The Hans Herr House is fortunate to have the family Bible of Christian Herr. This is the actual Bible that Christian bought in the 1740's and the one in which he recorded his own family. Since he would have had a Bible already, the quality of this Bible must have appealed to him. The Bible was in German and it could have been purchased in Philadelphia. By this time Philadelphia had a large German population with many new arrivals each year. Stores stocked goods from Germany.
The Anabaptists had two other books which ranked very close to the Bible in importance. The " Martyrs Mirror " tells the stories of many of the six thousand Anabaptist martyrs created in Switzerland and in Holland during the sixteenth century. The Reformed churches in these countries, in conjunction with the state authorities, were zealous in persecuting the Anabaptists. The collected stories were essential to remind everyone of the sacrifices made by the early Anabaptists. The copy that the Hans Herr House has was printed at the Ephrata Cloister in Lancaster County during the 1740's. Christian Herr was probably a party to the decision to have twelve hundred copies of the book printed there. At the time, this was the largest printing job ever attempted in the Americas.
The third book which was important to Anabaptists was the Ausbund or hymnal . Many of the hymns were written by the martyrs in prison. None of the songs have printed music. It was necessary to have a song leader who knew the tune. One of the hymnals at the House bears an inscription which states it was being donated for use in worship at Hans Herr. So the Hans Herr House has three books which were printed before Christian Herr died in 1750.
One other object in the great room is a "clock and case", as it was called in Christian's estate. The clock was of German manufacture and could have been procured in Philadelphia. Christian would have brought his home and had a local joiner make a case for it. As two separate purchases, the estate listing is "clock and case".
In back of the great room is the large or master bedroom. The bed furniture is fitted out with a straw tick for a mattress and a feather cover. The large box in the corner is a traveling chest that a German immigrant used in 1737 when he came from Germany. Fortunately, he (not related to the Herrs) left his name, the ship's name, and the date on a slip of paper. The chest is heavily constructed with wood one inch thick, banded with iron for strength, and provided with four double handles so a crew of men could lift it. In the approximately twenty-four cubic feet of this box, a family packed most of their worldly goods that they were bringing to America.
The crib in this room illustrates that the youngest child in the family slept in the room with his mother. All of the older children were upstairs. The final piece of furniture is a walnut shrank , or clothes closet. This was perhaps the nicest piece of furniture in the house. The one presently in the house was not original to the house, but dates from that period.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.