Inscription (Translation of German):

Recto, ink: Samuel / Hoch / 1799 / oh, oh, Lord teach me / to ponder constantly that it must end for me, that no security nor this vanity / may turn me away from you; Let me often ponder the last purpose of my life / and much without interruption [ponder] that I may be ready when one day my / time comes to sink me into my grave; One must however one day greatly lament what we are given as / gain and much that one still considers the goods of the world desirable / One cannot survive here; Perhaps my purpose will be brought to its end tonight / that I must depart from here. What would my cares help me then since I cannot at any rate avoid the hour of death; My whole life's time is only a foot wide, as [alphabet in small and large letters and in various letter combinations].

The Oley Valley in eastern Berks County, Pennsylvania, is one of the most bucolic and best-preserved areas of early Pennsylvania German settlement. Not only are numerous farmsteads there graced with complete sets of farmhouse, barns, and smaller outbuildings – many of them still roofed with red tiles – the area was the ancestral home of Abraham Lincoln and the residence of Daniel Boone. Indeed, the Pennsylvania German dialect and folkways are alive there to this day. It was early noted as a hotbed of religious dissension, and only after some decades of settlement were Lutheran and Reformed churches and schools established. Thus fraktur, which were largely created by the schoolmasters in these schools, came along later here than in the Goschenhoppen settlement, for instance, a few miles to the east. The Oley Mermaid Artist obviously learned from the work of Johann Adam Eyer.

Frederick S. Weiser, "Vorschrift for Samuel Hoch," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 481.