EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a recurring series: Lehigh Valley 250th — a project that examines our region's place and contributions in American history leading up to the nation's 250th anniversary next year.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Historical accounts show Moravians just wanted to stay out of the way of what was happening in the world around them in early America to better focus on their spirituality.
Members of the Protestant denomination didn’t typically care to serve in militias, public office or on juries, according to Scott Paul Gordon, Lehigh University professor of English and an avid researcher of Colonial-postcolonial studies and Moravian history.
In an interview with LehighValleyNews.com, he described them as “non-engagers” who weren’t necessarily interested in changing the world.
But the Bethlehem Moravians had to put their differences aside — and maybe by no choice of their own — when the Continental Army came knocking at the Second Single Brethren’s House on West Church Street.
The future first president of the United States, Gen. George Washington, had wounded troops who needed tending to.
'The world just descends'
“The war comes in, and suddenly this place that has nobody but Moravians living here has hundreds of non-Moravians in the Brethren’s House and troops coming through all the time and famous visitors are staying at the Sun Inn,” Gordon said.
“It’s a quiet little place where you won’t see any non-Moravians for the most part. And then suddenly, the world just descends.”
Beyond that, a letter of protection was signed by 16 visiting delegates to the Continental Congress saying officials "desire that all Continental Officers may refrain from disturbing the persons or property of the Moravians in Bethlehem, and particularly that they do not disturb or molest the Houses where the women are assembled."
"That Single Brother’s House: The inside’s all changed, but the outside is identical to the building that those Continental soldiers would have lived in for a while and many died in.”Scott Paul Gordon, Lehigh University professor of English
In September of 1777, they visited the area and inspected local buildings and the Brethren's House hospital. Some recognizable names among the bunch: John Hancock, and John and Samuel Adams, who were second cousins.
From 1776-1778, the limestone communal Brethren’s House used to house local men and boys instead was repurposed to care for the troops. Hundreds of soldiers died on site.
It still stands today.
“There aren’t many places in early America where most of the buildings from the early community are still here,” Gordon said of the internationally acclaimed Moravian Church settlement and World Heritage site in Bethlehem.
“ … It’s amazing to find such an intact community, from before the revolution, during the revolution. That Single Brother’s House: The inside’s all changed, but the outside is identical to the building that those Continental soldiers would have lived in for a while and many died in.”
A “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” honoring those souls now sits at First Avenue and West Market Street.
The original Single Brethren's House was located to the east on Church Street, according to Director of Communications and Marketing of Seminary and World Heritage Craig Larimer.
"It earned its “Second” designation because the original Single Brethren’s House, built in 1744 at 44-50 West Church St., was transferred to the Single Sisters in 1748 when the growing male population required larger quarters," Larimer said.
"Moravian University owns the building, which is [now] home to the school's music department."
On the subject of music, records show Gen. Washington was quite the fan though he wasn't a musician himself.
Upon a visit to Bethlehem in the latter days of the American Revolution, he heard tunes from the still-active Moravian Trombone Choir and the organ-playing of Jacob Van Fleck in a second-floor room (now the "Washington Room") of the Second Single Brethren's House.
Another esteemed guest
The Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman with a hand in military service and politics, volunteered to join the patriot cause in the summer of 1777.
He became great friends with Gen. Washington and was assigned as a major general in the Continental Army despite being less than 20 years old with no combat experience.
Fighting alongside Washington, Lafayette suffered a leg wound at the Battle of Brandywine near Philadelphia in the weeks following.
He was sent to the Sun Inn in Bethlehem for his treatment, but a lack of space led to his move to the Beckel home a little ways up Main Street to finish what was about a monthlong recovery.
"I am at this moment in the solitude of Bethlehem ... The people here lead a gentle and peaceful life."The Marquis de Lafayette writing to his wife, Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, in a letter on Oct. 1, 1777, while recovering from a leg wound from the Battle of Brandywine the month prior.
Barbara and Liesel Beckel, wife and daughter of the town's farm superintendent, George Frederick Beckel, looked after the French nobleman.
The unconfirmed story goes that Lafayette and Liesel had a romance of sorts — though the major general was confirmed to spend much of his recovery writing home to his wife, Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles.
As he wrote to her on Oct. 1, 1777, "I am at this moment in the solitude of Bethlehem ... The people here lead a gentle and peaceful life."
'Principled pacifists'
Known to be a producer of quality rifles, the Moravians operated a gun shop at Christian’s Spring, just west of Nazareth, later being called on by officials to make muskets for Northampton County and Continental Army forces.
With a county quota from the state of 300, between 200 and 250 of the guns were produced at the Moravian shop, according to original delivery receipts shared by Gordon.
Gunsmith Johann Christian Oerter played a major role in that effort until he died of tuberculosis at just 29 years old in 1777, according to a display at the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth.
The church then assigned William Henry II to run the shop. Henry's father, of Lancaster, is known to be a key player in the development of the Pennsylvania Longrifle — a handier and more accurate option over some European counterparts of the time.
