Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
Hungarian Christmas Traditions
South Bethlehem Hungarians fondly recalled Christmas in their native Hungary as a festive time of year when family members got together to celebrate the holiday.
Candles were placed in the windows as a symbolic greeting to those absent from home, and in memory of deceased family members.
The Christmas tree played a very important part in the celebration of Christmas: in the village square, as well as in the home, evergreen trees were decorated with ornaments which originated from their regions.
Edibles used for tree decorations included foil-wrapped Christmas candies, cookies, apples and decorated whole walnuts. Other ornaments included wax candles and hand-crafted items.
Carolers were heard as they strolled about the village, carrying a huge illuminated star and perhaps a Nativity scene. Nativity plays were very popular and could be found in almost every village.
At home, a great deal of time was spent preparing foods of all kinds for the Christmas meal, while the table was set with
Christmas Eve was an occasion of family activity. Before the evening meal, the family gathered around the Christmas tree; after a short prayer, gifts were placed near the tree. When the first star appeared in the sky, the evening meal was served.
After the meal was completed, families attended church services together, recalling the birth of Jesus Christ. Returning home from church, family members eagerly opened their Christmas gifts.
Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
The Emergence of Industrial Pioneers in South Bethlehem
Samuel Wetherill established the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company by 1853.
In 1848, the Moravians of Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, divested 1,380 acres of farmland situated along the Lehigh River, flanked by picturesque South Mountain.
After the Civil War in 1865, this idyllic setting became a borough named South Bethlehem . . . a community of industrial pioneers, who, combined with ethnic immigrant labor, would impact the nation—and the world.
Bethlehem, Pa. has a long and remarkable record of industrial and technological achievement. Since its earliest days as a religious enterprise of the Moravian Brethren, the practical genius of this community has left many a curious traveler awestruck.
The 18th Century wooden age knowhow of millwright Henry Antes, the mechanical brilliance of 19th Century ironmaster John Fritz, and the genius of steel titan Charles Schwab in the 20th Century, are but a few of those talented individuals responsible for the industrial legacy we proudly share today. There are many others indeed.
Samuel Wetherill (1821-1890)
Chemist, Industrialist, Civil War SoldierAmong those oft forgotten is a man by the name of Samuel Wetherill, who came to Bethlehem from his native Philadelphia in the early 1850’s. As a descendant of one of Colonial America’s most enterprising families, Wetherill came to Bethlehem, not by chance as one might expect.
Two generations of Wetherills prior to Samuel’s era pioneered the early chemicals industry in America with the production of numerous products, including white lead carbonate — an ingredient that revolutionized the manufacture of house paints globally, for both its adhesive and covering properties.
Samuel came to Bethlehem hoping to extend his family’s control of the paints industry; between 1852 and 1853, he set up the first industrial colossus for the manufacture of zinc oxide — an experimental substitute for the proven, yet expensive, white lead.
Wetherill supervised the construction of brick and frame structures for this purpose in 1852. The enterprise was situated on four acres, just east of the present Fahy Bridge, and employed technology both developed and patented by Wetherill himself.
His “furnace process” reduced raw ore to its powdered mineral form, and his “tower process” extracted and isolated it from a sundry of impure by-products. The zinc oxide was then bagged and shipped to market.
The raw materials for Wetherill’s manufactory where mined just over the ridge of South Mountain in Saucon Valley and brought to the operation along the Lehigh by packhorse and mule train. The Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company was chartered in March of 1853.
On October 13 of the same year, the first “white zinc” made in the United States was made at the ZincWorks. Wetherill later pioneered the manufacture of metallic zinc spelter and sheet zinc.
By 1855, Asa Packer surveyed tracks of the Lehigh Valley Railroad between the ZincWorks and the Lehigh River. By 1860, the Bethlehem Iron Company was formed east of the ZincWorks with the intent of producing rails.
After the Civil War, on August 21, 1865, the Borough of South Bethlehem was incorporated. Later, the ZincWorks was absorbed into the Bethlehem Steel Company in the early 20th Century, having employed in excess of 700 persons during its peak years.
Wetherill’s Southside operation is credited with bringing to South Bethlehem the first significant influx of foreign-born labor—an event synonymous with the later growth of the steel industry, vital to this community’s ethnic character.
Wetherill contributed much to the South Bethlehem community, beyond being the first to capitalize upon this opportune location which would become a future industrial hub.
In addition to this important contribution, Wetherill was a vigilant patriot. He organized among Bethlehem residents, a mounted guard in the summer of 1861, for three years serving the Union during the Civil War. Wetherill enlisted as Captain of H Company, 108th Pennsylvania Regiment on Sept. 25, 1861 for a 3-year term. He was promoted to Major of the 108th on October 10, 1861, and was later discharged on Oct. 1, 1864 for expiration of term with the rank of Major.
On March 13, 1865, he received the rank of brevet Lieutenant Colonel. These brevets were common as the war wound down and afterwards.
(Source: Samuel Bates History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, Vol. III, pp. 910, 936)
— W. Christian Carson
Afterword
On September 23, 2003, South Bethlehem Historical Society dedicated an official state marker sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission which reads: “Samuel Wetherill (1821- 1890): Chemist, industrialist and Civil War officer. In 1852 he developed a process for extracting white zinc oxide directly from zinc ore. In 1853 he founded the Lehigh Zinc Co., with a plant just east of here, pioneering the manufacture of zinc spelter and sheet.”
Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
A.W. Leh: South Bethlehem Architect – New World Rising
A.W. Leh (1848-1918)
Architect, Civil War Soldier
Albert Wolfring Leh, later known to citizens of the Bethlehems and beyond as A.W. Leh—or Captain Leh, in deference to his Civil War service— was born September 17, 1848 on his father’s Williams Township farm, near Easton, Pa. He might have become apprenticed to a tradesman, or even attended college, if that combination of patriotism and a spirit of adventure known as “war fever” had not seized him in the crucial autumn of 1864.
E.P. Wilbur Trust Company, 1910
On September 8, just shy of his sixteenth birthday, Leh enlisted in the Union Army. He signed up for the 198th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, the sixth regiment recruited under the auspices of the Union League of Philadelphia, and was mustered into service at that city on September 15, as part of Company “C.” Leh’s youthful military service marked the beginning of his lifelong involvement in civic and veterans’ affairs.
From 1880 through 1918, Leh’s 38-year career as architect included some of the most significant academic, commercial, ecclesiastical and residential structures in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the region.
—excerpt from A Living Legacy:
Architecture of A.W. Leh
A few of Leh’s architectural designs include Moravian College and Theological Seminary, Broughal Middle School, First Reformed Church, E.P. Wilbur Trust Co., Municipal Market, and Lipps & Sutton Silk Mill.
Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
Phillips Music and Appliance Store by Jennifer Lader
“Businessmen thrive only as their customers thrive.” -The Whetford Book, Bethlehem, Pa. 1915
Today, “24 East Asian Bistro” and “Glen Anthony Designs” occupy the former Phillips Music Store on East Third St.
Abram Philip’s family had a store in Lithuania, so he knew business. On coming to America in the 1880s, he settled in Bethlehem, perhaps because the people here spoke Pennsylvania Dutch.
“He spoke Yiddish and could communicate with the local populace,” grandson Ira Berman says. Abram started as a peddler, then opened a pawnshop. Along the way, he changed his name to Abraham Phillips.
He and wife Sarah Joseph Phillips –niece of America’s only chief rabbi, Jacob Joseph of New York City—had ten children. Raising their children next door to a neighbor who also had ten children, one of them a very naughty child named Morris, they finally changed their own son Morris’ name to Maurice. “They got it corrected,” his daughter Gail Phillips says. “He had to get out of the shadow of the other child.”
Wedding photo of Abram and Sarah (Joseph) Phillips, 1891.
Maurice went on to turn the pawnshop into Phillips Sporting Goods at 13 W. Third St., South Bethlehem. Nephew Ira tells that a customer once wrote that he could not afford to buy a complete set of golf clubs and was amazed to find that every time he went into the store to purchase the next club, it was in stock. He discovered that Maurice had bought the entire set and kept them on hand just for him. Maurice’s brother, Sol, opened Phillips Music and Appliance Store at 24 E. Third Street. Nephew Ira helped out at the stores, although he says, “My aunts would not call my ventures there ‘work.’” By the time he graduated from high school, he made his first big sale —a clock radio. Apropos, he went on to a career in radio broadcasting sales and management.
During the Depression, Sol Phillips advanced credit to his customers. He was later rewarded with customer loyalty after WWII, when appliances were widely available. In those days, South Bethlehem was the place to shop, the sidewalks “packed” [with shoppers] on Saturday nights.
When the fortunes of the Steel changed, though, so did those of the merchants on Third St. Sol and Sadie Phillips closed the music store in the 1970s, and Maurice closed his sporting goods store around 1980. “He [Maurice] was so worried about the store because it was empty,” daughter Gail recalls.
“He worried himself to death, even though a successful photographer was in there for a while.”
She happily points out that Lehigh Pizza on W. Third St. now occupies the building her father once owned, saying, “The store still lives!”
—Jennifer Lader is a new member of SBHS and of the Oral History Association. She writes for The Bethlehem Press and other publications. Her current project, “People of Mettle: Voices of the Jewish Community of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” features personal interviews with fifty people, and presents a view of local and American Jewish history of the past century and more.
Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
This pastoral scene shows Bethlehem prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Beginning in 2011, the country will celebrate the Sesquicentennial (150th) of the Civil War, or, as many refer to it, The War Between the States.
Though most of the tributes will be held during the 150-year anniversaries of battles and related events (2011-2015), some programs will extend through 2016.
“The Pennsylvania Civil War 150 Commemoration is far more than a formal remembrance,” said Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
“It is a collection of stories brought to life that are as epic as the fields at Gettysburg, or as small as the struggles of a soldier’s wife working to survive her husband’s absence on a Pennsylvania farm. Through these stories, Pennsylvania Civil War 150 will renew interest and engagement in our state’s heritage.”
The Pennsylvania Civil War Road Show, a traveling museum experience within a 53-foot trailer, will deliver interactive exhibits and unique programming to all 67 counties in the state.
The Road Show will encourage residents and organizations in each locality to share stories and artifacts with the traveling exhibition.
Pennsylvania Civil War 150 offers a website which unlocks the personal stories of Pennsylvanians on the battlefield and at the home front, the vast Civil War collections of the state’s museums and historical societies, and the state’s numerous heritage tourism attractions and trip-planning resources. Visitwww.pacivilwar150.com for more information.
Jul 3, 2013 | Articles |
Site of the first Holy Infancy (1864) Tradition has dictated that the original site was donated by the Moravian Church (see the Borough of South Bethlehem Semi-Centennial, 1915); however, a deed search by Christian Carson, former SBHS Board of Director, revealed the property was sold to “South Bethlehem Catholics and Rev. Wood, Bishop of Philadelphia” by “Joseph McMichael and Wife,” on Sept. 29, 1863 for $500.
