Scranton Gaxett.
Charles Adolph died at the home of his son, Jacob Adolph, in Scranton, December 31st. He was born in Germany, October 29, 1825. Came to Osage county forty-eight years ago and has lived in this county most of that time. He was a weaver by trade, a devoted member of the German Baptist Church and died in the faith of a glorious immortality.The funeral and burial took place at Centropolis. He leaves one son and three daughters all of whom were present, except one daughter who lives in Portland, Oregon.Mr. Adolph, mentioned above, was for some time a resident of this city and was well known by most of our older citizens.THE BACKGROUND
(Transcribers Note: I am not putting the entire "The Background" section in here. Only the parts that pertain to Henry, Charles or George Adolph (Adolf). This would be an excellent book to check out at the library if you are interested in the background of coverlet weaving. It has a lot of good information in it and I found it very interesting.)The connecting link between the pioneer home as a completely self-contained unit in textile production and the power loom three or four decades later was the professional weaver. The earliest dated coverlet from a jacquard loom which could be positively identified as the work of an Indiana professional weaver was 1838, the latest, 1874....
However, many women probably preferred to let the malodorous "blue-pot," simmering on the hearth, become an unpleasant memory and to turn the dyeing operation over to the weaver for a fee. Being a time-consuming process, the dyeing was done under the weaver's supervision, by his assistant or the women of the weaver's family.11 In Indiana coverlets blues were the most popular color; reds second. Greens appear somewhat infrequently; yellows, browns, blacks, and purples almost never. The blues ranged from a very deep blue-black, through the familiar dark blue of many coverlets, a brilliant Prussian blue, an "October sky" blue, a soft gray-blue, and the true azure which only Henry Adolf seemed able to achieve successfully. Reds ran the gamut from brick-red, orange of varying intensity, crimson, American Beauty, scarlet, rose shades, a watermelon pink, and the soft lavenderish pink seen in many Adolf coverlets...
Almost uniformly the German, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio weavers of Indiana wove single jacquards, usually in more standardized patterns of sunbursts, geometric patterns, and the favorite "Four Roses" or "Four Lilies" patterns. They also tended to be fonder of color, and with the device of weaving in stripes or bands of color with the patterns in sharply contrasting hues. They achieved some striking effects. Henry Adolf and Josiah Slaybaugh were particularly skillful in this. Scottish, Irish and English weavers, weaving double jacquards, offered a wider variety of patterns...
...Probably most Henry Adolf patrons would have willingly paid more for his handsome three-inch looped side fringes...
For twenty or thirty years coverlet weaving was a flourishing occupation. In an era of large families, in which a son or daughter was often presented a coverlet on marriage, such commissions were a lucrative source of income. The Craigs of Decatur County wove seven for the Harcourts and twelve for the Clemsons; Charles Adolph, twelve for the Russell family and five for the Lewises; Henry Adolf, five for the Sleets;...
The theory has been advanced that coverlets, with the weaver's name but with no additional identifying information, were used as samples or part of a weaver's stock-pile. Only three such coverlets were seen during the research: One from Henry Adolf, one from Slaybaugh, and a third from Huber. There is very little evidence that Indiana weavers stock-piled their coverlets. Weavers were usually far behind in their orders and struggling to catch up. There is certainly no evidence that they ever peddled their wares from door to door. Hoosier demand took care of that!
THE WEAVERSHenry AdolfSomewhere in the horde of migrants pushing their way westward from Ohio to Indiana on the National Road was Henry Adolf, twenty-three year old Alsatian weaver. Just as soon as possible after the required period of residence in America, Henry had filed his "Declaration of Intention" to become an American citizen in the Montgomery County (Ohio) Court of Common Please on February 26, 1838. Prior to that time he may have been weaving in Germantown, Ohio, a way station for a number of Indiana-bound weavers and a center of weaving activity. In 1840 he received full American citizenship in the Wayne County (Indiana) Circuit Court, swearing that he had "behaved himself as a man of good moral character" and renouncing all allegiance to "Louis Philip, King of France."Henry had two invaluable assets: A complete mastery of his craft and an American wife, Pennsylvania-born Elizabeth, who could help him over the language barrier which plagued so many German immigrants. Just what led him to move from ohio to the little eastern Indiana village of Cambridge City is pure conjecture. Possibly there were too many weavers in Montgomery County, Ohio; probably, at the time, Cambridge City seemed to be an excellent choice, located at the intersection of the National Road and the projected Whitewater Canal. The town had prospects! For a time Adolf wove with John Wissler, already well-setablished in nearby Milton.16
Under Wissler Henry undoubtedly acquired a following. When, in 1844, Wissler moved his profitable weaving establishment from a farm south of Milton into the village itself, Henry was ready to establish his own weaving shop in Cambridge City, two miles north. His first purchase was two lots in Vandalia (now part of Cambridge City) and, speculatively, two more lots in west Cambridge City.
