The Bible in Iron
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;:,! LIBKARY UNIVERSITY^ PENN5YL\^\NIA T39.4 nS3S GIFT OF Dr. (S-HORGE E NITZSCHE i ^Phe Bible in Iron OR The Pictured Stoves and Stove Plates of the Pennsylvania Germans BY HENRY C. MERCER Published for the Bucks County Historical Society Doylestown, Pennsylvania EA\9KIALL!BRARY^.sPvBUCArS3 iF THE X^NIVERSITT^*- PENNSYL^/ANIAJ ACCE-SSISN ^^ PRESeiNTED BY , PREFACE. The art of making iron stoves decorated with pictures and designs illustra- ting the teachings of the Bible was brought from Germany to the Anglo-Ameri- can colonies and survived for half a century on American soil. Cast in low relief upon the flat and often polished sides of the old stoves, continually confronting the settler and his family at one of the centres of house- hold comfort in winter, the singular patterns, generally explained with inscrip- tions, telling of the Miracles of Christ and the Prophets, the beauty of Holiness, and the lessons of Vice and Virtue must have impressed many minds. But the effort of the writer has been rather to explain and describe the casters' art which then, as an inheritance from Germany, gradually appeared and suddenly ceased, than to account for the influence of its teaching upon the lives of the colonists and their descendants. Yet. within the last few weeks, a new and unexpected significance has attached itself to these iron pictures, once so full of meaning in the pioneer household, so long forgotten and now at last rescued from the dust of ruins. For now 'October, 1914,) in the midst of the great European conflict, the ancestral land which made them is passing through an hour of trial. Germany, struggling against heavy odds, is cut off from telegraphic communication with the western world, and now when her enemies in America, misreading her history, accuse her of barbarism, these eloquent fragments of iron, made for and by the founders of our country, offer certain evidence of a virtue long ago inter- woven with the lives of Germans, who as ancestors of Americans of to-day, lived and died in our midst, yet with the old language on their lips, as devout followers of the teachings of Christianity. Not as barbarians they brought their heritage of religious Art to our shores: and though we fail to value these remnants of their forgotten work, how shall we forget that here first, across the threshold of race fellowship, they gave to the stranger their beautiful Christmas Tree, \vhich outweighing in influence the words of many Bernhardis, has spread its glittering branches over the whole Anglo Saxon world. HENRY C. MERCER, Doylestown, Pennsylvania. October 5th, 1914. OI. The Traders. Right plate of an ancient Pennsylvanian Jamb Stove. Size. H, under sail approaches a high-decked ship, which with fluttering 29, W. 25. Bucks County Historical Society. Found while flags and reefed sails lies moored in deeper water. Two more the following pages were in press, in October. 1914, on the sailboats and three row boats appear on the water. premises of an old house, near Boyertown, Montgomery County. To the distant left on a hillock and across an inlet spanned Pennsylvania, by Mr. A. H. Rice, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. by a bridge, stands a barn and flanked by two clumps of trees, The remarkable plate, which is higher than wide, and the a house, perhaps a tavern, with extending signboard and the largest of all the stove plates herewith illustrated, is decorated double-wall chimneys characteristic of old Philadelphia. with a large picture, carved in very flat relief, without canopy A very long rhymed inscription filling the entire remaining or border, which fills the entire middle of the pattern. space of the plate in four lines above, and four below the pic- We seem to be looking at one of the ancient wharves which ture, attacks the vanity, false religion and blindness of the the German mould carver has tried to represent from memory, greedy world. It reads. or a sketch made, not in Europe, but in old New York, or WAS. NICHT. ZU. GOTTES. EHR. Colonial Philadelphia, perhaps on the Delaware river, below AUS. GLAUBEN. GEHT. 1ST. SUNDE. whole Frankford, where the irregular water front, littered with MERK. AUF. DU. FALSCHES. HERTZ. casks and bales of merchandise, is built of logs rather than VERLIEHRT. IHR. KEINE. STUNDE. stone. A jumble of high wooden gables, with overhanging stories, warehouse doors and roof shelters for pulleys, looks DIE. UBERKLUGE. WELT. VER. out upon the water. We see a heavy pair of scales, a crane STEHET. DOCH. KEINE. WAAREN. swinging a bale of merchandise into a lighter and two human SIE. SUCHT. UND. FINDET. KOTH. figures busied in loading a moored sailboat. Another lighter UND. LAEST. DIE. PERLEN. FAHREN. III. every day." or perhaps Translated: Judge, yea a Col that hath indignation as here more lit; rally translated by Luther, "God is a righteous not to Gods glory coiieth from creed is sin. ' That which Judge and a God who threateneth every day, Beware false heart, waste thou not an hour. Another interest ng feature of the pattern is the puzzling The over clever world still understands not traffic. and as yet unexplained name Wilhel-n. Bortschcnt, filling the It searches and finds trash, and lets the pearls escape. lower medallion which, as carved on the Tenth Com.-nandmenl appears here almost in When this plate is compared with the Fa-nily Quarrel, Fig. plate. Figure 35, also cast in 1760, f^r Figure 02, Figure 139, 38. several points of similarity appear. Because both plates fac-sirrile, showing that the moulds by the sane moul 1 are higher than wide, lack canop es, show inscriptions both its companion, and Figure 35, were carved perhaps stand), above and bdow the picture, are correctly and not phonetically carver (for whose na-ne the initials T. B, n-.ay year, 1760, See spelled, and because both are designed upon a similar plan, possibly for Berkshire Furnace in the sane very well lettered and with the letters, ncticcably the U's and Figures 35. 44 and 139. suppose that T's si nilarly for.Tied on both, we n:ay reasonably carved the mould carver, probably fresh fro.-n Germany, who Figure 38. carved this plate also, but because the wocden warehouses and wharves, and particularly the tavern with double chi.Tineys in the style of an American Colonial inn. indi- or York, than cates a scene rather in oH Philadelphia, New without date and Germany, v^e may infer that the plate, though carved in Pennsyl- lacking its companion front, was probably and vania (for the reasons given on page 42), between 1726 1735. 03- Xlie Advice of Tobil. Front plate of Jamb Stove. Size W. 20, H. 24" j, Bucks County 02. Historical Society. Found near Vacungie, Lehigh County, Penn- by Mr. A. H. R ce, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in X. B. sylvania, William Bortschent and November, 1914, too late for insertion in its proper place. Bucks County Historical Society. Found Size W. 24, H. 22%. The very rusty inscription quoted fro.m the Apochryphal 1914. by while the present pages were in press, November 13, Bible is one Bock of Tobit, 4th chapter, 6th verse, in Luthers A. H. Rice, of Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. to his son Tobias Mr. of the admonitions given by the dy ng Tobit or cartouche, DEIN. LEBEN. Not only the general treatment of the tw stel columns, and reads in the transverse band of in the lower medallion) vaults, spandreb. tulip decorations, stars and wheat sheaves LANG. HABE. GOT. and (continued initials probably in the the floral frame work of this plate, and the unexplained VOR AUGEN UND. IM. HERZEN., ending quotation TOBIAS. 4 CAP. For T. B. set under the canopy; but also the B blical words obliterated by rust, D. BUCH. (as identified by Dr. B. and in thine heart. from Psalms 7: 12 in Luther's Bible J. thy life long, hold God before thine eyes the righteous, Stoudt) GOTT. 1ST. EIN. RECHT. God judgeth Book of Tobias, 4th chapter. version, God is a righteous Judge, begun on this or in the new with Figures 90 and 93, but 1760. When th s plate is compared plate and continued on the front plate. Figure 139, dated particularly with Figure 91, a marked similarity appears the companion left side plate for the more prove it to have been set upon the decorative treat.r.ent of the double arched canopy year. in latter, and cast in the same with stars, the twisted columns, the pendant locps decorated Figure 139, because the inscription cartouch:. and the bent As explained under tulip spandrels, the inscribed plinth or the left plate, and continued but not finished flanking the oval frame or thus begun on tulip branches at the lower corners coxpleted on the right side, not the continued on the front, must have been medallion, which here as in Figure 91 contains three moulds instead of two were designer who carved yet found, we may infer that inscripton: so that we may infer that the stove, and that when all three of its plates had carved this plate carved to cast this the latter three patterns in 1751 and 1752, whole stern warn ng of the Psalmist: are discovered, the also at about the same time. collection quotes an Apochry- GOTT. 1ST. EIN. RECHTER. RICHTER. UND. EIN. Only one other plate in the Figure 107 to 110, GOTT. DER. TAGLICH. DROHET. phal Book of the Old Testament, namely is from Sirach 8 7 in where the inscription there described : "God judgjth the righteous, and God is angry with the Luther's Bible.