52nd Annual Delaware Show

sworn to the British crown when they immigrated. They feared for their liberty and property rights should the Americans lose. Pacifists who refused to fight were often fined, jailed, or otherwise mistreated. The outbreak of war was depicted in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, by one artist in the form of a cutwork picture (a technique known in German as Scherenschnitte ) featuring two soldiers with crossed swords (fig. 1) . This picture was found in a Bible with a second cutwork made by the same hand depicting a man and woman holding a ring, suggesting they were allegories of war and peace. The drawings descended in the Mennonite family of John and Barbara (Amweg) Stauffer of Lancaster County. Many Pennsylvania Germans fought in the war, including Peter Ickes, a Lutheran who served as a captain in the Pennsylvania militia. He was born in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, but in 1772 moved to Abbottstown, York (now Adams) County, where he served as a postmaster, innkeeper, and deacon of St. John’s Lutheran Church. Soon after the war, Ickes acquired a pewter mug engraved with an image of a man on horseback and the inscriptions “HUZZA FOR CAPT. ICKES” and “Liberty or Death,” the latter echoing Patrick Henry’s famous speech to the Virginia Convention in 1775 (fig. 2). Fig. 2. Mug owned by Captain Peter Ickes, attributed to William Will, Philadelphia, Pa., ca. 1785. Pewter, 5¾ x 6 ⅜ in. Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont 1967.1369 — 146 —