The Moravian Lovefeast

by Denise Weimer
 
The Christmas season is one of times members of the Moravian Church celebrate with a lovefeast, a practice unique to their ecclesiastical tradition. It’s a beautiful time of song and fellowship, often candlelit during Advent. But who are the Moravians? Let’s answer that before we focus on the lovefeast.

The Moravians trace their roots to the protests of University of Prague Professor of Philosophy and Rector John (or Jan) Hus against the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. By 1517, the Unity of Brethren numbered at least 200,000. Following a period of persecution, Moravian families found refuge on the Herrnhut estate of Saxon Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. The people followed a simplified style of communal living until the late 1700s, when families began living together.

A revival in 1727 led to the Moravian Church becoming the foremost mission-sending organization of its time. With the view of reaching Native Americans, the church established settlements in Bethlehem and Nazareth, Pennsylvania, in the 1740s, and grew in America from there.

According to Customs & Practices of the Moravian Church by Adelaide L. Fries and Preserving the Past: Salem Moravians’ Receipts & Rituals, lovefeasts began under Zinzendorf as a service of solemn song. This was done in memory of the first disciples breaking bread together in Acts 2.

Children and non-members can attend a lovefeast. The service opens with prayer, and if there is an address, it is brief, detailing the importance of the day being celebrated. Apart from Advent, these might include the anniversary of a new congregation, a missionary occasion, or other high church dates.

The Moravian blessing is prayed in unison: “Come, Lord Jesus, our Guest to be, and bless these gifts, bestowed by Thee. Amen.”

In a quiet manner meant to not interrupt the singing, servers bring refreshments. Usually, men bring mugs of coffee or tea, while women bring baskets of slightly sweetened buns. The women may wear a version of the haube, the traditional head covering once worn by Moravian ladies. 

Moravian Lovefeast: Will and Deni McIntyre, Wiki credit

A recipe for traditional lovefeast buns includes a half gallon on sponge, two cakes of yeast, a half gallon of sweet milk, a half gallon of warm water, two pounds of sugar, three ounces of salt, and a little mace and cinnamon. The ingredients are mixed at night to be baked the next day. If you are ever in Old Salem, North Carolina, you can try these delights at Winkler’s Bakery.

Cream tallow candles tied with a red ribbon are often lit during the Christmas Eve lovefeast. Traditionally, congregants would carry the lighted candles home and place them in their windows.

Intrigued by the Moravians and their traditions? Journey with John and Clarissa Kliest, married for convenience by lot (another intriguing tradition!) to a Christmas celebration in Cherokee Territory in 1805 in my new novel, The Witness Tree (The Witness Tree on Amazon).

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. Her contemporary romance, Fall Flip, and her historical romance, The Witness Tree, both released with LPC this September. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:
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“I Saw There the Sons of a Cherokee Regulus”

The Chief Vann House

by Denise Weimer
 
With a heart for missions, the Moravian Church spread from Germany to America. At the turn of the nineteenth century, workers from Salem, North Carolina, founded a mission school on the plantation of Cherokee Chief James Vann (now Northwest Georgia). In March, 1802, the Springplace school opened with only a few pupils, including Vann’s youngest daughter Sally and her cousin. Others soon followed, including Sally’s brother Joseph and sons of other chiefs. Children of Vann’s overseers, who were often his cousins, also attended. In 1806, three scholars boarded with the missionaries, while five stayed in the home of Chief Vann.

The missionaries found it almost impossible to learn the Cherokee language. In May, 1807, they began instruction in writing English. By August 1810, the scholars had advanced in arithmetic as far as the Rule of Three and made further progress in reading, grammar, and writing; learned by heart a bit of sacred history; and studied the basics of geography. 

Perhaps the school’s most famous student was Buck Watie, son of David Oowatie and mixed-blood Susanna. Buck went to Springplace in 1811 or 1812. The missionaries described him as trusting and gentle. He continued his education at the Congregationalist Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. There he became the mentee of philanthropist Dr. Elias Boudinot, who gave him his name. Both Watie/Boudinot and fellow scholar John Ridge married local white Congregationalist girls, creating scandals. They took their brides back to the Cherokee Nation. In 1828, Watie/Boudinot and missionary Samuel Worcester printed the first Cherokee newspaper.

