- Title
- North Carolina historical review [1930 : January]
-
-
- Date
- January 1930
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
North Carolina historical review [1930 : January]
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The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume VII January, 1930
Number I
THE MORAVIAN CONTRIBUTION TO
COLONIAL NORTH CAROLINA
By Adelaide T.. Fries
In the year 1 7 0 1 Easter Sunday fell on March 22nd. The usual
services were held at Bethabara, N. C., and “Br. Reuter made the
interesting observation that among the Brethren the Easter Litany
is read earliest in the East Indies and latest here, both in heathen
lands.”1
The contrasts suggested by this entry in the Bethabara diary might
well furnish the subject of a great painting by a master hand. In
the background the forest primeval, where Indian and wolf and
panther scowled and howled and cried as the white man encroached
upon their ancient and hitherto vast domain. To right and left the
settlers, striving more or less energetically to develop farms amid the
privations and dangers of the frontier. In the midst a group of
Moravian Brethren, holding out the hand of friendship to red
neighbor and to white, singing hymns of faith and hope as ax and
grubbing hoe were wielded, bringing church and school, books and
music, commerce and medical aid to the very edge of the wilderness.
If this seems a large claim to make for them their records2 are
offered in evidence, where day by day the ministers made mention of
the trivial as well as the important happenings of life, never dream-
1 Bethabara Diary, March 22. 1761. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina,
Vol. I, p. 236.
a Books and papers belonging: to the Moravian Church in America, Southern Province,
are assembled in tha Salexn A: chive Building, under care of the archivist. Miss Adelaide L.
Fries, 224 South Cherry Street, Winston-Salem, N. C. The diary of Bethabara, N. C.. is
contained in a series of manuscripts, and there
алс
similar diaries for other congregations of
Inter date. For n hundred years these raanuscTpt diaries were written in Gorman, and in
1922, 1925 and 1926 the North Carolina Historical Commission published the Records of the
Moravians in North Carolina, Vo's. 1, II, IIT, containing translations of all important para¬
graphs to the end of the year 1779. References in this paper are to the original manuscript
source, with, parallel reference to the translation in the Records of the Moravians in North
Carolina.
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