594
 

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII.
 

BETHLEHEM:   NAZA.KETH;   CAKBON   COUNTY.
 

IT-ie   TO   17*53
 

The Moravians.—Purchase of site for Bethlehem.—William Allen.—Nitschmann
settles at Bethlehem.—First house.—Other buildings.—Count Zinzendorf.—
His arrivaL—Settlement named.—Church organized.—Congregation house built.
—Girl's school.—Mill built.—Water-works.—Gnadenhutten.—Nain.—Indian
converts.—Community system.—Severity of disclipine.—Cultivation of music,—
Grant of ferry.—The Moravians and education.—Township organized.—Doctor
Matthew Otto.—The Sun inn.—Spangenberg, Edwards, Horsfield, et al.—Na¬
zareth : Grant to Letitia Penn.—George Whitefield.—Tract purchased by Mo¬
ravians.—First house finished.—Ephrata, et al.—Mill built.—Rose tavern,—
Nazareth hall built.—Road laid out,—Healing waters.—Indians in the Forks,—
Carbon county settled.—Northampton county cut otF from Bucks.—Townships
and population taken.
 

The Moravians, avIio settled the wilderness north of the Lehigh,
were an important accession to the sparse population of that region,
and introduced a higher culture than any class of immigrants Avho had
previously settled in the county. When the MoraAdans were noti¬
fied to leave the Whitefield tract at Nazareth, where they had spent
the Avinter of 1740-41, they purchased five hundred acres of Wil¬
liam Allen, on the north bank of the Lehigh, Avhere Bethlehem
stands.

William Allen, who pla^^ed an important part in the settlement
of this county, and was one of its largest land-owners, Avas the son
of William Allen, a leading merchant of Bhiladelphia.    The son,