(part one)‘S Alt Marikhaus Mittes In D’r Schtadt or The Old Markethouse in the Middle of the Town

Photograph of Market Houses in York c. 1865

The Old Market-house in the Middle of the Town
And The Olden Times

Henry Lee Fisher wrote ‘S alt Marki-haus mittes in d’r Schtadt (The Old Market-house in the Middle of the Town). It was published in one volume with Die Alte Zeite, E'n Centennial Poem (The Olden Times, A Centennial Poem: or Pennsylvania Rural Life Some Fifty Years Ago, and Other Poems) in 1879.

Each stanza of the The Old Market House, a collection of 100 loosely joined verses, had to do with some aspect of the market sheds that then stood in the center of York or another York scene or personality. This epic poem seems to revere the old market until the verses about rats, tramps, and dirty butcher blocks are noted. Yorkers in his time were passionately divided on whether the sheds should stay or go. One writer later thought that Fisher’s satirical verses helped lead to the markets being pulled down one night in 1887.

The Olden Times is a collection of narrative verses describing the customs and labors of his farm family and their neighbors fifty years before. Each poem addressed a specific Pennsylvania German occupation or custom, from harvesting to militia drills to courting. Fisher saw these old customs fast disappearing. His aim was to capture the lives of the German and Scotch-Irish settlers of his boyhood.

The first book, ‘S alt Marki-haus mittes in d’r Schtadt, has been scanned in color and is presented in the following exhibit. The book includes illustrations by York artist Henry Barrett, as well as drawings in color with handwritten descriptions by York folk artist Lewis Miller.

Self-portrait, original drawing by Henry Barratt

A good portion of locally generated art of the past served a practical purpose, that of preserving images of people, places, and ways of life. This was especially true before photography was developed around 1840. Henry Barratt was an artist who captured York people and scenes of over 100 years ago.

Barratt was born in England in 1817. He settled first in Maryland where he married his wife Margaret and where the first two of their five children were born. The Barratts moved north to York in 1858. Henry evidently pursued art as a career all his life. He is listed variously in York City directories as a photographer, an artist, a crayon artist, and as proprietor of his own drawing school. Census records consistently list Barratt as an artist. He died in York in 1891.

Some of Barratt’s best known drawings were created to illustrate Henry Lee Fisher’s volume of local Pennsylvania German culture, ‘S alt Marki-haus mittes in d’r Schtadt (The Old Markethouse in the Middle of the Town) un Die Alte Zeite (The Olden Times). Both pieces were written in the Pennsylvania Dutch (or German) dialect.

Henry Fisher stated that he designed the illustrations and then Barratt drew them. After all, since he was writing about the past, it was Fisher who was eyewitness to the events, but Barratt who had the talent to transfer the images to paper. In his English preface Fisher relates his dilemma in realizing the need of numerous illustrations (over 100) after he had already presold the book by $2 subscriptions, “entirely too low.” He said that the engravings are, therefore, medium quality. This does not seem to reflect on Barratt’s original pen and ink drawings, but on the cost of having them etched on printing plates. In fact Fisher reused Barratt’s images in the 1888 English translation of Olden Times and also illustrated his sixty-page history of the York County Pennsylvania Germans in the 1886 History of York County with several of them.

Self-portrait, drawing by Lewis Miller
In writing below the portrait, “Lewis Miller is Drawing to Represent a land_Scape and old Citizen of York.”


Yorker Lewis Miller (1796-1882) stated that his aim was to chronicle York in his art, succeeding so well that York has been called the best illustrated American community of the nineteenth century. Lewis Miller used his copy of Henry Lee Fischer’s book ‘S alt Marki-haus mittes in d’r Schtadt un Die Alte Zeite (1879) to further document his life and memories of York. Drawings in color with handwritten descriptions can be found throughout the book.

Miller was a most prolific American folk artist. His depictions of people going about their everyday lives have been used repeatedly in books, articles and documentaries to illustrate nineteenth century America. Miller drew the people and places he knew and saw, at home in York and in his travels, during the first half of the nineteenth century, even though he seems to have drawn them much later after he retired in the late 1850s. When his drawings are examined closely and compared with contemporary likenesses, Lewis is quite accurate.

Lewis was the youngest child born to Pennsylvania Germans John Ludwig Miller and Eve Catherine Rothenberger. They arrived in America in 1772. Lewis was born in York, where their father was schoolteacher and choirmaster at Christ Lutheran Church. Miller was apprenticed to his brother John to learn house carpentry and carpentered for about 35 years until he retired at around 61.

Lewis loved to travel. He listed York County communities he visited in his drawings. In 1840 he toured Europe for nearly a year. After the Civil War he spent more time in Virginia, finally making his permanent home with his niece in Christiansburg. He still managed to do some traveling, making several visits to York, including one following a visit to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876.
Through his illustrated writings, Lewis Miller reveals something of himself as well as his contemporaries. Through his works we can get to know the people who lived 150-200 years ago. Many of the drawings in the collection of York County History Center came from York families and are displayed on a rotating basis. Other drawings are in the collections of the New York Historical Society, Virginia Historical Society, Henry Ford Museum, and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Left - List of Illustrations followed by an illustration of George Washington. Includes a drawing of an eagle with a flag and writing “God Save the Republic,” and “United States of North American from 1776”.
Drawing by Lewis Miller

Right – Printed dedication page “To the Honest, Virtuous, Intelligent and Patriotic Pennsylvania Germans, this Humble Effort to Illustrate The Manners, Customs and General Mode of Life in Their Own Dialect, is Respectfully Inscribed by the Author.”

Includes drawing and description of “A plot of Conspirators by the negros in York to set the town on fire and plunder it…Before the Sqire or magistrate, Justice of peace.”

Lewis Miller goes on to describe below, “In the year 1803, fire broke out in Barns and Stables in day time and after night and no one positive can tell who done it. At last it was discovered by young lady of Mistress John Spangler – I saw our coloured boy Tom take some fire out the kitchen in a cup and Mrs. Spangler told it to her neighbor Colonel George Spangler and Tom was taken to a Squire. He should tell who set fire to the buildings if he know he can tell and we set you free and he told them all who done it. He was one himself and black Isac and Bill Penn and Tom Rur, Jes[?], Bob Cole, Pit Mole[sp?] and Penn’s wife, all Black Colourd. The where taken to jail and in court and after their sentence, the where all send to the State Prison in Philadelphia. The where all Slaves at the time. The law and act was not passed to set them free at that time. The all died in the State Prison”.
Drawing by Lewis Miller

(Exhibit continued in Part Two)