Carved in Stone, Revealed in New Light: Early Gravestone Carvers and Funerary Folk Culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch
Posted by Patrick Donmoyer on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Carved in Stone, Revealed in New Light: Early Gravestone Carvers and Funerary Folk Culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch In the winter of 1747, tragedy struck in the Tulpehocken Valley. Leonard Rieth (1691–1747) — among the first German-speaking settlers to journey into the valley from Schoharie, New York, in 1723 — was crushed by two cogs in his gristmill along the Mill Creek. Rieth’s untimely death also coincided with a schism that divided the Lutheran congregation that bore his family name: Rieth’s (later...read more