Gordon said the Moravians could be also considered “principled pacifists” who believed in self-defense, as they erected palisades and assigned armed guards during the French and Indian War to defend their beloved town from invaders.
Paul Peucker, archivist of the Moravian Church in America, Northern Province, said residents of the Sister’s House in Bethlehem even kept stones handy near the windows to use on intruders if need be.
As for joining the fight, the Moravians didn’t believe in taking oaths, such as the Test Act, where the law required all white men to take an oath of allegiance to the Patriot cause. The Moravians managed to skirt around that requirement.
Equality of condition
In Bethlehem, only Moravians could lease property from the church, but it was by no means a closed community as it enjoyed its fair share of visitors, much like today.
The church just happened to stress an equality of condition, and required a direct say in individuals' business ventures, trades practiced and marriages arranged.
“American free choice and entrepreneurship and self-determination — that’s just not what Bethlehem, even into the 19th century, is really about,” Gordon said.
But the group seemed to have the trades down pat in supporting their mission work.
By the mid-1750s, the Moravians specialized in more than 40 trades — including shoemaking, carpentry, boatbuilding, masonry and gunsmithing.
“They had ideals that they wanted to realize, Christian ideals. But I think what could inspire anyone is really the ideals of education, equality, making the world a better place.”Paul Peucker, archivist of the Moravian Church in America, Northern Province
That involved a bustling Colonial Industrial Quarter — it's regarded as the nation's first industrial park — along the Monocacy Creek and some other manufacturing in the local choir houses.
Peucker said, “I think a lot of people would come here and their goal was to establish a farm and to survive.
“But the Moravians came here, and they wanted to establish a town and they wanted to establish a church and missions and have outreach.
“They had ideals that they wanted to realize, Christian ideals. But I think what could inspire anyone is really the ideals of education, equality, making the world a better place.”
And while Bethlehem wasn’t absent of racial prejudice back then — there were slaves living in town, according to a Northampton County registry from 1780 — white and Black people were paid the same wage and offered similar living arrangements, Gordon said.
God’s Acre on West Market Street is a historic cemetery with Moravians — white, Native American and Black — buried alongside one another.
Moravian education, opportunities
As for education, that of the Moravians was top-notch, Gordon said.
Moravian University, known as the first higher-education institution to admit women, descends from the local girl’s school founded in the 1740s.
Wrote Judith Sargent Murray, an early American advocate for women's equality, after a visit to the Bethlehem Seminary: "Place your daughter at Bethlehem ... she will be taught a perfect knowledge of her Mother Tongue ... the French, and German languages ... Reading, Writing, Composition, and Arithmetic, will be given her, in as high perfection, as she is capable of attaining them — She is furnished with an opportunity of acquiring Musick, painting, and geography, with the rudiments of Astronomy, and the strictest attention will be paid to her health, and to the purity of her morals."
Elites of early America passed through Bethlehem so their children — for example, George Washington's niece — could take part in a proper curriculum.
But it wasn't just the affluent whom the Moravians felt should be educated.
The father of modern education, Moravian John Amos Comenius, said, "Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school."
“You wouldn’t find a female blacksmith, but they could be teachers and nurses, maybe they worked in the kitchen or they were bookkeepers or spiritual advisors. They had careers that weren’t reduced to raising families and keeping a home.”Scott Paul Gordon, Lehigh University professor of English
With children sometimes attending boarding school, married parents also benefitted as they had time freed up to pursue other ventures.
“You wouldn’t find a female blacksmith, but they could be teachers and nurses, maybe they worked in the kitchen or they were bookkeepers or spiritual advisers,” Gordon said. “They had careers that weren’t reduced to raising families and keeping a home.”
Gordon spoke of Mary Penry, a Welsh woman who was single her entire life and lived in Bethlehem and Lititz, working as a bookkeeper, translator and more.
And though all but about 3% of women in early America ended up not marrying, Gordon said, the Moravians held being single in high regard — Jesus Christ was understood to have never married.
Making note
Both experts agreed the Moravians’ record-keeping was stellar.
“They had set out to build the kingdom of God, and they wanted to document that. They wanted to document what happened to them, what they accomplished and also their disappointment.”Paul Peucker, archivist of the Moravian Church i America, Northern Province
“They had set out to build the kingdom of God, and they wanted to document that,” Peucker said. “They wanted to document what happened to them, what they accomplished and also their disappointment.”
As the Moravian Church’s economic model was having a hard time sustaining itself into the 1840s, non-church members that decade were allowed to buy land in town — some of the area south of the Lehigh River would go on to house Bethlehem Steel operations.
CHECK IT OUT: Lehigh Valley 250, a partnership of four cultural organizations, is offering a multi-site series of seven exhibitions over three years that invites folks to examine the founding of the U.S. from the viewpoint of those who lived in the Lehigh Valley. The first runs now through December: Patriotic Pacifism — Bethlehem Moravians and the American Revolution, Part A: Working Hands — Supplying a Revolution at Luckenbach Mill, Bethlehem Colonial Industrial Quarter, by Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites.