Three years later he was again planning to move. The prospects of the town had failed to materialize; Hamilton County looked more promising. By 1849 he had settled on a farm southeast of Noblesville. Judging from his somewhat smaller production of coverlets in that county, he was devoting more time to cultivating his farmland. Although his stay in Noblesville Township, with weavers Martin Forrer and John Klein as close neighbors, was probably pleasant, and the combining of weaving and farming was profitable, Henry was eyeing land farther west. When his Indiana farm land was sold in 1855, the deed gave Henry's residence as Mahaska County, Iowa.
In 1847, when he sold his Vandalia (Cambridge City) lots, Henry signed his name "In Dutch," as a conscientious Wayne County Recorder parenthetically noted. Five years later, with the sale of the two remaining lots, no such notation appeared; he may have mastered the writing of his name in English. But his struggles with the vagaries of the English language remained monumental. Hamilton County appears variously on his coverlets as "Hamildon," "Hamelton," or "Hameldon"; the past participle of weave became "wov."
Most weavers wove either single jacquards or double, but seldome both. Evidence seems to indicate that Adolf could produce both types. A John Whissler (Wissler) coverlet of 1840, woven while Henry was still working with him, is a double jacquard identical in pattern and border to one marked "H. Adolf, Douglas County, Kansas, 1866." Wissler's offering, after Adolf left him, was usually the single jacquard. Both types appear in Hamilton County signed with Henry's name, although the double jacquards bear exactly the same trademark (except for the name) as that John Klein used throughout his career.
Double jacquards by Adolf are in blue and white in patterns and borders customarily used by the Scotch weavers. His single jacquards show not only the competent craftsmen in weaving but one with a magnificent color sense. Most of his coverlets are woven in broad stripes of color, employing variations of the "Four Roses" pattern or sunburts medallions; borders are most often the bird and shrub or shrub rose or the swag and tassel design. The device of weaving the "Four Roses" pattern in broad stripes of contrasting color was most effective; one coverlet has a blue-black background, brilliant blue stripes, turkey red roses and sage green foliage; another uses natural cotton, with azure blue stripes and scarlet roses. Many have the roses in the soft lavender pink which few weavers produced successfully.
The Adolf dye-pot was almost as important a factor in producing handsome coverlets as the Adolf loom. Henry doubtless kept a vigilant eye on this part of the coverlet production; his dyer, who might have been his Pennsylvania-born wife, Elizabeth, consistently produced a splendid array of shades in red, blue, and green.
The Adolphs, Charles and George
When the ship from Le Havre docked in New Orleans on November 1, 1843, it brought to American shores three Alsatians, Charles Adolph, aged twenty-eight, his wife Emerance, and Charles's brother, George, aged twenty-one. The two weavers were fortunate in that they knew their destination; they apparently came directly to Wayne County, Indiana, where another Alsatian and possibly a kinsman, Henry Adolf, was weaving in Cambridge City.17 For a time George worked under Henry Adolf; in 1849 he wove in Henry County but in 1850 was back in Cambridge City.
In the village of Williamsburg Charles set up his loom. He must have woven in considerable volume as there are a great many coverlets still found from this period. Here he remained until the late 1850's, when neighboring Henry County offered better prospects. One of his first commissions in Liberty Township, Henry County, was twelve coverlets for the Russell family.
An elderly resident of Liberty Township who could remember the Adolphs quite well, reported many years ago to the late Mrs. L. C. Marshall that the Adolphs "talked very Dutchy and weren't very clean." If Emerance lacked the housewifely virtues she may have been equally lacking in thrift; in spite of the great output from Charles's loom, the records do not reveal any accumulation of property and the only Indiana land Charles owned was a very small strip, acquired jointly with George, just west of New Lisbon. In 1870 he sold the Henry County land and moved on to Osage County, Kansas.
