lJcnnsyl\1ania 1ttcnnoni1rc _

Volume V, Number 1 January 1982

Contributors To This Issue

William Woys Weaver Mary Moorman MitcheU Ivan W. Brunk

William Woys Weaver of Paoli, Pennsylvania, is a lecturer and writer with special interests in early American and Pennsylvania German culture. Born in Chester County in 1947, he developed an interest in his own family history and in Mennonite heritage which eventually led to his study of the Pennsylvania Germans. Following his graduation from the University of Virginia in 1969, he entered the architectural history program in Virginia's School of Architecture. In 1971 he received a fellowship to study renaissance architecture at the International Center for Palladian Studies in Vicenza, Italy, and from there went to Switzerland and South Germany to begin research on Pennsylvania German folk architecture. After returning from Europe, Weaver received a master's degree in architectural history from Virginia (1973) and for a time served as a writer and editor for Dover Publications in New York City. Since 1974 he has worked in the Philadelphia area as a free-lance writer and has published a number of articles on the Pennsylvania Germans. This article was the keynote address at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society Genealogy Conference, March 28, 1981.

Mary Moorman Mitchell, born in Mercer County, Ohio, served in more recent years as a media specialist in Allen County, where she produced educational instructional materials and films for the Shawnee school system. In 1972 she received an associate degree from

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, and in 1974, a B.G.S. degree with emphasis on media at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. She notes that she has always had a great interest in Ohio history and did considerable research on the Miami-Erie Canal from Cincinnati to Toledo. In 1977 she and her husband moved to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she answered a newspaper advertise­ment for a history buff to do some research for a local resident. This eventually resulted in the article which appears in this issue. She is a dedicated member of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society with interests, also, in travel and genealogy.

Ivan W. Brunk, a Hoosier by birth, was reared in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He was a charter member of the Fairfield, Pennsylvania, Mennonite Church in 1927 and the Lombard, Illinois, Mennonite Church in 1954. In 1970 he retired after more than thirty­three years with the Weather Bureau (now National Weather Service). He authored articles on severe weather, Great Lakes levels, and Mennonite history, and more recently edited Dear Alice: The Tribulations and Adventures of ]. E. Brunk . . . and co-authored a genealogy, The Progeny of Christopher Brunk (1981). Presently he lives in Sarasota, Florida, in the winter and in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the summer. He acknowledges the assistance of Nelson P. Springer of Goshen, Indiana, in providing some of the references for his article.

STAFF

Editor Carolyn C. Wenger

Assistant Editor David J. Smucker

Copy Editor Lloyd Zeager

lAnguage Consultant Noah G. Good

Circulation Ann M. Lapp

Editorial Council J. Richard Burkholder Delbert L. Gratz Leonard Gross Ray K. Hacker H. Harold Hartzler John W. Heisey Amos B. Hoover James 0. Lehman Gerald C. Studer

tJennsyl'\7ania ittennoniire

C1'it~ge Volume V, Number 1

IN THIS ISSUE

The Swiss Anabaptist Emigration to Germany by William Woys Weaver

A Blue Rock Road Plantation by Mary Moorman Mitchell

Mennonites in the Carolinas . by Ivan W. Brunk

Ich Hab Ihn Net Treffe Wolle by Noah G. Good

Readers' Ancestry Research Notes Genealogical Tips Queries 30 Book Reviews

THE COVER

25 28

29

32

9

14

22

January 1982

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The Brenner-Herr-Hay House stands at 3200 Blue Rock Road, Millersville, Pennsylvania.

Photo credits: Cover, pp. 9, 12, 13 bottom, 25-27, author; pp. 3-6, Jan Gleysteen; p. 10, Lancaster County Historical Society; p. 15, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia; pp. 18-19, Robert Brunk; p. 30, J. Eby Hershey.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage (ISSN 0148-4036) is the quarterly magazine of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602.1t focuses on the historical background, religious thought and expression, culture, and genealogy of Mennonite-related groups originating in Pennsylvania. Articles appearing in this magazine are annotated and indexed in Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, and Genealogical Periodical Annual Index. Second-class postage paid at Lancaster, Pa.

Single copies, $3.00 each. Regular, annual membership, $20.00. Address changes, including old and new addresses, should be forwarded to Lancaster at least six weeks in advance.

Direct editorial mail to 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602. The editor will be pleased to consider unsolicited manuscripts and photographs sent for publication bur accepts no responsibility for manuscripts nor accompanied by return postage.

Copyright 1982 by the Lancaster MeiUlOnite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602.

The social climate, economic conditions, and religious persecution of eighteenth-century Switzerland motivated migrations to Germany and later to other areas.

The Swiss Anabaptist Emigration To Germany by William Woys Weaver

Switzerland, lying as it does at the cultural crossroads of Europe, has been characterized by emigration scholars as a "donor" country-the beginning point for the migration of large numbers of people, particularly in relation to German-speaking Europe. The Anabaptist emigration to Germany in the 1600s was only part of a much larger historical process which began in the Middle Ages and which reached its peak in the nineteenth century. For social, economic, and religious reasons Swiss people left their homeland and settled in large numbers in other parts of Europe, in South America, and in the United States.

The earliest and most poorly documented movements were those of people living during the 1200s along the present Swiss borders with France and Italy-people called Waldensians, a Bible-oriented sect led by Peter Waldo of Lyons. These people professed simplicity and some of the theological ideas found later among the Anabaptists. Like the Anabaptists they were persecuted for their religious beliefs. They fled eastward and northward into the German-speaking areas of Switzerland and Germany.

Today a whole string of villages in Wfuttemberg owes its origin to Waldensian immigrants. Names like Chapelle, Bonnet, and Armingeon appear there in their Germanized spellings. Chapelle became Schappel, for example. During the eighteenth century Schappels settled in the Hamburg area of Berks County, Pennsylvania. By that time, however, most of the Germanized Waldensians had joined the Reformed Church.

No one has been able to prove that Swiss Anabaptists grew on Waldensian soil or that the old-line Swiss Anabaptist families can claim Waldensian origin in a genealogical sense though this theory has been put forward by more than one historian. However, connections do exist if in an indirect way.

Anyone who has studied the early settlement of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania-by early, I mean the period from 1710 to 1720-will sooner or later run across

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the name of John Rudophus Bondeli, whose last name is spelled in a variety of ways. John Bondeli was not an Anabaptist, but he was Swiss like Christopher Franciscus, who took title to land in the Lancaster area as early as October 28, 1701.1 Both Bondeli and Franciscus had Waldensian ancestors, at least according to Swiss genealogists. The Bondeli family originated in northern Italy; many of them continued to live in the Veneto after John Bondeli's branch fled to Switzerland. Some members of the family continued to belong to the Old Waldensian Church in Venice, a church which is still standing.

The Waldensian movements, however, took place long before the advent of the Anabaptists-at least two hundred years before their time-but do serve to illustrate what many of us tend to forget about our ancestors: They moved around a great deal even within the area we now call Switzerland. Their own ancestors sometimes came from far away, exotic places rather than a Swiss village nearby.

With the rise of the Anabaptists in Switzerland in the early 1500s and, concurrently, with the rise of the Swiss Reformed Church, a new set of problems appeared which set in motion the Anabaptist emigrations to Germany­emigrations which directly affected the Anabaptist ancestors.

The reasons for the persecution the state church of Switzerland laid upon the shoulders of the Anabaptists can be found in any number of Mennonite histories. What concerns the genealogist is the end result: Where did the people go? This question is not one with a cut and dried answer, for persecution varied from place to place and from time to time. Furthermore, some Anabaptists took their religious commitment more seriously than others.

1Deed A-4-238, Philadelphia County Courthouse, Philadelphia, Pa.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

Some people outside the Anabaptist movement were nonetheless sympathetic to the Anabaptists at least on a live-and-let-live basis. As a result we find the persecuted seeking refuge sometimes in places very near to home and at other times in places far away. Like the wind in some respects they followed the avenues of least resistance. Like the wind many of them left no tracks. Thus genealogists are faced with unusual difficulties when reconstructing the lives and progeny of Anabaptist families on a genealogical basis. This is particularly true because of the so-called "German Connection," that intervening period of settlement in Germany before coming to America. During this time we lose whole generations and the valuable links to their Swiss homeland.

Government Documents

Fortunately, as I shall demonstrate shortly, we are aided by the bureaucratic nature of Swiss and German government. Both countries churned out masses of legal documents in quantities far greater than anything known in England at the time. From the standpoint of family research, German and Swiss sources are far more detailed and far more expansive than English sources, but they are also much more difficult to use and interpret.

When the Anabaptists realized that they could not live in peace under the governments of the Protestant cantons-Zurich and Bern in particular- they sought out other areas of Switzerland that offered safety, even short­term safety. Do not imagine for a moment that they wanted to leave Switzerland or even their native cantons, for in those days, as small as they may seem today, each canton was very much like a separate country. Anabaptists from Zurich certainly felt strange and foreign in Bern just as Bernese Anabaptists felt strange and foreign in Zurich. Leaving home was only the last resort.

Schaffhausen lies in the northern tip of Switzerland between the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany and Lake Constance to the east.

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The Bishop of Basel, while still in control of the Catholic Church in that canton, was sympathetic to the Anabaptists and allowed them to settle in remote parts of his domain in the Jura Mountains. Some Anabaptists went there, and even today a small group of them lives in the area. Many Zurich Anabaptists fled to safe places in Canton Bern. After the purge of 1654, for example, many went to Eggiwyl in the Emmenthal, where at one point forty heads of households could be found. 2 Among them was Georg Lichti, a preacher. Some went farther north in Canton Schaffhausen, where a small contingent of Anabaptists had lived even in the early 1520s. Most of the refugees seem to have settled in the neighborhood of Schleitheim, which is located near to the Baden­WUrttemberg border.

In those days the German side was a wild region of steep hills and dense forests. The advantages were obvious: If authorities became too zealous in chasing after Anabaptists, they could simply slip across the border into the jurisdiction of another country. A trail in the northern section of Schaffhausen is still called the Tauferwegli (Path of the Anabaptists), which was used for slipping back and forth across the borders. For some Anabaptists Schaffhausen became a stepping stone to Germany, for once across the border, some of them never came back.

Local histories are sometimes helpful in pinpointing the movements of some families. In Christian and Heinrich Wanner's Geschichte von Schleitheim we are given a good sketch of the background· of the Wanner and Beyer families which originated in that area. 3 The Anabaptist Wanners left Schleitheim about 1685 and settled at Weiler near Hilsbach in the Palatinate. There Jacob Wanner, a cooper by trade, married Anna Keller in 1685. Their children later came to Pennsylvania and were, I believe, the ancestors of the Wanners who settled at Weaverland.

Certainly the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 and the subsequent devastation of the German Rhineland opened doors of opportunity to the Anabaptists. The Palatinate in particular was extremely rich and thus was the object of a bitter contest between Protestant and Catholic armies. The Protestants won, but the province was left utterly ruined and depopulated. In some cases towns of 20,000 and 30,000 were reduced to villages of less than one hundred souls. Some towns were left totally empty except for stray dogs and livestock.

By contrast Switzerland escaped the religious wars in a large degree, but its economy was dependent on the German nations around it. Economic depression, over­population, and a series of agricultural failures all placed additional burdens on the Swiss middle class and peasantry. Religious persecution was enough in many cases to cause numbers of Anabaptists to pull up roots and move

2Ernst Miiller, Geschichte der &mischen Tiiufer (Frauenfeld: J. Hubers Verlag, 1895), p. 338.

3Christian Wanner and Heinrich Wanner, Geschichte von Schleitheim (Schleirheim: J. G. Stamens Erben, 1932).

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At Schleitheim visitors can retrace the T?luferwegli (Path of the Anabaptists) near the Baden-WUrttemberg border.

to Germany, where Protestant rulers were offering liberal conditions for resettlement in the devastated territories. This basic combination of events led to the Anabaptist emigration to Germany. The continued success of this resettlement, however, lay largely with the industry of the Anabaptists and the strong protection on which they could count from the Dutch Mennonites.

In terms of genealogical research, the Anabaptists tended to move together in small groups made up of extended families or large portions of a particular congregation. Therefore, if we follow the fortunes of one family, we are likely to follow the fortunes of six or seven others as well. This is sometimes useful to the genealogist looking for missing links in the "German Connection."

Unfortunately, this same pattern applied for the other Swiss who went to Germany at this same time in much greater numbers than the Anabaptists. In 1650, for example, Jacob Meyer, a Swiss Reformed pastor in Winterthur, led part of his congregation to the village of Grosseicholzheim in the Palatinate. With him came Hans Jakob Siegerist, a "vine dresser" from Walthenstein.4

Siegerist is a family name we would normally associate with the Anabaptists; it is a common Mennonite surname in Lancaster County. However, this line, a flourishing family in Grosseicholzheim even today, is thoroughly Lutheran. Other Anabaptist families, however, lived in the area. Thus we find Anabaptist families mingled with Swiss Reformed families of the same name or with families that came from the same localities. This makes it easy to make the mistake of connecting one's Anabaptist line with the wrong individual as has already happened in some published genealogies.

Political Boundaries To understand the settlement patterns of the Swiss

Anabaptists, one must have a clear · idea of where the

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political boundaries lay in the seventeenth century. The Palatinate, which was only one place where the Swiss went, was not one contiguous piece of real estate. Its boundaries, like those of most German principalities, were based on feudal land arrangements, not the common grid system to which we are accustomed in this country.

Thus we might find a political boundary that resembled an area like Lancaster County minus five townships, half of Lebanon County, perhaps nine townships in York County, a third of Snyder County, and the city of Reading thrown in for good measure. All of that jumble would be one country, so to speak. Anabaptist ancestors might choose to settle on a farm in one of those townships toward the middle-a hole in the "Swiss cheese" -that belonged to some other monarch.

Therefore, one must be a professional to understand this kind of research. This is one reason why so many German and Swiss genealogists are Ph.D.'s, not self-taught buffs as most genealogists are in the United States. Many of them are specialists in medieval studies, archaic scripts, and so forth. A genealogist in this country can always benefit by the help of such individuals if he or she has a specific research problem regardless of how well one may speak or read German.

