USA > Pennsylvania > Lebanon County > Lebanon > Old Salem in Lebanon : a history of the congregation and town > Part 3
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** The Tabor Church was dedicated on the 18th of July, 1762, and was used until June 12, 1792, when it was much damaged by lightning. See Dr. Klopp's "History of First Reformed Church," p. 10.
*** On May 5, 1870, the Salem and Tabor congregations had an act passed to enable them to dispose of that part of the land not used as a burial ground that the remainder might be kept in repair.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON.
HEBRON MORAVIAN CHURCH
HE Orth family had settled east of Hebron as early as 1725 .* But the Mo- ravians as such did not begin to come to Penn- sylvania until ten years later .** Then several evangelists arrived to la- bor among the Schwenkfelders. Bishop Spangenberg himself came over in 1736. He is said to have met Con- rad Weiser, the school- master of the Tulpe- hocken, who was much disgusted with the party spirit in the Lutheran Rieth's church at Stouchs- burg, and was having some connection with the
*The ancestors of this family are said, in Dr. Egle's History, to have moved to Moravia about the close of the 17th century, and thence to the Palatinate. Whether they were actually Moravians when they ar- rived in America is not known to the writer.
** The first Moravian evangelist in America, George Boehnisch, landed at Philadelphia, Sept. 22, 1734, having been sent by Zinzendorf with Christopher Baus and Christopher Wiegner to accompany the Schwenk- felder exiles to America; Boehnisch engaged in evangelistic activity for several years, and returned to Europe in 1737.
Spangenberg and Bishop David Nitschmann came to Pennsylvania in
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
Ephrata community. Weiser awakened in Spang- enberg an interest in the Christianizing of the In- dians, and Spangenberg awakened in Weiser an in- terest in the Moravians.
In 1740 George Whitfield was in America on his second visit, and created a religious ferment even in the interior of Pennsylvania. He traveled as far as Harris Ferry, above the mouth of the Swatara. Farmers flocked to hear him from great distances. Unmindful of the remonstrances of Parson Elder and John Harris at the Ferry, many of them neg- lected to sow their seed and found themselves in want at the end of the season .* Whitfield sug- gested to Count Zinzendorf that he send an evan- gelist to the Pennsylvania-Germans. Accordingly Zinzendorf sent Andreas Eschenbach over, and very soon he began to exercise an influence in the church strife at Tulpehocken .**
Zinzendorf himself landed in Philadelphia in the
April, 1736, and labored for awhile among the Schwenkfelders and others, making Wiegner's house their home.
George Neisser arrived in Pennsylvania in February, 1737, from Georgia and took up his abode temporarily at Wiegner's. So for awhile there were three of them in Pennsylvania, viz: Boehnisch, who returned to Europe, 1737; Spangenberg, who left for the time being in 1739, and Neisser; Nitschmann, the fourth left in June, 1736, and returned in 1740.
Andrew Eschenbach, sent to the Pennsylvania-Germans by Zinzendorf at Whitfield's suggestion, arrived in Philadelphia in October, 1740. Christian Henry Rauch and Frederick Martin (afterwards missionary bishop in the West Indies) were also in Pennsylvania before the end of 1740 .- Sachse's "German Pietists in Pennsylvania," p. 5.
*Egle's History of Dauphin County, p. 38.
** Eschenbach landed in Pennsylvania in October, 1740, and visited the Tulpehocken congregation from time to time. (Memoirs of Moravian Church, p. 79.)
-
30
THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON.
Fall of the next year, professing to be a Lutheran and to have the official appointment of Lutheran superintendent of Pennsylvania .* He, for a short time, gained control in the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, and he made the effort, by a series of General Conferences or Synods of his to unite all the Germans into a single religious com- munion .** In January, 1742, Zinzendorf held his third Synod at Oley, and at its close he accom- panied Weiser to the Tulpehocken.
After bitter strife, Zinzendorf, with three of his adherents, *** acting in assumed authority as "the Lutheran Consistorium of Pennsylvania," **** de- posed John Caspar Stoever from his ministerial of- fice. He furnished Rieth's with several pastors of his own, and thus added another to the already ex- isting parties .* *
*This was not the case.
** Had the Count been accepted as Superintendent of the Lutheran Church, it is probable that he would have made some progress in his original effort to draw all the separatists and mystics, e. g., the Schwenckfelders and Seventh Day Baptists into a spiritual denomination on a quasi-Lutheran basis and on the foundation of the Augsburg Confession.
