The artist was Daniel Peterman (the note at the very bottom seems to say, "Made by Daniel Peterman, Shrewsbury Township, York County"). The work is watercolor and ink, 12.5 by 16 inches. It was sold as Lot 437 ($7,475) in an auction at Pook & Pook on October 8, 2004. There was a special session of Frakturs sold that day from the collection of Fraktur scholar Dr. Donald Shelley, so maybe it was one of his?
I don't know how to transcribe or translate this old German script. If anyone has any suggestions, or knowledge about the disposition of the document, I'd love to hear about it. My current working guess at the translation would be something like:
"For a married couple, Jacob Koller and his wife Catharina nee Peterman. Their son came into the world on the 9th day of January in the year of Christ, 1809. This child was born in Straasburg XXX York County in state Pennsylvania in North America. XXXX baptized on 15 February 1809 XXX and received the name Johannes; witnesses were John Giesy and wife Julianna. XXX..."
Strasburg was an early name for the village that eventually became the town of Shrewsbury. Strasburg shows up on some early 19th century maps of York County; see these 1835 and 1846 maps.
One source of this image was this page at artnet.com.