The question that faces most of us, however, is where do· we start when we want to learn something about the Swiss Anabaptist emigration to Germany when we have only vague clues about a particular ancestor and his or her movements. The Mennonite Encyclopedia5 is by far the best place to begin because it has excellent sketches on both people and places involved in this movement as well as extensive theological material that serves as a useful backdrop for why things were happening. Very few churches have encyclopedias as thorough or as scholarly as this; genealogists should not be afraid to use it. On the other hand, while probably hundreds of articles deal with specific aspects of this migration, only two books treat the subject, and both of them are written in French. One deals with the Swiss movement into Alsace, and the other deals with Swiss settlements in Lorraine.6

As for the Palatinate itself, no one book will sufficiently cover all aspects of Anabaptist immigration to that area. Don Yoder's Rhineland Emigrants provides a number of lists of emigrants leaving Germany for America. 7 In most

4Karl Martin Schmitt, Geschichte des Pfarrdorfes Grosseicholzheim (Buchen/Odenwald: Druckerei Odenwalder, 1957), p. 103.

5The Mennonite Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Reference Work on the Anabaptist-Mennonite Movement (Hillsboro, Kansas: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1955-1959).

6The work dealing with Alsace is perhaps most useful: Roger Bonnaud-Delamare, L'Immigration Helvetique dans les Principautes de Murbach et de Lure ... 1649-1715 (Besancon: Neo-Typo, 1966). In it one can find references to many familiar Lancaster County names: Neff, Suter, Detweiler, Fisher, Frey, Hu'-.er, Moser, MUller/Miller, and others.

7Rhineland Emigrants: Lists of German Settlers in Colonial America, ed. Don Yoder (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1981).

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

cases these lists are annotated with background material that sometimes connects individuals with their Swiss homeland. The book also includes Leo Schelbert's "Swiss Mennonite Family Names: An Annotated Checklist," which is useful in locating the Swiss spellings for names which have greatly changed since those families have come to America. In order to research ancestors in Switzerland, one should know, for example, that Brubaker is spelled Bruppacher or that Denlinger is spelled Dandliker. Without tools like this the average genealogist is absolutely lost.

For the genealogist who is totally unfamiliar with this Anabaptist migration and who would like to take a look at a few model genealogies which carefully document Anabaptist movements from Switzerland to Germany or Alsace and on to America, I mention two: Charles Fahs Kauffman's book on the Kauffman/Coffman familyB and Helen Alderfer Stanley's book on the Alderfer family.9

In the case of the Kauffmans the author traces the descendants of Niklaus Kauffmann (b. 1593) of Steffisburg in Canton Bern. He marries Elsi Blank in 1617. A grandson, Hans Kauffman (1643-1675), is an Anabaptist living at Schiltach in WUrttemberg, where in

The castle of Thun in Canton Bern, Switzerland, was a site of imprisonment for joder/Yoder and Bronnimann/Brenneman family members who joined the Anabaptist movement.

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1664 he marries Katrina Arnold. Their son, Andreas (b. 1668), is found in the 1716 Mennonite census list for Friesenheim in the district of Neustadt in the Palatinate. In 1717 Andreas settled in Lancaster County.

The Alderfer genealogy traces the family from Kloten, now the international airport outside Zurich, to Steinsfurr in the Kraichgau, a region in present-day Baden­Wlirttemberg but formerly in the Palatinate. From Steinsfurt Friederich Altdorfer emigrated to America in 1733 and settled in Montgomery County. He was a Mennonite in the Franconia Conference.

Besides the Kauffmans many other Anabaptist families trace their ancestry to the area of Thun and Steffisburg in Canton Bern. The Y oders owned the great Ortbiihl farm and all of the mills in Steffisburg until the late 1600s. The main line of the family was Swiss Reformed, but, as often happened, religion divided the family.

Two brothers, Nikolas and Yost Yoder, both married in 1642 on the same day two first cousins, both named Anna Troxel-from the same Troxel family which later sent settlers to Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. 10 Nikolas owned the Ortbiihl farm, and his family remained Swiss Reformed. His descendants emigrated to the Palatinate, and in 1709 a grandson came to Pennsylvania and soon afterward settled at Oley in Berks County.

The other brother, Yost, however, sired the Anabaptist line. His descendants went to the Palatinate as early as 1685 and in 1712 show up at Markirch in Alsace. This line split into Mennonite and Amish factions. The Mennonite branch came to Bucks County in the 1720s and the Amish branch, led by "Strong" Jacob, came to Pennsylvania about 1737.

Even though Nikolas Yoder of the Ortbiihl farm was Swiss Reformed, he does have a connection with another Anabaptist family. In the 1670s he was appointed by the church to be guardian over the children of Samuel Kling, a nailmaker, who was an Anabaptist. According to Swiss records, Kling lived in the nearby village of Heimberg on the road from Thun to Bern.11 The house may even be standing today. Kling's children joined the Amish faction after 1693, and their descendants eventually came to Pennsylvania, where they are now more commonly known as King.

Archival Records

Relationships such as this and details confirming the lineage of the Yoder family, as I have just briefly outlined, can be uncovered only by going through Swiss archival

8Charles Fahs Kauffman, A Genealogy and History of the Kauffman-Coffman Families of North America, 1584 to 1937 ... (York, Pa.: Author, 1940).

9Helen Alderfer Stanley, The Alderfers of America: History and Genealogy (Allentown, Pa.: Schlechters, 1972).

10Lois Ann Mast, "European Yoder Research," Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 4 (April 1981): 18-19.

11Don Yoder, "The Kiing-Gnagi Connection," manuscript m preparation.

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material. For this reason I have been working on the Swiss end of the Anabaptist migration to Germany rather than from the other direction. Furthermore, the Swiss records are better than those in Germany, which suffered extensive damage in the last war.

On the Swiss end the most exhaustive study of Anabaptist migrations from the Canton of Bern was written by a Reformed minister from Langnau. His name was Ernst MUller, and his book is entitled Geschichte der Bernischen Taufer. 12 Delbert Gratz has extended the scope of MUller somewhat in his work, Bernese Anabaptists, 13 though his greatest contribution was simply to make parts of MUller's work available in English.

A companion volume to MUller is Emil Egli's Die Zuricher Wiedertliu{er, 14 a classic which fully deserves translation into English. A book of a more general sort is Samuel Geiser's Die T aufgesinnten-Gemeinden. 15 Because these books are written in German, they probably cannot provide much help for the average American researcher. However, one can possibly glean tidbits from MUller and Egli in a work compiled by Albert Faust and Gaius Brumbaugh on Swiss emigrants to America. 16 Of course, one can find no substitute for reading German.

MUller is probably the best for providing detailed material on the Anabaptist emigration to Germany. Thankfully for genealogists, he was interested in publishing original documents such as lists of Anabaptists taken by authorities during the years of persecution. One of his most impressive lists is the one taken in 1672 following the 1671 purge of Anabaptists in Bern. This list was completed by Dutch Mennonites who wanted to have some idea of how much aid they should send to the Swiss in the Palatinate, where most of the refugees went following the purge. These refugees evidently arrived in the Palatinate with little more than the clothes on their backs.

In this list we find such names as Georg Lichti (whom I have mentioned earlier as a preacher at Eggiwyl), Hans Burghalter, Michael Ochsenbein, Melchior Brenneman, Margaret Beiler, Babe Newcomer, Michael Schenk, and othersY Most of these people are ancestors of Lancaster County Mennonites in one way or another. MUller's lists are particularly useful because they include personal data which helps to give us some idea of the size of the family­always useful in doing genealogical research.

For example, number 40 on the 1672 list was Christian Stauffer, over ninety years old, and his second wife, over seventy years old. After his name appears the information that he had ninety-four descendants, of whom sixteen were dead and seventy-eight were still living. The Dutch Mennonites were evidently impressed with this man's great age among other things! In the recent Stauffer history published in Germany this entry provided a key to further research which has proved that this Christian Stauffer was a minister from the neighborhood of Thun in Canton Bern, that he had been imprisoned in the 1640s, and that he died at the Ibersheimerhof (now Ibersheim), a farm village near Worms.1s

His great-grandson, we now know, was the Christian Stauffer who settled in Lampeter Township in Lancaster County in 1749. His farm was situated on the site of the

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This monument at Krefeld memorializes the Webers/Weavers who emigrated to Gennantown, Pennsylvania, in 1683 and later moved to other locations in North America.

present-day Eshleman Seed Company. His son's Bible, mentioning the emigration from the Ibersheimerhof, can be seen at the Lancaster County Historical Society.

Most genealogical researchers are not so fortunate to have Stauffers for ancestors; their research problems are not solved so easily. Yet the Stauffer genealogy is a good example of what can be accomplished with a few clues and some existing published materials and continuing research from that point. Many more lists of Anabaptists than those published by MUller existed. Lists were taken from time to time in the Palatinate both by the Mennonites and by the state authorities for a variety of reasons.

Because they were pacifists, Anabaptists were usually listed separately in state documents, but because they were for the most part tenants rather than owners of farms in Germany, their names do not always appear in the usual tax lists and other records pertaining to property owners.

We know, of course, from Swiss documents the years singled out as purge years, and we can assume that each purge was followed by an emigration. Many of the

12Miiller, Bemischen Taufer. 13Delbert L. Gratz, Bemese Anabaptists and Their American

Descendants, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 8 (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1953).

14Emil Egli, Die Zuricher Wiederttiufer (Zurich: Orell Fiissli, 1878). 15Samuel H. Geiser, Die Taufgesinnten Gerneinden: Ein

kurtzgefasste Darstellung der wichtigsten Ereignisse des Tauferturns (Karlsruhe: Heinrich Schneider, 1931).

16Lists of Swiss Emigrants in the Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies, comp. and ed., Albert Bernhardt Faust and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugl1 (Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society, 1920-1925). ·

17Miiller, Bemischen Tiiufer, pp. 200-201 . 18Hellmut Stauffer, Die Geschichte der Familie Stauffer­

Bolanderhof mit ihren Seitenlinien (Kirchheimbolanden: "Mielke­Druck," 1971).

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

Palatine lists can be tallied with the Swiss lists. The 1709-1710 lists published by Delbert Gratz clearly agree with the names of heads of households who show up in Lancaster County between 1717 and 1720.19

In addition, between the purges a constant trickle of Anabaptists left Switzerland, and many families like my own have slipped through the sieves of historians. What do we know of Peter Beller, for example, who came to Philadelphia from Zurich in 1713 and then moved to Lancaster in 1714? Surely other Swiss Anabaptists, perhaps even sisters who married into local families, traveled with him. For the present time Beller's story represents a genealogical dead end unless we can follow other names associated with his emigration.

This is essentially what I have been doing with my own research in Switzerland partly because material on the Weaver/Weber family, which interests me most, has been exhausted here. However, I know that this family traveled in the company of Goods, Meiers, Housers, Barrs, and Funks so that I have been following the migration patterns of these other families as well.

The Heimatstelle Pfalz, an institute for the study of Palatine history and culture which is located at Kaiserslautem, Germany, has been compiling an index of Swiss settlers in the Palatinate by lifting data from census lists, tax lists, church registers, Mennonite archival material, and so forth. The movements of families sometimes fall into place with great clarity when material is brought together and stacked side by side in this way. One can go to the Heimatstelle Pfalz, select a family name such as Herr, and see in the card file all of the references to Herrs thus far located in Palatine records. In this way one can reconstruct many of the smaller family movements overlooked by larger and more general histories.

Sometimes the Palatine records will mention the village or locality in Switzerland from which an Anabaptist had fled. In such cases one needs only to go to that place in Switzerland and see what he or she can find on the family. This link, though, is the most elusive one, for the records tend to be stingy with their secrets. I have spent fourteen years in locating my Swiss ancestor, and I am still missing verification for one generation. Perhaps one of the most important ingredients to any successful ancestral research is not so much luck as just plain persistence.

Plain persistence is a virtue that will help one through the details about emigration to Germany that show up in many places in Swiss archival records. To understand this often ponderous material, one must submerge oneself in local history and in odd sorts of records that even the Swiss do not often examine. The best way to illustrate this is to concentrate on a few examples just to give some idea about how much can be uncovered when one has some understanding of where to look and how to use the material once he or she has found it.

Church Records

I noted earlier that the state church of Switzerland had appointed Nikolas Yoder as guardian over the children of the Anabaptist, Samuel Kling. Because the church and the state were one in Switzerland--or at least one was an

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extension of the other-the church performed many of the same functions that local governments perform in this country. The Chorgericht, or church court, had jurisdiction over a wide variety of matters, including the function of the orphans' court, for example. It also sat in judgment of people who committed crimes of a moral or theological nature. Thus the Chorgericht could punish individuals for such things as adultery or pacifism and could instruct ministers in local parishes to spy on the people living within their jurisdiction. The ministers kept exacting account books of what happened and what people did.

This material was often brought up as evidence when the state wanted to exact something from a citizen be it silence, taxes, or a confession that he or she was an Anabaptist. This kind of control over the daily lives of citizens may strike us as chilling; I have no doubt that this nightmare was real for many Anabaptist ancestors. Incidentally, the shadow still lingers because in order to use many of these old records, particularly in Canton Bern, one must have a police permit to do research.

One of the earliest reports I have seen was compiled in 1641 by Minister Hartman Heidegger, who was instruct­ed to keep account of the Anabaptists at Baretschwil in Canton Zurich. At the time the Biiretschwil Anabaptist congregation was a large and active one which Heidegger claimed was meeting in the attic of a farmhouse belonging to Barbara Peter, the common-law wife of Heinrich Egli. Anabaptist marriages were not recognized by the Reformed Church-hence the use of the term common­law."20

Heidegger wrote that Barbara had been living with Egli for twenty-two years and that the fine farmstead was her dowry from parents who were also Anabaptists. Living in the same house were several relatives, all Anabaptists, among whom was Jacob Egli, Heinrich's brother, who was born in 1596. Jacob Egli's wife also lived there; her name was Elizabeth Liitenegger. Jacob Egli was living there because his own farm had just been confiscated by Zurich authorities. He is the same Jacob Egli mentioned in the Martyrs' Mirror as having been arrested in 1639 with Georg Weber.

Minister Heidegger also mentioned Elizabeth Meier, aged twenty-four years, wife of Jacob Bachman, who lived nearby at Wattwil. Elizabeth's parents were Anabaptists, but her husband was not. This marriage, however, may mark the conversion of the Bachmans to the Anabaptist faith because after this point, Bachmann becomes a familiar Zurich Anabaptist name.

Heidegger describes many other Anabaptists in the neighborhood, but he pays particular attention to Kleinjorg (Little George) Weber, aged fifty-five years, who he says moved to Baretschwil in 1639 from Albis across the Lake of Zurich. He is divorced from his wife, who we

19See original tax returns, Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pa.

