Burnside Plantation ....

For our walk today we went over to the Burnside Plantation ... even though the Bethlehem Police horses are no longer stabled there.

I have often mentioned going to Burnside, but I don't think that I have ever posted a picture of the house before.  So here it is.  (I have added a cool vintage postcard effect .... because I liked it!)

Here's a little bit about this stately home:

It was first owned and is named after James & Mary Burnside .... both Moravians.   In 1747, James and Mary Burnside decided to not follow the choir system of Moravian Bethlehem and purchased 500 acres just north of the Moravian settlement of Bethlehem. Their farm, Burnside Plantation, was the first privately held property in the settlement and first private home. In 1752, James was elected as the first representative to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from the newly formed Northampton County. He was a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin serving with him on the Committee for Indian Affairs. Three years after his death, Mary sold the farm to the Moravian Church and it became Plantation #4 in the Moravian farming system.  From the time of its original purchase by James and Mary Burnside until today, this site has remained a farm.

Sadly, only 6.5 acres of the origin 500 acres remain today as part of the Plantation.