Emmaus
Emmaus, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Called by the Indians "Macungie," or "feeding place of the bears." Area settlement begun in 1730's, and a Shelter House was erected in 1734. Moravians established a "Gemein-Ort," or congregational village, and named it after the biblical town of Emmaus in 1761.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Long before European settlers, the Lenape knew this place as "Macungie," the feeding place of the bears. Settlement began in the 1730s, and a sturdy Shelter House went up in 1734 to protect the community. In 1761 Moravians organized a close-knit congregational village here—a "Gemein-Ort"—and gave it the biblical name Emmaus.
Why it matters
Emmaus reflects both the deep Native presence in the Lehigh Valley and the distinctive Moravian tradition of building tightly ordered religious communities in colonial Pennsylvania.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Moravian Cemetery
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1953
Consecrated by Count von Zinzendorf, this burial ground served Moravian Bethlehem from 1742 to 1910. In keeping with the community's belief that all are equal in death, only flat gravestones were permitted, laid in orderly rows without grand monuments. Here rest people of many nationalities and races — European settlers alongside Native American and African converts — a quiet testament to the Moravians' unusually inclusive spiritual vision.
Nazareth
Nazareth, PA · est. 1966
Nazareth was founded in 1740 by Moravian settlers who had abandoned a struggling colony in Georgia and sought a fresh start in Pennsylvania. Under Bishop August Spangenberg they built the "Great Economy," a communal system running from 1745 to 1765 in which labor and goods were pooled. The whole enterprise was designed to sustain Moravian missionaries carrying their faith to Native peoples.
Anthony Sadowski
Amity Township, PA · est. 1966
Anthony Sadowski, a Polish pioneer, settled along the Schuylkill River in this region in 1712, making his living as a trader among the Native peoples of the area. His command of frontier diplomacy led the Provincial Government to employ him as a messenger and interpreter during negotiations with Indian tribes in 1728, and he was buried here in 1736 in the graveyard of St. Gabriel's Church.
Indian Jasper Quarries
Upper Milford Township, PA · est. 1952
Long before European settlers arrived, Native people worked the jasper outcrops of the Lehigh hills, chipping the hard, colorful stone into knives, scrapers, and projectile points. These quarries were among the most productive in the region, and finished jasper tools traveled through trade networks that reached as far as New England. The pits and scatter of worked stone in the nearby woods mark centuries of Indigenous craft and commerce.