I drove through Winston-Salem and discovered a part of history in Old Salem. Before it was Old Salem, it was just Salem.
The history of Old Salem is that John Hus of Bohemia was burned at the stake in 1415 for heresy after protesting several Roman Catholic Church practices. After his death, his followers formed the Unity of Brethren. Persecuted in Moravia and Bohemia, the Unity of Brethren eventually settled in Saxony, which is now Germany. As active missionaries, they established settlements in England, where people called them Moravians. Continued religious persecution caused them to seek religious freedom, this time in the New World.
In 1753, the Moravians settled on a 100,000-acre tract of land in North Carolina. Residents of Salem could not own land. Instead, they built the homes they owned on lots leased from the church. Money paid to the church was used to pay for community expenses.
The church governed all other aspects of life in Salem. In 1849, the church sold a tract of land adjacent to Salem for a new colony. The new colony grew rapidly, and in 1850 was named Winston in honor of Major Joseph Winston, a local Revolutionary War hero. The two towns merged in May 1913 to create Winston-Salem.
