Bethania grew from the Moravians’ search for refuge and a renewed church life after centuries of persecution. In 1751 Moravian leaders in London accepted John Carteret, Lord Granville’s offer to purchase 100,000 acres in Carolina, and in 1752 Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg led an exploring party from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, surveyed land along the three forks of Muddy Creek, and named the tract Wachovia. In 1759 Spangenberg and other church leaders laid out Wachovia’s first planned community at Black Walnut Bottom and brought from Pennsylvania the name Bethania. The settlement developed alongside Bethabara and later Salem, endured the French and Indian War as part of a far western frontier outpost, received visits from travelers and Governor William Tryon, and was affected by county boundary changes. During the Revolutionary era, representatives from Bethania, Bethabara, and Salem declared the Moravians to be quiet people who would pay taxes and not meddle in politics; in 1781 British forces under Lord Cornwallis passed through Wachovia and spent the night in Bethania, and the Moravians tended wounded from both armies after Guilford Courthouse. Peace was marked in 1783, and Bethania continued to grow with a mill, a post office, a community store, and a brick church consecrated in 1809 whose exterior walls survived into the 21st century. The Moravian Church later sold businesses and land in Bethania, the town was incorporated in 1839, and an African American religious community emerged there, first worshiping within the Moravian congregation, then developing burial grounds, a Little Log Church, and eventually the independent Bethania African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Bethania was drawn into the Civil War era by North Carolina’s secession and by General Stoneman’s 1865 passage through Wachovia. In the later 19th and 20th centuries, roads, mills, schools, and churches served the community, fire destroyed the Bethania Moravian Church’s contents in 1942, and preservation and civic renewal followed with bicentennial observances, historic district recognition, revival of the town charter, designation as a National Historic Landmark, restoration projects, a visitor center, and the celebration of Bethania’s 250th anniversary in 2009.