20Doc. 84, Nos. 5, 6, A 103, Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

7

therefore assume is adamantly not an Anabaptist. She is listed as still living, and he, naturally, has not remarried.

The minister notes that Kleinjorg is also the father of two children-Sara, aged sixteen years, and Georg, aged ten years-and owns a large estate called MU!ikranni, which he may be forced to sell. The reason for this forced sale, we discover, is that he is the Georg Weber mentioned in the Martyrs' Mirror who was imprisoned at Oethenbach for seventy weeks and was fined heavily by the Zurich authorities. The sale of MU!ikranni is evidently related to the fine he owes the state. His son Georg is evidently the father of the Hans Anton Weber who came to Lancaster County about 1711, died there in 1724, and left the four sons who now very much form a part of local history. 21

Already from this material alone one can perceive that the very nature of the Anabaptist persecution split families and forced people to submit to marital arrangements which today we may not condone. It also scattered families by forcing them to move from place to place, for once they had lost economic security, they were forced like Jacob Egli to live off the goodwill of relatives and friends.

Minister Heidegger recorded the information that Georg Weber came from Albis, which is very near Horgen, where the Landis family originates. The report of 1641 is ominous because of its being only a prelude to a further purge of Anabaptists which took place in Zurich in 1651. For the present we do not know what happened to the Anabaptists at Baretschwil, but most likely they were driven out of the canton altogether. The story continues across the Lake of Zurich, where one can see the beginnings of the long trek to Germany.

At Hausen, a village from which the Houser family takes its name, the minister, Erhardt Kesselring, reported in April 1651 that Heinrich Huser/Houser, aged forty-six years, left on March 4 with his citizenship papers and family for the village of Nussbaumen in Wtirt:temberg near the border of the Palatinate. There, we are told, he purchased a farm, set up a household, and owned an orchard for wintering livestock. His wife was Anna Birkhalter, and he had four sons, whose names and ages were mentioned. 22

At nearby Maschwanden Minister Conrad Burkhart reported that Anabaptist Heinrich MUller and his mother had left for Alsace, where they were staying with others of their sect. Burkhart also reported that Anna Buehler, called "Big" Anna, the wife of Uli MUller, was said to have fled in 1650 to Canton Bern with her husband but had returned, and on various Sundays he (the minister) had met her returning from Anabaptist religious services. He described her as a well-known enemy of the state church but mentioned that she had ceased for the time to evangelize her cause. Her husband was the Ulrich Muller who was arrested on August 31, 1640, and imprisoned at Oethenbach, according to the Martyrs' Mirror. He was subsequently freed. 23

Another Anabaptist living at Maschwanden was Barbara Weber, a widow, who had been living in the village more than six years with her three children. She is probably the sister of Georg Weber, the martyr.

8

At Mettmenstetten, another village in the neighbor­hood, Minister Hans Jacob Kramer reported that Heinrich Bruppacher and his wife, Elizabeth Rusterholz, had lived in the parish six months and that Bruppacher was the son of a well-known Anabaptist preacher. Kramer also reported that some of Bruppacher's family had already emigrated to Rappolstein in Alsace in 1649 and that the state had confiscated everything he owned. 24

Another Anabaptist at Mettmenstetten was Uli Wagmann, a blacksmith who originally came from Rossau. The minister reported that Wagmann had fled to Bern but from time to time had come back to visit his son­in-law, Jacob Frey, an Anabaptist who lived in Obermettmenstetten. Others in this village took refuge even farther away than Bern, for the minister reported that Heinrich Funck of Obermettmenstetten had gone to Alsace. He was the ancestor of the Funcks who came to Pennsylvania in 1711 and who later settled in Virginia. zs

At Stallikon, about a fifteen-minute drive from Mettmenstetten, Minister Hans Martin von Moos reported that in 1650 Anabaptist Heinrich Bar together with his wife, Anna Meier, and four children-Hans, aged twenty-six years; Elizabeth, twenty-five years; Ulrich, tWenty-three years; and Heinrich, fourteen years-his brother, Jacob Bar, and Jacob's wife, Magdalena Eggesberg, and their four children had all "gone away." He later reported that Heinrich was living at Marpach in Wiirttemberg and that he had taken none of his possessions with him. 26

Finally von Moos reported in 1651 that Rudolph Meilen with his wife and three children-Jacob, aged four years; Hans, two years; and Martin, six months-had fled the neighborhood. Where they went he did not say, but a check of Anabaptist census lists at Rappoltstein in Alsace may tell us much of what we want to know about this family which is now so prominent in Lancaster County.

In Swiss archives one finds stories like these repeated over and over. With a little patience one can form a series of links tying together widely scattered references to Anabaptist individuals and families. With the publication of more original source materials in the future genealogists may more easily piece together the complex and often tragic story of their ancestors' forced migrations from their beloved Switzerland, their often impoverished condition in Germany and, finally, their happy transplantation to America. 0

21William Woys Weaver, "Johann Anton Weber and his Family: Swiss Colonists," Mennonite Research ]ournal14 Oanuary 1973): 1, 11.

22Doc. 29, A 103, Staatsarchiv, Zurich. 23Doc. 40, A 103, Staatsarchiv, Zurich. 24Doc. 70, A 103, Staatsarchiv, Zurich. 25Mabel Thacher Rosemary Washburn, "The Funk Family,"

journal of American Genealogy 1 (1921): 213-342. 26Doc. 59, A 103, Staatsarchiv, Zurich. All of the documents

pertaining to Anabaptist families in the Zurich Archives under the general call number A 103 are being translated and edited for publication in 1982 by Dr. Don Yoder, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

The author traces the ownership history of a house in one of Lancaster County's most historic areas.

A Blue Rock Road Plantation by Mary Moorman Mitchell

The Brenner-Herr-Hay House stands at 3200 Blue Rock Road, Millersville, Pennsylvania, in historic Manor Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

A grant of twenty-six million acres given to William Penn by the British government in a charter dated March 4, 1681, included the. powers to erect manors. 1 This section of the charter gave Penn and his heirs the power to hold court over the property and to grant lands. A manor at that time was a landed estate with hereditary feudal rights granted by royal charter in certain colonies. The designation of manor was given to these portions of land reserved in a genuine legal sense. 2

Manor Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, takes its name from the Manor of Conestoga, which was originally surveyed and reserved for William Penn in 1717. This survey was taken by Isaac Taylor; another was taken about 1730 by John Taylor.3 Evidently William Penn visited this area prior to 1690. At that time he writes:

It is now my purpose to make another settlement upon the river of Susquehanna, that runs into the Bay of

january 1982

Chesapeake. . . . There I design to lay out a Plan for the Building of another City, in the most convenient place for communication with the former plantations on the East.

Penn went on to describe the locations of the rivers, the rich soil, and the pleasant surroundings. He also stated that the area lay along the common course of the Indians. 4

1S. G. Goodrich, A Pictorial History of the United States: With Notices of Other Portions of America, North and South (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co., 1872), p. 118.

2M. Luther Heisey, "Penn's Manors: Their Origin, Location and Number," Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical Society 42 (no. 2, 1938): 47.

3Howard L. Feather, Guide to Penn's Manor of Conestoga, Community Historians Annual, no. 4 (Lancaster, Pa.: Franklin and Marshall College Library, 1965), pp. 1, 3.

4Quoted from an undocumented source in Feather, Guide to Penn's Manor, p. 1.

9

The Blue Rock Road, an Indian trail before white traders and settlers appeared in Conestoga Manor, connected the Susquehanna River villages with the Delaware region and served as a gateway to the West.

Indian Territory ·

According to the narrative of Captain John Smith, the Susquehannocks were the most numerous tribe of Indians in the area in 1608. Smith stated that he found them all along the Susquehanna River for one hundred miles northward from the Chesapeake Bay. At one time the Susquehannocks could put six hundred warriors in the field from their stockaded fort at Turkey Hill in Manor Township.5

The original Manor of Conestoga consisted of sixteen thousand acres. In fact, several old Indian villages lay within the three thousand-acre site Penn reserved for his "New Philadelphia." This city was to be built on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River north of Turkey Hill. This site would have lain at the end of the present Blue Rock Road.

The Blue Rock Road is an ancient one. An Indian trail for many years before the white settlers appeared, it connected the river villages with the Delaware region all during the earliest years of this historical period. It served as a trail both for traders heading west and for Indians taking their furs to the eastern area for trade. One writer called this road the first gateway to the West.6

At the western end ·of the Blue Rock Road was the site of the Blue Rock Ferry. This ferry was first operated from the western side of the Susquehanna River by Thomas Cresap, a Marylander, who appl.ied for a permit in 1?30.7 This area was the center of considerable controversy m the early colonial period of Pennsylvania when a dispute took place between the Penns and the Calverts over the boundary lines between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Cresap evidently located at Blue Rock not only to operate a ferry but also to induce the early settlers to become subjects of Maryland.8

Although the Penns had declared the Manor of Conestoga an area for their own use and not open for settlement, people other than Indians lived on the land early in the 1700s. Some were squatters, but others settled there by consent of the Penns or, more directly, James Logan. 9 Logan acted as secretary of the Provincial Council

10

during the time of William Penn and had granted settlement rights to James Patterson, a trader, and to John and Edmund Cartlidge, also Indian traders. Patterson had settled there legally since 1715.10

Coming of the Mennonites

In 1710 a number of Swiss-German Mennonites came from Europe to settle in the colonies. A group of them came to southern Lancaster County, then part of Chester County. They settled along the Conestoga River and the Pequea Creek. Some of the people in this group :vere H~s Herr, Martin Oberholtz, Hannes Funck, Martm Meylm, Hans Mayer, Abraham Herr, and Melchior Erisman. 11

On September 22, 1717, Martin Kendig, Hans Herr, and Hans Funk as well as several other Palatines found themselves at a great disadvantage. They had applications to purchase land in the area where they had settled but had not become naturalized British subjects. They could own land for their own dwellings, but they could not sell or will it to their children. Governor William Keith, alarmed by the number of German immigrants coming to settle in Pennsylvania, made the path of naturalization almost impossible.

However, almost ten years later a new governor changed the situation, and the Mennonites were allowed to become British subjects and could have the same privileges as their English neighbors. 12 The land upon which the Mennonites had settled lay southeast of the Conestoga River. Many of these Swiss-German Mennonite immigrants came to America as families. Some of the grown children had families of their own.

The Manor of Conestoga was not yet open for settlement though some of the Mennonites did venture into that area. The land of the Manor was mostly flat and well watered, and the soil was rich and fruitful. Many squatters, especially Scotch-Irish, were ejected by agents of the Penns, and the land stood vacant.13 William Penn, after his plans for New Philadelphia failed, set the land aside for the Indians as a place for them to live and hunt.

sp, R. Diffenderffer, "Indian Tribes of Lancaster County," Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical Society 1 {October 2, 1896): 85. .

6Martin Hervin Brackbill, "The Manor of Conestoga m the Colonial Period," Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical SocietY. 42 (no. 2, 1938): 30-32.

?feather, Guide to Penn's Manor, p. 8. BGeorge P. Donehoo, A History of the Indian Villages and Place

Names in Pennsylvania with Numerous Historical No~es and References (Harrisburg, Pa.: Telegraph Press, 1928; reprmt ed., Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1977), p. 35.

9Brackbill, "Manor of Conestoga": 17-18n. 10Ibid.: 17n, 22. 111, Daniel Rupp, A Collection of Upwards of Thirty Thousand

Names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and Other Immigran~s. in Pennsylvania from 1727 to 1776 . . . , 2nd revised and enlarged edmon (Philadelphia: Leary, Stuart Co., 1927), p. 436. These names appear in an appendix listing Swiss and German settlers in Lancaster County in 1709.

1ZC. Henry Smith, The Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century (Norristown, Pa.: 1929), pp. 386-388.

BBrackbill, "Manor of Conestoga": 23.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

However, after he died and his three sons had assumed control of the province of Pennsylvania, the situation changed.

In 1735 Andrew Hamilton became the owner of a large tract in the northwestern comer of the Manor. This tract the Penns presented to him as a gift for services rendered.14

Hamilton, a lawyer from Philadelphia and a long-time friend of the Penn family, accepted the gift and in 1739 sold the property to Michael Baughman, a Swiss immigrant who arrived in Philadelphia in 1717. Baughman later acted as agent for the Swiss-Germans in purchasing land. He acquired many plantations for his own in several townships in Lancaster County and in what is now Dauphin and Lebanon counties. His home farm was located near Neffsville. 15

The Hamilton transaction opened the Conestoga Manor for settlement. Swiss-German people already lived in the immediate vicinity. They had large families needing land for new homes and farms. This group of people was ready to settle in the Manor. In fact, some had already settled there. ·

When the Taylors surveyed the Manor the second time in 1730, they included in their written report the names of persons who had purcbased or received land within the Hamilton Tract from Michael Baughman. These persons and the amount of land they had acquired were: Woolrick Roodt, 188 acres; Conrad Hildebrand, 157 acres; Roody Herr, 183 acres; Audrey Erisman, 159 acres; Henry Kolheaver, 160 acres; Abraham Latshau, 164 acres; Christian Stoneman, 69 acres; George Ziegler, 15 acres; John Bumgardner, 132 acres; Sam'l Overholtz, 207 acres; and Christian Ffrance, 166 acres. These acquisitions made a total of 1,500 acres.t6

History of the Tract

A note in the Taylor Papers states that a deed is to be drawn from Michael Baughman to Audrey Erisman "to show rolich [relict] of Michael Erisman," deceased. The amount of land was 159 acres, and a detailed description and map were drawn. Melchior/Michael Erisman, one of the original Swiss-German pioneers who came to Pennsylvania in 1710 with Hans Herr, acquired 120 acres of land just north of the Hamilton tract. He also acquired a tract of land of 538 acres in Warwick Township. Melchior Erisman died in 1740 without a will, and his wife acquired these properties. Later their children obtained the properties and eventually disposed of much of the land in 1761.

In 1741 John Ross became the operator of the Blue Rock Ferry. He and others petitioned the May Session for a road from Lancaster. It was approved in May of 1742 and subsequently builtY The 159-acre tract, transferred from Michael Baughman to Audrey Erisman, bordered the Blue Rock Road. The road formed its northern boundary, and the Little Conestoga Creek partially formed its eastern boundary. The southern boundary would have bordered the farm on which Samuel Oberholtz was living as a squatter, and Jacob Hostetter's farm would have lain beyond the western boundary.

january 1982

N

I

ANDREW HAI'v!IL TON /SOOAcres.

