Lower Nazareth Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania in the 1770s

Work

Grain and useful trades

The surrounding county economy was no wilderness subsistence: the 1774 grain crop was counted in Conestoga-wagon loads, and mills, horses, cattle, and sheep filled the tax summaries³. In New Nazareth, Moravian members bought land and opened businesses⁵ after the communal economy ended.

Faith

Churches ruled the calendar

This was a mixed Protestant countryside: Reformed and Lutheran congregations greatly outnumbered other churches in Northampton County³. Locally, Dryland Union Church joined Lutheran and Reformed worship at Hecktown from 1763⁷, while Moravian Nazareth remained tightly ordered.

Law & power

Constables, courts, congregation

Civil power reached the countryside through township officers: the constable served warrants, ran township elections, and policed Sunday tavern drinking³. In Moravian Nazareth, the congregation supervised religious, social, and economic affairs⁵ more closely than an ordinary township.

In the air

Revolution came as argument

Politics was not distant: after Lexington and Concord reached Northampton in April 1775, the county committee ordered mobilization³. By May 1776, about 900 militiamen near Allentown backed replacing Pennsylvania’s provincial government³.

What people feared

War pressed into farms

The war’s pressure came through militia duty, suspicion, and absence from home: more than 2,300 county men joined township military associations in 1775³. After 1777, white men aged eighteen to fifty-three could be called for rotating two-month militia duty³.

Home & table

A young German county

The ordinary household world was youthful and mostly German-speaking: about 80 percent of county residents were of German ancestry³, and half the county population was twenty-one or younger³. The exact look of farmhouses in the Drylands is harder to pin down because no street-by-street description survives online here.

Who lived here

Moravians among many Germans

Moravians were visible but not the majority: Reformed and Lutheran churches dominated county worship³. Nazareth itself was exceptional because it was open only to Moravian residents and governed by the congregation⁵.

Roads & news

Easton carried the county

News, lawsuits, taxes, and strangers converged on Easton, a county seat of about 400 people with a courthouse and around 75 shops and houses³. Roads from Easton linked the county toward New York, Philadelphia, Reading, Lancaster, and beyond.

Year by year

1. 1771New Nazareth was laid out with Center and Main Streets crossing at a square. here⁵
2. 1774Northampton County had about 15,000 inhabitants, about 5 percent of Pennsylvania’s population. nearby³
3. 1774A mass meeting at Easton supported the colonial protest movement after Parliament’s punishment of Boston. nearby
4. 1775Lexington and Concord news reached Northampton County and brought orders to mobilize for self-defense. nearby³
5. 1776The Declaration of Independence and Pennsylvania’s new revolutionary government made loyalty a public question. the country
6. 1776About 600 Northampton militiamen marched in December to help defend Philadelphia from the British Army. nearby³
7. 1777Pennsylvania’s militia law made military duty compulsory for most white men aged eighteen to fifty-three. the country³
8. 1779Nazareth Hall’s boys’ school closed until 1785 amid wartime financial trouble and declining enrollment. here⁴

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Lower Nazareth Township did not exist as a separately incorporated township in the 1770s; local planning history says it was not officially incorporated until 1807. from the sources¹
• The area later called Lower Nazareth was part of the Walking Purchase of 1737 and was locally known as the Drylands, with a township account describing it as rich eastern Pennsylvania farmland. inferred²
• Nazareth’s New Nazareth section was laid out in 1771, so it was new ground in this decade. from the sources⁵
• New Nazareth was planned in the shape of a cross, with Center and Main Streets intersecting at a square. from the sources⁵
• The Moravians began the Gray Cottage and Whitefield House in the 1740s; the borough history says Whitefield House later housed worship, schooling, a nursery, and seminary uses. inferred⁶
• Nazareth Hall was built in 1755 as a manor house, used as the community chapel, and from 1759 housed the Moravian boys’ school. from the sources^4,5
• Dryland Union Church at Hecktown traces its documented beginning to 1763, when Lutheran and Reformed congregations formed a union church on Casper Wister’s land near today’s Steuben Road and Route 191. inferred⁷
• Across Northampton County in 1774, the grain harvest would have filled about 4,500 Conestoga wagons, and the county had 60 gristmills, 30 sawmills, 3,000 horses and mares, 3,400 horned cattle, and more than 1,000 sheep. from the sources³
• By 1774 Northampton County had about 15,000 inhabitants, about 5 percent of Pennsylvania’s population. from the sources³
• About 80 percent of Northampton County’s inhabitants in 1774 were of German ancestry, with Scots-Irish, English, Huguenots, Dutch, and Welsh making up most of the rest. from the sources³
• Half of Northampton County’s population in 1774 was twenty-one years old or younger. from the sources³
• Northampton County had three towns in the 1770s: Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, with Easton serving as the county seat. from the sources³
• Easton, the county seat, had about 400 people, roughly 75 shops and houses, and the county courthouse; county residents came there four times a year for quarter sessions court. from the sources³
• Each Northampton township elected officers, including a constable who served warrants, presided over township elections, and enforced the ban on Sunday drinking in public houses. from the sources³
• Northampton County’s worship landscape included Reformed, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Moravian, and Mennonite congregations, but Reformed and Lutheran churches greatly outnumbered the others. from the sources³
• Nazareth was still a planned Moravian religious community in the 1770s; the congregation supervised religious, social, and economic affairs, and until 1856 the town was open only to Moravian residents. from the sources⁵
• The Moravian General Economy at Nazareth ended in 1764, but in the 1770s members bought land in New Nazareth and opened their own businesses. from the sources⁵
• The Moravian boys’ school at Nazareth Hall accepted non-Moravian boys by 1762 but closed from 1779 to 1785 because of financial difficulties, probably linked to declining enrollment during the Revolution. from the sources⁴
• When news of Lexington and Concord reached Northampton County in April 1775, the county committee ordered inhabitants to mobilize for self-defense. from the sources³
• More than 2,300 Northampton County men, most of the county’s male population between sixteen and sixty, joined township military associations in 1775. from the sources³
• In May 1776, about 900 Northampton militiamen assembled near Allentown and pledged support for replacing Pennsylvania’s provincial government. from the sources³
• Pennsylvania’s militia law of March 17, 1777 required white men aged eighteen to fifty-three who could bear arms to serve rotating two-month militia duty, with fines or substitutes as alternatives. from the sources³
• In December 1776 about 600 Northampton militiamen marched to help defend Philadelphia from the British Army. from the sources³
• No online source opened here gives a surviving street-by-street description of houses in the Drylands outside Moravian Nazareth during the 1770s. not known

Sources

1. Lower Nazareth Township Open Space Master Plan. Lower Nazareth Township, 2019
2. The History of Lower Nazareth Township. Lower Nazareth Township
3. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Ordeal of the American Revolution in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Penn State University Press, 2000
4. Digital Collections Spotlight #17: Nazareth Hall. Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, 2021
5. Nazareth Borough, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. LivingPlaces.com
6. History. Borough of Nazareth
7. Our History. Dryland United Church of Christ

Lower Nazareth Township in other decades

Nearby, about the same time