Farm fields of the Oley Valley

Schuylkill River

The Oley Valley is located in southeastern Berks County and is well-known for its agricultural and architectural landscape. Enclosed by hills to the west, north, and east, and by the Schuylkill River to the south, the valley is bowl shaped. The land is drained by the Antietam, Owatin, Manatawny and Monocacy Creeks and the valley contains such towns as Douglassville, Oley, and Lobachsville. Early settlers of the region included the Jones’, Douglass’, Boone’s, DeTurk’s, Bertolet’s, Lincoln’s and many other families of European descent. Also, the valley is known as a melting pot of religious communities. Religions in the valley included Catholics, Anglicans, Quakers, Mennonites, Moravians, Lutherans, and many others.

This page is dedicated to articles by various authors that are based upon the many crafts, industries, religions, and communities that made up the Oley Valley in the 18th Century. Some of the topics that will be included here will include religious life (such as Quaker meeting houses, Moravian schools, etc.), professions (such as sawmilling, blacksmithing, and tavern-keeping), early communities (such as Friendensburg, Morlatton, and New Store), and architecture (such as German stove-room houses, English hall-parlor structures, and Georgian style buildings).

Articles will be added periodically and past articles will be archived. We hope you enjoy reading the articles, and obtain a better picture of life in the Boone’s Oley Valley.

The following three articles appeared in past issues of the newsletter of the Friends of the Daniel Boone Homestead:

Any Given Sunday
By Jon Hartman

Into The Wood
By Jon Hartman

Forging a Nation
by Jon Hartman

Textiles of the 18th century Bedstead
by Daniel M. Roe

Any Given Sunday
By Jon Hartman

St. Gabriel's Church

William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania to allow all religions to worship freely. Consequently, many different religious groups settled the colony (and the Oley Valley) during the 18th century. The Homestead’s residents (and extended families) illustrate this fact perfectly. For instance, the Boones, like William Penn, were Quakers. Quakers, or The Society of Friends, represented a majority among PA’s colonial era religions. While other faiths remained relatively disorganized and scattered (especially in frontier regions), the Quakers enjoyed a noticeable degree of stability. In fact, Friends enjoyed a vast proportion of the colony’s prosperity and political power. George Boone, Jr. owned one of the area’s first three gristmills. He donated the land for the Exeter Meeting and its burial grounds and was named the Valley’s first Justice of the Peace in 1728. Members of Exeter Meeting dominated Valley government through 1760s, when Friends influence began its decline.

The William Maugridge family belonged to the Church of England, and no official Anglican Church existed in the Valley when he first arrived. Instead, many Anglicans worshipped alongside German and Swedish Lutherans in the Molatton (or New Store) church. Officially established in 1719 as a Church of Sweden (Lutheran), Molatton’s congregation included interdenominational Germans, Swedes, Welshman, and Englishman with similar doctrines. The arrangement suited everyone because church services during the colonial era were irregular at best. Central church governments in Europe showed little urgency to shepherd colonial flocks. Therefore, regular, ordained ministers were scarce. Some suppose that in 1748 Maugridge, a former Anglican vestryman at Christ Church in Philadelphia, asked Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, the famous German Lutheran minister, to preach at Molatton. Muhlenberg made twice-monthly visits between 1748 and 1752. However, the increasingly English congregation took over and by 1753 Molatton officially converted to an Anglican church named St. Gabriel’s.

Exeter Friends Meeting, built 1759 on land given by Deborah, wife of George Boone Jr.