DAVIOHE:RR 19 5 AS.I03Ps4A.V.

NIICHAE LMOYCR 217 S 4AII.

David Herr's 1761 patent bordered land of Jacob Hostetter, Andrew Hamilton, Henry Funk, Michael Mier, and Rudy Herr.

In 1759 David Herr, son of Abraham Herr and grandson of Hans Herr, ordered a survey of the land upon which Samuel Oberholtz had lived. He received a warrant in March 1761, and in June of that year he received the patent for that 195-acre tract.

On Octber 14, 1761, Qavid Herr purchased the 159- : acre Erisman tract that adjoined his newly: acquired, patented land. He purchased this .tract from Jacob Erisman and his wife, Edy. Jacob was the son of Melchior and '

·£4ith Ensman. The Lancaster County tax records for 1759 show that Jacob obtained the land by possession. After selling his inherited land in Manor Township, Jacob Erisman purchased land in Rapho Township and moved to that location. Is

David Herr, like the other Swiss Mennonites, was a farmer but, in addition, worked as a smith for a number of years. He had built a home on his 195-acre patented tract. Then he built another house which was completed in 1764 on his later acquisition of 159 acres. Subsequently, he and his wife made this their home.

David Herr died in 1771. His will bequeathed to his first son, Christian, 165 acres of land that David had purchased earlier for him. He gave his second son, Abraham, the plantation where he had first lived. To his son John he gave "my plantation and tract of land on which I now live of 159 acres." He also left land and living quarters in the plantation for his wife, Barbara.19 John at that time was only eighteen years of age, and the will was not executed until1775. However, in 1777 John Herr had

14Deed K-2-215, Lancaster County CotV£house, Lancaster, Pa. 15Brackbill, "Manor of Conestoga": 25, 25-26n. 16Taylor Survey, p. 1, Lancaster County Historical Society,

Lancaster, Pa. 17H. Frank Eshleman, "History of Lancaster County's Highway

System (from 1714 to 1760)," Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical Society 26 (no. 3, 1922): 61-62.

JBDeed M-1-10, Lancaster. 19Will Y-2-290, Lancaster County Courthouse, Lancaster, Pa.

11

The datestone of the house bears the inscription: "Built by Jacob & Susanna Brenner, A;D. 1838."

claim to 159 acres for tax purposes. Of this land he had cleared seventy acres and had rented some of the land. 20

In the Direct Tax of 1798, John Herr, son of David Herr, · had one dwelling, which measured thirty-seven feet in length and thirty feet in width, was built of stone, had two stories, contained seven windows and twenty lights, and had one outhouse-all on one acre of ground. This tract also contained one springhouse measuring thirty feet by thirty feet, built of stone, and containing thirteen windows and twelve lights. He was also taxed for a dwelling measuring thirty-fiye feet by twenty-six feet, built of one story, and containing seven windows with

, twelve lights. Another building for which he was taxed was built of square logs and of one story, measured twenty-one feet by twenty feet, and contained two windows and twelve lights on one acre of land. 21

In 1818 John Herr sold part of the 159-acre tract to Abraham l:ferr, Jr.-a parcel of eighty acres, more or less. 22 He had evidently given Abraham possession of the land prior to that date because in 1815 the tax book has record of John Herr living on Blue Rock Road on a 75-acre tract in a one-story house measuring thirty feet by twenty­seven feet. The stone house measured seventy feet by thirty-three feet. One tenant house, built of wood, also stood on the property.

Through the years, while Manor Township was developing, two notable events occurred during the Herr ownership of this farm. William Penn had established the Manor of Conestoga as an Indian reservation, and it remained partly so until December 1763, when a group of men called the Paxton Boys rode out of the North and massacred many of the few remaining Indians still living in the area. The Mennonites had always lived in peace with the Indians, and both respected each other's rights. Because these farmers had long observed the practice of nonviolence, they could do little to help the Indians to defend themselves against these invaders. After this tragedy the last reason for the reservation was gone, and the few remaining Indians moved to another location. 23

The other event had to do with the Blue Rock and its

12

western termination point on the Susquehanna River. William Penn's dream of a city named New Philadelphia, located at Blue Rock, never materialized. The Blue Rock Ferry never became as successful as the one started a few miles north between Columbia and Wrightstown. However, in 1788 John Penn, a grandson of William Penn, explored the area and made a note in his journal about establishing a county seat at this spot.

Furthermore, in 1814 Joseph Charles had the area surveyed, laid out more than two hundred lots, and offered to sell them by lottery at $300 each. He sold a few of the

. lots. Unfortunately, Charles died shortly thereafter, and the dream of a city in that location never materialized. 24

In June 1824 another Mennonite farmer, Christian Hertzler, bought a tract of ninety-one acres from John Herr, Sr., and wife-the land where the Herrs lived and the last of the 159 acres willed to John by his father, David Herr.25

In 1837 Christian sold the 91-acre property to Jacob Brenner and wife, Susanna. Jacob in 1838 added a brick story to the one-story stone house and placed a datestone on the northern end of the house. A farmer and miller, Jacob was active in public organizations. He belonged to the Masonic lodge and took an interest in politics. He was acquainted with James Buchanan and helped on the local level to have him nominated as vice-president of the United States. He also served as a quartermaster sergeant in the War of 1812.

On April1, 1850, Tobias Siegrist, a Mennonite farmer, purchased the ninety-acre tract from Jacob Brenner, and it remained in the Siegrist family until March 1932. The

This tombstone on the property memorializes some of the family members of Tobias Siegrist (1813-1883) and his second wife, Susanna Hershey, a sister of his first wife, Elizabeth, who is buried in the Old Hershey Mennonite cemetery in Salisbury Township.

2°Manor Township tax records (microfilm), Lancaster County Historical Society, Lancaster, Pa.

21Direct Tax, Lancaster County, Pa. (microfilm frame 0354), Lancaster County Historical Society, Lancaster, Pa.

zzDeed 15-371, Lancaster. 23Brackbill, "Manor of Conestoga": 45-46n; Robert F. Ulle,

"Pacifists, Paxton, and Politics: Colonial Pennsylvania, 1763-1768," Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 1 (October 1978): 18-21.

24franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans, History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1883), p. 961.

zsoeed B-5-303, Lancaster.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

Siegrists, like the previous owners, had settled in Lancaster County. Tobias also obtained ownership of the southern part of the original 159-acre tract, and he and other members of his family lived in one residence or tbe other for a time. Tobias died in 1883. He left a will which bequeathed the 80-acre farm, where he lived, to his wife, Susanna. He also made provision for the disposition of the other lands he owned.

Susanna Siegrist lived in the house on Blue Rock Road to which at some previous time a frame addition had been built. The 1894 tax record for Manor Township lists "Susan" living in this location as well as Amos N. Herr, who worked for "Widow Siegrist." The tax record for the same year shows that Tobias H. Siegrist sold the so~th~ seventy-five acres to Christian Kendig. During the SiegriSt ownership a private graveyard was set aside on the southwestern corner of the farm. Reached by the common lane giving access to the rear homestead, it is s~ill v~sibl_e.

In 1932 Maurice Siegrist, a grandson of Tobias Siegrist, sold the farm, which by that time consisted of eighty acres, to Charles and Florence Gerlach. The Gerlachs farmed the land and raised cattle there until 1972. Mr. and Mrs. Gerlach now reside in Millersville and can still describe the house and buildings as they appeared during their ownership.

The buildings consisted of a large house, a bank barn, a tobacco shed, and some smaller buildings, including an outhouse. The house really consisted of two houses: one constructed of stone and brick and the other of frame. The Gerlachs lived in the stone and brick portion, the first story of which contained four rooms. The house contained a full attic as well as a full basement, which included a cellar and enclosed a flowing spring for water supply and for cooling. According to Mrs. Gerlach, the Siegrist family also used the basement for living quarters.

The frame portion of the house consisted of two rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the second floor as well as a full attic and a full basement, which contained a cellar and a spring just like the adjoining portion of the house. One of the attics contained a smokehouse for curing meat. The furnace in the stone portion of the house had cranes

A spring exists on both sides of the house. This photograph shows the view of the water supply from the basement.

january 1982

This present-day map of the Millersville area shows the location of this Blue Rock Road plantation.

for holding iron kettles for use in butchering and heating water. The house had no fireplaces.

Mr. Gerlach believes that the house had been built in sections at different times and states that the datestone had originally been set in the north end. o~ the ho~. So.me owner removed the Stone and kept It In the attiC until a more recent owner placed the stone in its present position on the south side of the house.

When Charles Gerlach obtained ownership of this farm, he also acquired a unique deed-one written on sheepskin. During his ownership the Blue Rock Road was relocated east of the house. This cut off about twenty acres of land, which he then sold. The new road then formed a boundary for the remaining tract of land.

In 1972 Mr. Gerlach sold the remaining 53.42 acres to Edward Pontz and Warren Forrey. Pontz's and Forrey's ownership marked the first time the owner of the property did not live there. In October 1972 the new owners plotted a subdivision which consisted of ten lots. The development . i; called Hamlet of Blue Rock. The. original house and bam constituted one of the lots, which now bears the address of 3200 Blue Rock Road.

In December 1972 the house, by this time located on a lot of 1.68 acres, was purchased by the Jay R. Eckmans, who were unable to carry the burden of renovating the large house and the other buildings. Consequently, in November 1976 the property was sold to George Desmond, an entrepreneur from Bird in Hand in Lancaster · County. Desmond did extensive work on the house and restored it to its present state.

George Desmond then sold it by auction to Isaac Hay, a sculptor and a professor at Millersville State .college who has lived in the Lancaster area for the past five years. He maintains an interest in antiques and local history.26 With a new owner this plantation continues to be a useful abode with a future to add to its past. D

26QJd House Historians, "Brenner-Herr-Hay House, 3200 Blue Rock Road, Millersville, Pennsylvania, Manor Township, Lancaster County," unpublished manuscript, 1978.

13

Researchers gradually piece together the story of migration from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas in the eighteenth century.

Mennonites In The Carolinas by Ivan W. Brunk

In 1763 Benjamin Franklin estimated that ten thousand families, or forty thousand persons, had emigrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in the previous few years. These may seem to be unbelievably large numbers because the · total population of Pennsylvania in 1760 was only about 200,000. However, a minister writing from Virginia in 1756 reported that between January and October of 1755 five thousand persons bound for North Carolina had crossed the James River in Bedford County. At that time the population of North Carolina was increasing at a dramatic rate from between 65,000 and 75,000 in 1750 to between 175,000 and 185,000 in 1770.1

Many of the emigrants were Germans who settled in North Carolina west of the Catawba River. Some carne directly from the Palatinate; many had been in Pennsylvania for a few years. Others had moved from Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley, and in a few years their sons went to North Carolina. A number located for a time in Rowan County, about fifty miles east of the Catawba, but hearing of the more fertile lands on the west bank of the Catawba, especially on the South Fork of the Catawba, they soon took possession of these and formed permanent settlements. 2

Albert B. Faust believed that the main cause for the migration to North Carolina was the difficulty of obtaining land in Pennsylvania.

It could be bought from the Indians in small parcels only on the frontier, and these were quickly taken, while in the easterly sections no land could be got at all cheaply. Before the Revolution the settlers did not cross the Alleghany Mountains, but when seeking new land, they followed the mountain ranges to the south and west, keeping on their eastern slope. 3

An early map of North Carolina drawn in 1751 shows neither a road nor a trail to the western part of the state. However, the early settlers blazed a trail from Pennsylvania. The principal road had found a place on the map in 1755 and was known as the "Upper Pennsylvania Road." This "Great Road from the Y adkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia, distant 435 miles" passed through Lancaster, York, William's Ferry on the Potomac,

14

Winchester, "Fluvanna" Games) River, a gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains at the Staunton River, the Dan River, Salem, to the Y adkin River just above the mouth of Linville Creek. 4

Some of the early Germans who traveled from Pennsylvania to North Carolina on this "Great Road" were Moravians, who settled their tract of 100,000 acres in 1753.

The Moravian tract was not the only conspicuously German locality in western North Carolina. Evidence indicates that there were other more or less compact blocks of German-settled territory within the west. But the record of them is incomplete. The precise location of even those that are recorded is often impossible to establish, and in any event it is unlikely that any of the other German settlements were as highly organized as the Moravian colony.5

1 Most of the information in this paragraph is from the excellent monograph of Harry Roy Merrens, Colonial North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964). The population estimate for Pennsylvania in 1760 is from Wayland F. Dunaway, A History of Pennsylvania, 2nd ed. (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1948), p. 196.

2L. L. Lohr, "The Germans in North Carolina West of the Catawba," The Pennsylvania-German 12 (April 1911): 206-207.

3Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United States with Special Reference to Its Political, Moral, Social, and Educational Influence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909), 1:230.

4The 1751 map was made by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas Jefferson) and was published in 1753 or 1754. The 1755 and subsequent editions show the "Great Road." A valuable history, commentary, and bibliography of the Fry and Jefferson maps is given by William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962), pp. 219-221. Plates 57 and 58 reproduce the bottom left sections of the 1751 and 1755 maps and show part of southern Virginia and northern North Carolina. Cumming states that this is the road over which tens of thousands of settlers drove their wagons south during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Apparently the original maps have been lost, and the only two known copies of the first edition are at the New York Public Library and at the University of Virginia. The latter also has a copy of the second edition (1755). Additional information is given in The Fry and jefferson Map of Virginia and Maryland with Facsimiles of the 1754 and 1794 Printings (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1966).

5Merrens, Colonial North Carolina, p. 61.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

This portion of the second edition (McGregor copy or Dalrymple edition, 1755) of Joshua Fry's and Peter Jefferson's 1751 "Map of the Inhabited Part of Virginia containing the whole Province of Maryland with Part of Pensilvania New Jersey and North Carolina" shows the

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"Great Road from the Yadkin River thro. Virginia to Philadelphia distant 435 miles." In Pennsylvania this was known as the "Great Waggon Road to Philadelphia."

15

Surprisingly, a comparatively large number of these emigrants in the eighteenth century may have been Mennonites. A letter written from Pennsylvania to the church at Amsterdam in 1773 mentions a number of places having Mennonite congregations including "Carolina where are many and large congregations. "6

However, the existence of "many and large congre­gations'' or even the presence of more than a few Mennonites in the Carolinas at that time has not been documented.