*** Pyrlaeus, Bryoelius and Buettner.
**** They had no such authority.
***** The whole strife at the Tulpehocken was very sad and unfortunate. Scholars who desire to thoroughly investigate the matter may look up Halle Reports, pp. 249-52; Nich. Kurtz's H. R., 201-2, New Edition; Conrad Weiser's History of the Cong., H. Rep., p. 191, New Edition; Weiser's Conference with Bp. Cammerhof, Tresinius Hernh. Nachr. III., pp. 322-30; State of the Case between the Lutherans and Moravlans at Tulpehocken, with the opinion thereon of Tench Francis, Esq., April 26, 1755, in Berks and Schuylkill Journal, March 22, 1872; Gottlob Buttner's Schreiben an den Pfarrer Stiefer, April 17, 1742, and J. Phil. Memirs Bericht wegen Caspar Stiefers an das Consistorium zu Phila. Tresenii Hernhut. Nachr. III., 341-561; and the Records of Christ Church, Tulpe- hocken, and Lutheran Church Review, 1882, p. 292.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
These things happened within less than ten miles of Hebron, which was only a short distance from the Grubeland church, where Pastor Stoever preached. It was in January, 1742. In September Zinzendorf, with a number of Moravians and with Conrad Weiser and two Indian converts, visited the Indians at Sunbury and may have passed through Hebron.
In the same year, 1742, 120 Moravians in the newly-founded Bethlehem church, resolved to di- vide themselves into two halves, one part of which should go forth two by two as missionaries among the Germans, while the other part should stay at home and support those going forth. These men went forth to Emaus, Oley, Bethel, in Swatara township; Tulpehocken, Brickerville, Lititz, Lan- caster and York. Naturally the little settlement on the Quitopahila was on their way, and the Mora- vians stopping there, soon made friends. Rupp,
in his "History of Lebanon County," says* the Mo- ravians also had a house of worship erected prior to 1743, hard by the Quitopahila, a mile east of the present site of Lebanon and a few hundred yards north from the stone Oratorium, which was built in 1750. In 1744 Saur, of Germantown, printed Luther's Small Cate- chism, for the use of Lutheran congregations in Pennsylvania, but edited, prepared and annotated by the Moravian Zinzendorf. In this same year the Moravian missionary, Nyberg, introduced himself
*Pages 305-306.
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THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON.
to the Lutheran congregation at Lancaster as a Lu- theran pastor and began preaching there, and in 1745 he arranged to hold a large conference of Mo- ravians at Lancaster. In 1746 the Moravian party at Tulpehocken dedicated their new free-stone church, erected in place of their old frame building. Spangenberg performed the ceremony of dedica- tion. In April, 1745, the Moravian church in Hei- delberg township was consecrated, but two years later there was a difficulty in regard to a burial that injured it very much, and caused Weiser to advise the Lutherans to take possession of it .* George Loesch, near Womelsdorf, had become Moravian in 1747. Conrad Weiser had been leaning that way, although on April 22, 1745, Henry Melchoir Muh- lenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church, was married to Weiser's daughter at Tulpehocken, ** and now Peter Kucher, the Lutheran blacksmith, whose house was a stopping place for the itinerant Moravian missionaries, *** cast in his lot with the fol- lowers of Zinzendorf and became a pil- lar unto them at Hebron. This was during the visitation of John and Joseph **** in Heidelberg. In 1748 a Moravian Synod was held on the Quitopahila "in the Lutheran church,"
*See Lutheran Church Review.
** We have seen that in 1747 Weiser advised the Lutherans to occupy the Heidelberg building. In 1748 Weiser was absent on a government expedition and penetrated the unknown country as far West as the Ohio.
*** See Bishop Camerhoff's Narative. Egle's History of Lebanon county p .20.
**** Bishop Spangenberg.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
and the Moravian communions were held in the same building from January Ist, 1750, when 23 persons communed. In 1750 Peter Kucher do- nated the land for the old Hebron Moravian church, now on Mr. Daniel Folmer's property, and for the cemetery. The building was erected that year, and the little community at Hebron became by all odds the most substantial and flourishing settlement on the Quitopahila. It was to meet with a formida- ble rival.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TOWN OF STEITZ.'
THE TOWN OF STEITZ from the originalidraft
HE little German hamlet on the Quitopahila was of ADDITION gradual growth. Log houses sprang up, inspots TREÆI STREET and clusters, in several quarters. Walnut street, 7 yaWAS H Old Cumberland street, Willow street, near Tenth, and Willow street, near Seventh, ** were among the earliest settlements. The land and property develop- ment of the original town has never been thor- oughly followed up, *** or described in a historical way, though the manner in which the property in- terests arose and expanded does not seem difficult to grasp.
