New Beginnings (Part 2)

It was in the early 1730's that the clan of Delaware Indians that had departed from Trenton reached modern-day Nazareth, near the Bushkill Creek. Here the party of Delaware Indians split. The family of Captain John settled at Welagameka (near what is today the intersection of S. Whitfield and E. Belvidere Streets), while his father, Captain Harris, and George Rex were determined to put more space between them and the white settlers. They headed further north, toward a natural divide in the southern edge of the Appalachians where the town of Wind Gap nestles today. On the north side of the ridge they continued about eight miles west until they came to a place they named Meniolágoméka, meaning "the fat land among the barrens." George Rex and the rest of his party made a permanent settlement here in the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge on the banks of the Aquashicola creek. Decades later it would eventually become known as Gunkeltown (today Kunkletown).

The founding of Meniolágoméka coincided with a bold religious fervor that was sweeping both old Europe and the new Colonies, which today we call the Great Awakening. But for decades prior Pietist and Anabaptist refugees from the war-ravaged German principalities had already been pouring into Pennsylvania at the invitation of its founder, seeking his promise of justice, nonviolence and religious tolerance. One of these groups, the Moravians (named for the region Mähren) began the first widespread Protestant missionary movement, with the goal of evangelizing, educating, and bringing medicine to native Americans.

On Christmas Eve 1741, the leader of the Moravians, Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf established their base in the New World with a new town on the bluffs overlooking the Lehigh River at its confluence with Monocacy Creek -- on the doorstep of the Delaware settlements. They named their outpost Bethlehem.