Valley History

The Lehigh area, principally Northampton and Lehigh counties, appears never to have been a thriving area of Indian or Native American culture, although it was hunted, fished, and, in a few locations, briefly cultivated by members of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribes. Apparently some Indians lived briefly in a few locations, but their occupation was sparse and impermanent. More significant Indian population centers were located in what is now Bucks County to the south of Lehigh. Although they apparently hunted in the Lehigh Valley, the land to the north of ridge of Kittatinny (Blue) Mountain was probably of greater value to them as a hunting ground.

The Indians also quarried jasper in numerous locations along the flanks of South Mountain ranging from the Delaware River nearly to the Schuykill River. The jasper was used for points and blades, and some of the diggings may have been sufficiently large to support small habitations.

Europeans first entered the area in about 1701 to trade with the Indians. The first European settlers were from Germany, attracted by advertisements sent abroad by William Penn. Several families had settled in the area by 1730. In the late 1730s, Penn’s sons acquired from the Indians a large tract of land that included most of the Lehigh Valley through the ‘Walking Purchase.’ Although many Indians resented the Walking Purchase, the Delaware tribes had little recourse. By 1742, all but a few Indians had left the area; those who remained did so through special grants. Iroquois tribes to the north had long sought dominance over the Delawares, and they assisted the European settlers in removing Indians from the area claimed by the Penns. Kittatinny Mountain became something of a frontier and several forts were established along the frontier to protect Europeans and their property from occasional Indian raids that peaked in the 1750s and early 1760s. By the mid-1760s, the Indians had largely given up any efforts to reclaim the region.

In general, the early European settlers were single families operating without any organization. In 1740, however, a band of Moravians, a protestant group, arrived with George Whitefield from Georgia. That group acquired a tract of land at what became Nazareth. The Moravians intended to be missionaries to the Indians in the area. They purchased land at the confluence of Monacacy Creek and the Lehigh River in 1741. This Moravian settlement, named on Christmas Eve, 1741, from the birthplace of Christ in Judea, by Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf.  The Indians called the site of Bethlehem “Menagachsink” meaning “at the bending creek” probably with reference to the sharp turn of Monocacy Creek where it joins the Lehigh River.

Bethlehem was at first a Moravian community governed by religious ideals. The community operated under a ‘general economy’ that was communal in nature. The transition to a privatized economy began in the late 1700s with the establishment of a lease system that allowed families to own the houses in which they lived but required them to lease the land on which the houses stood. By the time of the Revolutionary War, numerous private homes and commercial buildings had been developed. Developments after the War included the construction of the bridge over the Lehigh River (1794) and the Central Moravian Church (1806).

By 1824, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company opened a canal that connected Bethlehem to the world. In 1844, the Bethlehem Moravians eliminated the lease system, which was followed almost immediately by the incorporation of the Borough of Bethlehem in 1845 with a population of about 1000. By the mid-1850s, Bethlehem’s connections to the world were opened wider by the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which was founded by Asa Packer, who had made his fortune in the coal mines to the north. The Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey closely follow the Lehigh River from Easton to Lehigh Gap and beyond.  Branches of these two railroads tap the cement and slate districts.  The Lehigh & New England Railroads traverses the cement and slate districts and connects the anthracite fields to New England, with branches extending to Bethlehem and Allentown.  The Reading Railroad connects Bethlehem to Philadelphia.

In the years preceding the Civil War, iron ore, which had been known in the valleys just south of South Mountain since the time of the first Europeans in the area, was developed into an industry. The Bethlehem Rolling Mills and Iron Company, founded in 1860, was supported by Packer and a group of Moravian merchants. The Company was strategically located in South Bethlehem along the tracks of Packer’s railroad, which brought coal from the north and shipped iron to the world. Abundant sources of higher-grade iron ores were developed in Michigan and Minnesota at about the same time as the founding of the iron industry in Bethlehem. Nevertheless, the ready availability of coal and limestone, which is essential to the refining process, the transportation infrastructure of the canals and railroads, and the proximity to markets allowed the Lehigh Valley to gain and retain prominence in iron and, later, steel production.

Although Packer claimed to know little of the business of education, his life as an industrial pioneer fostered a vision of a national economy based on more than technical skills. He saw a need for broadly educated people who possessed practical skills tempered with discipline, moral will, and enlightened judgement. In 1864, Packer proposed the foundation of an educational institution to serve the Lehigh Valley. He seeded the institution with $500,000, which was the largest single gift to higher education at that time, and Lehigh University was born in 1865. Much building was done on the new Lehigh University campus beginning in 1866.  A Moravian church on Packer Avenue was remodeled into Christmas Hall; a house for the President was erected on campus and Packer Hall was built.

Portland cement was manufactured in America first in the Lehigh Valley, beginning in 1878. The raw materials, shaly or argillaceous limestones, are plentiful here, coal was readily available for the manufacturing process, and transportation systems were available to move the product to the growing cities of the northeast, middle Atlantic, and midwest regions. The production of lime, mainly for agriculture and masonry mortar, is closely associated with the cement industry. Lime production utilizes limestone with low clay content, but as with cement manufacture, the limestone is burned to drive off the carbon dioxide, leaving behind the calcium oxide (lime). Limekilns were extremely common features in limestone regions. Many farmers produced their own lime, and lime for mortar was commonly produced close to the construction that required it.

Bethlehem, especially the industrial community of South Bethlehem, grew in the late 1800s as the iron and steel industry grew along with machinery, coke, cement, and textiles for export. The Bethlehem Iron Company produced steel rails beginning in 1873, and established a forge in 1885. The plant was the first in America to produce steel armor plate and cannons, and military contracts contributed substantially to the Company’s growth and prosperity. Through the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, waves of immigrants from different parts of Europe settled in the community. At first, Irish, Germans, and Pennsylvania Dutch (the latter actually being the German settlers of the previous century) dominated the community. Eastern Europeans, mainly Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Slovenians (Windish) arrived through the 1880s and 1890s. Italians arrived in the mid-1890s followed by Russians, Greeks, Lithuanians, and Croats. Between the two World Wars, many immigrants arrived from Mexico and Puerto Rico. With each group, South Bethlehem saw the introduction of new churches and new social organizations, but the community cannot be said to have been blended or cosmopolitan. The population of Bethlehem was 6,762 in 1890 and that of South Bethlehem was 10,302. The areas were merged in 1920  and had a combined population of 50,358.  In 1870, the population of Northhampton County was 61, 432.  In 1900 the population of Northhampton Co. was nearly equally divided between urban and rural areas.