Quotes from the Salem Tavern kitchen - #3

"Brother Elrod reports that he needed and has secured a negress as cook. 

Several matters were discussed for the improvement of the Tavern namely, (1) plenty of fouls must be kept on hand, so that they could be served at each meal, also pickles, and other small items. (2) That the rooms should be supplied with good crockery ware and proper mirrors and in general with good furniture; and that a sufficient number of  silver teaspoons should be procured. (3) That the house (tavern) should be kept as clean as possible, and that Brother Elrod should have his servants attend to it properly, as it is impossible for him to do everything by himself."   July 17, 1804

Quotes from the Salem Tavern kitchen - #4

"In our Salem Tavern a change is to be made, namely, that our kitchen is not to be a public place for strangers (non-Moravians) as at present. 

Also the family yard and outhouse is to be separated from the public yard and outhouse. This matter is to be arranged in the Aufseher Collegium ..." (Elder's Conference)", November 21, 1774.

The Levering House

The Levering House 1820 

Old Salem, NC

Charles Joseph Levering was born in 1795 and moved to Salem from Lititz, Pennsylvania to work as a barkeeper at the tavern. However, within two years, he began tailoring. In 1819, Levering was granted this lot and his plans for the house were approved. Levering married Ruth Montgomery Rea in 1820, the same year the house was completed. 

The legacy of Rebecca Protten - Part One

Born a slave in 1718.

Kidnapped at an early age from Antigua;
Converted by her master to Christianity.

Gained her freedom and received a calling by God to bring others to Jesus.

A Moravian missionary in Saint Thomas assisted her in the faith and said about her that she "was very accomplished in the teaching of God."

She worked among and with the Moravians and was instrumental in the conversions of thousands of people, particularly slaves.

(Continued in next post)

The legacy of Rebecca Protten - Part Two

We continue our look into the life and missionary work of Rebecca Protten. 

Freidrich Martin, a German Moravian missionary mentored Rebecca. About her he wrote: "I have found nothing in her other than a love of God and his servants ... she has done the work of the Savior by teaching the Negro women and speaking about that which the Holy Spirit himself has shown her."

Rebecca went to the people that included: cane boilers, weavers, domestic servants and cotton pickers. But the people also came to her night meetings. Those who came were opposed to black men and women attending. Yet, they came.

She married a Moravian missionary and traveled back to Germany where her husband and daughter died. There she continued her tireless ministry.

She remarried and moved to Africa to found a school. 

Her course ended in Africa. 

The adventures of Brother Lung

4 April, 1772 - "Today there was an unfortunate occurrence, for as Brother Lung was putting the crupper on his horse the animal kicked him in the chest, so that he vomited much blood ... we bled him twice." 

28 September -  Brother Lung had an attack of colic.

24 October, 1772 - Brother Lung gave a breakfast to his Brethren, it being his 60th birthday anniversary. They rejoiced with him, and thanked the Savior for the grace bestowed upon him this year, and especially for two escapes when his life was in danger - Brother Graff composed a little poem for him." --The Bethabara Diary.

3 June 1772 - "We hear from Bethabara that last night a thief went through all the small houses behind the Brother's House there, but so as is known only Brother Lung's old gun and a few small articles were taken." -- Diary of the Salem Congregation

A 1790's inventory of the Tavern-keepers office and parlor

• Cash box 
• Shotgun

Personal furniture and large items

• Secretary
• One armchair
• One pair fire dogs
• Shovel and tongs
• One set of money scales
• One table for dining possibly Walnut 
• 4 to 6 chairs for the table
• One corner cupboard for tableware and linens
• Tablecloths-two

Small personal items of the Tavern-keeper

• 4 to 6 plates, tea cups, knives and forks, several serving bowls
• Two candlesticks and snuffer
• Account book-leather bound
• Pens and ink well
• Loose paper
• Map of Stokes County dated 1790 
• Law books related to the tavern keepers duties as Justice of the Peace

What irked non-Moravians about the Moravians?

"In general our situation is as usual, that is to say many of our neighbors are bitter against us, partly because we are a godly people, partly because of our outward prosperity but so far it has more annoyed than injured us." -- April 25, 1772.

Uncommon Zeal

The Watchword of this blog is Jeremiah 6:16. It reads: 

"This is what the Lord says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’"

The old Moravians account for some of the most inspiring, sacrificial and bodacious stories of Christian missions history - ever! They represent the godly path - the good way. It would be well for contemporary Moravians and all Christians to ponder at length Jeremiah 6:16 and c.f. with the 18th and early 19th century Moravians. 

One in sixty. That is how many Moravians, under the leadership of Count Zinzendorf, went as cross-cultural missionaries, planting mission stations in the Virgin Islands, Greenland, South America, North America, South Africa, and Labrador. 

Ponder that number of 1 in 60. The Episcopal Church has approximately 2.5 millions. To equal the ratio of the early Moravians the Episcopal Church would have to find approximately 42,000 missionaries in the pews. 

Where did the Count acquire the motivation, zeal, strength and persistence to lead the early Moravians into such fervid missionary work?

First, we note that in 1719 Zinzendorf was impacted by a painting of Christ enduring the crown of thorns. The inscription read, "All this I did for you, what are you doing for me?"  This seminal encounter moved Zinzendorf to choose not the life of a nobleman but rather that of a minister of the Gospel.

Second, Zinzendorf a man of Scripture and follower of Jesus did not believe in universalism nor would he understand those who claimed Jesus but were universalists.

Universalists subscribe formally or informally to a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved - with or without faith in Jesus Christ. The contemporary church is in many cases led, by universalists. Denominations that harbor universalists cannot and will not get beyond thinking of missions as social work. The Count and the early Moravians would have nothing of that. They went out to save souls, and meet human need, and nothing less.

Third, in 1727, during a communion service, the Holy Spirit moved powerfully on all that were present. Out of that holy communion service on August 13, 1727 advanced a prayer meeting. Their prayer was for the lost both near and far. The prayer gatherings met seven days a week - twenty-four hours a day. It continued without interruption for more than one hundred years. This was undeniably a primary force behind the great Moravian missions movements of the 18th century.

The two first Moravian missionaries, on October 8,1732, set sail from Copenhagen for the West Indies. On board were John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschman, a carpenter. The only way to reach the slaves of the West Indies with the Gospel was to become one of them. These two men set sail with the objective of selling themselves into slavery to reach the slaves if they must. This is zeal - New Testament zeal. 

Upon arriving at the shores of their destinations, some of the Moravian missionaries would unload their few belongings and then burn the ships. It was a refusal to look back. 

May their tribe increase in our day. 

The disruption of fire

(Maundy Thursday). "At 2 PM reading and after an interval administered the Lord Supper, 53 communicant's participating. Toward the close of the meeting we were disturbed by several rising and going out, and finally abruptly broken up.  Fire had got out of some fields and was spreading in the woods around some of the adjoining plantations."  -- April 5, 1860

Ministry among the "Negroes"

"Brother Lewis was sent for yesterday to go beyond the Yadkin River to amputate the leg of a Negro.

Today, as he returned he had the unpleasant experience that his horse ran away (without him), and carrying away the surgical instruments. The next day the horse was found, but the instruments not until the 30th of April, when by the help of neighbors they were found in the woods." -- April 27, 1785
_______

Brother Benziem baptized a Negro child, at the request of its parents who live in the neighborhood. -- June 19, 1785

Irony

In the late 18th century, the Moravians bought perhaps three dozen or more enslaved laborers to supplement their work force in Bethlehem and in the nearby Moravian settlements of Nazareth and Gnadenthal. These purchases have been mourned and  confessed as sin by later Moravians.  

One of the Moravian ironies is that Moravian Christians simultaneously owned slaves and yet also lived and worshiped in a personal way with the enslaved. 

The tragic story of the Blum House

The John Christian Blum House (1815), at Old Salem, photographed by me and someone back in the day. 

John Christian Blum tried his hand at being a gunsmith and a tavern keeper. Ultimately neither worked out well. He became in due course principal agent of the Cape Fear Bank in Salem. The northern portion of the home served as the bank and was accessed via the right door on the front of the building. There is a man standing in that entrance in the antique image. His banking career ended tragically. While he was away from home a fire broke out and destroyed $10,000 - c.$200,000 in the current economy. He never recovered financially. Not surprisingly the bank wanted its money. It is recorded that he was “sorely afflicted and deeply depressed.” 

The Moravian church apparently paid the Cape Fear Bank its due. In exchange Brother Blum was required to give the church all future profits and all his property for the rest of his life. He then went on to be the first printer in Salem in the space that once was occupied by the bank. His sons bought back the home from the church after his death.

But when you gotta go you gotta go

As concerns Sunday among the Moravians in Salem

"We think it would be well to abide by the recommendations of the Helfer Conferenz 

concerning playing on Sunday. In connection with the subject of Sunday we desire to say that in business nothing ought to be sold on Sunday, nor charged, neither should work be taken in or given out. Neither should the musicians play Minuets, Polonaises, Marches, or other worldly music, but rather confine themselves to Chorales."  -- December 1, 1772

Don't waste time

A sister weaves a basket in the 1784 kitchen of the Salem Tavern. 

The early Moravians did not waste time. If you were not assigned a task - do something useful anyhow. 

The 1752 Wagner Cabin

The 18th century Moravians purchased 100,000, acres of land in North Carolina and named it the Wachovia Tract. In due course fifteen men from Bethlehem, PA made the forty day journey from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in 1753 to settle the landholding.

The year before, 1752, Hans Wagner and his teenage son build this cabin. They left for new land on the Yadkin River, when the Moravians purchased the Wachovia Tract. 

On November 17th, 1753, the 15 Brothers found the abandoned cabin. They lived in that place for nearly two years as they awaited the construction of the Brother's House. Refugees used the cabin during the French and Indian War. The village of Bethabara grew up around the Wagner Cabin.

On November 17, 1753, the following entry was made in the Bethabara Diary: "We ... cut a road for two and a half miles to the little house that the Brethren found yesterday. We reached it in the evening, and a once took possession of it, finding it large enough that we could all lie down around the wall."

Child's Room at the Bethabara, NC, 1788 Gemeinhaus

The bucket brigade and the fire buckets

In contemporary culture the individual rules. It is not uncommon to disadvantage a whole group to give advantage to a solitary person or a single issue. In short we, Westerners, value the individual over the corporate. This has validity from time to time. It also has significant drawbacks. Importantly, it has not always been this way.  

The "bucket brigade" is an metaphor of the spirit of the 18th and early 19th century Moravians. The ruling and guiding concept for them, at that point in time, was the group first -  the individual being subordinated to it. 

Every building in Salem, residential and public, was required to have fire buckets. When the inevitable fire alarm was sounded residents, with buckets in hand, ran toward the fire. A line would be formed - and buckets of water would be passed up toward the flames. There is no room here for individuality. Teamwork rules. 

It is estimated that Salem could produce a brigade of up to fifty buckets. Thus when the calamity subsided each took back to the home or business his buckets. But with fifty they needed to be marked with the owner's identity.