[1] A map of 1779 by the military surveyor Frederik Christian von Meley shows Lower Bethlehem on the right as an eighteenth century Danish sugar plantation.

[1] In the 1820s, Estate Bethlehem suffered from a drought, a hurricane and the drop in sugar prices, and were thus sold to Benjamin De Forest at an auction in 1831.

It was connected by a narrow gauge steam railway to Bethlehem Middle Works and Friedensburg, which also belonged to the Lachmann family.

The Lachmanns continued to manage the Bethlehem works, employing approximately 2,000 employees out of a total population of about 15,000, until they sold the factory to the federal government in 1930 as a consequence the Great Depression.

Parts of the plantations were parceled off and sold for agricultural use, while others were used for building the new headquarters of the Virgin Islands Army National Guard.