The Backwoods of Pennsylvania

The Backwoods of Pennsylvania. . , "After three days march from Germantown, the company of seven brethren, two sisters, and two boys, might have been found seated under a large forest tree, singing songs of praise and prayer to their Lord and Savior." , L.T. Reichel , 1888, describing the Moravians' arrival in Nazareth in 1740, Tracing their roots to 1457, the Moravians are considered to be the oldest Protestant church in the world. In 1735, a group of Moravians headed to Savannah, Georgia to serve as Christian missionaries to American Indians and other area settlers. Insurmountable difficulties disheartened many of them and most returned to Europe in 1740. The nine remaining sailed to Philadelphia with English evangelist George Whitefield, who proposed that the Moravians construct a "school and orphanage for negro children" on his 5,000 acre property, called Nazareth. Their agreement marked the beginning of Moravian activity in this part of Pennsylvania., You are standing in the Ephrata Tract, the heart of the original 5,000 acres. Moravian settlers arrived here on May 30, 1740, spending the first nights under a large oak on the property. While construction was underway on the large stone structure, temporary shelter was needed. The log structure they built was Nazareth's first house It stood on this site until 1864., [Illustration captions, left and right, read] , . An undated lithograph of the First House (left) and the Whitefield House (right) by an unknown artist., . This 1758 map identifies the 5,000 acres that the Moravians purchased in 1741 from George Whitefield. Whitefield had obtained the tract, which he called Nazareth, from William Allen. , Inset: Whitefield House detail