Incollect Magazine - Issue 3

Incollect Magazine 125 2022 Landis, he did not include the date on which he made this certificate. However, it was no doubt made years after Margaret Weidman’s birth and baptism in 1793, just a year after Bentz was born. The certificate was decorated on wove paper, which generally was not used by Pennsylvania German fraktur artists until about 1820. The occasion for making the certificate remains obscured; Margaret Weidman married John Sheaffer about 1815, so it was not made until well after her marriage. Perhaps it was commissioned at the same time as a birth and baptismal certificate for one of their children. Margaret and her husband had at least six children; she died on May 17, 1873, and was buried in the graveyard of the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lititz, Lancaster County. The Weidmans were a predominantly Lutheran family; more than 130 Weidmans are buried at the Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brickerville, Lancaster Count y, including Margaret’s parents, Georg and Barbara (Illig) Weidman. The Weidman family was a strong presence in northern Lancaster County where Samuel Bentz lived and worked. To this day, a town named Weidmansville in Clay Township, Lancaster County, reflects their influence. Birth and Baptismal Certificate for Henrich Weidman The fraktur illustrated in figure 3 records the birth of Henrich Weidman, son of Samuel and Christina (Appel) Weidman, on September 21, 1817, and his baptism on March 3, 1818, by William Baetis. His baptismal sponsors were Joseph and Christina Weidman. Once again, no location is specified, but Rev. Baetis was pastor of the aforementioned Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brickerville from 1810 to 1836. The Weidman family were leading members of this congregation, with Jacob Weidman serving as one of the overseers for the erection of a parsonage from 1812–14. Henrich Weidman’s mother, born Christina Appel, was part of a large family with ties to the Zion Reformed Church in Brickerville, just a stone’s throw from the Lutheran Church. This fraktur was likely made about the same time as Margaret Weidman’s certificate (see fig. 2). At first glance, the two may look quite different, but careful attention to the details reveals that they are the work of the same artist who made the signed bookplate illustrated in figure 1. One of the most striking similarities is the use of heavy, bold Fraktur lettering for the text. Another detail that matches on all three fraktur is that when rendering a date, Bentz used ordinal numbers and drew a line with three dots underneath the suffix (in German the ordinal suffix is typically “ten,” whereas in English it is “st,” “nd,” “rd,” or “th,” depending on the numeral). On all three pieces, Bentz used variations of his characteristic flowering vines, stripes, checkerboards, and geometric layout. On the fraktur illustrated in figure 2, Bentz included four tiny round faces f lanking the text—an uncommon but not unique instance of this motif. He also occasionally included clock faces, such as the one in a birth record made for John Stoll (fig. 4). Fig. 4 : Birth certificate for John Stoll, attributed to Samuel Bentz, Lancaster County, Pa., ca. 1825. Watercolor and ink on wove paper. H. 9⅞ x W. 7¾ inches. Collection of the Dietrich American Foundation (7.9.HRD.323). Photo by Gavin Ashworth.