Some months ago I wrote about the Pennsylvania German Birth and Baptismal certificates (often known as Taufscheine or Fraktur) that were produced in the Hanover print shop of Wilhelm Daniel Lepper and Samuel Endredy Stettinius. These two printers established Hanover’s first newspaper Die Pennsylvanische Wochenschrift, in 1797 and issued their
I became interested in Meyer and other York County printers because several also printed Taufscheine, the birth and baptismal certificates that I have been researching for years. Most of them were also very interesting individuals, especially as they used their newspapers as a political platform. One good example is Solomon
Earlier this year I wrote about Daniel May, printer and newspaper publisher in York from about 1829 to 1843. He was one of several York County printers to produce Taufscheine, or baptismal certificates, also known as Fraktur. These colorful certificates, popular from about 1770 to 1870, recorded the birth and
Some of you might be lucky enough to have Pennsylvania German birth and baptismal certificates that were done for family members well over 100 years ago. Or you just might be intrigued by the art and design of these unique folk art documents and perhaps collect them. I have written
In my recent column on Margaretta Furnace in Lower Windsor Township, I mentioned that the York County History Center has some examples of scrip issued by the company in the 1840s, and that it could only be used at the company store. I am sharing images of these notes as well
My recent York Sunday News column was on the leading 20th century poet, Lee Anderson, a resident of southern York County. In addition, I also shared some of Anderson’s poetry in my last post. Here is a look at how he really supported himself: Anderson was very candid in that very, very
My recent York Sunday News column on Anna Dill Gamble is below. She was truly a woman ahead of her time. Gamble used her time, money and skills to further causes in which she believed. Her missions included Catholicism, women’s suffrage and world peace. She helped organize the Catholic Association
The very ornate silk-fringed holiday cards of the late 1800s into the early 1900s weren’t made in York, but they were popular with local residents. There are quite a few, donated over the years by York countians, in the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives collections. These are two of my
I have been looking at old photos of York’s square, following the various sites where Punch, the wooden cigar store statue, offered his bundle of cigars over the decades. The earliest photo of Punch (see above) also shows a very large sign for the Gazette Printing Office atop the building.
The field of folk belief among our Pennsylvania German ancestors is a rich one, replete with words. Certain rituals go along with many practices used for healing known as pow-wow, but the words are also specific for each one. They are readily available in books such as John George Hohman’s