Historic Burnside Guided Tour

Overview

Step back in time at beautiful Burnside Plantation, Bethlehem’s first privately owned farm and a vital part of the Moravian farming system. Offered only during the month of May, this guided tour provides a rare opportunity to explore life on a working farm of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Once part of a 500-acre parcel, the preserved 6.5-acre Burnside farm offers visitors of all ages a vivid look at early agricultural life in Bethlehem. Led by knowledgeable docents dressed in 18th-century attire, the tour takes you inside the historic Burnside Farmhouse, originally built in 1748 by James and Mary Burnside. You’ll learn about the family who lived here, as well as the period when renowned Moravian organ builders David Tannenberg and Johann Gottlob Klemm crafted instruments on the property.

The tour continues across the farm grounds, including the 19th-century barns, corn crib, wagon shed, heritage apple orchard, award-winning Louise W. Dimmick Kitchen Garden and the beautifully maintained Burnside Gardens, cared for by the Burnside Gardeners.

You’ll also see the restored High Horse-Power Wheel, an ingenious piece of 19th-century technology that allowed one horse to do the work of up to 15 men. Together, the house and landscape reveal how agriculture, craftsmanship and community shaped daily life in early Bethlehem.