C. Henry Smith in 1909 stated:

It is difficult to obtain facts regarding the settlement in Carolina but it is evident that a settlement was made in that colony very early .... Many of the Palatines who left Germany in 1709 found their way to Carolina, and it is not improbable that among them may have been some Mennonites. The congregation however could not have been very large. 7

In 1929 Smith said:

Practically nothing is known of the congregations which it is said here existed in North Carolina. No doubt some Mennonites found their way to Carolina both immediately from Switzerland and the Palatinate and also from Pennsylvania later, but these congregations have long ago become extinct. 8

In 1941 Smith indicated:

An early Mennonite Palatine settlement was made in the Watauga valley in North Carolina which was still in existence in 1773, but of which little is known since. This was likely a daughter colony of the Pennsylvania and Virginia settlements. 9

Mennonites could have been among three groups of Germans and Swiss who headed for Carolina in 1710. Because of conditions in the Palatinate, thousands of German people fled to London between May and November of 1709. The Lord Proprietors of Carolina made proposals as early a5 July 16, 1709, to take all of the Palatines from fifteen to forty-five years of age and to send them to their plantation.

16

These proposals had not been accepted when another group of promoters from Switzerland joined the Proprietors of Carolina in the project. A religious schism had split the town of Bern, and the party of Mennonites, or Anabaptists as they were known in England, were forced to emigrate. They negotiated through a former citizen of Bern, Franz Louis Michel, with the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Carolina. Indeed, some arrange­ments for land · in Pennsylvania had already been made. William Penn, a year later, on April 4, 1710, wrote to Lord Townsend at the Hague asking him to aid in the free passage through Holland of a company of 50 to 60 Switzers under one "Mitchell," who had contracted with him for lands.

Michel was also interested in developing silver mines in the colonies. He enlisted in the latter enterprise Christopher von Graffenried, of an aristocratiC family of Bern. 10

About 650 Palatines were accepted for emigration from London, and after many difficulties they sailed for America in January 1710 and arrived thirteen weeks later. They were in poor condition, and more than half of them died before they were settled. Graffenried remained in England to await the arrival of Michel with his Swiss Anabaptists.

The Swiss portion of the settlement was meeting with great difficulties. The first group lefr Bern on March 8, 1710. A number of the group were men who had been imprisoned for their Anabaptist beliefs. They were really being deported to America. When they reached the Low Countries, the Dutch intervened in favor of the victims of the religious persecution. All of the prisoners were freed, but some of them continued on their way.u

Delbert L. Gratz gives more details about the deportation. ·

Under military escort fifty-six Anabaptists were actually put on board ship at Bern on March 18. One person died in prison and another escaped in Basel. Thirty-two persons were freed at Mannheim on March 28 as they were old, feeble, or sick. The remaining twenty-two arrived at Nijmegen, Holland, on April 6. Through the efforts of government officials and pressure from the Dutch Mennonites they were released on April 9 ....

... most of the Swiss exiles returned to the Palatinate but some braved the dangers of severe punishment and returned to their homes in Bern. So ended the story of the deportation that miscarried. 12

Many accounts tell of the voyage down the Rhine River from Bern to the Low Countries. Some authors give a departure date of March 8, 1710, and others, March 18, 1710. However, most agree that all of the Mennonites had disembarked by the time the ship departed from Holland to America. Not all of the authors, though, noted that a

6Samuel W. Pennypacker, Hendrick Pannebecker: Surveyor of Lands for the Penns, 1674-1754 (Philadelphia: 1894}, p. 56. Pennypacker bought the letter in Holland and translated and published it. Whether it is now extant is not known.

7C. Henry Smith, Mennonites of America (Goshen, Indiana: 1909}, p. 189n.

8C. Henry Smith, The Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century (Norristown, Pa.: 1929}, p. 147n.

9C. Henry Smith, The Story of the Mennonites (Berne, Indiana: Mennonite Book Concern, 1941}, p. 545.

10Walter Allen Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Immigration (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965}, p. 99.

11Ibid., p. 103. 12Delbert L. Gratz, Bernese Anabaptists and Their American

Descendants, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 8 (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1953}, pp. 57-59.

13Knittle, Palatine Immigration, p. 301. 14Albert B. Faust, "Swiss Emigration to the American Colonies in

the Eighteenth Century," American Historical Review 22 (October 1916): 22.

15Vincent H. Todd and Julius Goebel, Christoph von Graffenried's

Pennsylvania Mennonite · Heritage

group of one hundred persons from Bern went on to America. Graffenried and this Swiss group of one hundred arrived in Virginia on September 11, 1710, and, after paying respects to the Virginia authorities, proceeded to the Palatine settlement on the Neuse and Trent rivers which had been named New Bern.

Despite great difficulties, including an Indian massacre in 1711 when about severity Palatines were murdered and captured, the colony managed to survive. Knittle lists the names of forty persons on a petition dated September 28, 1749, against their dispossession by Cullen Pollock, son of Colonel Pollock, to whom Graffenried had assigned the lands as security for a debt.

Although . they referred to themselves as Palatines, a number of the petitioners were in all probability of Swiss origin, for a group of people deported from Berne [sic], Switzerland were included in the original settlers of the town. 13

The group of one hundred who came directly from Bern has been described as "a pauper element, the homeless Laiulsassen, squatters not citizens."14 However, this undesirable group survived the rigors of the Atlantic crossing much better than the 650 who came from London. A letter written from Carolina on April 7, 1711, stated that out of the one hundred persons, no one had died during the crossing. In fact, up to that time nine had died. (At Rotterdam two children and one man died, and from Rotterdam to New Castle. two men died. One birth had taken place during the voyage.)15

Roger E. Sappington states: "Without doubt the earliest Mennonites to arrive in the Carolinas came in connection with the settlement of New Bern in 1710 under the leadership of Christopher Graffenried."16 He identified three Mennonite families who came at that time: Jacob Wismar, John Nusbaum, and Hans Stauffer. The first two were included in a census of 6,520 "poor

Account of the Founding of New Bern (Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1920), p. 307.

16Roger E. Sappington, "The Mennonites in the Carolinas," Mennonite Quarterly Review 42 (April 1968): 96.

17"Lists of Germans from the Palatinate Who Came to England in 1709,'~ New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 40 (1909): 49-54, 93-100, 160-167, 241-248; 41 (1910) 10-19.

18Sappington, "Mennonites in the Carolinas": 98. 19 A. ]. Fretz, A Brief History of Jacob Wismer and a Complete

Genealogical Family Register with Biographies of His Descendants from the Earliest Available Records to the Present Time (Elkhart, Indiana: Mennonite Publishing Co., 1893), pp. 1-2.

20John C. Wenger, History of the Mennonites of the Franconia Conference (Telford, Pa. : Franconia Mennonite Historical Society, 1937), pp. 22-23. According to Fretz, History of Jacob Wismer, p. 1, Jacob Wismer died February 4, 1787, in his one hundred and third year. The Jacob Wismer who was in LOndon in 1709 was already fifry years old at that time.

21Smith, Mennonites of America, pp. 187, 189n. 22Smith, Mennonite Immigration, p. 128. 23A. ]. Fretz, A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of Henry

Stauffer and Other Stauffer Pioneers Together with Historical and

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Germans" who had arrived in London from May 1 to June 11, 1709. The Jacob Wismar family was listed as Baptist and the John Nusbaum family as Mennonite. The lists included a total of three Mennonite and twelve Baptist families. 17

Sappington found that the names of Jacob Wismar and John Nusbaum were included in the map of the New Bern colony which had been drawn by Graffenried.18 The London list of Germans who came from the Palatinate to England in 1709 gives the age of Jacob Wismar as 50, and indicates that he was a husbandman and also a tailor. He had a wife, a daughter aged twenty, and a son aged twenty-two. He supposedly survived the Indian raid of October 2, 1711, and fled to Pennsylvania. 19 The Jacob Wismar who was a trustee when the first Deep Run Mennonite . meetinghouse was erected in 17 46 may have been his son. 20 Sappington reported that the John Nusbaum family left n9 further trace. Possibly they did not survive the Indian attack.

Despite the statement that the Hans Stauffer family came to Carolina, this may be an error. In 1909 Smith stated that ''Hans Stauffer, who came to America in 1710, soon after his arrival located near Valley Forge." Two pages later in a footnote he indicated that "Hans Stauffer, as we saw, landed there [in Carolina] in 1710."21 Later, in 1929 Smith said, "In the same year it is said Hans Stauffer arrived in Carolina with a number of Swiss, but the next year came to Pennsylvania, settling near Valley Forge. " 22

However, a Stauffer 'family history states concerning Hans Stauffer:

They left their homes on November 5, 1709, sailed down the Rhine from Weissennan on November 8 and reached London January 20, 1710, whence they came to the land of Penn (now Pennsylvania) in the Spring of the same year. They settled near the Schuylkill River, at or near Valley Forge, in Chester County. 23

Biographical Sketches and Illustrated with Portraits and Other Illustrations (Harleysville, Pa.: Harleysville News, 1899), p. 196. Other sources provide substantially the same details. Morton L. Montgomery, Historical and Biographical Annals of Berks County, Embracing a Concise History of the County and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families (Chicago: ]. H. Beers & Co., 1909), p. 414, states that the information came from a diary and adds: "In the spring after a perilous voyage they landed probably at Philadelphia." Richard E. Stauffer, Stauffer-Stouffer-Stover and Related Families (Old Zionsville, Pa. : Author, 1977), p. 2, says in addition: "In the Spring of 1710, after a stormy and perilous sail-ship voyage of sixty-seven days, they arrived at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." Smith's documentation in Mennonites of America, p.

, 128, footnote 9, is incorrect. It reads, "See Fretz History, and also Cassel, The Mennonites, p. 392." The reference of Fretz to Hans Stauffer is in Descendants of Henry Stauffer, p. 196. The Cassel reference to Hans Stauffer-Daniel K. Cassel, History of the Mennonites: Historically and Biographically Arranged from the Time of the Reformation . ... (Philadelphia: Author, 1888)-is not on p. 392 but on p. 367. It includes this statement: "Further we have no record, except that they had a stormy passage." However, neither of Smith's two references gives any indication that Hans Stauffer was in Carolina.

17

(The group of 650 Palatines who went to Carolina in 1710 sailed sometime during the month of January.)

One source has pointed out that the few survivors of the New Bern settlement "seem to have dispersed and settled not far from the original site of the colony, so intermingled among other settlers and apparently so completely assimilated with their neighbors that they became indistinguishable from them."24 Therefore, the first Mennonites to come to Carolina evidently did not contribute to the development of the "many and large congreg~tions'' described in 1773.

Sappington also thoroughly researched the second Mennonite settlement in the Carolinas which developed from the 1730s to the 1760s along the Peedee River in South Carolina. 25 The most significant evidence of this was the following statement in the Bethabara diary of the Moravian settlement at Wachovia on April 8, 1763:

A Baptist, Culps, from the Peedee River, 200 miles from here, came to consult the doctor, and to see what kind of Christians we were, since he had heard much about us, both good and bad. He lives among the "pure Baptists" or Mennonites, who have three churches or meeting houses in that neighborhood.16

However, Sappington concluded that the formal existence of the Mennonite Church there was short-lived but that such Mennonite families as the Kolbs had made an impact on the society of that whole area.

The only other known evidence of a possible early Mennonite settlement in South Carolina was in the southern tip of present-day Greenville County near the forks of Mountain and Beaverdam creeks. Christopher Brunk bought 640 acres of land there in 1789 and sold it in 1795 and 1799. A deed for the sale of 185 acres of this land in 1795 includes this statement:

. . . except a Meeting House known by the name of Brunk's Meeting house and one half acre of land around the said Meeting House, which land and Meeting House

This view north at the junction of Mountain Creek and Beaverdam Creek (right) is located near the southern tip of Greenville County, South Carolina. The knoll in the background may have been the location of buildings or possibly of Christopher Brunk's meetinghouse although no evidence of anything remains today.

18

is excepted and reserved by the said Brunk for religious purposes. 27

Some evidence exists that Christopher Brunk was a Mennonite; thus, this may have been the location of an early Mennonite congregation. However, because the deed for the . 640 acres in 1789 did not mention a meetinghouse, it probably did not exist in 1773. The 1790 census for Greenville County includes these families: Chris. Brunk, Senr.; John Brunk; Christopher Brunk; and Thomas Whitman, son-in-law of Christopher, Sr. These comprised a total of four white males age sixteen and over, seven white males under sixteen, eight white females, and one slave.

In 1767 Christopher Brunk was a tenant in the Conococheague Manor of the late Lord Baltimore in Frederick (now Washington) County, Maryland. This was southwest of Hagerstown in an area where Mennonites lived at that time. Christopher and his son John owned land in northern Rockingham County, Virginia, during the Revolution. This was in an area called the "Brush," where Mennonites settled early. In 1776 and 1777 John Brunk and Christopher · Brunk were reported as delinquents or absentees from military drills or musters. On October 16, 1776, Christopher Brunk (father or son?) was summoned to appear before a court martial to show cause why he had missed seven musters. On October 15, 1777, he was acquitted and "exempted from duty until he recovers his health."

On a 1781 tax list for Washington County, North Carolina (now in Tennessee), appear the names of Christian Brunk, Dunkard; John Brunk, Dunkard; and Chrisn. Brunk, Dunkard. An undated tax list, but before 1783, includes: Christophier Brunk; Christin Brunk, Menonist; and Jno. Brunk, Menonist. It appears that only the church affiliation of Dunkards, Quakers, and "Menonists" was included in the tax lists, and no other Menonists were found in the tax lists for Washington County.28

One would hope that other early North Carolina tax lists would show the names of Dunkards, Quakers, and Mennonites. However, an examination of a number of tax lists at the North Carolina Archives did not disclose similar religious affiliations. Some of the Acts of the Assembly of North Carolina in 1778 and 1779 mention "Mennonists" in relation to Oaths of Allegiance to the State and military service. H. S. Bender cited this as

24 Merrens, Colonial North Carolina, p. 22. 25Sappington, "Mennonites in the Carolinas": 103-108. 26Adelaide L. Fries and others, Records of the Moravians in North

Carolina, vol. 1 (Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1922), p. 270.

27Deed Book B, pp. 358-359, dated March 11, 1795, Greenville County Courthouse, Greenville, S.C.

