Pleasant morning air greeted us as we headed out of the Holiday Inn for our visit to Old Salem, an area settled by the Moravians in the early eighteen hundreds. We drove past Wake Forest University as we went into town.
We entered through a large visitor's center replete with numerous exhibits and shops, but we opted to save all that for the afternoon. We entered the area through a functional replica of an old covered bridge. Our first stop was a museum of furniture and home furniture from the early Southern states where we saw pieces which varied from the primitive to the ornate.
Exiting the museum, we next stopped at the gunsmith shop where a man was working on the stock of a long rifle in order to fit on the metal parts that he had already cast. He and Klep had a good talk about the intricacies of constructing a gun from scratch and also about the Moravians' history of pacifism. For a century, their young men avoided service because the church paid the government extra tax, but in the Civil War Era, this ended.
The tavern was next. We enjoyed talking to the enactor of proprietor who explained the moneys in use right after the revolution. We walked through all the rooms, even the one where George Washington stayed. He had a room, not just bed space. Up and down three floors and down to the basement to the kitchen gave us a good appetite for dinner next door at the tavern annex which used to be additional rooms. Klep had a sauerkraut stew and I had the Moravian meatloaf with sauteed vegetables out of the garden which were all delicious. The real star of the meal were the muffins, rolls, and butter. We regretted being too full to order the gingerbread and lemon ice cream.
A retired printer took us through the print shop and photography exhibit before we went on to the Single Brothers House. We got a better understanding of the choir system which the Moravians have in their church. We also heard a beautiful organ which was actually originally in the house where everyone met together. This building also had demonstrations of many of the crafts that the single men were trained in.
We dropped in at the bakery, relished the smell, and got a treat for later before going to the doctor's house and apothecary. The doctor actually owned a slave which was frowned on by the church because generally, it was the church which owned property and not individuals. The other slaves in the settlement were actually owned by the Moravian Church as was all the property.
The Home Moravian Church was our next stop. Since the church is still an active, functioning church, one of its members does the talk here at certain times of the day. We came away with a much clearer understanding of the history of the Moravians which goes back to John Russ, a Catholic priest burned for heresy in the early 1400's because he translated the hymns into the heart language of his people and translated the scriptures. The history of strong congregation participation still remains today. Education is also an important aspect of their belief which led to their being pioneers in the education of women in the new world.
Salem College, the oldest college for women in the U.S. has its campus in Old Salem and we walked by many of its buildings.
Historic Saint Philips Church, a church constructed after segregation in worship started in the eighteen hundreds was our next stop. It is the oldest African American church still standing in North Carolina.
We walked back to the visitor's center, chatted with a woman working there, picked up some lemon cookies and headed to the car. Neither of us minded sitting down for awhile as we rode through the gently rolling farms and small towns on Hwy 158 toward our destination of the night - Henderson.
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