Above: John Baer was Lancaster County's most prolific printer in the 1800s, so it is no surprise that in 1820 he printed an edition of the Mennonite hymnbook Unpartheyisches Gesang Buch (Nonsectarian Hymnbook).
Lancaster's Johann Albrecht had printed the first edition in 1804. There was much demand in Lancaster County for this songbook, so in 1820 John Baer printed his own edition of this popular book.
Barbara Martin did not take her 1820 Baer songbook for granted. Her book features a watercolor-and-ink bookplate made by an anonymous artist called "the Weaverland Artist," who worked c. 1822-24 among the Mennonites in Earl or East Earl Township, Lancaster County. The bookplate text refers to the morning star and the morning songs of songbirds.