Finally, John DeTurk and his family were Huguenot. A portion of the Valley’s early Huguenots chose to join a small German sect calling itself the New Born. The sect was probably responsible for the Valley’s early reputation as a godless region. The New Born believed that salvation occurred through a traumatic experience resulting in spiritual death and rebirth that culminated in an interview with the Heavenly Being. Afterwards, salvation was assured and the person was forever incapable of sin. Little evidence supports DeTurk family involvement with the New Born, and by the 1730s the sect had largely died out. Instead John DeTurk, Sr. sympathized with the Moravians. In 1742, the elder DeTurk invited the Moravian leader, Count Zinzendorf, to hold a meeting at his house. Zinzendorf’s meeting aimed at uniting the Valley’s German sects, similar to what was happening at Molatton. The meeting resulted in the establishment of the nondenominational Oley Church. However, Zinzendorf’s goal to convert the other sects into Moravians eventually failed. Moravians in Oley often relocated to Bethlehem, and Moravian presence in the region was nonexistent by 1761. The faiths mentioned were not the only ones worshipping here, but the circumstances and situations described give a good sense of what 18th century religious life in the Valley was like.

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Into The Wood
By Jon Hartman

Autumn conjures pictures of the harvest, when farmers gather earthy brown corn stalks into tangled shocks. For many of the area’s 18th-century residents, survival required a successful harvest. When the granary was filled and the first snow of winter arrived income could be scarce, unless of course you owned a sawmill. Sawmills, while not as prosperous as other types of mills, were a key industry during our early history. In 1775, the Oley Valley housed 17 sawmills.

After a tree was felled and limbed it was ready for the mill. Logs were set upon a sled that moved them into the blade, and precise placement on the sled determined the width of the cut. Early mill designs utilized saw blades that moved vertically. These “up and down,” or reciprocating, blades cut only during the down stroke. Once a cut was made the sled moved the log forward for the next cut. The whole operation, sled and saw, was usually powered by water wheel. It took about three hours to saw a large log.

Much of the wood was made into boards and staves suitable for building furniture, roofs, floors, house frames, barrels, and kegs. Generally, sawyers worked with green, fresh-cut wood since dried logs proved harder to cut and resulted in greater wear and tear on the machinery. Most area sawmills were custom mills, usually owned by farmers who operated them during the slow winter months. Custom mill owners provided lumber for themselves and area residents. Neighbors could take their timber to a custom mill where the owner usually kept 1/8 to 1/4 of the wood as a fee, a small price to pay when clearing land for a homestead.

During the 1700s the colonies, here and abroad, were growing rapidly, making lumber a highly prized commodity. As a result, some of the region’s sawmills were merchant mills that exported their product instead of providing a service for neighbors. Philadelphia, which started as a city built with wood and not brick, became the destination for much local lumber. However, a great deal of Pennsylvania’s black walnut went to England and the West Indies. In 1732, Jonathan Robeson established the most famous of these merchant mills. Robeson’s mill, known as Lebanon Mill, stood near the town of present-day Gibraltar. Sometime between 1735 and 1750 Robeson sold his mill to George Boone, Jr.

The Bertolet sawmill, moved to the Boone Homestead in 1967, was built around 1810. However, evidence points to the possibility that a sawmill existed on the Bertolet property (located south of Route 73 near Route 662 and Bertolet Mill Road) as early as 1747 or 1760. In addition to the Bertolets many of the area’s prominent family’s ran sawmills, including the Potts and the Birds. The Bertolet mill remained in use for nearly 125 years between 1810 and 1934. The length of its operation stands as a testament to the importance of the regional sawmill.

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Forging a Nation
by Jon Hartman

Berks County has been prized for its fertile soil since it was first settled. That fact is still evident in the number of farms that dot our present landscape. Maybe that is why I picture peaceful farm communities when I imagine the region during the 18th century. However, my modern view is only partly correct. Early settlers also found the area rich in iron ore. This industrial potential made settling here even more inviting.

In fact, many settlers found large ore deposits on the surface of their fields, pastures, and woodlands. Little skill, beyond digging a pit, was needed to retrieve the ore that fed roaring furnaces and clanging forges. Around 1715 Thomas Rutter constructed the first forge in Pennsylvania. Rutter’s Forge, located along the Manatawny Creek, was a bloomery. Bloomeries provided the easiest method for extracting iron and were common during the early colonial years. In a bloomery, ore was heated in a charcoal fueled hearth. Once it reached a semi-molten state, the iron was worked into a lump, or bloom. The bloom was then pounded into a bar by a large waterwheel driven hammer called a tilt hammer. Repeated heatings and hammerings resulted in a crude and brittle form of wrought iron.

