The Ley Family Chippendale Sulfur-Inlaid Walnut Schrank, probably made by Christoph Uhler (1741-1804), Lebanon, Lancaster (now Lebanon) County, Pennsylvania, Dated 1771

At eight and a half feet tall, this monumental and architectonic schrank stands as one of the best documented pieces of sulfur-inlaid furniture that survives. It displays the initials of its original owners, Michael Ley (1739-1824) and his wife Eva Magdalena Lauer (1743-1815), as well as its date of manufacture, 1771. An officer of the Continental Army, Michael was the son of Christopher Ley (d. 1741), who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1732 and moved to Jackson Township, Lancaster (now Lebanon) County, where he settled on a tract of 1,000 acres near Myerstown and the Tulpehocken Creek. Christopher died in 1741 leaving no will. In 1760, Michael Ley bought his father’s estate for 680 pounds and built Tulpehocken Manor, a large five-bay stone house which was finished in 1769 and extant today. Family tradition notes that this schrank stood in the best bedchamber of the house where George Washington slept during a visit in 1793 to thank the Leys for their financial support of his troops while encamped at Valley Forge.¹ The schrank remained at Tulpehocken Manor until 1834, when the house was sold to Conrad Loose, who subsequently gave the schrank to his son, Isaac, of Bethlehem. After Isaac’s death, the schrank was auctioned off as part of his estate and purchased by his granddaughter Mary Seidel for 75 cents. In 1970, it was purchased at the sale of her effects and returned to Tulpehocken Manor. It was sold at auction around twenty years later.

A pediment above the front door of Tulpehocken Manor inscribed “GOTT / ALLEIN DIE HER / MICHAEL LEY UND / EFA MAGDALENA LEYON / CHRISTOPH UHLER 1769 VON Lebanon” relates closely to the interior architectural woodwork of the house, including a fireplace surround with an overmantel resembling the door pediment and built-in corner cupboard. The cornice of the corner cupboard displays the same distinctive alternating square and triangular blocks as this schrank. The pediment identifies the craftsman, Christoph Uhler (1741-1804), who was responsible for the house and likely also its interior woodwork and this schrank. Born in Lebanon on February 2, 1741, the son of Anastasius Uhler, a German immigrant, and his wife Dorothea Jerg, Christoph became one of the largest property holders of Lebanon and a respected citizen by the time of death in 1804. He identified himself as a joiner in his will and he left an inventory that included sawmills, a gristmill, carpenter tools, pine boards, clapboards and shingles. He served as tax assessor and county commissioner of Lancaster County in 1783. He was a member of the Salem Lutheran Church in Lebanon, where he was a church elder, treasurer and chairman of the building. He oversaw the construction of the Lutheran parsonage in 1783 and the German Reformed church from 1792 to 1796 as well as the construction of the new Salem Lutheran Church in 1796.

This schrank is illustrated and discussed by Lisa Minardi, in her article “Sulfur Inlay in Pennsylvania German Furniture: New Discoveries,” published in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2015): figs. 111-2, p. 144. She identifies and illustrates a nearly identical architectonic schrank with a Lebanon County history that is also dated 1771 and with the same distinctive cornice treatment but lacking initials.² It was probably made by Christoph Uhler for Michael and Eva Ley and may have also stood at Tulpehocken Manor.

¹ Wendy Cooper and Lisa Minardi, Paint, Pattern & People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725-1850 (Winterthur, DE: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2011): pp. 181-3.

² Lisa Minardi, “Sulfur Inlay in Pennsylvania German Furniture: New Discoveries,” American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2015): figs. 113-14, p. 145.