Portrait of Col. George Mayer

Colonel George Mayer (1781-1862) was a prominent merchant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania. He commanded a battalion which marched to Baltimore in 1814, during the War of 1812. With his second wife, Mary Carpenter Smith, he had three children. Jacob Eichholtz (1776-1842) was an early American painter, known primarily for his portraits in the Romantic Victorian tradition. Eichholtz was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to a family of prosperous Pennsylvania Germans and spent most of his professional life in Philadelphia. He is known to have painted over 800 portraits over the course of 35 years.