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Martin Hoke Coverlet

York weaver Martin Hoke was so upset that a thief made off with four of his "coverlids" in 1843 that he offered quite a substantial reward for their return. They wouldn't be too hard to identify as they had both Hoke's name and the name of the client woven into each one.

If you have coverlets of your own, you have an opportunity to register them on Saturday, October 31 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at York County Heritage Trust's first ever coverlet documentation day. Coverlet experts will document the pattern, history and details of the weaver. You can also view the 42 coverlets on display in the From Old Looms to Heirlooms: York County Coverlets exhibit through November 28. The documentation will be held at 250 East Market Street.

See Martin Hoke's descriptive ad from the May 16, 1843 York Gazette below.

One of the colorful patterns from Abraham Serff's pattern book, now in the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives.

Weavers were essential members of the community in 18th and 19th century America. In Pennsylvania before the Industrial Revolution you would raise sheep for wool and cultivate flax for linen fibers. After processing and spinning the raw materials into thread or yarn, you would take them to the local weaver. Well over 500 York County weavers from 1800 to 1860 have been identified, and as I point out below in my recent York Sunday News article, there were probably many more.

The colorful legacy of the weaver lives on in the brightly patterned coverlets produced in quantity from the 1830s through the 1860s. The more intricate patterns were produced with a special Jacquard attachment, which the weaver would purchase to add on to his loom. At least one York County craftsman manufactured the attachments, as advertised in the newspaper add immediately below. It was first published February 11, 1834 and ran for quite some time.

I've been doing some research lately on early York County furniture makers and found that there were many more of these skilled craftspeople than I realized. It does make sense--everyone needed furniture and few were wealthy enough to have it "imported" from Baltimore or Philadelphia.

The existing tax lists from 1800-1850 abound with cabinet makers, chair makers, joiners and turners. There are hundreds of carpenters listed, most of which may have been house carpenters, but some probably also made some furniture. Some, like George Dowdel, who invented a bedbug-proof bedstead didn't get picked up in the existing tax lists as a furniture maker or carpenter at all.

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Dowdel/Doudel did make more than just bedsteads, as evidenced by his sale bill, listed in the January 24, 1832 Gazette. He was selling everything, including his carpenter and cabinetmakers. A George Doudel from Pennsylvania arrived in Ohio about this time, so he may have preparing to move west, as many were doing during this period.

The sale bill, transcribed below, also gives us a glimpse of daily life in York in the 1830s.

Just as today, during the Revolutionary War the Army needed a lot more than men who could shoot a rifle. An Army can't function without support--personnel that gathers the supplies, feeds the soldiers, and keeps the equipment running.

The following recruiting ad comes from the Pennsylvania Gazette, printed in York, PA during Continental Congress's stay here: