Christiansbrunn (Christian's Spring) is the name of two communities established in Pennsylvania.
Christiansbrunn (Christian's Spring) is the name of two communities established in Pennsylvania.
A community of Single Brothers was established by the Moravian Unity in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania in 1747. It was based on communal ideals developed by church leader Nicholas Ludwig Zinzendorf. The community was originally named Albrechtsbrunn, the Spring of Albrecht, an early brother. Water power was used to power a grist and saw mill which burned in 1749. Only the saw mill was rebuilt. The spring also supplied water to other industries including a milk house, distillery and brewery. Much of the community's 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) were also farmed and the surplus crops were used to support the Moravians’ vast missionary effort. At its height the community had nearly three hundred cattle and six teams of oxen.
The community was renamed Christiansbrunn and formally dedicated on August 4, 1749, in honor of Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf, head of the Single Brothers. He was then living at Herrnhaag in Germany but was expected to come live at the community. Several dozen men who left Herrnhaag due to scandalous events there later settled at Christiansbrunn. They continued the cult of the community's namesake much to the dismay of church leaders in Bethlehem and Christiansbrunn remained a source of embarrassment to the church due to its all-male population.
The elder Zinzendorf was also expected to come to America to live and a manor house for him was constructed at the nearby Moravian community of Nazareth. That building, Nazareth Hall, still exists. Peach trees, Christian Renatus' favorite fruit, were planted so they would bear fruit by the time he arrived. However he died in 1752 in London. A belief among the brothers that Christian Renatus' spirit was in the spring itself was expressed in a poem of the time. [1] Visitors to the site often commented on the tame trout that lived in the spring.
In 1757 sixteen boys from Bethlehem were sent to Christiansbrunn to learn trades that including farming, shoe making and writing (for maintaining community records). Silk making was also started, as well as rifle making. Christian Oerter, a noted American gun maker, made long rifles there and is buried in the Moravian Cemetery outside Nazareth. Hemp and flax were processed and woven. Music was also important, both singing and instrumental playing; the community had a trombone choir.
In 1771, Christiansbrunn was the last Moravian community in the United States to have its communal economy disbanded. The community continued until officially disbanded by the church on April 1, 1796. The remaining farming operations were placed in the hands of family men while "several of the deteriorated bachelors were given a mere asylum there under watchful restraint" in the words of a late nineteenth-century historian who blamed conditions in the community on alcoholism and a "decadence that became hopeless." [2]
A visitor in 1862 recalled how the community had looked forty years earlier: "The red-tiled roofs, the solid stone masonry of most of the buildings, and the peculiar structure of others, in which the frame is filled in with mortar mixed with cut straw, denoted at once the foreign origin of its founders." [3] The church sold the property in the 1840s when much of its once vast holdings in the Lehigh Valley were dispersed. The remaining buildings were photographed in the 1880s. A visitor in 1914 noted that only a stone house remained of the original settlement and that even the spring was covered by a recent shed. [4] As of January, 2009, those two structures remained. The stone building was the Familienhaus in which lived two married couples who oversaw the community of single brothers.
Northampton County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 312,951. Its county seat is Easton. The county was formed in 1752 from parts of Bucks County. Its namesake was the county of Northamptonshire in England, and the county seat of Easton was named for Easton Neston, a country house in Northamptonshire.
Nazareth is a borough in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The borough's population was 6,053 at the 2020 census. Nazareth is part of the Lehigh Valley metropolitan area, which had a population of 861,899 and was the 68th-most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. as of 2020.
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781, making it the second-largest city in the Lehigh Valley after Allentown and the seventh-largest city in the state. Among its total population as of 2020, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. The city is located along the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River.
Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figure of 18th-century Protestantism.
Moravian University is a private university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The institution traces its founding to 1742 by Moravians, descendants of followers of the Bohemian Reformation under John Amos Comenius.
Herrnhut is a town of around 6,000 inhabitants in Upper Lusatia, in the district of Görlitz, in eastern Saxony, Germany. The town is mainly known as the place of origin of the community of the Moravian Church, and of the Moravian Stars.
The Moravian Church, or the Moravian Brethren, formally the Unitas Fratrum, is one of the oldest Protestant denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohemian Reformation of the 15th century and the Unity of the Brethren founded in the Kingdom of Bohemia, sixty years before Martin Luther's Reformation.
Old Salem is a historic district of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, which was originally settled by the Moravian community in 1766. It features a living-history museum which interprets the restored Moravian community. The non-profit organization began its work in 1950, although some private residents had restored buildings earlier. As the Old Salem Historic District, it was declared a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1966, and expanded fifty years later. The district showcases the culture of the Moravian settlement in the Province of North Carolina during the colonial 18th century and post-statehood 19th century via its communal buildings, churches, houses and shops.
God's Acre is a churchyard, specifically the burial ground. The word comes from the German word Gottesacker, an ancient designation for a burial ground. The use of "Acre" is related to, but not derived from the unit of measurement and can be of any size. In the early 17th century the term was used as a translation of the German, but by the end of the century, it was accepted as an English term.
Nazareth Hall (1752–1929) was a school in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It was built, by master mason Melchior Rasp, in 1754 in hopes that Count Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf would return from Europe and settle permanently in the community; he never came back to America. It is located in the Nazareth Hall Tract, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Moravian Church in North America is part of the worldwide Moravian Church Unity. It dates from the arrival of the first Moravian missionaries to the United States in 1735, from their Herrnhut settlement in present-day Saxony, Germany. They came to minister to the scattered German immigrants, to the Native Americans and to enslaved Africans. They founded communities to serve as home bases for these missions. The missionary "messengers" were financially supported by the work of the "laborers" in these settlements. Currently, there are more than 60,000 members.
This article covers the period from the origin of the Moravian Church, as well as the related Hussite Church and Unity of the Brethren, in the early fourteenth century to the beginning of mission work in 1732. Further expanding the article, attention will also be paid to the early Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, following their first arrival in Nazareth, Pennsylvania in 1740.
The Moravian Museum of Bethlehem, also known as the 1741 Gemeinhaus and the Lewis David de Schweinitz Residence, is a historic house museum at 66 West Church Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Built in 1741 to house the early Moravian community as well as the community's place of worship, the Saal, it is the oldest surviving building in Bethlehem, the largest surviving log house in continuous use in the U.S. and also significant for its association with the botanist and mycologist Lewis David de Schweinitz (1780–1834). It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975. The building is part of the Historic Moravian Bethlehem District which was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 2012 and later named to the U.S. Tentative List in 2016 for nomination to the World Heritage List.
Imperial Count Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was the charismatic leader of the Single Brethren's Choir of the Moravian Church and of Herrnhaag, a Christian religious community built near Büdingen by his father, Count Nicholas Ludwig, head of the Brüdergemeine or Moravian Unity. Christian Renatus, affectionately known as Christel, took his father’s marriage religion (Ehereligion) literally, proclaiming himself to be the living "Sidewound of Christ" in 1748, which meant he was the embodiment of Christ's sacrificial and compassionate love.
Herrnhaag was a communal spiritual centre for the Moravian Unity, an early form of Protestantism. It and Marienborn, a nearby sister community, are located in the Wetterau, an area of Hesse, north of Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
Fulneck Moravian Church and its associated settlement were established on the Fulneck estate, Pudsey, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, in 1744 by Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a Moravian Bishop and Lutheran priest, following a donation of land by the evangelical Anglican clergyman, Benjamin Ingham. Fulneck is now part of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire.
David Tannenberg (1728–1804) was a Moravian organ builder who emigrated to Pennsylvania. He is cited as the most important American organ-builder of his time. He constructed a number of organs during his lifetime, as well as other keyboard instruments. Many of the organs that he built are still in use.
Christian Gregor was a Moravian composer and bishop.
The Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1857. Its mission is to preserve, interpret, and celebrate the rich culture of the Moravians. It is the third oldest historical society in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Moravian Historical Society is located in the 1740-1743 Whitefield House in downtown Nazareth.
Benigna Zinzendorf, also known as Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725–1789), was the founder of the first boarding school for girls in the British American colonies, which became Moravian University and Moravian Academy. She was a missionary among Native Americans and assisted her father, Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, and her husband, Bishop Johannes Langguth, in their religious activities in Europe and America. She enjoyed music and was an Eldress to girls' choirs beginning at the age of 14 and was a leader in an adult choir after she was married.
Sawyer, Edwin A. (1988) Christian Spring, Nazareth, Pa. 1988. Moravian Hall Square Museum Craft Shop. Henry, James. Christian Spring. Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1868 - 1876). Jacobson, Henry A. Revolutionary Notes on Friedensthal, Christian Spring, and Nazareth. Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. II, No. 1 (1877-1886). Beck, Clara A. The Single Brethren of the Moravian Church in the Barony of Nazareth. Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. XI, No. 2 (1931-1936)