Let us begin at the extreme east. Our readers will remember Peter Kucher, on the Quitopahila. His land probably extended from Hebron westward to Front street along the creek. At Front street John Light's land began and extended westward
*The founder of Lebanon spelled his name "Stits" and "Stites." ** Called "The Goose Corner."
*** The late Adam Grittinger, surveyor, father of Mr. H. C. Grittinger and Mrs. John K. Funck, was probobly the best informed man nn these questions that Lebanon county has had. Mrs. Funck very kindly placed her father's papers at my disposal and a fresh examination of these and other old documents has brought many facts to light.
35
1401420
OLD SALEM CHURCH.
to Seventh street .* At Seventh street Steitz's land began, and on it the old town proper was laid out. This land extended west of Seventh street, through the heart of the town to Steitz's homestead, at Meadow Bank, and the settlement at Old Cum- berland street, and it reached probably from Lo- cust street on the south, to Church street on the north .** There were outlying lots laid out earlier than the town lots. These were probably the Rey- nolds' tract, lying southwest of Steitz's farm and adjoining it. Beginning at the west of Old Cum- berland street, this tract would include the stretch along the ridge, to the west and south, taking in Donaghmore, the Hammond mansion and Pleasant Hill. If the theory is correct, here was the land of the original Reynolds,* the first layer out of lots in the whole vicinity. We know that this Francis Reynolds had married Catherine Steitz, and he may have been the brother-in-law of Steitz .** Their farms adjoined. Very naturally, moreover, Steitz's daughter came to marry neighbor Reynolds' son George .*** This occurred already in 1731, fifteen
*This part of Lebanon was not developed early. It is within the mem- ory of inhabitants still living that the fields began at Sixth and Cumber- land streets.
** Here it met the tract sold by Caspar Wistar as early as 1738 to John Licht. Rupp, in his History of Lebanon County, p. 304, says that the deed describes the southern boundary of this farm, "South by Geoge Steitz's settlement." He says further that in 1742 John Licht erected his massive three-story house with a hipped roof, and that the Mennon- ites in some numbers held a regular monthly meeting here for worship. *Francis.
** On Dec. 12, 1738, Rev. Stoever married Francis Reynolds and Elenora Thistle. Was this Reynold's second wife?
*** Though they may have been cousins.
+
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THE TOWN OF STEITZ.
years before old Reynolds died, and 36 years before old Steitz died. Young George Reynolds* not only inherited his father's property, but seems to have been in the good graces of Stites and later on in accord with the latter's land projects, for he, more than any other person, is called on to be the wit- ness to the Stites deeds. *
This George seems to have laid out a portion of his farm in town lots before 1740. His father Francis died in 1745, leaving his estate to his son. In 1750 old George Stites himself seems to have caught the land-development fever, and he laid out additional lots. * By 1753 he, in some way, had probably come into possession of most of the Rey- nolds' lots and in this same year he had two ad- ditional large tracts of land granted to him by one patent from the proprietaries of Pennsylvania.'
Just at this juncture the general condition of af- fairs in the State grew to be extraordinary, and as it is quite likely that the budding little town was prevented from going into sudden blossom by this general situation, it will be well to refer to these events briefly.
The years 1751 and 1752 were very prosperous
*I feel confident that the land warrants in Taylor's Surveys show that George Reynolds also bought land in the Swatara by or before this time.
In 1742 Rev. Stoever baptized Bridgitte, a daughter of John Reynolds, at Swatara. Francis Reynolds was one of the sponsors.
** He may have been named "George" after George Stites.
*The township, according to Rupp, contained nearly 150 taxables in this year.
*His previous grants of land he had received in 1734 and later.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
in Pennsylvania and this fact must have tended to help land speculation and new settlements along. The wheat and the other grain harvests were ex- ceedingly fruitful. The exports of the State in- creased, and men felt more reckless in making in- vestments .* A much-needed improvement to the whole Lebanon region was begun. A road to Lan- caster, the county-seat, was laid out. This road was the present Ninth street .*
The year following, things seemed still to be well. Conrad Weiser was looking after general interests and peace by uniting the friendly Indians into a strong alliance against the French and hostile In- dians that were threatening Pennsylvania. But in 1755 the whole interior of the State was startled by the news of Braddock's defeat at Fort Du Quesne. In the beginning of October (the 6th) news came to the Hebron Moravian chronicler that over 20 persons had been killed in our region by the In- dians, and four days later he adds that the com- munity has been in alarm for a fortnight. The Swa- tara region was in great danger. On November
*The Chronicler of the convent of the Seventh Day Baptists at Ephrata says that "men, in wanton carelessness sought to waste the supply. For they used the precious wheat-which might have supported many poor and needy people-to fatten hogs, which afterward they lavishly consumed. Besides, distilleries were erected everywhere, and thus this great blessing used for the manufacture of strong drink, gave rise to much disorder." Muhlenberg in a letter of 1754 says Pennsyl- vania "teems with a wicked, frivolous rabble and vagabond preachers and students."
