Colonial Industrial Quarter

By 1745, only four years after founding Bethlehem in 1741, the Moravians, a modern Protestant religious group from Germany, had established 35 different crafts, trades, and industries in their community. Many of these industries were located along the Monocacy Creek in an area now called the Colonial Industrial Quarter. Moravian craftsmen used the creek’s waterpower to turn waterwheels that moved equipment to grind grain, pump water, full cloth, press flax seeds, grind bark, and soften hemp. These industries helped make early Bethlehem a nearly self-sufficient community and enabled the Moravians to support their extensive missionary activities. Productivity here reached its peak between the 1770s and 1800.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania · United States