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Lock of Washington's hair, Moravian items await curious in Nazareth

Morning Call - Allentown, Pa. Author: Frank Whelan Of The Morning Call

Copyright Morning Call Jul 15, 2002

Mark Turdo, curator of the Moravian Historical Society, had a lot of artifacts to choose from when he was planning "A Place in History: The Moravians and Northampton County in American History," the society's contribution to the county's 250th anniversary celebration.

Founded in 1857, the society is the oldest historical group in the Lehigh Valley and has quite an extensive collection. It is located in Nazareth's Whitefield House, a genuine 1740s structure that takes its name from George Whitefield, an 18th-century English evangelist who visited America in the early 1740s.

"He owned some property here and wanted to set up a school for slave children. He met the Moravians and asked them if they were willing to build a structure for him, and they agreed," says Turdo.

After a theological dispute with the Moravians, Whitefield left America, but the building remained. Over the years it served a number of purposes, among them what might be the first child-care center in North America.

From 1745 to 1762 it was used by the Moravians as a full-time nursery. "A primary Moravian concern in those years was having husband-and-wife couples act as missionaries," says Turdo. "But they understood that children would be a distraction for them."

Turdo says there were many things Moravians brought to the Pennsylvania frontier that probably would not have been here that early without them.

"There are some early firsts here. We even have a piece of the wooden water pipe from the Moravian Bethlehem waterworks, the first municipal waterworks in North America," says Turdo.

The waterworks pumped water up the hill from Monocacy Creek to the communal buildings of Bethlehem. It was admired by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and many other visitors to the Colonial settlement. "This piece was uncovered when they were digging up sidewalks," says Turdo.

Items in the exhibit range from the first violin made in North America to a lock of George Washington's hair.

The violin was made by Henry Antes, an early supporter of the Moravians who designed many early Moravian buildings. The lock from Washington dates from a visit he made to the area during the Revolution. A Moravian lady got it from him as a keepsake in the 1780s.

"There are six or seven known locks of his hair around that have been verified [by DNA testing]," Turdo says. "I would love to be able to have this tested sometime."

Asked how he'd feel about having Washington cloned from the society's hairs, Turdo responds, "I don't really think that would be a good idea. You don't know whether the person Washington was came from nature or nurture. You don't know what you'd end up with."

Another item that will draw attention is a Native-American hunting jacket. According to a long tradition that Turdo has not been able to verify, it was supposedly the property of the Seneca Indian leader Red Jacket.

Red Jacket was an ally of the British during the Revolution, who gave him the red coat from which he received his name. However, he sought peace with the new U.S. government and was an official spokesman for the Iroquois Confederacy, of which the Seneca were a part.

"The story is that he gave the hunting jacket to some Moravians in Bethlehem when Red Jacket was going down to Philadelphia for a meeting with President George Washington in the 1790s," says Turdo.

Another item is a shotgun that links the gun-making Moravian Henry family of Jacobsburg to the settlement of the West. It was purchased in London by John Jacob Astor, the German immigrant fur trader whose wealth, later invested in New York real estate, was to make his family among the richest in America.

Astor used the guns in his trading with the Indians. "He showed it to the Henrys and told them to make him one just like it," says Turdo.

History on Display is a monthly feature focusing on local history exhibits.

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