Submitted by Alan W. Kohr, rssawk@rohmhaas.com

The "Bethel" Moravian meeting house (located in what is now Swatara Twp). was built about 1743. It was a two story log structure, weather-boarded, and lined on the inside with poplar. It measured about thirty by forty feet. The first floor was divided into three rooms in which the minister lived and taught school. The second floor contained a large, single room that was used as the sanctuary. The building was fortified and served as a place of refuge for the local settlers and militia during the French and Indian War. The graveyard, or "God's Acre" as it was referred to by the Moravian's, was constructed to the rear of the meeting house.

About 1830 religious services ceased at the Bethel Moravian meeting house. The remaining members attended the Hebron Moravian Church, near Lebanon. A United Brethren congregation and a Dunkard congregation built a brick union meeting-house in 1860, about 500 feet from the site of the old log structure. The Moravians abandoned their old cemetery in 1833, however, the two newer congregations maintained the cemetery and buried their deceased members there in a separate section. The old log church that was built in 1743 was dismantled in about 1878. Some of the wood from the church was used in the construction of a house and barn on the adjoining property.

There are no longer signs of either of the churches. The graveyard lies quietly near the intersection of Cemetery Road and Mountain Road, about 2 miles northeast of Lickdale, at the base of Little Mountain. There is a line of ancient cedar trees that border a grassy pasture frequented by cows and chickens from a neighboring farm. In among the grass and trees are scattered the grave markers of the of the early congregations. The earliest section of the cemetery contains the Moravian graves. As was their custom, women and young girls were buried on one side and the men and boys were buried on the other, like apposing pages in a book. More than 140 members and friends of Bethel Moravian Church were buried here between 1752 and 1833.

The little cemetery chronicles the everyday life and death struggle of the early families that settled in this wilderness area. In the cemetery, many of the stones mark the graves of infants and young children, and women who died in childbirth. In some cases portions families were wiped out by the ravages of disease-- each family member dying in an orderly succession as the sickness passed from person to person. At least four of the stones mark the final resting place of men killed while plowing their fields, during an Indian attack in the summer of 1756. Several Indians who were killed during raids in the 1750's are said to be buried in an unmarked grave beneath a large old tree that once stood next to the graveyard. A number of the graves mark the resting place of soldiers of the Revolutionary War, who fraught to bring freedom to the new land.

The Moravians at Bethel used squared headstones laid flat on the ground to mark each grave site. The grass and soil have claimed many of these and only a few can still be seen. Of the old headstones yet visible, most were made of brown sandstone, and the inscriptions on these are totally illegible and lost to time. Some markers, made of a harder stone can still be read, but they too are fading.

Interments at the Bethel Moravian Cemetery

                                                                         W
                                                                      S  +  N
                                                                         E

 
                                  Men                                                      Women


          143


          114  113  111  107  106   95   94   91   89         112  115  116  125  135


          133   86   80   78   74   61   46   41   35          42   45   54   76   84   88   90


         Boys         6    7   32   65   72   79  110          29   43                      108     Girls


          Men         1    4    5   13   21   28   60           9   19   22   26   27   31   36     Women


  Little Boys         2    3   20   23   24   33   40           8   12   18   25   30   34   38   75   81  126 


117   ??  139   87   82   73   69   62   59   56   48          44   47   49   52   53   55   66   68  131  

  
  Little Boys                                  Friends and Acquaintances


120  123        71   10   11   14   15   17   57   64           16   39   77   51   63   67   69  122  121     Girls


Men       137  136  128  124  119  118   96   85   58           37   79   83  127  130  144             70     Women


                                                                97  101   ??   ??