Black Rock Cave and the Blow-Downs

Far back from the borough park, in the woods at Black Rock, there was once a cave or rock shelter. It had been used by the Indians (possibly for vision quests?). When Nazareth Borough Park was constructed, the cave was "filled in with rock in fear of a potential cave-in."* Some say that people who had played there in their youths realized that had been unsafe and filled it so that there children would not do as they did.

Whether part of the fill was garbage or if it was used as a dump after that is not clear, but the site is now frequented by people digging for old stuff (legally? We're not sure), and the walker can find bits of bottles and pottery here and there disturbed by diggers.

Rumors about the cave still fly , one being that it was a limestone cave that, if followed, came out at what is now Jacobsburg State Park. As far as we know, however, it was shallow and little more than a rock shelter.

Curiously, across the trail from the cave is a section of the wood where the trees appear to have been knocked down while young, yet continued to grow, resulting in a group of trees whose trunks lie along the ground and whose branches grow up like trunks. Several kinds of trees are included. If anyone knows the history of this blow-down phenomenon, please leave a comment or get in touch with us by email. It's all part of weird old Nazareth!
*from the Native Americans of Nazareth booklet, in the Nazareth Keepsakes series, 2001.

Speaking of Trees: Huge Beech Tree

Until a few years ago, Nazareth boasted one of the largest-diameter beech trees on the eastern seaboard. Possibly one of a group of trees the Moravians transplanted to their cemetery from the woods, this enormous American Beech was estimated by a tree expert to be older than the town of Nazareth itself. Although it was mentioned in documents at the Moravian Historical Society, when the borough's tree commission took it down in the early 2000's, they failed to leave a stump for future generations to count the rings and wonder at the many changes this enormous living thing had watched over in the course of its years. This is a photograph of a photograph taken several years before its demise.

Blob Tree

This tree is slowly taking over the corner of N. Green and W. Center streets...

Zinzendorf's Baronial Manor

not a bad job when you consider there was no Home Depot!

The Barony of the Rose, as Nazareth is sometimes called, was not a pretty metaphor. At one time, this area was planned to be the only barony in the New World.

Many don't know the circumstances of the building of Zinzendorf Manor or Moravian Hall, half a block off the circle on Center Street. It was the first building in the section that came to be central Nazareth, erected in 1755-56 on land that had been primeval forest before construction began. It was a tremendous work for a small community living on what at that time was the frontier. When it was finished it was for a while the largest single-family private residence in the colonies and people came to Nazareth just to see it.

A building the Manor may have been modeled after

Why put all that work into it when life was so close to subsistence level? Count Zinzendorf, leader and benefactor of the Unitas Fratrum, later to be known as the Moravian Church, had been exiled from Saxony where his home was, because of the group's unusual ideas and living arrangements. This building, copy of one of his former homes, was to be his baronial manor, as approved by William Penn's descendants. Sadly for the Nazareth residents who worked so hard and loved him so much, Zinzendorf's exile from Saxony was repealed and he never again came to Nazareth or set eyes on the lordly manor built especially for him.

The structure eventually became a school for boys, known as Nazareth Hall and is now a multi-unit residence. We'll discuss Zinzendorf and his weird connections another day!

Tree with a Face

Another Nazareth oddity is a sycamore tree along Broad Street near Center Street. It appears to have a face, especially when approached on the sidewalk from the Broad and Center Street intersection. It has been called the Buddha Tree but, depending on the light, it can look like something more sinister.

Nazareth seems to have more than its share of unusual or peculiar trees, of which this is one of the most outstanding.