Iron production changed dramatically when Rutter built the Colebrookdale Furnace around 1719. Furnaces alternated layers of charcoal, ore, and limestone. Large bellows powered by water wheel created extremely high temperatures, which enabled the iron to reach a completely molten state. Next, it was diverted into sand casting molds. The cast iron usually resulted in bars, called pig, although a few furnaces, like Oley Furnace, also cast stove plates and cookware. Pig iron was sent to a forge to be refined. The refinery forge (which, after 1719, many local forges were) repeatedly heated the iron and pounded it with the tilt hammer. The process resulted a stronger wrought iron for blacksmiths like Squire Boone.

By the time Squire arrived in 1730 the area’s iron industry was well under way. In 1725, Berks County saw the addition of Pool Forge and Pine Forge. On the Manatawny Creek, Spring Forge started operation in 1729. Thomas Potts, Jr. completed Mount Pleasant Furnace in 1737. William Bird, the namesake of Birdsboro, added Hopewell Forge and New Pine Forge (along Hay Creek) in 1744. And the list continues. Abundant raw materials – iron ore, limestone deposits, wood for charcoal, and streams for power – made the region ideal for early businessmen.

Many families found power and fortune in the Pennsylvania iron industry. In fact, the Boones that remained in Pennsylvania operated a bloomery until about 1800. In 1761, William Bird died the wealthiest man in Berks County. Daniel Udree of the Oley Iron Works served as a U.S. Congressman in 1813. It was all achieved through the rich resources of Berks County. Our region and its iron masters helped fuel the Revolution and heralded the boom years of the Pennsylvania steel industry.

NOTE: Facts given in this article were taken from the following resources: Oley Valley Heritage: The Colonial Years: 1700-1775 by Philip E. Pendleton and Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century by Arthur Cecil Bining.

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Textiles of the 18th century Bedstead
by Daniel M. Roe

Curtained Bed with bolster, mattress and woven blanket

Throughout the eighteenth century, the various types and styles of textiles in an individual household served as defining characteristics for a family’s culture, ancestry and socioeconomic status. The variety of textiles that furnished eighteenth century beds represents perhaps the best example of the differences of textile use across class and ethnic lines. Due to the diverse makeup of colonial migrants to the Oley Valley, a multitude of bedding fabrics were present in the 1700s. Two prevalent groups in particular, colonists of English background and Pennsylvania Germans, contrasted greatly in not only their tastes of textiles, but also in the general construction of their bedding. The two subsequent owners of the Boones’ original property, William Maugridge of English descent and John DeTurk of Pennsylvania German origin, emphasize such dissimilarities.

At the time of Maugridge’s purchase of the property in 1750, American colonial consumerism exploded on an unprecedented scale. Thanks to England’s domination of manufacturing, the colonies imported a vast quantity of English made goods. Textiles, specifically printed textiles, were one of these top imports. By 1765, England exported over 90,500 yards of printed textiles to the colonies. That number jumped to nearly 354,000 by 1785. Most of these imports entered the colonies through the large port cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and from there dispersed to smaller market towns toward the interior of the continent. In relation to the Oley Valley, the cities of Reading and Lancaster served as Pennsylvania’s southeastern trade centers, reaching points even further inland. Accessibility to English manufactures and a rebirth British heritage combined to make English styles fashionable in the mid 1700s.
Accordingly, an English household of Maugridge’s middle class wealth furnished their beds with English tastes. Calico prints, flowery blue designs on white linen or cotton fabric were common choices for bed curtains and for coverlets or blankets. The English also favored more basic designs of checked or plaid textiles in a variety of colors such as blues, browns, and reds. Solid colors on cottons and linens, blues and reds, plain white, and striped although less frequently, were other styles that were widely popular, available, and within the means of an average English household such as Maugridge’s.

