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Bethabara

Bethabara is the site of the first Moravian settlement in North Carolina. Located just north of present-day Winston-Salem, Bethabara, meaning "house of passage," was established on 17 Nov. 1753 by 15 Moravian men sent down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania. At first Bethabara was nothing more than a small abandoned cabin located in the northwest part of Wachovia, a 99,000-acre tract of land purchased by the Moravians.

Each of the first colonists had a special skill needed to build a settlement in the backcountry wilderness. Within a few years they and additional church members sent from Pennsylvania had built a thriving community of log and stone structures, including a church, a tannery, and a mill. English, Scotch-Irish, and other German non-Moravian settlers from near and farcame to Bethabara to trade. Given its location along the Great Wagon Road and the number of craftsmen making up the settlement, Bethabara became an important economic center on the North Carolina frontier.

When the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, refugees from the outer settlement areas began to arrive at Bethabara looking for shelter and protection. By July 1756 the war was going so badly for the colonists that the Moravians built a stockade around the Bethabara village. As the Indian attacks came closer to Bethabara, the number of refugees grew, soon outstripping the Moravian population. In April 1758 another stockade was built around the mill to protect it and the approximately 200 refugees gathered there. Not until 1761, when the war slowly wound down, did