Note 34 — TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF NORTH AMERICA, IN THE YEARS 1832, 1833, AND 1834

Bethlehem is today a post borough and summer resort in Southampton County, Pennsylvania, fifty-six miles north of Philadelphia. At times during the Revolutionary War, it was the general hospital headquarters for the Continental army and about five hundred soldiers were buried there. In 1740, under the leadership of Whitefield, a small body of Moravians who had recently migrated to Georgia settled on the Forks of the Delaware. Within a few weeks, however, doctrinal differences influenced Whitefield to expel the Moravians from his estate. Through the labors of Bishop Nitschmann, the latter purchased from William Allen five hundred acres on the banks of the Lehigh River. Count Zinzendorf, visiting the hamlet at Christmas in the same year, named it Bethlehem. It has since remained the centre of the northern division of the Moravian church in the United States.—Ed.