Incollect Magazine - Issue 3

are in the author bio below. For information about the Dietrich American Foundation, visit dietrichamericanfoundation.org. Lisa Minardi is the executive director of Historic Trappe and a contributing author to In Pursuit of History: A Lifetime Collecting Colonial American Art and Artifacts, ed. H. Richard Dietrich III and Deborah M. Rebuck (Yale University Press for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Dietrich American Foundation, 2019). Please send comments/ queries to info@historictrappe.org. Kemper (1779–1843) buried there includes the name “C. Bentz” at the bottom right of the inscription. This location is typically where the gravestone maker might include his name, albeit on rare occasions. The estate papers for Samuel Bentz, who died in 1850, include a payment of $144.2 to one Christian Bentz for making a pair of gravestones (“pair” referring to a head and foot stone). New research into “C. Bentz” uncovered yet another connection. On February 6, 1848, Margaret Bentz, eldest daughter of C. Bentz, Esq., of Elizabeth Township, and David Kemper of Ephrata were married. 5 Additional examples of fraktur by Samuel Bentz are in the collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Lancaster History, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Winterthur Museum. This article is the ninth in a series featuring the Dietrich American Foundation’s collection, intended as a type of crowd sourcing exercise, where responses and information shared by readers can inform the research. New information will be provided over the course of the series. Contact details 1. Frederick S. Weiser, “Samuel Bentz, the Mount Pleasant Artist,” Der Reggeboge: Journal of the Pennsylvania German Society vol. 20, no. 2 (1986): 33–42. 2. The book is the 20th American edition of this title and was printed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by Wilhelm Wheit in 1823 and distributed by Jacob Schweitzer. 3. A local provenance is suggested by the book’s history of ownership in the collection of Arthur Feeman Jr. of Jonestown, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. See Pennypacker Auction Centre, Three day Antique Auction from the private collection of Arthur Feeman Jr., Jonestown, Pa., Reading, Pa., October 12–14, 1981, lot 146. 4. This birth record was made for Catherine Styre, born in 1835; it is in the collection of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, frk00676. 5. Lancaster Intelligencer, 22 February 1848. Incollect Magazine 127 2022 Fig. 6 : Bookplate for Maria Kemper, attributed to Samuel Bentz, Lancaster County, Pa., 1836. Watercolor and ink on wove paper. H. 5¾ x W. 11 inches. Collection of the Dietrich American Foundation (7.9.1327). Photo by Gavin Ashworth.