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.