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| This tree has many Pennsylvania Dutch (German) motifs integrated into the ornament designs. |
A pamphlet of the American Sunday School Union at Boston about 1845 described the custom as started there in 1832 by a German political refugee. Soon the Christmas tree idea spread all over New England and into New York and other States. A trimmed evergreen was set up by the pastor in a Cleveland church in 1851.
By 1850 the Christmas tree had become fashionable in the eastern 2States, following wide publicity given to the introduction of the custom in England by Prince Albert, the German consort of Queen Victoria, in 1841. In England as in America, the tree had until then been considered by many as a quaint foreign custom, but the approval of royalty and society gave it new impetus and popularity.
Franklin Pierce was the first President to introduce the tree into the White House, in 1856, for a group of Washington Sunday School children. Perhaps the first Christmas trees sold here commercially were by Mark Carr of the lower Catskill Mountains, who took two ox-sled loads of firs to New York City in 1851.
The modern Christmas tree has passed through a long process of development and modification. Today's fully decorated tree beres little resemblance to its simple ancestors. Undecorated evergreen trees have long been used in various churches in Europe at Christmas but decorated ones are preferred by far in the homes of those descended from the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Handcrafted Ornaments Influenced by The Pennsylvania Dutch:
A Bit of Holiday History by WNEP
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