The Unknown Soldier, Bethlehem, Northampton County

It's been a while since MarkerQuest went to Bethlehem, and I find myself missing it a little bit, so I thought that we'd welcome September (and celebrate my birthday) by heading back there. This is sort of a sequel to a previous post, which is always fun for me.

Last December, I talked about visiting the replica of the first house in Bethlehem, and how it was the place where the city received its name. In that post, I mentioned that the replica house includes a plaque related to soldiers buried on a nearby hillside, and how that's related to Bethlehem's very own Unknown Soldier, which is what I thought I would cover today.

The plaque is situated on the crypt, at the
intersection of First Avenue and
West Market Street

Now, when anyone hears about "the tomb of the unknown soldier," they're likely to think of either the one in Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, or one of the similar monuments in other major cities around the world. (For example, there's one in Paris, France, at the base of the Arc de Triomphe.) I fully admit that, despite having grown up in the Lehigh Valley and literally never living anywhere else, I only discovered the existence of our local equivalent in the last few years.

The story of this tomb begins in another area of Bethlehem completely - the Moravian quarter, which I've mentioned in various posts already. As stressed elsewhere (particularly in the story of the ill-fated Gnadenhuetten), the colonial Moravians were pacifists who didn't involve themselves in anybody's battle. However, they were also humanitarians. So when General George Washington showed up in Bethlehem and needed a hospital for his troops, they were willing to help with that aspect of the war. They tended the ill and injured, made bandages, and supplied blankets and food to get them through the rough Pennsylvania winter. The Continental Congress noted the contributions of the Moravians, and in return gave them military protection.

The building used for the hospital was then known as the Single Brethren's House, a dormitory for unmarried young men in the community. It has a marker of its own, which means it's getting its own post down the line, so I won't talk too much about it here; I will say, however, that the original part of the building was constructed in 1748, and it served as a hospital for the Continental Army from 1776 to 1778. Today it houses the music department for Moravian University.

This carved stone at the Tomb of the
Unknown is the only marker for the
many graves on the hillside.

It was, and still is, an impressive structure, but it was not exactly built for the purpose of a military hospital. At its heaviest occupation, the Brethren's House was providing shelter for 700 sick or injured soldiers, which is a lot more than the Moravians had ever expected to house there at one time. The overly cramped conditions didn't make recovery easier for the patients, and many of them either died of their wounds or of what was diagnosed as "putrid fever." Many of them were very young, as young as fifteen years old. Worse, many of them had no one to claim the bodies. The Moravians weren't unwilling to bury the unclaimed dead, but God's Acre was not nearly big enough for the army's needs. In charity, therefore, approximately 500 Revolutionary War dead were interred without grave markers on a nearby hillside, because there was nowhere else to put them. There they rested for more than a hundred years.

This adjacent burial site houses three more
unknown soldiers

Then, in 1932, this tomb was created. It was a joint project between the PHMC (then called the Pennsylvania Historical Commission), the city of Bethlehem, the Valley Forge chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Bethlehem chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. A single skeleton was disinterred from the hillside and reburied where First Avenue meets West Market Street. Much later, in 1996, three more skeletons were buried here as well, after local homeowners stumbled across some remains on their property. The site is maintained and adorned with American flags, and colonial re-enactors occasionally hold ceremonies on the site.

The Unknown Soldier isn't difficult to find - if you know to look for it. Probably the easiest route is to start at the Bethlehem Rose Garden, where the first house replica stands, and follow the blue and white signs; it's only half a mile away, about a three-minute drive. From the Rose Garden starting point on West Union Boulevard, head east, and turn right on Third Avenue. Follow this for a few blocks, turn left onto West Broad Street, then right onto Second Avenue. At the second cross street, turn left onto West Market Street. This will bring you to First Avenue, and the tomb will be right in front of you at the intersection. It's quiet, out of the way, and almost distressingly easy to miss, so I'm happy to share it with anyone who - like me - may not have realized it was there.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Check in at the Tomb of the Unknown on Facebook

Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier on Roadside America

Shaffer, Mark. "The Revolutionary War Burial Ground in Bethlehem." Posted October 29, 2014 on the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation blog of the PHMC.

Novak, Steve. "The story of a mass grave on a Bethlehem hillside, hidden in plain sight." Posted September 1, 2018 on LehighValleyLive.com.

The Unknown Soldier at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.