** About this time Christopher Embich arrived in the new neigh- borhood. He left Rotterdam in the spring of 1752, and arrived in Phila- delphia on September 27 of the same year, on the "Nancy." He made his way to Hinkletown, Lancaster county, where he married Maria Eliza- beth Kriter, and came from thence to Lebanon township.
38
THE TOWN OF STEITZ.
17, the chronicler says: "Visited brother and sister Lesher. In the evening our neighbor, Weidman, and his tenant fled with ten children. The Indians have again burned four plantations and use the people in a cruel and barbarous manner." On De- cember 7, eleven were murdered and the damages caused by the burning of property was estimated at £1,500. On Christmas day the Hebron brethren decided that a guard (two miles long and one mile broad) should be set out at night, under the care of Kucher and Hetrich. Balthazar Orth was to look after his neighborhood and arrangements were made to house some of the fleeing Swatara families. Peter Roesser and Stephen Nicholas bound them- selves to leave home and build fortifications. Two days later Kucher, Heckedorn and the neighbors cut down the woods at the Hebron church, and two days later still the lower windows and doors of the building were closed half way up with heavy wood. It was understood that the church or Kucher's mill would be the neighbors' place of re- treat.
Meantime Governor Morris had reported in No- vember that the Indians had "entered the passes of the Blue Mountains, broke into the counties of Lancaster [Lebanon], Berks and Northampton counties, committing murder, devastations and other kinds of horrid mischief." On January 7th, 1756, the Governor himself came on through He- bron from Philadelphia with 12 gentlemen, an es- cort of 70 men, and 30 additional guards. He was
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
on his way to the Susquehanna to make peace with the Indians. In February, Bethel and Hanover called upon the Quitopahila for help and all the men in Lebanon township came together at Kucher's for consultation. It was resolved to send ten men to Bethel and ten to Hanover, and that each party should be relieved every two weeks and should sup- ply themselves with provisions. Meantime families with ten wagons fled from the Swatara and Tulpe- hocken to Lebanon. In May, 1756, there was an- other Indian outbreak and on the 16th of the same month, 1757, six persons were murdered at the Swa- tara. Five of the corpses were brought over to our community and the affair must have created great excitement. On May 20 the chronicler reports : "It has become pretty populous about us. A good piece along the Swatara all have fled." On the 6th of June an Indian was seen way down in Grubeland, two miles from the church, in the act of breaking open the door with his tomahawk. Two days later the Indians killed a man five miles from Balthazar Orth's and captured a boy. On the 21st, 14 of them had a battle with 30 soldiers eight or nine miles over the Swatara. The people there were again afraid to take in their hay and grain, but succeeded in doing so with fifteen men.
The little Steitz village on the Quitopahila was not disturbed, and the threatened danger in the outlying regions perhaps operated to bring new set- tlers to the place. But the Tulpehocken suffered greatly. The story of Regina, the German captive,
40
THE TOWN OF STEITZ.
dates from these days. She was carried off in 1755. In all this danger and distress the Quaker Assem- bly in Philadelphia remained indifferent. It was left to the Germans and the Scotch-Irish to become the defenders of the State. Benjamin Franklin, af- ter he could not move the Quakers, put himself at the head of a regiment of Germans, and the Gov- ernor gave Conrad Weiser a colonel's commission. Weiser organized a regiment out of German farm- ing material. He sent for the Lutheran pastor Kurtz, and after a prayer and an exhortation to the men by the pastor, Weiser led them toward the Susquehannah, despatching about fifty of them north to hold Swatara gap. Forts were established all along the line from the Susquehannah to the Delaware, about twelve miles apart. Soon terrible tidings came. The Indians broke in on the Mora- vians in Bethel in 1756 and 1757, and massacred them .* The settlers near the Blue Mountains re- moved to Reading, and some of those in Reading removed toward Philadelphia .** As stated above, these troubles probably both retarded and also helped to make the settlement of Steitz more of a centre, and now in 1756, the various lots that had been laid out were brought together into a complete town plan .*
*See "Parthemore's Trip into the Swatara Region," p. 18.