Elias Boudinot/Buck Watie

A Catholic Abbe wrote of the school: “I there saw the sons of a Cherokee Regulus learning their lesson, and reading their New Testament in the morning, and drawing and painting in the afternoon, though to be sure, in a very Cherokee style; and assisting Mrs. Gambold in her household work or Mr. Gambold in planting corn.”

Abraham Steiner visited from Salem in October 1819. He enjoined, “Let us, in spirit, live a day at Springplace. In the morning, when all are up and dressed … we meet for family prayer, all kneeling. After breakfast school begins, remaining in session till dinner. Several hours' intermission are followed by school from three o'clock until toward evening. In the hours of intermission the scholars either help in the garden and field, chop wood, etc., or, when no work is pressing, take exercise together; go out with their blow-guns — tubes of cane, 7 or 8 feet in length, fitted with arrows which are blown out — or bows and arrows, to shoot birds and squirrels. After supper is evening-song and prayer and early to bed. Mrs. Gambold does all the teaching except the class for religious instruction which is taught by Mr. Gambold. The school opens and closes with song.”

A sketch artist's depiction of the Springplace mission

In 1819, it was decided to accept only male pupils. The message of the Gospel spread along with the esteem of the school. The window before the Trail of Tears closed soon after, but the fragrance of Springplace remained.

In The Witness Tree, my novel released last month, Clarissa Kliest leaves the security of Salem for a marriage of convenience and an unexpectedly dangerous assignment in the Cherokee Nation. (The Witness Tree on Amazon)

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. Her contemporary romance, Fall Flip, also released last month with Candlelight Romance. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:

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The Chief Vann House

I remember visiting the Chief Vann house in Northwest Georgia, “The Showplace of the Cherokee Nation,” as a child. Today I’d like to share with you some of the fascinating history I reviewed on my recent research trip, along with photos of what was once known as Diamond Hill Plantation.

As far as historians can tell, James Vann was born to Scottish fur trader Joseph Vann and his half-blood Cherokee wife, Wahli, around 1768. James gained wealth by placing various businesses along the newly established Federal Road at the turn of the nineteenth century. He took multiple wives, but Peggy Scott Vann (b. 1783) claimed the title of principal wife, even though she was not the mother of James’s main heir, Joseph (Joe) Vann. The Cherokees did not own the land, but rather could use it for specific purposes.

On his many travels, James became acquainted with Moravian missionaries, and desired for them to establish a school for children of Cherokee chiefs on his land. The missionary diaries describe his land near the Connesauga River as rich but Vann himself as “very dissipated and drunken.” Indeed, Vann had acquired a reputation for cruelty to his slaves and even his family members. But he became the consummate host to the Moravians, who established Springplace mission in 1801.

Across from the mission, Vann completed construction of his new, Federal-style brick home in 1805. The brick mason came from Virginia, and carpenters from Tennessee. Vann slaves formed the bricks by hand on the plantation, while nails and hinges were made in Vann’s blacksmith shops. The floating stairway offers the oldest example of cantilevered construction in the state. James’s son Joe is believed to have added the elaborate woodwork in the colors of earth and sky as seen in the home’s interior today. The cookhouse was adjacent to the dining room, originally a hewn log structure.

In 1835, the Joe Vann family became victims of the Trail of Tears, removing to Webber’s Falls, Oklahoma. The property valuation included 800 acres under cultivation, 110 slaves, the house, cabins, barns, smokehouses, corn cribs, grist mill, sawmill, blacksmith shops, taverns, peach kiln, whiskey stills, and peach and apple orchards.

Get a glimpse of life as it was, both harrowing and beautiful, at Diamond Hill and Springplace c. 1805, in my upcoming novel, The Witness Tree, this September with Smitten Historical Romance.

