Moravian Cemetery
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Used as a burial place, 1742-1910. Site selected and consecrated by Count von Zinzendorf. Only flat gravestones were permitted. Here are the graves of persons of various nationalities and races.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
This "God's Acre" made a radical statement for its time, burying people of every background as equals, and stands as an early American expression of the idea that dignity transcends race and station.
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Related people
- · Count von Zinzendorf
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Emmaus
Emmaus, PA · est. 1966
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.
Whitefield House
Nazareth, PA · est. 1966
The Whitefield House was begun in 1740 at the urging of the famed revivalist preacher George Whitefield, who envisioned it as a school for Black children. When his plans faltered, the Moravians completed the building in 1743 and put it to communal use—most memorably as a shared home for 32 newly married German couples brought to Pennsylvania in 1744. Its stout walls have watched over Nazareth ever since.
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.
Colonel Jacob Stroud - PLAQUE
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1931
This graveyard began as the cemetery of the Mission of Dansbury, a Moravian outpost started in 1743 near where Daniel Brodhead had settled in 1736. The mission chapel was destroyed during the Indian uprising of 1755 amid the French and Indian War, then rebuilt. Colonel Jacob Stroud — the frontier officer and founder of Stroudsburg — lies buried here.