Meanwhile, George had taken a Hoosier bride, Rebecca Schmuck. They were married in the Dunkard (German Baptist) Church near Hagerstown on August 31, 1846. (Transcriber's Note: George and Rebecca were actually married on 2 SEPTEMBER 1846. The marriage license was issued on 31 AUGUST 1846. It is filed in Marriage Record Book E Page 78 in Richmond, Wayne County, Indiana. See George Adolph on main page for transcription of Marriage record.) In 1850, he was living in Cambridge City, quite possibly on Henry Adolf's lots and carrying on Henry's weaving while the latter made the transfer to Hamilton County. When Charles moved to Henry County, so did George.
The attitudes of the two brothers toward their craft are reflected in the report to the census-taker of 1850: Charles, "Coverlet Weaver," and George, "Laborer." Only three coverlets woven by George were found during the research, perhaps indicating that weaving was a part-time career with him, whereas Charles produced many coverlets.
Charles Adolph coverlets bear as trademarks either his name, the locations (Wayne or Henry County), and date, or the temple-like figure shown on page 11. Side borders often show handsome baskets of flowers; favorite bottom borders were the birds feeding their young or trees bearing over-sized fruits. Two unusual ones, not seen elsewhere, are side borders on an 1849 coverlet in the Wabash County Museum with Masonic emblems, and a second, dated 1845, with pyramids and palm trees. Certainly unique among Indiana's coverlets is the Bookout coverlet, page 13, with elegant side borders of flower baskets beautifully executed and the bottom border with its funereal sentiment and design in folk art.
Martin Forrer
(Transcribers Note: I am only putting information on this family in that refers to Henry, Charles or George. For full information on Martin Forrer please refer to the book.)
...His first Indiana farmland was bought from Henry Adolf, another coverlet weaver, who, in 1854, had moved farther west.
The Kleins, Michael, Andrew, Frances, Fredoline, John
(Transcribers Note: I am only putting information on this family in that refers to Henry, Charles or George. For full information on the Kleins please refer to the book.)
Young John, still in his teens, soon after his father's death had gone to weavers Henry Adolf and Martin Forrer in Hamilton County. Undobubtedly one or both had been friends of his father. John first wove in the loomhouse on the Forrer farm southeast of Noblesville until he could establish himself. There is some evidence, too, that Henry Adolf, living nearby, gave work to the fatherless lad, as double jacquards, bearing a strong resemblance to ones woven later and bearting the trademark Klein used, but with the name "H. Adolf," and dated from 1852 on have appeared in Hamilton County. Several land transactions in that county involved all three men.
John Wissler (Whissler)
(Transcribers Note: I am only putting information on this family in that refers to Henry, Charles or George. For full information on John Wissler (Whisler) please refer to the book.)
Just when and where John learned the weaver's craft is not known. After his marriage to Sarah Canutt in 1833 they moved to a farm south of Milton, where John established his weaving shop. During the following eleven years various weavers worked with him: John Marr, John Snyder, Henry Adolf, and possibly Peter Lorenz. In 1844 the Wisslers moved to Milton; Henry Adolf left Wissler to start his own shop in Cambridge City.
LOOM ENDS
(Transcribers Note: I am only putting in the parts that refer to Henry, Charles or George. For full item please refer to the book.)
...The Henry Adolf coverlet on page 8 was bought for twenty dollars from a woman who mistakenly believed she owned two unmatched strips.
11. The consistency of the fine color in the work of a number of Indiana weavers, particularly the LaTourettes, Henry Adolf, Samuel Stinger, and Joseph Slaybaugh, would indicate that the weaver closely supervised the dyeing process.
16. "Hoosier Listening Post," Indianapolis Star, October 2, 1928, interview of the late Charles Calloway of Milton with Sanford Wissler, son of John Wissler, as reported to Kate Milner Rabb.
17. Both Charles and George received their naturlization papers in the fall term, 1850, of the Wayne County Circuit Court.
Note: for pictures referred to in this article please see the pictures section on the main page.