28Mary Hardin McCown, Nancy E. Jones Stickley, and Inez E. Bums, Washington County Lists of Taxables, 1778-1801 Oohnson City, Tenn.: 1964 [rypescript], pp. 38, 48, and passim.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

On Mountain Creek is a possible location of the dam for Christopher Brunk's mill in Greenville County.

indirect evidence for the presence of Mennonites in North Carolina at that time. 29

Names of early Mennonite settlers in North Carolina are found in statements by various authors. L. J. Heatwole indicated:

It is evident that the six hundred Palatinates who were sent to the Carolinas ... penetrated into the interior of the states until they came in full view of the Blue mountains in what are now Guilford; Y adkin, Watauga and Catawba counties, where the family names of Heatwole, Hildebrand, Weaver, etc., prevail that are familiar with Mennonites in other states.

This section of North Carolina, in years past, was visited by John S. Coffman, M. S. Steiner, J. F. Brunk, and C. K. Hostetler, and they found people who were religiously nonresistant in sentiment and faith, but otherwise and to all appearance have long since been swept wholly into the common mould of Americanism.30

Daniel Kauffman's account of Mennonites in North Carolina is as follows:

During the early part of the eighteenth century, not a few among the descendants of the pioneer Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania found their way into North Carolina and other states. From the accounts of different

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family histories it appears that in several different communities there was the semblartce of a Mennonite congregation. But for want of proper spiritual oversight, coupled with the desire of being like the people around them, there are no known members of the Mennonite Church in this state at the present time, though Mennonite family names are to be found in many commumtJes. Nissleys, Masts and many other Mennonite names are to be found in the state, though there are no Mennonite congregations there. 31

Conrad Yoder, the progenitor of the Yoders in North Carolina, came there from Pennsylvania before ·1762. "But neither Mennonite nor Amish groups migrated from Pennsylvania to the southern colonies, except for a few Mennonites to Virginia."32 The early Yoders belonged to the Reformed and Lutheran churches, and although Conrad Yoder did not belong to a church, a report stated that he brought a Mennonite hymnbook with him from Pennsylvania.

C. Z. Mast has stated that John Mast "wandered through the wilderness to Randolph Co., N.C."33 John Scott Davenport has indicated that John Mast of the Amish Mennonite family of Berks County, Pennsylvania, bought land in Rowan County in 1763.34 Davenport has also pointed out that Adam Warner (Varner), a Mennonite, bought land there on the same day, February 17, 1763.35 "The Werners were Mennonites in Pennsylvania. Adam Varner is identified by the Moravians in North Carolina as a 'Baptist,' their identification for a Mennonite." 36

On October 5, 1782, Jacob Hartman and Tobias Greider of the Mellinger Mennonite congregation in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, certified that Jacob Jorde (Yordy), then living in "Burcks" County, North Carolina, on the south fork of the Catawba River, was a member of the "Society Called menonist in Pennsylvania and never was Exempted."37 This was cited by Ira D. Landis as evidence that migration took place from Pennsylvania to western North Carolina in the eighteenth century.38

19H. S. Bender, "Mennonites in North Carolina," Mennonite Quarterly Review 1 Ouly 1927): 69-71.

30L. ]. Heatwole, Mennonite Handbook of Information (Scottdale, Pa. : Mennonite Publishing House, 1925), p. 54.

31Daniel Kauffman, Mennonite Cyclopedic Dictionary: A Compendium of the Doctrines, History, Activities, Literature, and Environments of the Mennonite Church, Especially in America (Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Publishing House, 1937), p. 269.

31Fred Roy Yoder, History of the Yoder Family in North Carolina (Pullman, Wash.: Author, 1970), p. 4.

33C. Z. Mast, A Brief History of Bishop jacob Mast and Other Mast Pioneers and a Complete Genealogical Family Register and Those Related by Inter-Marriage (Elverson, Pa.: 1911), p. 19.

34John Scott Davenport, "Earliest Pfautz/Fouts Families in America," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 63 (December 1975): 262.

35lbid. 36Ibid., p. 260. 37Hartman Account Book, from flyleaf, Lancaster County

Historical Society, Lancaster, Pa. 381ra D. Landis, "Mennonites in North Carolina," Mennonite

Research ]ournal15 Oanuary 1974): 9.

19

Another Mennonite who went to Burke County was Andrew Eby, a miller, born about 1761 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and who died after 1840 in Burke County.39 He had many descendants who spelled the name A bee.

C. Z. Mast provided some details about the Masts in North Carolina.40 However, he concluded that the Mennonite settlers from Pennsylvania never founded a congregation in North Carolina. He believed that before the Revolutionary War about 1,700 Pennsylvanians had located between the Y adkin and Catawba rivers and that the townships of East Earl and Caernarvon in Lancaster County had made the largest contribution. Mast also pointed out that Jacob Zimmerman went to North Carolina in 1745 and that Peter Zimmerman located near Charlotte and took out a warrant for land there as early as 1768.

Roger Sappington has stated, "Among the Mennonite or Amish families known to have moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina by the end of the colonial period were Martins, Keeners, Fishers, Beilers, and Masts."41 The Masts lived in Randolph County in the neighborhood of the Dunkard settlement on the Ewarrie River. Because Sappington found no evidence that the Mast family ever worshipped as Mennonites or Amish in North Carolina, he thought they may have worshipped with the Dunkards.

He did not find Masts in the 1790 census of North Carolina. However, Sappington found three families of "Mosts" in Randolph County, "who are almost certainly members of the John Mast family which came to North Carolina in the 1760's."42 He also indicated that Jacob Mast and Joseph Moss, "almost certainly" brothers and sons of John Mast, each entered claims for forty acres of land on Elk Creek in Wilkes County in May 1780 and that at the time of the 1790 census both names were spelled Moss.

In a survey of the index of names in the 1790 census of North Carolina, which lists 57,827 heads of families, for other Mennonite names as well as lists of early Mennonite settlers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, the following surnames were found: in Rowan County­Boyer, 2; Frank, 3; Hartman, 7; Hess, 2; Hildebrand; Latherman, 4; Metsler; Sauer, 2; and Slagel, 3. In Stokes County-Bair, 2; Hartman; Hess; Meyer; and Steiner, 2. These surnames were found only or primarily in these two counties, which in 1790 were larger than the present-day counties of Rowan and Stokes.

A number of names appeared too commonly to be significant: Albright, Hendricks, Jacobs, Hoover, King, Moyer, Summers, and Weaver. All of these names were found in Rowan County, some of them appeared in Stokes County, and all of them also occurred in other counties. One has difficulty in determining whether many of these names are distinctly Mennonite or whether they are simply common German names. One list of names of early German settlers in western North Carolina included these: Bauman/Bowman, Behm/Beam, Huber/Hoover, Hoff­stetter, Miiller/Miller, Schneider/Taylor, Schenck, and

20

Yoder.43 Some of these people could have been Mennonites.

After the Revolution an attempt occurred to develop a large Mennonite landholding and settlement in extreme western. North Carolina. The land under consideration lay in a large part of present-day Jackson, Swain, and Macon counties, then Buncombe County. A grant of more than 200,000 acres was obtained by a number of prominent Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The grant was given on April 3, 1797, by Governor Ashe of North Carolina in violation of the treaty of 1783, which had established the land as Cherokee Indian territory. As a result, the money of the investors was apparently lost. Ira D. Landis called it a "land swindle." Landis concluded that none of the land was ever colonized-by Mennonites. 44

In 1866 this note appeared in the Herald of Truth:

Bro. Christian Shenk of Harrisonburgh, Virginia, writes in answer to a letter previously written to him, that some time during the war, from a conversation which he had with a soldier from the south, he learned that there was a Mennonite Church in the state of North Carolina, but did not learn in what county. The soldier said his name was Ginnings, that his father was a member of the Mennonite Church and that he had moved from Virginia some years ago. He further stated that they had a church there and four ministers, and they were exempted from bearing arms by the Governor of North Carolina, by paying a commutation fee. 45

In this connection H. S. Bender reported:

According to ]. F. Funk, proprietor and editor of the Herald of Truth for several decades, J. S. Coffman was sent to visit the Mennonites in North Carolina soon after his coming to Elkhart, probably in the period 1880-1885. Funk states that Coffman reported on his visit by letter in the columns of the Herald of Truth but the letter could not be located. According to the memory of Funk, Coffman ·found the group very much disorganized and not recognizable as Mennonites and concluded that the case was hopeless. 46

A search of the Herald of Truth was made for this letter of J. S. Coffman. An account of Coffman's trip to the South in 1895 was found.47 He visited the Waldensians in North

39Ciyde L. Groff and George F. Newman, The Eby Report, Volume II, Number 1: The First Four Generations in America (n.p., 1978), p. 21.

40C. Z. Mast, "The Picturesque Watauga Valley of North Carolina," Christian Monitor 29 (March 1937): 84-85; and C. Z. Mast, "Brief Notes on Carolina Mennonites," Mennonite Historical Bulletin 1 (October 1940): 1, 3.

41Sappington, "Mennonites in the Carolinas": 109. 42Ibid., p. 110. 43Lohr, "The Germans in North Carolina": 207. 441ra D. Landis, "The 1797 North Carolina Land Swindle,"

Mennonite Historical Bulletin 7 (March 1946): 1-3. 45Herald of Truth 3 (May 1866): 43. 46Bender, "Mennonites in North Carolina": 71. 47). S. Coffman, "Notes by the Way," Herald of Truth 32 (April

15, 1895): 121-122.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

Carolina, but he did not mention Mennonites. Perhaps this was the letter Funk recalled when he conversed with Bender in 1926. About the Waldensians, Coffman observed that

a Mennonite is struck by many marks of resemblance between them and our own people. These marks are so definite that one is readily convinced that at some remote time they were truly one people, but have become different in some outward forms, owing to different surroundings and influences through many generations. 48

J. S. Coffman's diaries do not reveal any accounts of trips to North Carolina or of Mennonites there. His diary on March 20, 1895, records some additional observations about the Waldensians:

There are many things which they have in common with us that show conclusively that they are of the same people with us in faith and practice .... They believe in heart conversion and truly pious living. They are a plain people, baptize by pouring, oppose secrecy and have no musical instruments in their churches. 49

Possibly Funk, recalling events of many years earlier, confused the Mennonites and Waldensians.

Letters published in the Gospel Herald and Christian Monitor by persons mentioned by Heatwole-C. K. Hostetler and M. S. Steiner-reported on trips to the South but do not mention visits to North Carolina. Perhaps Heatwole also confused the Mennonites with the Waldensians. Heatwole as well as Hartzler and Kauffman believed that the Mennonites may have originated with the W aldensians. Heatwole stated:

In later years, because of his [Menno Simons'] social and religious prominence among the peaceful Anabaptists and W aldensian believers, these people as a class became known to their friends, and especially to their enemies, as "Mennonites." 50

Hartzler and Kauffman also quoted authors who believed that the Mennonites sprang from the Waldensians.

H. S. Bender indicated:

Until 1955 no Mennonite congregations had ever been established in [North Carolina], except the Negro congregations established through the Krimmer Menno­nite Brethren mission in the far western part of the state near Elk Park since 1899.51

A twentieth-century settlement consisted of a group of "Amish-Mennonites" or "hook-and-eye" Mennonites on the edge of the Dismal Swamp, eleven miles from Moyock. They came there from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to Pudding Ridge in 1907. The colony existed until 1935, when all but one family had moved elsewhere. 52

Sappington states: Thus far, the evidence has not been located which

would substantiate this claim for many and large congregations in the Carolinas in 1773. Although this research has discovered some material which Smith did not have when he wrote in 1929, his conclusion is still essentially correct. 53

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However, research of John Scott Davenport has indicated that a Mennonite settlement did exist in the Forks of the Uwharrie, in present-day Randolph County, North Carolina, where John Mast, Sr., brother of the Amish bishop in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, had an "old" meetinghouse in 179 3. Probably another one existed in the Jersey settlement, across the Y adkin east and a bit north from Salisbury in present-day Davidson County as well as one in the Crane Creek area adjacent to Salisbury and a "half-dozen" south and west of the Catawba River in present-day Lincoln and Catawba counties.54

Therefore, after more than two hundred years the statement in the 1773 letter from Pennsylvania to the church at Amsterdam about many and large congregations of Mennonites in Carolina will be substantiated at least pertaining to many congregations. Whether they could be considered ro be large remains to be seen.

Davenport states:

There is considerable evidence that the Mennonites became actively involved in the Revolution-principally on the side of King George III-and were so disfellowshipped that most of them became, of all things, Lutherans. 55

He found that the Lutheran churches in Catawba County, North Carolina, were heavily membered, at least before 1900, by family surnames which are Mennonite elsewhere.

Davenport also indicates:

One of the closely held, if not suppressed, historical facts concerns one or possibly two Mennonite ministers who were clearly espionage agents for the British. Several of the Mennonite families, however, were clearly Patriots-the Kolbs (as Culps) held S.C. military commissions. As near as I can tell, the man who shot General Davidson at Cornwallis' crossing of the Catawba in 1781 was from a Mennonite family in the German Settlement called Killian's. I do not know why or how the Mennonite[s] abandoned their pacifistic stance in the Carolinas-most of the Dunkers south and west of the Catawba did likewise-but the evidence suggests that they did.56

John Scott Davenport is preparing a book on the Dunkards and Mennonites in the Carolinas during the Revolution, and undoubtedly much factual information not heretofore known will then be available. 0

48Ibid. : 122. 49J. S. Hartzler and Daniel Kauffman, Mennonite Church History

(Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Book and Tract Society, 1905), p. 68. 50Heatwole, Mennonite Handbook of Information, p. 13. 51The Mennonite Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Reference Work

on the Anabaptist-Mennonite Movement, s.v. "North Carolina," by H. S. Bender.

52Federal Writers' Project, North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939), p. 292.

53Sappington, "Mennonites in the Carolinas": 112. 54john Scott Davenport to Ivan W. Brunk, November 30, 1979. 55Ibid. 56Ibid.

21

Ich Hab Ihn Net Treffe Wolle by Noah G. Good

Es wor noch net ganz Nei Y ohr. Die Krischdag zeit wor schon uff'm weg, un all die kinner in de schul worre wennig unruhig. Die kinner hen g'meent die zeit in de schul wor zu lang. In unsrem schulhaus an Stavers hen mir all in eenre schulschtub hocke misse.

Es worre schier gor so fiel schuler wie sitz. Fome in de schulschtub worre gleene sitz, un hinne in de schtub worre die sitz groesser. Es hen ivverall zwee schuler zammer hocke missc. Die boova hen uff de rechte seit g'hockt, un die maet uff de west, odder Iinke seit.

