Birthplace of Industry Walking Tour
Overview
Well before the Industrial Revolution, the early Moravians built a thriving community in Bethlehem near the confluence of the Monocacy Creek and Lehigh River. Completely self-sufficient, these industrious settlers quickly established the largest concentration of pre-Industrial Revolution technology in the nation, with approximately 50 crafts, trades and industries in operation by the mid-1750s.
When Founding Father and later president John Adams visited Bethlehem in 1777, he wrote to his wife, Abigail, that the Moravians had “carried the mechanical arts to greater perfection here than any place which I have seen.”
On Birthplace of Industry, sparks will fly as a certified Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites guide dressed in 18th century Moravian attire leads you through what is widely regarded as the nation’s first industrial center, the Colonial Industrial Quarter.
- Visit the 1750/1761 Smithy, where you’ll see blacksmiths hard at work pounding the anvil as they craft many of the same items that Moravian blacksmiths produced more than two centuries ago.
- Go inside the 1762 Waterworks, the first pumped municipal water system in the nation, and see the 18-foot-in-diameter undershot waterwheel that turned a mechanism that pumped water from the spring uphill to a tower in the heart of the early Moravian settlement.
- See the 1761 Tannery, an essential site for leathermaking for more than 100 years, and the archeological remains of the Butchery, Dye House & Pottery, all part of Moravian Church Settlements–Bethlehem.
- Stop by the 1869 Luckenbach Mill and newly restored 1782/1834 Grist Miller’s House, where you’ll learn about the milling of grain, the first industry to be established in Bethlehem in 1743.
Bring the family and friends, explore Bethlehem’s Colonial Industrial Quarter and discover the Birthplace of Industry in America!
Admission
Upcoming Dates
- Saturday, April 11
- Sunday, April 12
- Sunday, April 19
- Saturday, April 25
- Sunday, April 26
- Saturday, May 2
- Sunday, May 3
- Saturday, May 9
- Sunday, May 10
- Saturday, May 16
- Sunday, May 17
- Saturday, May 23
- Sunday, May 24
- Saturday, May 30
- Sunday, May 31
- Saturday, June 6
- Sunday, June 7
- Saturday, June 13
- Sunday, June 14
- Saturday, June 20
- Sunday, June 21
- Saturday, June 27
- Sunday, June 28
- Sunday, July 5
- Saturday, July 11
- Sunday, July 12
- Saturday, July 25
- Sunday, July 26
- Saturday, August 15
- Sunday, August 16
- Saturday, August 22
- Sunday, August 23
- Saturday, August 29
- Sunday, August 30
- Saturday, September 5
- Sunday, September 6
- Saturday, September 12
- Sunday, September 13
- Sunday, September 20
- Saturday, September 26
- Sunday, September 27
- Saturday, October 3
- Sunday, October 4
- Saturday, October 10
- Sunday, October 11
- Saturday, October 17
- Sunday, October 18
- Saturday, October 24
- Sunday, October 25
- Saturday, October 31
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