Well, the verdict is in - I've been battling an upper respiratory infection since the new year started. I'm doing much better now than I was these past two Wednesdays, and I'm easing myself back into the blogging saddle. I still have some lingering symptoms, so this update is a slow process.
I took the pictures in this blog post a few years ago when it was quite cold and the ground was covered with snow. As I write the post, it's actually even colder and, once again, the ground is covered in snow - meaning that the photos remain very accurate for the moment.
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| The marker stands on East Center Street (PA 91) near North Pine Street |
I first touched on the origins of Nazareth when telling you about Whitefield House, named for and originally established by the great Anglican preacher George Whitefield. George, as I mentioned in that post, was thoroughly disgusted by the way his fellow colonials treated African slaves, and he had established a school in Georgia for orphaned slave children. He wanted to do the same thing in Pennsylvania, so he purchased a large tract of land in Northampton County and named it the Barony of Nazareth.
At the same time this was happening, a Moravian settlement in Georgia was failing badly. The Moravians had come to the New World to spread the gospel, but their attempts to do so in Georgia were not well received. Other colonists looked askance at the Moravians' efforts to befriend Native Americans and African slaves, and they perhaps sensed that whatever welcome they had been given was quickly wearing out. So one imagines that they were eager to accept the invitation to travel north to build George Whitefield's school for him. They boarded his clipper ship, the Savannah, and sailed to the port of Philadelphia; from there they traveled to the Barony of Nazareth. In March of 1740 they started to work. Their first construction was the building known today as Gray Cottage, which is the oldest surviving Moravian building in North America; this was their lodging while they got started on the school.
Exactly what caused the Moravians and George Whitefield to have a falling out remains unclear. It was apparently some kind of theological dispute, possibly something to do with the concept of predestination, but the exact details don't seem to have been recorded. Anglicans and Moravians are both of the Protestant branch of Christianity, so I can only guess that it was an argument over some of the finer points of difference between them, and to be honest I don't know enough about either one to hazard a guess. All we know for sure is that in 1741, the Moravians purchased a tract of land south of the Whitefield property, and they packed up and left the school foundation unfinished. The land they purchased would become the great Moravian settlement of Bethlehem, and meanwhile, George had to figure out how to get his school finished.
Spoiler alert, he didn't. He continued preaching, and trying to support that orphanage he had already established in Georgia, but it drained him almost to bankruptcy. Within just two years, his financial situation had grown so dire that he made peace with his former adversaries, and sold 5,000 acres of his land to the Moravians, including Gray Cottage and the foundation of the now-abandoned school project. Since they had been so successful with Bethlehem, the Moravians named this new settlement Nazareth, after Jesus Christ's hometown, and they got right back to work and finished the school building. They even named it Whitefield House after its original patron, and it has served multiple purposes over the years, including as a house of worship and a girls' boarding school; today it's the home of the Moravian Historical Society.
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| Nazareth Moravian Church |
They also constructed Nazareth Hall, because Count Zinzendorf had visited the settlement before returning to his home in Germany, and they (for some reason) thought he might come back and live there permanently. He didn't, so instead Nazareth Hall became a highly-respected boys' school from 1752 until 1929. Today it's part of the Nazareth Tract, a group of buildings constructed by the Moravians; like Whitefield House and Gray Cottage, the Tract is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Nazareth holds firm to its roots and is very proud of its history. As I mentioned, Whitefield House is home of the Moravian Historical Society, which is the third oldest historical society in Pennsylvania and conducts many events to highlight the history of Nazareth, the Lehigh Valley, and the Moravian people as a whole.
Nazareth is, or has been, home to a number of other points of interest. Since 1838, C. F. Martin Guitars, the world-famous manufacturer of high-quality musical instruments, has housed its operations there. Still owned by the Martin family, it's one of the Lehigh Valley's signature businesses. From 1910 to 2004, the Nazareth Speedway provided a local venue for auto racing, and the Andretti family of NASCAR fame (Mario, Michael, and Marco) has lived in Nazareth since 1955. Nazareth has also been a significant location for cement and textile manufacturing.
My favorite thing about Nazareth is that it's the starting point of the annual Christmas Peace Pilgrimage. One Saturday each December, regardless of the weather, locals walk the ten miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem (with two rest stops along the way) in a symbolic re-enactment of Joseph and Mary's trek in the New Testament. They carry star-shaped signs and pray for peace throughout the world. Anyone is welcome to participate; if you can't walk the full ten miles, you can join the procession at any point along the walk, and vehicles are available to transport anyone who isn't able to complete the trip on foot. I think the Moravians who started all this would have approved.
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.
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