Die schulmaeschderin, die Cora Harting, hot brovierd jedem schuler en sitz gevve das seine groess gepasst hot. Ebmols worre meener grosse schuler als grosse sitz. Natierlich, wann en langbeenicher boo in'me sitz hocke hot misse mit de knie wedder'm naechsde sitz hot er net lang ruhig hocke kenne. 'S hen immer zwee schuler zammer sitze misse, un die schuler hen net all zammer gepasst. Ebmols hot's schtreit g'macht, un aa ebmols zu fiel g'schpass.

Forne am sitz wo die schuler g'hockt hen wor blatz fer die bicher, un schreib babier. Wann du niemols in solichere schul worrst, kannst du dir gor net forschtelle was alles in so'me "desk" zu finne wor. Es wohe immer deel schuler das alles uff g'raumt hen, alles wor in guter ardnung. Ann're hen die bicher juscht so nei g'schoove wo blatz wor, un wann kenn blatz wor hen sie's doch noch nei g'schoove. Die bicher un's schreib babier hen aa denoch geguckt, alles ferkrippel t.

Die Miss Cora, wie mir sie heese hen solle, hot uns oft 'n por minutte gevve fer der desk uff raume. 'S hot sich awwer net fiel ferennert. Die schlappiche hen schlappich uff g'raumt, die sargfeltige hen net uff raume brauche. Was rna alles in so'me desk finne hot kenne macht'n scheene g'schicht. Ich glaub die boove desks worre doch'n wenich schlimmer wie die uff de maed seit.

Mol eemol hot die Miss Cora, kartz eb mir heem geh hen solle, g'saat heit muss mol recht uff g'raumt warre. Mir hen alles ovve uff de desk leege solle, un juscht z'rick du was notwennig wor fer die schularewet. Alles schunst solle mir in der babierkarb duh, odder heem nemme. Die Miss Cora hot gut geguckt das niemand ebbis in der sack schteckt, alles hot ovve uff der desk misse. 'S wor lecherlich, wie fiel schuler gem ebis ferschteckle henn wolle. 'S worre alte babiere das schon lang weg g'schmisse hette sei solle, un gleene breiflen fon annre schuler, alte ebbelkrutze, odder holler un weide peiflen, un ncich fiel

22

ann'res. Do hot rna sich ausrechle kenne wer manchmol gepiffe hot wan: diti'; ~hulmeischderin 's net sehne hot kenne; · ·. ·'

Mit all dem, wor's 'n gure schul. Mir hen fiel g'schpass g'hatt un fiel g'lerht. Die groessere schuler hen oft de gleen're g'holfe mit ihre schularewet. Des hot de eltre un de gleen're gut geduh. Sie hen g'lemt.

Uff'm schpielblatz hen mir gut g'schpielt. 'S wor net so fiel blatz. Die gross schtee mauer un die grosse felse uff'm schpielblatz hen ziernlich fiel blatz uff g'numme. 'S worre zwee heislen im hof, eens fer die boove, 's anner fer die maed. Urn der schpielblatz war buschland uff zwee seite, 'n feld uff eenre seit, under weeg uff de annre. Dreimol im dag hen mir freizeit g'hatt, formittags fon zehe bis zwanzig minutte, mittags 'n schtund, un nochmittags nochmal fon zehe bis zwanzig minutte. Formittags in der recess zeit hen mir g'schpielt, un oft zimmlich fiel aus'm esskessel g'numme. Mir worre jung un hen immer grosser appetit g'hatt. Oftmol hen die schuler schun for der recess zeit aus g'macht was zu schpiele in der freizeit. 'S hot weir net so fiel zeit g'numme fer naus geh, wie rei kumme. Oft hen die boove un die maed "kolli-over" g'schpielt. Do hot rna der balle ivver 's dach g'schmisse. Uff de annre seit hen sie den balle fange misse. Wer 'n g'fange hot iss urn's gebei kumme mit dem balle, un hot broviert eens fon de ann're seit treffe mit'm balle. Wann er gedroffe hot, hot der mit uff die anner seit geh misse. 'S iss oft forkumme das eens gem uff der ann're seit schpiele hot wolle, un hot sich gem dreffe losse. Die maed hen oft net mit de boove schpiele wolle. Die boove worre ihne zu rauh. A wwer wann sie mol so zwoelf johr alt worre, hot sel sich urn g'wechselt.

'S worre allsfort maed un boove das gem mit de gleen're schuler g'schpielt hen. 'S hot niemand ganz recht ferschtanne fer wass sie net schpiele hen wolle mit de schuler fon de aelt wo sie worre. 'S iss oft wennich g'schpott warre ivver sie. Ma hot g'saat sie sin bubblich, odder peensich, awwer's hot nix ferennert.

Wann's nass wor, das rna net draus schpiele hot kenne is oft "blinde meisle" g'schpielt warre. 'S hot eens sich die aage zu binne g'losst un hot die ann're g'sucht. Wann rna niemand fange hot kenne, hot rna saage darfe "no more moving" un hot sich dann eens fange kenne. Mit de haend hot rna den ann're schuler kenne misse. Wann rna 's net recht g'rote hot, hot rna sich 'n ann're suche misse. 'S wor g'schpass wann 's net zu rauh iss warre.

Die grosse boove hen oft g'meent blinde meisle iss nix zu schpiele. Sie hen liever uff de "schulporch" g'schpielt

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

mit'me weiche balle. Zwee schuler das gut schmeise hen kenne hen am end fon de porch g'schtanne, un hen den balle ans anner end g'schmisse. Wann sie'n drei mol g'fange hen ohne ihn falle losse war die "pann hees," hot rna g'saat. Die annre schuler worre in de mitt. Do hot rna broviert eens in de mitt treffe mit dem balle. Wann eener getroffe wor, hot er raus misse, bis sie all aus worre. 'S wor net fiel blatz, awwer die wo im "mush" worre sin rum gedanzt so das rna sie net gut _treffe hot kenne. Die wo der balle schmeisse hen solle, hen oft g'macht wie wann sie schmeisse daete, un hen dann der balle zu dem am ann're end g'schmisse, wo er gut een treffe hot kenne.

Noch fiel ann're sache hen mir g'schpielt. 'S det zu fiel mache alles zu schreive wie mir g'schpielt hen. 'S g'maant rnich draa wie ee boo g'saat hot, "Uff'm schpielblatz geht's rnir gut, ich kann schee mit mache, awwer sell innwennich ferleet mir, 's iss gor ken g'schpass draa." Doch, mit all dem hen die schuler gut g'lernt. 'S wor die menscht zeit ziemliche gute ardnung, deel daage besser wie ann're, un deelmol gor net so gut.

In unsre schul hot rna die hand hoch heeve kenne wann rna naus geh hot rnisse. Zwee sache hot rna duh kenne wie sel. Ma hut die hand hoch g'hoove mit zwee finger for, wann rna naus ins heisle geh hot wolle. Ich hab g'saat wolle, oft hot rna net geh misse, doch hot rna gern wolle. Sie, die Miss Cora, hot net wisse kenne eb rna hot misse, odder wolle. Wann sie g'sehne hot das niemand schunst draus wor hot sie "ja" gegnickt, un dann iss rna gange. Ma hot acht gevve rnisse das rna net zu oft naus gange iss, schonst hot sie 's net ferlaubt das rna geht. Zwee dinge hot rna in acht nemme misse. 'S wor net gut das rna zu oft gange iss, un rna hot aa net zu lang aus bleive darfe. Sie hot ken zwee uff eemol geh losse wolle, un wann sie 's ferfehlt hot un 's sinn zwee uff eemol naus gange, hot oft niemand geh darfe, un sie hot recht laut g'scholte.

'S wor eens fon de boove, der Jacob. Mir hen ihn immer der "Check" g'heese. Er wor 'n guter schuler, hot gut g'lernt, un die Miss Cora hot ihn gegliche. Er hot naus geh kenne, wann niemand schunst geh hot kenne. Awwer's hot ihm aa mol eemol net so gut g'schafft.

'S wor warm in de schulschtub, bisseli zu warm. Der Check iss schlaefrich warre. Endlich hot er die bicher zu g'macht, un hot die hand hoch g'hoove. Die Miss Cora hot ihn net aa geguckt. Endlich hot der Check so im hals g'macht wie wann er ebbis zu saage het un hot die hand z'rick un farre geduh, un hot so am end fom sitz g'huckt als wie er schier nimme g'nung zeit het fer noch'm heisle ohne "accident." Endlich hot sie ihm "ja" gegnickt. Die ann're schuler hen 's schier gor all g'sehne wie's gange iss.

Draus wor wennich schnee uff 'm grund. 'S wor sunnich, un net kalt, un gans windstill. Der schnee wor grad recht fer schneeballe mache. Der Check hot sich 'n dutzend, odder mee, g'macht eb er naus ins boove-heisle gange iss. 'S wor doch net so notwennich das er schnell hie kommt. Die schneeballe hot er uff 'n hauffe g'leegt wo sie im schatte g'lege hen. Er hot g'meenr noch der schul waere sie gut hatt un daete net ferfalle wann rna sie schmeisse daet. Im heisli hot er 'n scheene lange zeit ferbrocht, un die gute frische luft eigezogge. 'S wor doch fiel schoener wie im schulhaus wo 's so warm wor. Doch iss er Iangsam

january 1982

z'rick g'loffe. Wann rna zu lang bleibt ·kann rna net glei widder geh. Er iss awwer net der schnellst weg z'rick gange, er iss Iangsam gange un hot so 'n umweg g'macht gege de schdross, un dann nach dem schulhaus. Innwennich hen rnir 's g'hoert wie er den schnee ab g'schtampt hot uff de porch.

Noch eens hen mir g'hoert. 'S iss 'n waegli uff 'm weg kumme. 'S wor der Lutzy, so hen mir ihn all g'heese. Aile dag iss er am schulhaus forbei gange. Er wor der "mailman" in uns're nachbarschaft. Er hot die brief un die zeitung g'fohre. 'S wor 'n guter man, er hot sei arewet immer gut g'macht. Er iss awwer gern ungeduldich warre, un oft ohne gute ursach. Er hot sei gaul bei uns daheem g'fuettert. Der Pap hot 'n drog g'macht fer hoi un havver. For dem fresse hot der Lutzy der gaul gedraenkt am wasserdrog. Der Lutzy un der gaul hen ihre middagesse zusamme eig'numme, un sinn dann widder uff der weg.

Der Lutzy ·liot oft gegnarrt ivver sache das schonst niemand nix aa g'macht het. Mol eemol hot er gezankt ivver 's reggewetter. Die Mem hot g'saat, "Den regge braucht rna doch, schonst daet doch nix wachse."

" 'S mag nachts reggre," war seine antwort. Dann iss er weiter gange.

Wie ich schon g'saat hab, iss der Lutzy am schulhaus forbei gange als der Check noch draus wor. Ohne recht zu denke was dafon kumme kennt hot der Check 'n grosse handfoll schnee zammer gedrickt, un hot sie gege den wagge g'schmisse. 'S wor ganz unbedenkt, meen ich, awwer 's het net besser dreffe kenne wann er gezielt het. Der grosse schneeballe hot's dach ovvich dem Lutzy gedroffe, un iss in hunnert schticker ferfalle, uff der Lutzy, uff sei hut rand, ivver sei rock, un ins halsg'nick, un ins g'sicht, un aa ivver die brief in seine hand.

Was hett doch der Check sich gern im schnee ferschluppe wolle! Schier gor so schnell wie er g'schmisse hot, hot er g'sehne das der schneeballe zu naechst an den wagge geh kennt. Er hot aa g'wisst das der Lutzy die sach net zu freindlich aa sehne kennt.

So g'schwindt wie er g'sehne hot wie der Lutzy mit schee ferstreut wor, hot er g'wisst das der man net ferstennich sei ward. Er hot aa net g'wort fer mee zu sehne. In's schulhaus hot er net geh wolle, awwer 's wor nix ann'res. Ganz zu schnell iss er ins schulhaus g'schprunge, un hot die dier zu g'schlage. Die Miss Cora war net freindlich. Sie hot aa g'fange ebbis zu saage das er so lang aus geblivve wor, un das er di~ dier so zu schlagt. Sie hot awwer net fiel saage kenne bis die dier widder uff gange iss, un net so sachte.

Die schulmaeschderin is bleich warre. Dort in der dier hot der grosse man g'schtanne mit de "buggywhip" in de hand, un hot laut g'scholte ivver der Check. Er hot wisse wolle ferwas die Miss Cora die schuler net im schulhaus halt. Eb sie net besser wisst wie die sch4ler die leit uff de schdross mit schneeballe schmeisse losse. Er hot ferschproche der junge lump dresche, un hot por schritt g'macht gege den Check. Dann iss er ruhig schteh geblivve, un hot g'saat, recht scharf, "Ich kenn dich, du lump. Was meenscht du mit dem?"

Ganz ruhig un zittrich hot der Check g'saat, "Ich hab's net du wolle, ich hab net wolle."

23

"Was 'n dumme antwort," hot der Lutzy g'saat. "Ohne wolle het er ken schnee schmeisse kenne. Sel iss g'logge.lch grig dich noch. Schwetz mir net so dumm."

Die Miss Cora wor nimme bleich, sie wor rot im g'sicht. Sie wor doch die schulmaeschderin, un im schulhaus hot sie zu sagge was rna dut. 'S darf niemand ins schulhaus kumme onne an der dier globbe, un der Lutzy hot sich rei g'rennt wie 'n schtick fieh. Sie muss ihn an sei blatz schtelle.

In English hot sie g'saat, "Jacob, du nemmst dei sitz, un sagst gor nix meh. Ich will mit dem mann schwetze."

Zum Lutzy hot sie g'saat, "Du kannst net so ins schulhaus renne wie 'n boesser bull. Graad am aafang will ich dir saage das ich net schuld bin draa. Ich hab g' duh was recht wor. Der boo hot naus misse un ich hab ihn naus geh g'losst. Ich hab die schuler do, ich kann net naus geh mit jedem schuler. Ich glaub aa net das er dir so fiel schaade g'duh hot. Er haet 's net duh solle, sel ferschtehn mir, un wan ich mol fertig bin mit ihm ferschteht er 's aa. Sel kann ich der ferschpreche."

"Wann ich so durnm waer, daet ich net broviere schulhalte. Un du schtehst ihm noch bei wanner mir der wagge foil schnee schmeisst. Ich kann dir eens saage, du daetscht dir besser 'n man suche, un 's schulhalte uff gevve."

