The Kutztown Samplers

Among our society's most prized possessions is the 1842 sampler done by Helena (Kutz) Biehl, completed "in the 11th Year of her Age" and featuring an elaborate floral border and representations of the old St. John's Union Church and the Franklin Academy, situated on adjacent corners of West Walnut and North Whiteoak Streets. Pictured on p. 97 of the 1915 Kutztown Centennial history and also in the Pennsylvania German Society's "Samplers of the PA Germans" volume, the detailed needlepoint is hung prominently in the Victorian room of the 1892 Public School House. The sampler was donated to the society in May 1990 by descendants of Helena Kutz Biehl.

The society also purchased a matching sampler for its collection. Dated just a year later, in 1843, this sampler was completed by Rebecca Rhoadarmel (Rothermel) at age 12, meaning that she and Miss Kutz were the same age and undoubtedly knew each other. On the sampler itself, the name appears as "Rhoadarmer," but surely it was done by the same Rebecca Rhoadarmel who appears with her family in the 1840 census for Maxatawny Township.

While of a less fine hand than the 1842 sampler, Miss Rhoadarmel's displays brighter colors and the same elaborate floral border, which, according to the Machmers, is unique to northern Berks and western Lehigh Counties, not typical of PA German samplers overall. It has been suggested that this border style was taught by Mrs. Mason, whose husband conducted a pay school from about 1835-1850, established in a log home later razed to build the Gonser mansion at 339 West Main Street in Kutztown. Perhaps Misses Kutz and Rhoadarmel were classmates at this private school, which opened in about the same year as the Franklin Academy and probably functioned as a sort of "finishing school" alternative for the borough's young ladies, as the Franklin Academy's student body appears to have been predominantly male. In fact, Mason's school was later said to have been housed in the Samuel Snyder (later C. W. Snyder Photography) residence on the southwest corner of Walnut & Whiteoak, thus accounting for the choice of architecture in the Kutz sampler.  The two samplers are now displayed together in the Museum Room, probably for the first time ever, though it is unknown if they "met" at Mason's school in the 1840s. Both are extremely fine examples of home-grown needlework representing some of the finest folk art ever produced within Kutztown.