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The Lost Village of Christian's Spring

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Boys' House

Images of Boys' House

This photograph depicts the east-facing side (and part of the south-facing side) of the Boys' House. To the left stands the Pfleger's House, the only structure from eighteenth-century Christiansbrunn that survives in the twenty-first century. The Boys' House was built into the hill, so the door of the Boys' House visible here opened into the basement level. (Photo used courtesy of the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem.)

The Boys' House consisted of 4 rooms, 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, bakery and a washhouse. It was 35 feet long by 28 feet wide. 2 stories high. Wood frame with masonry. On a 1752 list of buildings, it is called the "New House"; on a 1758 list, "A House in which the Boys Live"; on a 1776 list, just "The Boys' House."

Most photographs of the Boys' House were taken, as far as can be determined, in the 1860s, the 1870s, and the 1890s. They do not depict the same moment in the afterlife of Christiansbrunn: in some the Boys' House has a small attached extension to the south, in some it does not.

 

The image below locates the Boys' House on a 1795 map of the Christiansbrunn community.