Horses for Sale in Hamburg PA, Walnutport PA

About Bethlehem, PA

The areas along the Delaware River and its tributaries in eastern Pennsylvania were long inhabited by indigenous peoples of various cultures. By the time of European contact, these areas were the historic territory of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape Nation, which had three main divisions, the Unami, Unalachtigo, and Munsee. They traded with the Dutch and then English colonists in the mid-Atlantic area. 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. On Christmas Eve of that year David Nitschmann and Count Zinzendorf, leading a small group of Moravians, founded the mission community of Bethlehem at the juncture of the Monocacy and Lehigh.