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s the managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:

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A Visit to an 1805 Doctor's Office

Typical brick house construction in Salem.

My January post introduced you to the Moravian town of Salem, North Carolina, along with some of its unique history. One of the buildings on the living history tour I was most excited to visit on my research trip for my novel, The Witness Tree (coming this September), was the doctor’s house and apothecary. Because my parents restored and run an 1840s apothecary here in Georgia, my mom, who traveled with me, shared my eagerness.

We spent a long time at the Vierling House, flipping through medical recipes and examining fascinating displays that took me right to the period of my novel, c. 1805.

Dr. Samuel Benjamin Vierling was born in Germany in 1765 and became Salem’s most renowned physician. A skilled surgeon, he performed cancer, cataract, and brain surgery. He also inoculated residents against smallpox at the turn of the nineteenth century, introducing puss from a cow under the skin of healthy people.

Dr. Vierling and his growing family moved into their fine brick residence in 1802. He ran his apothecary out of the lower front room. We know that his ailing in-laws joined them in residence there in 1805, when a peek into his books shows us the town of 1,388 people conducted ninety-four infant baptisms and twenty-nine funerals. In addition to the smallpox scare, the town sustained an influenza epidemic. Dr. Vierling asked “again” for a hospital, and noted that severe weather and the poor harvest of the year before resulted in a shortage of food.

Common uses of herbs and medicines included antimony and anise for coughs; arsenic for cancer and yellow fever; powdered cloves for toothaches; foxglove for mania; mercury for rabies and venereal disease; and coffee for consumption and kidney stones. I’ll take the coffee treatment, please!

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s the managing editor of Smitten Historical Romance of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here: 
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The Moravian Town of Salem, North Carolina

1784 Salem Tavern for the hosting of "strangers"

Arrive in Old Salem, and you know from the Colonial Germanic architecture and living history museum operating alongside a fully accredited university that you’re someplace special. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll learn that the Moravian roots of Salem—part of the modern city of Winston-Salem—make it unique among North Carolina towns.

In 1753, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg purchased just short of 99,000 acres in the forks of Muddy Creek for the Moravian Church.

Originally known as Unity of the Brethren, the church had been in existence since a Bohemian priest, John Huss, was burned at stake in 1415 for challenging the authority and ethics of the Catholic Church. The Hussite churches were scattered, persecuted, and eventually influenced by Pietism. Bishop John Amos Comenius called the faithful “the hidden seed.” Eventually these people found refuge on the Saxon estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, where they practiced communal living. In 1727, a revival sparked the fire of the most comprehensive Protestant mission effort to date. The Moravians established settlements in Pennsylvania, which in turn led to those in North Carolina.

Earliest timbered houses in Salem

The first settlers arrived in the stockade fort of Bethabara in 1753. Residents soon expanded from the fort and outlying farms to a new town, Bethania. In 1765, the location for Salem was chosen. Salem became the seat of church government for the North Carolina settlements and a center for trade and industry in the Southeast.

By the establishment of Salem, Moravians no longer separated all residents into choirs—communal living arranged by age, marital status, and gender—but still provided dorms for single adult men and women. The system offered independence and employment. Children attended boys’ and girls’ schools. The boarding school for girls soon drew scholars from across the Southeast, while the town’s advanced, log-bored plumbing drew George Washington for a 1791 visit. Major decisions were prayed over by the elders, then taken before the lot—a system of drawing a paper that said “yes,” “no,” or blank for “wait”—out of a bowl or tube. Members considered the lot process representative of the will of God as evidenced in Numbers 33 and Acts 1. 

Single Sisters' House

You can learn more in Old Salem: The Official Guidebook, by Penelope Niven.

Can you imagine living in Old Salem? Keep an eye out for my upcoming novel, The Witness Tree, about a marriage of convenience in that very town that leads to an adventure in the Cherokee Nation. It will be published by LPC’s Smitten imprint in September 2019.

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s the managing editor for Smitten Romance of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:

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