Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jay Moyer, Lederach, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Jay R. Moyer, a public servant and former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, is a proud descendant of Mennonite and Schwenkfelder immigrants, who arrived on ships such as the “Good Ship Friendship,” which docked in the City of Philadelphia in 1729. Jay’s ancestor, Hans Christian Meyer, along with other early settlers from Switzerland and Germany, finally settled and helped to form the Township of Lower Salford in 1741, formerly part of the County of Philadelphia. Because of his Pennsylvania German heritage, Jay became particularly interested in the items used in the daily lives of the Pennsylvania German settlers: their pottery, iron, textiles, ceramics, painted and decorated furniture, wood carvings and of course, their fraktur. In fact, Martin Gottschall, one of America’s most important fraktur artists, along with his brother Samuel, were schoolmasters at the small oneroom schoolhouse adjacent to the Salford Mennonite Church in Lower Salford Township, where many of Jay’s earliest ancestors and family are buried. Jay has attended auctions for more than thirty-seven years and has made many friendships and acquaintances in the collecting community.
Information courtesy of Freeman’s Auctioneers & Appraisers, November 2012.