A Skein of Linen Thread

This letter from Anne Elizabeth Coover Kauffman, my great grandmother, titled “A skein of linen thread” is in my possession along with two skein’s of thread.

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I have no regal jewels, nor magnificent “purple and fine linen to show you, only a few practical little things which suggest the every day life of my forebears.

The first is only a little skein of linen thread – “surely there is nothing in that” you say – ay, thereby hangs the tale. On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in the far famed Ephrata, in the County of Lancaster, and the state of Pennsylvania — there lived a maiden. Tradition says she was born in 1744 and was very beautiful — but are not all heroines beautiful?

Bright, active and industrious, as was the custom in those early days, she like all dutiful daughters learned to knit, to sew and to spin, thus helping to lighten the household duties.

As she grew into young womanhood, as was the custom of the time, she daily spun a certain amount — there being an amiable rivalry between the sisters as to who could spin the most in a given—time. Thus daily she would sit and spin the flax grown upon her fathers farm — and who can tell the happy thoughts that flitted through her brain, as day by day she drew the flax through her tiny fingers into a web—like thread? Doubtless many thoughts and dreams were of the lover forty miles away.

With deep forests to pass through, the broad Susquehanna River to cross and Indians to avoid, forty miles meant far more than the forty miles of today – which may be covered in little more than half an hour.

Months passed – the proverbial chest to which all daughters belonging to German families, is entitled, was filled to overflowing with household linen. The finest of thread, serving to make many stitches thereon – This is some of the thread spun by that maiden at that time.

Later a trousseau was prepared – the wedding day was set. The twenty~fourth day of October, l764 was to be the happy day. A great feast was prepared for the morrow — for many guests were bidden to this wedding — from far and near which they expected, hence the great preparations. But who can tell what a day may bring forth?

Remember in the eighteenth century no telegrams were even dreamed of, no telephones thought of. Nor were there any railroads nor autos, no bicycles, not even horse cars, – so news traveled slowly, or some might have been spared embarrassment.

The day appointed for the wedding dawned – a bright, beautiful day in October – and with it came the bidden I guests – there came too, an expectant bridegroom, but where was the bride? – there was no bride – the maiden had fled.

Tradition says, “that during the night previous – the man of her choice rode on horseback quietly up to the house, at the signal previously agreed upon, the maiden stealthily left her fathers home for the arms of her lover. Hastily they rode to the town of York, twenty miles away, and were married.

I am now in possession of their marriage certificate for it was my paternal grandfather who carried off the prize- and took her to her new home which was at Cedar Spring, Cumberland Co., Penna.

My grandmothers name was Elizabeth – I never saw her. I bear her name, but fear I am minus her better qualities – of one thing I am sure, I never would have had the courage to elope – The chagrin or the disappointed lover we may imagine. This bit of thread, as l said before, was part of what she spun before her marriage.

She gave it to another granddaughter my cousin Sallie Coover, when she was yet a Child only ten years old. Cousin Sallie was very fond of telling this story, and when she reached her hundredth birthday she divided this thread into different parcels, tied each with a bit of ribbon; as you see,and gave a “parcel” to each of her favorite cousins – of whom I am happy to say, I was one. When one hundred and five years old she told me this story again. Last March at the age of one hundred and six years, this cousin “went to sleep.”

A. E. K. November 1904

Grandfather – George Coover

Grandmother – Elizabeth Mohler Coover

Here is their wedding license. It says “I NIcholaus Hornell, Minister of the high German Lutherean Church of York town in York County, do hereby certify to whom it may concern that George Kober and Elizabeth Molerin, were lawfully joined together in the holy matrimony and pronounced man and wife on the 22nd day of October, A.D. 1764. By me, Nicholaus Hornell”

On the back of the marriage license, Uncle Walt has written “Marriage Certificate of my Great Grandfather, Hon. George Kober (Coover), Oct 22, 1764. Father of John Coover, my grandfather, born Feb 22, 1784.