The Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley is publishing a letterpress broadside, today, in tribute to the printers who printed the Martyrs' MIrror book in the 1740s.
The Martyrs' Mirror book was printed at the Ephrata Cloister, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. The Historical Society is also located in Ephrata, Lancaster County.
The Martyrs' Mirror is the largest book printed in colonial North America, and is often considered the most ambitious printing project of that era.
The book records the stories of Anabapatist martyrs in Europe, who were the ancestors of many Amish and Mennonite families here in the United States.
The broadside commemorates the beheading of Anabaptist martyr Hans Haslibacher, who was beheaded in Switzerland in 1571.
The Historical Society is home to the William and Jemima Brossman Library and Research Center, and to the Theodore R. Sprecher Museum.
The Martyrs' Mirror broadside is here.
The Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley is Here.