Indian Tower

At the edge of the borough lies a weird treasue, The Indian Tower. This is the site of Nazareth’s first Moravian graveyard, called “God’s Acre” in use from 1744 to 1762. Wrongly thought to be a burial ground for the Indians from a nearby village, there are actually only 4 Indians buried here. Robert Haas created an American marble monument on site, dedicated by the Moravian Historical Society in 1867 at the same time the original pavilion was constructed. The monument was inscribed with the names of the 67 Moravians including 4 Indians, which are buried here.

Sadly, the Tower has been decimated with graffiti. If any credit can be given to the vandals, none of it is particularly vulgar. So there should be no worries when bringing children. But it is pathetic nonetheless.


While I was there snapping photos, I found a geo-caching package hidden, semi-cleverly I suppose, near the Tower. Geo-caching is a hobby where people hide packages at particular coordinates, post the coordinates on online message boards, and use satellite GPS systems to find the packages. The packages usually contain a logbook and pen and various trinkets that the geo-cache crowd exchange. The packages are supposed to be hidden in such a way that they are invisible to the naked eye and can only be found by dialing up the coordinates on a GPS unit. Average Joes’ like me shouldn’t be able to find them. However, I found the box, by accident, within two minutes of my visit. I looked in the box and returned it exactly where I found it although I positioned it so it would be less likely to be stumbled upon by another non-geo-cacher. In the package, I found a logbook that was extremely wet and unreadable and had, what appeared to be, dozens of entries. I also found some plastic army men, a toy dinosaur, a beverage cozy, a sticker, a small box of crayons, some dimes, and a bunch of other things. On a subsequent visit to the Tower, I brought a new notebook and a ziplock bag to keep it dry. This is the least I could do to apologize to the geo-caching gods for disturbing their territory.