Johann Henrich Otto

Otto came to the Thirteen Colonies as a young man, arriving aboard the ship Edinburgh on October 2, 1753, his age given as 20 years.

[1] He married Anna Catharine Dauterich; their children were born in Lancaster and Montgomery Counties in Pennsylvania.

By 1784 he was having baptismal certificates printed at the press of the Ephrata Cloister; the woodblocks used to decorate the pieces may have been designed by him as well.

Some of them contain longer certificates which appear to justify infant baptism, a practice generally disdained by Mennonites in the area.

Otto also created broadsides featuring Adam and Eve during his career, as well as spiritual mazes, bookplates, and presentation pieces.

Colorful certificate showing birds and other motifs
Fraktur birth and baptismal certificate (Geburts und Taufschein) of Johanes Bender, in the collection of the Winterthur Museum