BETHLEHEM

18th century

On April 2, 1741, William Allen, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and political figure, who later founded the city of Allentown, deeded 500 acres (200 ha) along the banks of the Monocacy Creek and Lehigh River to the Moravian Church. On Christmas Eve of that year, David Nitschmann and Nicolaus Zinzendorf, leading a small group of Moravians, founded the mission community of Bethlehem at the confluence of the Monocacy and Lehigh rivers. This group included John Martin Mack, who later became bishop of the Moravians in the Virgin Islands.

They established missionary communities among the Native Americans and unchurched German-speaking Christians and named the settlement after the Biblical town Bethlehem of Judea, said to be the birthplace of Jesus. "Count Zinzendorf said, 'Brothers, how more fittingly could we call our new home than to name it in honor of the spot where the event we now commemorate took place. We will call this place Bethlehem.' And so was Bethlehem named after the birthplace of the Man of Peace."

Bethlehem was started as a typical Moravian Settlement Congregation, where the Church owned all the property. In the late 1700s, Bethlehem established grist and saw mills, known as Calvin's Mills. The historic Brethren's House, Sisters' House, Widows' House, and Congregation House, with the Old Chapel, are remnants of this period of communal living.

Moravians ministered to the regional Lenape Native Americans through their mission in the area, and to others further east in the New York colony. In historic Bethlehem's God's Acre cemetery, converted Lenape were buried alongside Moravians. In 1762, Bethlehem built the first waterworks in America to pump water for public use.

In the autumn of 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, many patriots fled from Philadelphia to Bethlehem and the surrounding area as the British Army advanced from the east. The Marquis de Lafayette recovered from an injury received at the Battle of Brandywine in Bethlehem, and several of the most prominent members of the Continental Congress fled north to Bethlehem before the congress eventually reconvened in Lancaster. Before, during, and after the American Revolution, Bethlehem was visited by George Washington and his wife Martha, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, and the Marquis de Lafayette.

On September 22, 1777, records show, 14 of the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress signed the Moravian Sun Inn register in Bethlehem and stayed there overnight.

George Washington stored his personal effects at the James Burnside farm at 1461 Schoenersville Road in Bethlehem. As of 1998, the farm is operated as a historical museum known as James Burnside Plantation.

19th century

In 1845, Bethlehem was a prosperous village that was incorporated into a free borough in the County of Northampton. After the Unity Synod of 1848, Bethlehem became the headquarters of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in North America. On March 27, 1900, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem presented the United States debut of German Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor in the city's Central Moravian Church. Bethlehem was one of the four leading Moravian communities in the Northeastern United States; Emmaus, Lititz, and Nazareth, each in Pennsylvania, were the three others.

Until the 1850s, officially only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to lease land plots in Bethlehem. A member of a group of Huguenot families also settled in Bethlehem.

In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, the Borough of South Bethlehem was formed. In 1886, the Borough of West Bethlehem in Lehigh County was formed.

20th century

With the turn of the century the Bethlehem began a concerted effort to annex neighboring municipalities. In 1901, the Borough of Northampton Heights was incorporated. In 1904 Bethlehem absorbed West Bethlehem followed shortly after in 1905 by Hottlesville. South Bethlehem would attempt to resist merger and incorporated themselves as their own city in 1913; however, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania struck down their incorporation as unconstitutional in 1915 and in 1917 South Bethlehem would be annexed, shortly after by Northampton Heights in 1918.

Following the merger with South Bethlehem, the new consolidated City of Bethlehem was incorporated. Bethlehem Steel executive Archibald Johnston was elected the new city's first mayor. With the annexation of Hottlesville, Macada, Altonah, and the former town of Shimersville, Bethlehem's present borders were established.