A Painting, a Plaque, and a Story

Recently a painting and a plaque were installed above the entry into the Ephrata Good’s Store.  The painting shows a farm, and the plaque commemorates John and Anna Baer.  Here is the story behind the painting and the plaque.

Ephrata Cloister

Ephrata's Early Days

Johannes (or John) Baer and his wife Anna raised their family on a farm south of the community called Ephrata during the mid-1700s.  The Ephrata community began in the early 1730s when Conrad Beissel, a charismatic and visionary minister, led his followers to establish a community in an unsettled area known to the Native Americans as Cocalico.  Conrad Beissel, an immigrant from Germany, had connections to the Brethren movement.  He served briefly as a minister at the Conestoga Church of the Brethren (in Leola), the earliest Brethren congregation in Lancaster County.  But Beissel parted ways with the other Brethren leaders after claiming that he had received special revelations from God.  Among the things that Beissel said that God had revealed to him were that Saturday, not Sunday, was the proper day of rest for Christians, that a celibate life was superior to married life (Beissel never married), and that a communal life of worship and work was God’s desire.

Conrad Beissel drew a following not only among the Brethren but also from Mennonites and Lutherans.  He established a settlement anchored by the “Solitary,” celibate people who lived communally and adopted a strict ascetic lifestyle, sleeping little (on hard beds), eating sparingly (one daily meal of vegetables), and dressing in simple white robes.  Because of their outward resemblance to a monastic order, the community eventually became known as the “Ephrata Cloister.”  People attracted to Beissel’s vision moved to Ephrata.  Those who continued to live as families (called “householders”) farmed nearby and attended services in the Cloister chapel.

As time went by, other people moved into the area.  John and Anna Baer were a Mennonite couple (they were married in 1746) who lived and farmed south of the Cloister.  They raised their family on the farm.  John was called to be a preacher by the local Mennonite congregation (which met in homes during this era).

The Martyrs Mirror

During the 1740s, the Mennonites in Pennsylvania worried about signs of impending warfare between the British and the French over rival colonial claims.  (Warfare did indeed come in 1755, lasting until 1763.)  In this context, some Mennonite church leaders decided to have the Martyrs Mirror translated from Dutch into German so that the German-speaking Mennonite young people could read its stories.

The Martyrs Mirror is a massive collection of martyr stories collected and edited by Thieleman Jansz van Braght, a Dutch Mennonite pastor, first published in 1660.  Beginning with the New Testament, van Braght detailed the stories of Christians who died for their faith, particularly emphasizing those who believed in voluntary adult baptism or in living in peace and love toward everyone, even enemies, refusing to take another’s life.  Many of the martyr stories from the 1500s, which make up about half of the book, recounted the suffering and deaths of Anabaptists during the Reformation era.  The Mennonites trace their spiritual descent from these Anabaptists in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The Pennsylvania Mennonite leaders believed that reading these stories would solidify the commitment to peace among the younger generation in their communities.  Because the Ephrata Cloister had a small printing press, a man capable of doing the translation (named Peter Miller), and similar beliefs themselves, the Mennonites approached them with the project.  The Cloister accepted, working for several years to print what was probably the largest book ever printed in the British colonies, over 1500 pages long.  The project wrapped up in 1749, but sales of the book were rather slow.  More than twenty years later, the Cloister still stored unbound copies.

Paper Cartridge

The American Revolution

After the French and Indian War ended in 1763, tensions began to build between some of the Americans (particularly in New England) and the British government over tax policies.  The German-speaking population of Pennsylvania likely missed most of these disagreements.  The Mennonites of Pennsylvania were generally content with the government of the Penn family (proprietors of the colony).  Although William Penn’s heirs were not Quakers, they maintained his Quaker-inspired policies of religious freedom and no militia. 

The meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, the outbreak of hostilities in Massachusetts, and the declaration of independence in 1776 all led to upheaval in Pennsylvania.  The Mennonites, based on their understanding of the New Testament, believed that God gave authority to the King and so rebelling against him was sinful.  Furthermore, all immigrant men had to give an oath or affirmation of loyalty to the King when they arrived in Pennsylvania, and the Mennonite men refused to go back on their word now.

In 1777, British forces marched north from the Chesapeake Bay and occupied Philadelphia, turning back attacks by George Washington’s Continental Army in battles at Brandywine (in September) and Germantown (in October).  The Continental Congress and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (which had declared Pennsylvania to be independent from the Penn family) fled west to York.

As part of the military campaign, the Continental Army requisitioned anything needed for battle or campaigning: food, horses, and paper.  Soldiers used paper to make cartridges, combining a musket ball with gunpowder to speed up the loading process.

