HistoricSiteMarkers
Colonial AmericaAmerican Revolution

Sun Inn

Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Erection begun, 1758; enlarged and altered in 19th century. Considered one of the best inns of its time. Here many notable patriots and military leaders of the Revolutionary War period were entertained.

Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

The Story

Begun in 1758, the Sun Inn quickly earned a reputation as one of the finest hostelries in the colonies, and during the Revolutionary War it welcomed a remarkable roster of patriots and military leaders passing through Bethlehem. Travelers found comfortable lodging and good food at a time when such quality was rare on American roads. The inn's guest list reads like a directory of the Revolutionary generation, making it a crossroads of the era's political and military life.

Why it matters

As a gathering place for the leaders of the American Revolution, the Sun Inn shows how taverns and inns served as informal hubs of communication and hospitality in the founding of the republic.

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Related events

  • ยท American Revolution

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Lafayette

Bethlehem, PA ยท est. 1987

After the young Marquis de Lafayette was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, he was brought to Bethlehem to recover. Here he convalesced at the home of George Frederick Beckel, superintendent of the Moravian community's farm, while the Continental Army fought on nearby. The Beckel house stood for over a century afterward, from 1762 to 1872.

Pulaski's Banner

Bethlehem, PA ยท est. 1974

While the Polish cavalry officer Casimir Pulaski guarded this area in 1778, the Moravian women of Bethlehem stitched a crimson banner for his legion, which his horsemen carried until he fell at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. The gift became one of the Revolution's cherished legends, later immortalized in Longfellow's verse "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns." The story bound a foreign volunteer's sacrifice to the quiet devotion of a Pennsylvania religious community.

Brethren's House

Bethlehem, PA ยท est. 1964

The Moravians who founded Bethlehem built this stone house in 1748 to lodge their unmarried men, and it quickly became a hive of colonial-era craft โ€” a bell foundry, silkworm raising, and other trades that made the community largely self-sufficient. During the Revolution it sheltered wounded Continental soldiers as a military hospital, and after 1815 it opened as a girls' school before becoming part of Moravian College and a museum.

Revolutionary War Soldiers Reinterment Memorial

Bethlehem, PA

During the Revolutionary War, the Moravian town of Bethlehem served as a refuge and a major Continental Army hospital, and scores of soldiers who died of their wounds or of camp diseases were buried in its ground. Two centuries later, when those long-forgotten graves were disturbed or rediscovered, the remains were gathered and reinterred with honor, marked by this monument dedicated on May 25, 1996. The stone stands not for a battle but for the quiet toll of the war's sick and wounded far from any front line.