Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites

The Miller’s House Garden is an 1870’s Victorian-inspired design that honors the history of the Colonial Industrial Quarter.

This award-winning, community garden is located in the Colonial Industrial Quarter of Historic Bethlehem near Monocracy Creek. The garden has received many awards: The Preservation of Beauty Award from the Garden Club Federation of PA, was featured in an article in Herb Quarterly Magazine, was presented with the Golden Trowel Award by Garden Design Magazine, is a multiple Blue Ribbon recipient of the PA Horticulture Society's ‘Community Greening Award’, the ‘Kellogg Civic Achievement Award’ Certificate of Commendation from the National Garden Clubs, and a First Place ‘Civic Achievement Award’ from the Garden Club Federation of PA. The Miller's House Garden is designated a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

Dedicated in 1989, the garden has been planned, planted, and continues to be tended by volunteer members of the Bethlehem Garden Club.

The Victorian Era garden features four rectangular raised beds comprising the Kitchen Garden with heirloom tomatoes, leeks, beans, peppers, and other vegetables; the Herb Garden containing both culinary and medicinal herbs; the Scented Garden with aromatic plants such as bee balm, phlox, and lilies; and the Cutting Garden featuring everlasting flowers including baby’s breath, globe thistle, and gomphrena. These beds surround a central circle planted with boxwood and geraniums. Among the highlights of the garden are the antique roses, traditionally planted close to the house for their beauty and fragrance. Lavender floats above the lower retaining wall with thymes carpeting the ground at their feet. In the Memorial Bed, at the garden’s entrance, sharing space with the flowers, trees, and shrubs are old fashioned fruits, including gooseberry and currents. In the West Entry Succulent Bed, you’ll find a delightful array of sedum, enhanced with peony and iris. Don’t miss the Hillside Gardens with coneflowers and black-eyed Susan peeking through the billowing ornamental grasses. Take a short stroll over to the Shed Garden and you’ll find our specimen trees which include a weeping mulberry, a purple-leaved plum, a Serviceberry, a Kousa dogwood, and a Magnolia.

The garden is open to the public at all times. There are no organized tours but there is a brochure/plant list available to visitors in the on-site ‘mailbox’.

The Bethlehem Garden Club welcomes visitors to travel back in time and walk its paths, relax on its benches, and enjoy the serenity of the Miller’s House Garden!

The Springhouse c. 1970 is a reconstructed log building of white oak timber on the site of the original springhouse and milk house which was constructed in 1764. Before refrigeration, this building provided cold storage for meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables and milk belonging to the various choirs and later to families. A prodigious spring on the hillside nearby provided fresh water to the community and cooling for the springhouse. In 1747, the spring was surrounded by a fence to keep out the animals. The spring provided water to the city of Bethlehem until the early 1900s when it was capped due to contamination.

The Dye House was constructed of limestone in 1771 as a two-story building with a one-story section on the west side where the actual dyeing operations took place. In order to dye yarn for fabric, the Moravians used plants, roots, nuts, and bark to create the dyes for red, blue, yellow and brown and various shades and combinations of these colors. Today, the Dye House is an archaeological ruin with portions of the exterior walls and foundations remaining which were stabilized in 2007. Over several seasons, archaeological digs have been conducted by the Yale University Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

The Butchery, constructed in 1752, is an archaeological site with only the foundation walls standing, but 18th century illustrations show a two-story building. The butchery, also called the slaughter house, provided meat for the community and hides for the tanning operations next door. By the early 20th century, it had been converted into a laundry and cleaning business. As part of the Urban Renewal project in the 1960s, the building was torn down. Little remains of the 18th century fabric other than the foundations.

The Oil Mill c.1765 was constructed of limestone and operated two undershot water wheels. The Oil Mill was demolished in 1934 as a project of the Works Progress Administration with the stones used for retaining walls along the Monocacy Creek; only the foundations of the Oil Mill remain today. A working scale model is located in the 1869 Luckenbach Mill. Extensive research was completed by Carter Litchfield and his team in the early 1980s with their findings published in a book, The Bethlehem Oil Mill 1745-1934, about milling operations in 18th century Bethlehem, which is available for purchase at the Visitor Center.

A diagonal road, known today as Ohio Road, leads down the hill between the Smithy and Pottery and across the stone bridge over the Monocacy Creek. This road, following an early American Indian trail, and the bridge appears on the Plan of Bethlehem dated 1766.

The current stone bridge constructed circa 1820 replaced the earlier wooden bridge that appears in the 1766 plan. It has two limestone arches with a central stone pier. Next to this bridge, on the west side of the Monocacy Creek was the site of the Indian Hotel constructed in 1752. The bridge is located in proximity to the Butchery and Dye House and, today, serves as a pedestrian walkway.