Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf

In 1742, Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf of Saxony, the leader and organizer of the modern day Moravian Church, preached at Jacob Huber's tavern north of Lititz while searching for a tract of land on which to establish a religious community. Through his preaching, John George Klein was inspired to turn over his tract of 491 acres along Carter's Run, today known as the Lititz Run, and this became the new settlement. On June 12, 1756, the Moravian Brethren received a letter from Europe from Count Zinzendorf in which he named the new settlement Litiz, the German spelling, commemorating the castle of Lidice nad Citadelou in northeastern Bohemia near the Silesian-Moravia border, where the early Moravian Brethren found refuge in 1456.

Lititz, Pennsylvania · United States