General Washington received word that there was paper in Ephrata.  He sent a party to requisition it and to transport it to his headquarters in Chester County.  They took the unbound copies of the Martyrs Mirror, and perhaps other paper as well.  They paid the Cloister with nearly worthless Continental paper money.  (After the campaign was over, the army returned some of the books.)

Undoubtedly, this requisition of the Martyrs Mirror books for a military purpose was deeply upsetting to the Cloister residents, as well as their Mennonite neighbors, who opposed warfare on religious grounds.

The Cloister becomes a "Hospital"

After losing the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, General Washington sent wounded and sick soldiers west, away from the battle front.  Some of them arrived in places in Lancaster County, including the Moravian community of Lititz and the Ephrata Cloister.  The Ephrata community was asked – required, actually – to nurse the soldiers back to health.  The Cloister members housed and cared for as many wounded soldiers as they could, but the sheer number of soldiers overwhelmed them.  Others in the community stepped in to help, taking soldiers into their homes to convalesce.  Among those who did this were John and Anna Baer.

This decision was in keeping with their understanding of Jesus’s commands in the Gospels.  The Mennonites, as well as the Cloister members, saw warfare as a direct contradiction of Jesus’s call to love even enemies, and saw the Revolution as a violation of the New Testament command to honor the king.  But they also knew that Jesus called His disciples to demonstrate love by caring for the sick and meeting the needs of those suffering to the best of their ability.  Faced with this clear and obvious need, John and Anna acted despite the risk.

Typhus

The crowded conditions in Ephrata created a setting where contagious diseases could easily spread.  Typhus became epidemic within a matter of months.  Spread by body lice, typhus is a bacterial infection that causes fever and flu-like symptoms, followed by widespread rashes, delirium (as the brain is infected), and coma.  Given the lack of medical knowledge for treatment in the 1700s, the infection was frequently fatal.

Scores of people died of typhus during the winter and spring, soldiers as well as residents of Ephrata.  The soldiers were buried together in one place (located near the Ephrata High School), but the community people were buried in family graveyards.

Death Comes to the Baer Family

John and Anna certainly recognized the risk of infection when they agreed to care for sick and wounded soldiers.  But they saw the soldiers’ needs as more important than their own.  Typhus did in fact come into their home in the early months of 1778.  Both John and Anna contracted the disease.  Anna died on March 20, at the age of forty-nine.  John died on April 15, at the age of fifty-five.  Between their deaths, their youngest daughter Elizabeth also died.  She was six or seven years old.

In keeping with the custom of the time, the Baers were buried on their farm in an area with the graves of several of their children who had died in childhood.  (Anna bore thirteen children between 1746 and 1771.)

Later Developments

Over time, their graves were forgotten, as well as the story of their sacrifice.  During the late 1800s, an effort began in Ephrata to recognize the soldiers who died there in 1778.  This led to greater awareness of how the Ephrata community had cared for these soldiers.  In 1980, the farmer living on the farm plowed up the headstones of John and Anna Baer.  The headstones eventually made their way to the museum of the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley.  Further investigation ended when developers bought the farm and built the Winchester Meadows mobile home community and the Ephrata Kmart in the early 1980s.

The Painting and the Plaque

In 2021, Good’s Store purchased the property after the Kmart store was closed.  The following year, Good’s Store relocated their Ephrata store to the former Kmart building, sharing the building with a new Dutch-Way Farm Market grocery store.

The Muddy Creek Farm Library and Museum, a local Mennonite historical organization established by Amos Hoover, approached the owners of Good’s Store with the idea of commemorating John and Anna Baer, since the store stands on the farm where they once lived.  After gaining approval from Good’s Store, Muddy Creek Farm Library commissioned a painting and a plaque to be displayed above the door leading into the store.

The painting, based on a photograph taken in the mid-20^th century, shows the farmhouse, barn, and several other buildings, with a field in the foreground.  In the field are three gravestones, for Anna, Elizabeth, and John Baer.  (The photograph did not show any gravestones.)  The plaque beside the painting very briefly recounts their story.

In Commemoration

John and Anna Baer accepted the dangers associated with the typhus epidemic to take care of sick soldiers.  Their decision led to their own infections, which cost them their lives.  Their sacrifice, a response to a clear and present need in the community as well as a demonstration of their Christian beliefs, is well worth remembering. 

When you enter our Ephrata Good’s Store, look up at the painting, remember the story of John and Anna Baer, and be inspired to care for those with needs in your life today, even if it may cost you.

For more information about the Mennonites during the American Revolution, see ‘Twas Seeding Time by John L. Ruth here.

See the Martyrs Mirror here.

(Special thanks to Kenneth Sensenig for some of the information used to write this post.)