Bethabara Historic District

Bethabara, north of Winston-Salem, was founded in 1753 as the first Moravian settlement in North Carolina. Its name means "House of Passage," and it was meant from the start to be temporary, serving as a base for building the town of Salem. Most residents moved there in 1772, and the ruins of many buildings lay under a cultivated field for about a century and a half. The district now works largely as an archeological site. Since 1964, foundations of about two dozen structures, several wells and the postmolds of an 1756 palisade have been excavated, and a modern palisade marks the original line. Three Moravian buildings survive: the 1782 Potter's House, the 1788 Gemeinhaus and the 1803 Brewer's House. They show Pennsylvania-influenced design with fieldstone foundations and plain interiors. God's Acre, the cemetery with the earliest Moravian burials in the state, lies on a hill above the village. The land is leased as a public historic park.