In 1762, Bethlehem built the first waterworks in America to pump water for public use. In historic Bethlehem's God's Acre cemetery, converted Lenape were buried alongside Moravians. The Moravians ministered to the regional Lenape Native Americans through their mission in the area, and to others further east in the New York colony. The historic Brethren's House, Sisters' House, Widows' House, and Gemeinhaus (Congregation House), with the Old Chapel, are remnants of this period of communal living. In the late 1700s, Bethlehem established grist and saw mills, known as Calvin's Mills. But a member of a group of families who were Huguenots also settled in Bethlehem. Until the 1850s, officially only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to lease land plots in Bethlehem. We will call this place Bethlehem.' And so was Bethlehem named after the birthplace of the Man of Peace."īethlehem was started as a typical Moravian Settlement Congregation, where the Church owned all the property. " Count Zinzendorf said, 'Brothers, how more fittingly could we call our new home than to name it in honor of the spot where the event we now commemorate took place. They established missionary communities among the Native Americans and unchurched German-speaking Christians and named the settlement after the Biblical town Bethlehem of Judea, said to be the birthplace of Jesus. On Christmas Eve of that year, David Nitschmann and Nicolaus Zinzendorf, leading a small group of Moravians, founded the mission community of Bethlehem at the confluence of the Monocacy and Lehigh rivers. On April 2, 1741, William Allen, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and political figure, who later founded the city of Allentown, deeded 500 acres along the banks of the Monocacy Creek and Lehigh River to the Moravian Church.
History įurther information: Pennsylvania in the American Revolution It is one of several Lehigh Valley locations, including Egypt, Emmaus, Jordan Creek, and Nazareth whose names were inspired by locations referenced in the Bible. On December 7, 1937, at a grand ceremony during the Great Depression, the city adopted the nickname Christmas City USA in a large ceremony. city to feature a decorated Christmas tree. The city was christened as Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1741 by Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian bishop. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line runs through Bethlehem and west to Allentown and Reading.īethlehem has a long historical relationship with the celebration of Christmas. Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, runs through Bethlehem heading east to Easton and across the Delaware River to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Each of these sections blossomed at different times in the city's development and each contains areas recognized under the National Register of Historic Places. There are four sections to the city: central Bethlehem, the south side, the east side, and the west side.
Bethlehem borders Allentown to its west and is 48 miles (77 km) north of Philadelphia and 72 miles (116 km) west of New York City. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley's second-most populous city. The city is located along the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River.īethlehem lies in the geographic center of the Lehigh Valley, a metropolitan region of 731 sq mi (1,890 km 2) with a population of 861,899 people as of the 2020 census that is Pennsylvania's third-most populous metropolitan area and the 68th-most populated metropolitan area in the U.S. It is Pennsylvania's seventh-most populous city. Among its total population as of 2020, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States.
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