Henry Fisher’s book

Mieleta, 19 September 2025

The Pennsylvania Dutch loved to add decorations all over. An old Bible in the Tuliptree Collection has a curious decoration on the tail edge of the textblock.

Decoration on the textblock

It’s a simple punch-type decoration with a sweet heart. We’re familiar with the common bookplate decorations of the Pennsylvania Dutch, but page edge decoration is more of an English practice. The Swem Library at William & Mary has a large collection of such fore-edge painted books. This book is certainly not English — it’s a 1782 Luther translation of the Bible printed at Halle, Germany.

Title page, Luther Bible, printed in Halle 1782

An inscription inside tells us who owned it.

Henry Fisher’s book 1784

Henry Fisher was born in 1758 in Lower Heidelberg (Berks County), the son of Johann Peter and Maria Appolonia (Heckert) Fisher, and moved to the Oley Valley, eventually buying a property there. Between 1798 and 1801, Henry and his wife Susanna Ruth had their beautiful limestone home built. It is an example of the growing popularity of Georgian house architecture among the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Fisher House, Historical American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress

Although it has classic Georgian characteristics, it was still built in the Oley Valley and so the carvings around the door, for example, are hallmarks of Pennsylvania Dutch craftsmanship. 

Front door carving on the Fisher House, Historical American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress

Susanna Fisher died in 1821 and was the first burial in the new section of the Oley Union Cemetery in Spangsville. Henry, however, doesn’t rest next to his wife — in fact, he isn’t buried in Oley at all. In 1823, he visited his daughter Mary who had since moved 175 miles west. Henry died on that trip to Huntington County and so there he remains. Certainly, there was more than one Henry Fisher, but we can be more certain that Henry Fisher of Oley was the owner of Bible, because of a letter tucked inside. The letter was written to Mary’s grandson Norman by the daughter of Mary’s brother David who then occupied the Fisher home in the Oley Valley.

The Fisher home is still in the family and is located along 662 in Oley. They run a produce business, so stop by for some fruits and vegetables when you’re in the area.

Bible scriveners

Nathaniel, 5 September 2025

Early on, Pennsylvania Dutch families documented loved ones with fraktur, especially birth- and baptismal certificates, that were often tucked away in drawers and chests, or perhaps folded and safeguarded in the family bible. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Pennsylvania Dutch families relied on the pages in the family Bible itself to keep track of its members. Sometimes someone in the household would pen names and dates on the Bible’s pages, and sometimes a scrivener would be hired to pen names and dates in fancier, calligraphic writing. Folklorist Don Yoder called this the last development in Pennsylvania Dutch manuscript art.

Georg August S. Hainbach was a prolific scrivener of family Bibles from around the 1870s until the 1920s. He worked primarily in Berks, Lancaster, and Lehigh Counties.

Title page penned by scrivener G. Aug. S. Hainbach

This family Bible in the Tuliptree Collection once belonged to William H. and Mary (Bond) Long. Its beautiful family registry with the birth and baptisms of William and Mary was penned by Hainbach — he signed as much in the first few pages of the Bible.

Family registry

Evidence shows that families kept notes on births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths until a scrivener was hired, or until an itinerant scrivener arrived at the door looking for work. We can see that plainly in this family bible.

Births in the Long family

On a page devoted to the births of their children, the first two for Phelephe and Edger are penned by Hainbach in his characteristic artful calligraphy and curved lines containing additional information. The next two (Salome and Amy) are done by the same hand, but not by Hainbach. The initial S in Steinsville differs and the 8s end on the bottom loop instead of the top loop. Lucy’s entry is by yet a third hand that replicates Hainbach’s S, but it’s much less confident and again the 8 is different. By the time their sixth child, Milton, was born, it looks like the second scrivener may have returned. And Claude’s entry under that one is similar, too, but in different inks. The last entry is likely a fourth scrivener. The writing is fairly shaky, the E differing from Hainbach and the A differing from the second scrivener.

Most of these folks are buried in the New Bethel Union Cemetery in Albany Township in the shadow of the Zinnekopp — a place I’ve visited many times, but never inside the church. I should remedy that soon.