** See Dr. Schantz's Sesqui-Centennial Discourse on Christ Church, Tulpehocken, p. 14.
*At least this would harmonize the statement of the Rev. Dr. George Lochmann with the other sources.
What Dr. Lochmann has written is a paragraph in an article of his en-
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
Under such conditions of general excitement, perhaps not very much could be done on a syste- matic scale in 1755, or even in 1756 and 1757, in the new Stites-Town project. George Stites himself was undoubtedly the active spirit in the movement. It was he who laid out and sold the lots for our town of Lebanon. He planned streets and alleys at reg- ular intervals, and gave his lots a frontage of 66 feet and a depth of 192 feet, and arranged such con- ditions of payment and of erecting buildings as are described hereafter,* There were three lots in every half square. In selling the lots he made it one of the conditions that a substantial house not less than sixteen feet square must be built on it within eighteen months, more or less, from the time of purchase. These houses were built of logs, but each house must have a brick or stone chimney. In the spring and summer of 1756-1758, he may have staked out a large number of properties and sold single lots here and there to parties desiring to build. In 1758, if not earlier, he was ready to
titled, "Nachricht von Gemeinen" in the first volume of the "Evagel- isches Magazin, unter der Aufsicht der Deutsch-Evangelisch-Luther- ischen Synode, Philadelpia. Gedruckt bey Conrad Zentler, in der Zweiten Strasze, unterhalb der Rehs-Strasze 1812. p. 20.
As we shall have occasion to make use of his statement on several occasions, we give an exact translation of it here: "The Lebanon congregation holds its service in the Salem Church, which is built in the town of Lebanon. This town was laid out in the year 1756, by George Steitz, and lies on the stream Quitapahila, (an Indian name, which in German means Schlangen-Loch), 25 miles northwest of Lancas- ter and 28 miles west of Reading. At first the inhabitants belonged partly to the Bergkirche, and partly to the Gruppenkirch (a small log church situated a mile and a half south of Lebanon, but now dilapi-
1
42
THE TOWN OF STEITZ.
George Atits
Autograph of the Founder of Lebanon.
grant deeds to his purchasers. The deeds are printed in good and full form on substantial paper and at least a numeber of them are probably filled in in Stites' own handwriting .* They were doubtless drawn up and printed in Lancaster. Many justice and witnessed in Lebanon. Stites of them are signed, sealed by the Lebanon himself in these deeds calls the name of the place Stites-town,* although he leaves a blank space be- fore the printed word "Stites," which may be a pro- vision in the blanks for a contemplated change of name. On May 15th, 1758, he made an Indenture for a lot he had sold on the corner of Ninth and Willow streets to Charles Sholly. It was between "George Stites of the Township of Lebanon . . . gentleman, of the one part, and Charles Sholly of the same township in the other part." In it Stites "doth . . . sell . .. all that certain lot . . . in a certain town there laid out and called Stites-Town,
. .
on a street in the Plan of the said Town, called
Market street." Here the name "Stites-Town" still occurs in his deed, but just two months later, on
dated. On account of the increasing growth of the number of church members, a house was hired in the town, in order to be able to hold service there; but as this also became too small, a rather roomy log church was built under the superintendence of Pastor Stoever, and it was dedicated in the year 1766. This congregation was served from time to time by the pastors, Stoever, F. A. Muhlenberg, E. Schulze, and W. Kurz."
*The writer has examined over a hundred of the original Lebanon deeds and gone through them in detail.
*This is denied in Dr. Egle's History of Lebanon county, but the early deeds prove the fact.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
July 15, he made a deed to Jacob Focht for lot 113, the one next to the Farmer's Hotel, at Tenth and Cumberland streets, in which "Stites," in the word "Stites-Town," is scratched with a pen, and the word "Lebanon" is written in in the blank space pre- ceding it. Subsequent to this time the deeds read "Lebanon." The year 1759 was a busy year for Stites and his little town, and at this time he gave deeds for many of the most valuable and prominent sites in the place. The lot diagonally opposite the Farmer's Hotel, where Charles B. Rauch now re- sides, he deeded to George Beetrich. This was evi- dently the year in which the lots along Eighth street were sold. The corner lot, with the old house on it, belonging to Geo. Krause & Co., was deeded by Stites to Martin Light on February 28, 1759. The witnesses to this transaction were George Rey- nolds and two others who signed their names in German,
abraham Weidtmann. Leonard Umberger.
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