he did not return to America, the building was put to other uses. A school for the sons of Moravian parents was opened in it June, 1759, and a boarding school for boys October 3, 1785, which, after the lapse of one hundred and fourteen years, is in a flourishing condition, and is probably the oldest boarding school in the United States.8 An Indian town, called Welagamika,81/2 stood on the Nazareth tract when purchased by the Moravians, 1742. Nazareth was not organized into a separate township un- til after Northampton county was cut from Bucks, 1752, and its population at that time is not known.
The first road laid out in Bucks county, north of its present boundary, was from Goshenhoppen, Montgomery county, through Upper Milford to Jere- miah Trexler's,' in Upper Macungie, Lehigh county, 1732. In 1737 a road was opened from Nicholas De Pui's in the Minisink to William Cole's. In 1744 the inhabitants of Bethlehem and Nazareth petitioned for a wagon road from Grove's Saucon mill, and thence to Nazareth, and three years later a wagon road was asked for from the King's road near Bethlehem to Mahoning creek, beyond the Blue mountains, and to the "Healing waters." The reason given is that many people of this and neighboring Provinces have received much benefit from the waters.10 In 1743 there was no road nearer the Minisink on the south than Irish's mill on the Lehigh, where the Old Bethlehem road ter- minated. The next year11 a road was laid out from Walpack ferry, on the
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