The Planning and Development of Two Moravian Congregation Towns: Salem, North Carolina and Gracehill, Northern Ireland
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W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1987 The Planning and Development of Two Moravian Congregation Towns: Salem, North Carolina and Gracehill, Northern Ireland Christopher E. Hendricks College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, United States History Commons, Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Hendricks, Christopher E., "The Planning and Development of Two Moravian Congregation Towns: Salem, North Carolina and Gracehill, Northern Ireland" (1987). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625413. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-85yq-tg62 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF TWO MORAVIAN CONGREGATION TOWNS SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA AND GRACEHILL, NORTHERN IRELAND A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Christopher Edwin Hendricks 1987 ProQuest Number: 10627924 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10627924 Published by ProQuest LLC (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Author Approved, May 1987 lames Whittenburg A y -kjU lB. James Axtell J V Thad Tate TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................... iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS......................................................... v ABSTRACT ........................................................................ vi INTRODUCTION.................................................................... 2 CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING ............................................... 4 CHAPTER II. AND WILL YOU THERE A CITY BUILD: SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA... 20 CHAPTER III. AND ALSO RAISE THY CITY DEAR: GRACEHILL, NORTHERN IRELAND 52 CHAPTER IV. THE TWO TOGETHER .......................................... 80 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................... 92 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank several people for their role in the creation of this paper: James Whittenburg for serving as thesis advisor, letting me run up his phone bill, and making it possible to visit Gracehill; James Axtell for his careful reading and criticism; and Thad Tate for taking some of his valuable to serve as a reader. I am also grateful to Michael Hammond at Old Salem Inc. for serving as my "fourth" reader, Thomas Haupert and the wonderful staff at the Moravian Archives, Bill Hinman and my friends at Historic Bethabara Park, and Brain Trainor at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. Several people deserve credit for reading through the paper, offering comments, or generally just putting up with me: Mother and Daddy, Jo, Tara, and Judy. Mostly, I would like to thank Richard and Jillian Ingham and their delightful family (Jane, Sarah, Hanna, Emma, and Peter), for allowing a complete stranger to invade their home, and for presenting him Gracehill and Ulster, as no one else could. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map Page 1. Eastern United States ................................................... 11 2. I r e l a n d ................................................................... 15 3. Wachovia Tract - 1766 ................................................... 26 4. U n i t a s ..................................................................... 31 5. Plan of Salem - 1765 .................................................... 35 6. Plan of Salem, Stokes County, North Carolina - 1805 ................ 39 7. Ground Plan Ballykennedy - c. 1761 ............. 58 8. Ground Plan Ballykennedy - detail ..................................... 63 9. Map of the Townland of Ballykennedy - c. 1810....................... 68 10. Map of the Townland of Ballykennedy - detail ....................... 71 11. Gnadenburg - 1761 ....................................................... 82 v ABSTRACT As an outward manifestation of their missionary activity, the Moravians developed the concept of the Gemein Ort or Congregation town. Planned around a village square, these communities contained a church or congregation house, a community store, an inn, schools, and various choir houses. These elements were arranged in a town plan that varied according to local conditions and the individual taste of each congregation. As the Moravians took their mission out of central Europe into new regions and continents, the plans of Congregation towns diversified. This is not the case, however, for two towns established during the middle of the eighteenth century. The villages of Salem and Gracehill were planned and constructed independently of one another, by two very different segments of the "renewed" Moravian church. Salem was built with the full cooperation and involvement of the church hierarchy, on land which had had little or no previous occupation. Gracehill was built as an afterthought by converts of a renegade missionary, with limited aid from the church leaders. Although separated by an ocean, the Moravians in Ireland and colonial America unknowingly built two strikingly similar towns. THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF TWO MORAVIAN CONGREGATION TOWNS SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA AND GRACEHILL, NORTHERN IRELAND INTRODUCTION The Moravians are members of a pre-Reformation church known as the Unitas Fratrum. During the eighteenth century, the church in the German States exprienced a spiritual reawakening. One of the manifestations of this revival was a tremendous emphasis on mission work. As a result, Moravian communities were built in several European countries and their colonies. The towns were all similar in their composition, but two villages, both established in mid-century, bear striking resemblance, even though Salem (1766) was built in colonial America and Gracehill (1764) was erected in the north of Ireland. The ultimate purpose of a Congregation Town or Gemein Ort was to create an atmosphere of family. The Moravians felt that the physical appearance of the town played a role in creating this atmosphere, so much so that how a town looked was regulated by church elders. The towns tended to be planned using a familiar Germanic grid road system with the larger public buildings set around a central square. The buildings were usually quite substantial structures, built when they were required to serve a specific function, but only after a lengthy process of discussion, thought and planning. The homes in a Gemein Ort were carefuly thought out as well. 2 3 They usually fronted streets, allowing ample space for a work yard and garden or orchard behind the house. The center of the community was the town square. The square could serve a variety of purposes: market, public park, meeting place, or if needed, extra farmland. The square, and thus the town, was dominated by the Gemein Haus or church, which served as the religious and secular center of the community. The plan of a Gemein Ort, because of its central square and radiating streets, may be a physical illustration of the Moravians' emphasis on missionary activities. It is far more likely that they were attempts to organize the elements of the theology of eighteenth-century German Pietists in familiar forms. The communities understandably shared common elements in terms of what buildings stood in the village, and what basic form the village would take, which could be replicated anywhere in the world. Salem and Gracehill are two examples of such Germanic villages erected on foreign soil. They were built concurrently by two segments of the larger church. But, they were constructed independently of one another, with little exchange between their respective builders. Understandably, some of the details of the towns differ. Yet, the plans of Salem and Gracehill resemble each other quite closely, more so than other Moravian Congregation towns. The amount of planning involved in the creation of each town, the actual building process they underwent, and the common heritage they shared worked together to assemble sister communities related in form and intent. The plans of Salem and Gracehill reflect the influence of eighteenth-century ideas, though elements in their designs developed over a span of centuries. CHAPTER I The Beginning The Moravian church is a mission.-*- Beginning in fifteenth-century Bohemia, the Moravians faced adversity and persecution to the point of extinction. By the eighteenth century, the center of Moravian activity had shifted