The makeup of a bed was also culturally determined. When using rope beds, the English started by placing a natural colored linen sheet directly on the ropes for insulation. Resting on the sheet was a mattress, referred to as the bed, constructed of linen or tow, a lesser grade of linen, usually plain colored. Some mattresses may have been checked in blues, reds, or tans, typically matching a color theme of the bed’s other furnishings and curtains. A second sheet was then placed on top of the mattress, and above this sheet was either a coverlet or a different textile equivalent to a blanket. The coverlets often followed the same designs of the rest of the furnishings, again with plaids and checks being well liked.

In 1770, the year John DeTurk came onto the Boone property, mounting tensions between the colonies and the mother country decreased the magnitude of England/colonial trade. This fact highlights a Pennsylvania German custom of home production of fabric and cloth. In contrast to their English counterparts, Pennsylvania German households, especially rural farming families, like the DeTurks, tended to produce and “create” more of their own textiles at a local level. Families were often responsible for obtaining wool from their sheep and linen fibers from their flax harvest. After both substances were spun, the family then used the expertise of a local of weaver to obtain actual cloth. Despite such basic production methods, Pennsylvania German bed furnishings were quite decorative and elaborate.

Altering the English makeup, the typical bed construction of eighteenth century Pennsylvania German beds consisted of four main components. The bed began with a plain colored mattress made of tow or linen (coarser material commonly) stuffed with straw and cornhusks. On top of this mattress was a white linen sheet, followed by a second mattress bag of linen usually stuffed with feathers. The top bed or mattress was constructed from a finer grade of linen and decorated in matching colors and styles to the bed’s top or showing pieces. Typical designs for these top mattresses were striped, checked and plaid patterns in colors of blues, whites, tans, and browns. Matching top covers that could have been a quilt, coverlet, bed rug, or blanket, completed the bed. Of course, a bolster and two to four pillows were also placed at the head of the bed. Slight variations existed from family to family, but overwhelmingly this construction was standard for most Pennsylvania Germans.

Pennsylvania Germans also commonly used ticks, removable casings placed around the top mattress and the bed’s bolster and pillows. When used, the casing material was actually decorated and of a higher quality than of the plain linen used to actually enclose the various stuffing of each item. The cases were stitched shut at one end and open at the other. To keep the cover intact, the open end was tied with tapes. The clear benefits of ticks were that they were removable and washable.

Throughout the last half of the eighteenth century, the nicest Pennsylvania German beds, like the English, remained fully curtained and furnished. However, elaborate Pennsylvania German prints were just the opposite of English fashions. Instead of blue designs on a white background, Pennsylvania German styles were often white images on a blue background. Again, like the English, solids, tans, and checks provided basic styles as a substitute for elegant prints. Usually the most elaborate part of a Pennsylvania German Bed was the coverlets and quilts, which were brightly colored and intricately designed. Despite their appearance, both coverlets and quilts were inexpensive and easy to obtain. By the 1800s, however, quilts outstripped the popularity of coverlets, proving to be extremely cost effective as they were capable of being constructed entirely at home without the aid of a weaver.

It is not surprising that bed textiles were often more costly than the actual bed frame itself. Consequently, the defining feature of the bed was not the bestead, rather it was its appearance and display. Up until the late 1800s this held true, as a fully decorated bed remained a pivotal show of wealth and status in a family’s household. Yet, during the colonial era, these important textiles not only gave an indication to wealth, but also helped explain the rich tapestry of cultures and the various customs and tastes descendants brought with them to America. As seen in the Oley Valley, the bed furnishings of the DeTurk and Maugridge families show just how unique these customs and traditions were.

References:
Pettit, Florence H. America’s Indigo Blues: Resist-printed and Dyed Textiles of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Hastings House, 1974.  

Montgomery, Florence. Textiles in America: 1650-1870, A Winterthur Book. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984.

Garvan, Beatrice. The Pennsylvania German Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbooks in American Art, No.2.  Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982.  

Swank, Susan B. “Household Textiles,” in Scott T. Swank, et. al., Arts of the Pennsylvania Germans: A Winterthur Book.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983.