The God's Acre in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is also known as the Moravian Cemetery, and it is the oldest Moravian cemetery in North America. It is the second oldest God's Acre, just behind the one in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany.
It was created in 1742 when Johannes Müller died of a fever. Müller was one of the first Moravian converts in North America. He was born in Rhinebeck, New York and he met the first group of Moravian missionaries, known as the First Sea Congregation when they arrived in Philadelphia on June 7, 1742.
Johannes Muller abandoned his life to move with the new settlers and establish Bethlehem. Shortly after the Moravians arrival in Bethlehem, Müller succumbed to a fever on June 26, 1742.
His death spurred the Moravian community to make their first God's Acre in North America. Zinzendorf personally found a suitable location, a three-acre plot to the north-east of the settlement.
The name "God's Acre" comes from the German word "Gottesacker," which translates to "God's field" and refers to a burial ground. The use of "Acre" is related to, but not derived from the unit of measurement and can be of any size.
While used to refer to graveyards generally in English, the term is used particularly among communicants of the Moravian Church in parts of North America, but not in the Moravian independent provinces of Alaska and Labrador Newfoundland. It has become the traditional name given to the graveyards of Congregations of the Moravian Church.
As the Moravian Church spread around the world, they laid out their graveyards on hilltops.
Moravians believe strongly in equality, even in death; therefore, every stone in a God's Acre is a recumbent stone of the same material with the same proportions so that no one person stands out among the stones. The Communion of Saints is continued even on the graveyard as it reflects the continuity of the congregation. In addition, the deceased are buried by choir; to the Moravians, these were the living groups into which the Congregation was originally divided to meet the needs of the members according to their age and station in life.
Originally, men and women sat in their choir groups in church at worship. The burial by choir in God's Acre also reflects the way the members of the congregation sat as a worshipping community so that visually and symbolically the Congregation continues in the graveyard.
Along with being separated by gender, there are also sections for people of different ages and marital statuses. The typical configuration has sections for infant girls and infant boys, girls and boys, single men and single women, and married men and married women. The deceased are buried in their respective section in the order they have died.
In 1953, God’s Acres located on Market Street bordered between Wall and New Streets in Bethlehem, PA was made a National Historic Landmark.
Notable burials included in the cemetery include: David Nitschmann Dee Bischof, Bethelehm’s first bishop, James McDonald Ross, Cherokee chief John Ross’s son, a civil war veteran who died as a POW in St. Louis, Mohican Chief Tschoop, Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans is modeled after and Jacob B. Kemerer, the PA State Senator from 1899 to 1901.
God’s Acres in Bethlehem is a great place to stroll and read the flat stones in this serene wooded area as the final resting place for Moravians from 1742-1911 where Moravian colonists are buried next to converted Native Americans or African born Moravians in what Moravians referred to as the “democracy of death”.
In the United States God’s Acres also exists in Nazareth, PA, Salem, North Carolina, Blackville, South Carolina, and New Canaan, CT.