Sel wor fer die Miss Cora zu fiel. Sie iss schon lang mit 'me mann rum gange. Ma hot sie fiel g'sehne minanner, un 's hen fielleit g'meent sie daete doch ball heiere. Sell wor schon yorelang im gang, sie worre all zwee alt g'nung fer heiere, awwer 's iss nix draus ~arre. Pie schuler hen 's all g'wisst. Die Miss Cora hot 's net gern g'hoert. Ich denk der Lutzy hot sie riet so gut gekennt, das er 's g'wisst hot, awwer 'shot doch gut gebasst, un die Miss Cora hot nix dafun hoere wolle, abbadich wo die schuler alles hoere kenne.

Sie hot g'saat, "Mir gehn wennich do ins hinne schtivle." Sie hot ruhich schwetze 'wolle.

Er hot g'saat, "lch kann dir alles doo saage was ich zu saage hab, un ich hab noch fiel zu saage. 'S iss aa net all schee." Er iss awwer bisseli ruhiger warre, hot net ganz so laut gschwetzt, un iss Iangsam an die dier gange.

An de dier, die hand hoch, hot er g'schtoppt, hot g'saat, '"S naechst mol kriegt ·er schlaeg fon mir, sel ferschprech ich dir, aa wann ich 's doo in der schul duh muss."

Die Miss Cora hot ihn loss warre wolle, ihr geduld wor ausg'loffe. Sie hot g'saat, "Wann 's widder ebbis gebt, kumm ruhig an die dier, wm~t ich an die dier kumm, un .~h~etz. m~t mi~. Loss mic je schul.kinner fersarigge."

M1t drr ISS mx zti' rna . Du b1st zu dumm, un bekimmerst dich net was dei - ~huler dun. Ich kann 's fersarigge, un sie fergesse 's net so glei."

Die Miss Cora hot ihm die dier uff g'macht, hot g'saat, "Wann du widder so rei kummst, odder wann du eens fon de schuler aa reegst schick ich der kunschtabler dir noch."

Er iss naus gange, hot noch ebbis gebrummt das mir net ganz ferschtanne hen. 'S wor aa besser so. Die dier is zu gange.

Die Miss Cora hot g'saat zum Jacob, "Du bleibst nach der schul noch wennich, ich muss mit dir schwetze. Ich geh

24

mit dir heem, ich muss mit deine eltre schwetze. Ich bin bang du un deine brueder ferzehle 's net recht. Eb mir heem · gehne musst du mir alles recht saage was du geduh hoscht."

"Ich hab 's net duh wolle," hot der Check nochmol g'saat.

Die schul iss wennich frueh aus gange. Mir hen net fiel zeit ferseimt uff 'm weg. G'woehnlich hot die Mem 's nachtesse uff 'm disch g'hatt wann mir fon de schul heem kumme sinn. Noch 'm esse henn mir all wennich arewet zu duh g'hatt, un dann die schul bicher.

"Was iss mir des, dir sind doch frueh. 'S esse iss noch net fattich, fer was seid ihr so frueh? Wo iss der Jacob?" Sie hot schier kenn antwort fon niemand kriekt. Ich hab ebbis saage misse. "Ich denk er k~mmt eb lang."

Uff 'm offe hot ebbis aa g'fange ivverkoche. Bis die Mem mit dem fattich wqr, worre die kinner all weg. G'woehnlich hen mir warte kenne bis noch dem esse fer die schaff'gleeder aa duh, heit sinn mir all gange ann're gleeder aa zu du.

Die Mem hot awwer net lang worte misse. Fer die Mem wor 's ganz unferhofft das der Jacob die schulmaeschderin mit bringt fer 's nachtesse, awwer mir kinner hen all g'wisst was los wor. Mir sinn schee in unsre schtuve geblivve.

Mei dier wor so ganz wennich uff, ich hab hoere wolle was die Mem saagt. "Des iss doch schee, Jacob, das du b'such mit bringst. Ich duh 'n deller un e' schruhl an der disch, un die Miss Cora kann mit-esse. Mir haette sie schon lang ei'lade solle."

Die Miss Cora hot net recht g'wisst was zu mache mit de freindliche ei'ladung. Sie wor wennich ferhuddelt. Sie hot g'wisst das es wennich hatt sei ward zu ferschteh, awwer so 'n freindliche ei'ladung hot sie wennich ferschreckt. "Nee, mir bleive gor net lang, mir wolle juscht por watte schwetze, no gehn mir widder."

"Ach was, der Jacob bleibt doch, sel wees ich, un du kannst doch lang g'nung bleive das du wennich esse kanst, no kenne mir schwetze so lang wie du zeit hoscht. Ich nemm dei gleeder, henk sie do hinnich der offe, no bleive sie schee warm."

Die Miss Cora hot g'meent sie daet die gleeder doch net ableege. Sie hot g'saat, "Der Jacob hot ebbis zu saage."

Die Mem hot ihn aa geguckt un hot g'wort. Der Check hot sich noch net zammer g'rafft, er wor ziemlich ferschrocke. Der Pap hot alsfort g'saat, "Wann eeens fon de kinner schlaeg grich in de schule, gebt 's widder schlaeg . daheem." 'S wor 'm Jacob angst. , . ·'

"lch hab's net duh wolle," hot er widder g'saat. . ._ "Was hoscht net duh wolle? Ich ferschteh 's g~ net. '

Hoscht due die Miss Cora net mit bringe wolle?" ' "Net sel. Ich hab der Lutzy net mit'm schneeballe dreffe

wolle. Ich hab's net duh wolle." "Der Lutzy," hot die Mem g'saat. "Mit 'me

schneeballe gedroffe. Un was hot er g'macht? Sel kann ich mir forschtelle. Un hoscht ihm g'saat du hoscht 's net duh wolle. Hot er g'raast?"

Die Miss Cora hot's alles ferzaehlt wie er g'schwetzt hot in de schul wo all die kinner alles g'hoert hen. Sie hot g'saat sie wisst net eb er der mann dreffe hot wolle, awwer sie

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

kann doch net eisehne wie rna schmeisse kann wann rna net will.

Am end hot die Miss Cora bei uns g'esse, un alles iss recht freindlich abgange. Der Pap hot net fiel zu saage g'hatt am disch. Ich meen er hot der Jacob gedauert. Er hot net g'meent das schlaeg notwennich, odder schicklich waer. Endlich hot der Pap g'saat, "Ich hab aa mol gern schneeballe g'schmisse. Eemol hav ich so unbedenkt 'n grosser balle darich 's schulhaus fenster g'schmisse. 'S wor net lang bis der schulmaeschter am fenster g'schtanne hot. Er hot gut sehne kenne wer g'schmisse hot. Ich bin hie, hab ihm g'saat ich hab g'schmisse, awwer ich hab 's fenster net dreffe wolle. Recht freindlich hot er g'saat, 'Sel glaub ich, awwer du hoscht schlecht g'schmisse. Du muscht awwer bezahle fer 'n anner scheib nei mache.' "

Die Miss Cora iss net lang geblivve nach 'm nachtesse. Zu de Mem hot sie g'saat, "Ich denk 's hot dem Lutzy net fiel schaade geduh, un ich bet's selver gern shene wolle, abbaddich weil er so laut iss warre. A wwer ich hab doch ebbis duh misse, schonst meene die schuler 's macht nix a us.''

Wo der Henner ins haus kumme iss wor die Mem am flicke. Sie hot g'saat, "Henner, du worscht aa in de schul.

Du hoscht alles g'hoert. Was denkst du?·Hot der Jacob der Lutzy dreffe wolle mit dem schneeballe? Ich kann mir forschtelle das es ihm fieleicht g'schpass g'macht het.''

"Nee, er hot net dreffe wolle. Der Check iss ken so schlechter ked, er duht niemand nix, aa dem Lutzy net. Er hot ihn net dreffe wolle. Awwer 's iss dumm das er g'schmisse hot, un no noch gegem wagge. 'S macht gor nix aus was er saagt, 's glaubt schier niemand das er unschuldig iss. Ich muss aa denke wie 's dem Lutzy gucke muss. Er meent der Check will sich juscht raus luegge. W ann ich der Check waer daet ich gor nix mee saage.''

Sel iss naa schon fufzig yore her. 'S iss schon lang ruhig un fergesse. Die Miss Cora iss im letschte yor g'schtarve. Net lang z'rick hot der Jacob mir die g'schicht widder ferzehlt.'' 'S wor'hatt uff mich," hot er g'saat. "lch hab ihn g'wiss net Pr'effe wolle, ich hab gor nix gege den mann g'hatt, awwer wie kann rna saage rna hot net dreffe wolle wann rna g'schmisse hot. 'S wor evvy eens fon selle dumme sache. Ich hab noch mee dumme sache geduh in mein're zeit, un net all wo ich so jung wor. Ich het schun lang gern mit dem Lutzy schwetze wolle, awwer ich hab mir net getraut. So iss es geblivve." o

Readers' Ancestry

Each Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage issue features a member of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society who has traced his or her ancestry at least six generations. Readers with questions and/ or additions are encouraged to write to the Society member to exchange information.

V~nia N. Lane

Virginia Newcomer Lane, a native of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, has been interested for many years in her Lancaster County ancestors. Married to Edward E. Lane, a New Englander, she has made a fan chart for her children which depicts both Lane and Newcomer ancestors for nine generations. Since 1954 the family has lived in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Anyone interested in these family lines may contact her: Mrs. E. E. Lane, P. 0. Box 343, Wayne, PA 19087.

1. NEWCOMER, Anna Virginia, b. Oct. 10, 1906, Mount Joy, Lancaster County, Pa.; m. Sept. 8, 1934, Edward E. Lane.

2. NEWCOMER, Harry S., b. Oct. 8, 1870, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Sept. 6, 1935, bu. Henry Eberle Cemetery, Mount Joy, Pa.; m. Feb. 7, 1894, Lola Strickler.

3. STRICKLER, Ella Viola/ Lola, b. May 16, 1871, Columbia, Pa.; d. Jan. 6, 1941, bu. Henry Eberle Cemetery.

january 1982

::· ::-::-

4. NEWCOMER, Christian N., b. Dec. 8, 1845, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Mar. 6, 1919, bu. Landisville Mennonite Cern., Landisville, Pa.; m. 1868 Anna G. Snyder.

Christian N. Newcomer (1845-1919) and Anna G. Snyder (1846-1936)

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john H. Strickler (1837-1923) and Anna M. E. Gable (1846-1875)

5. SNYDER, Anna G., b. June 2, 1846, West Donegal Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. June 25, 1936, Mount Joy, Pa., bu. Landisville Mennonite Cern.

6. STRICKLER, John H., b. May 31, 1837, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. May 29, 1923, bu. Greenwood Cern., Lancaster, Pa.; m. 1865 Annie Gable.

7. GABLE, Anna Mary Elizabeth, b. 1846, Marietta, Pa.; d. 1875, bu. Fairview Street Cern., Marietta, Pa.

8. NEWCOMER, Christian S., b. Jan. 8, 1808, Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Feb. 24, 1884, Rapho Twp., bu. Landisville Mennonite Cern.; m. 1828 Elizabeth Nissley.

9. NISSLEY, Elizabeth, b. Dec. 12, 1808, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Dec. 28, 1886, bu. Landisville Mennonite Cern.

10. SNYDER, Christian W., b. 1818, West Donegal Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1886, bu. Kraybill Mennonite Cern., East Donegal Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. 1840 Mary Garber.

11. GARBER, Mary S., b. 1818, East Donegal Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; d. 1852, bu. Kraybill Mennonite Cern.

12. STRICKLER, John, b. Apr. 12, 1794, Rapho Twp., LancaSter Co., Pa.; d. July 12, 1877, Mount Joy, Pa., bu. Henry Eberle Cern.; m. Mary Haverstick.

13. HAVERSTICK, Mary Cecelia, b. Aug. 21, 1809, Lan­caster, Pa.; d. 1889, Mount Joy, Pa.; m. Dec. 9, 1830.

14. GABLE, Aaron, b. 1803, York Co., Pa.; m. 1841 Cassandra Overdorf.

15. OVERDORF, Cassandra, b. Nov. 4, 1816, Wrightsville, York Co., Pa.; d. Mar. 11, 1860, bu. Fairview Street Cern.

16. NEWCOMER, Christian, b. 1773, Manor Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; d. Feb. 7, 1814, bu. Habecker Mennonite Cern., Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. 1794 Barbara Seitz.

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17. SEITZ, Barbara, b. 177?, Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1827, bu. Habecker Mennonite Cern.

18. NISSLEY, John, b. Dec. 9, 1786, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Nov. 21, 1847; m. Anna Hershey.

19. HERSHEY, Anna, b. 1787, Penn Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1863, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.

20. SNYDER, John Henry, b. 1775, West Donegal Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. 1817 Maria Witmer.

21. WITMER, Maria, b. 1775, Mount Joy Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.

22. GARBER, John, b. 1791, Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1840 West Donegal Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa., bu. Bossler Mennonite Cern.; m. Catherine Sechrist.

23. SECHRIST, Catherine, b. 1795, Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1878, West Donegal Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa., bu. Bossler Mennonite Cern.

24. STRICKLER, Henry, Jr., b. 1760; Rapho Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; d. 1830, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; bu. old Strickler burying ground, Rapho Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; m. 1782 Atilla Erisman.

25. ERISMAN, Atilla, b. 1762, Rapho Twp.; d. 1830, bu. old Strickler burying ground.

26. HAVERSTICK, George, b. 1788, Philadelphia, Pa.; d. July 9, 1824, Lancaster, Pa.; m. Mar. 28, 1809, Frances Stricker.

27. STRICKER, Mary Frances, b. 1789, Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1849, bu. Strickler Cern., Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.

28. GABLE, Michael; m. Elizabeth. 29. , Elizabeth. 30. OBERDORFF, George, b. 1781, Windsor Twp., York

Co., Pa.; d. May 5, 1845, Wrightsville, Pa., bu. Fairview Cern., Wrightsville, Pa.; m. Anna Mary.

31. , Anna Mary, b. 1782, Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa.; d. 1860 Wrightsville, Pa., bu. Fairview Cern.

32. NEWCOMER, Christian; d. 1786, Manor Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; m. Furry. Christian3 Newcomer; Christian2 Newcomer, Jr. (1742 immigrant); Christian1

Newcomer, Sr. (1742 immigrant).

john Strickler, Sr. (1794-1877) and Mrs. john (Mary Cecilia Haver­stick) Strickler, Sr. (1809-1888).

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

33. RJRRY, __ _ 34. SEITZ, Jacob, b. Rhenish Bavaria, Germany; d. 1822,

Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. Elizabeth Witmer. 35. WITMER, Elizabeth, b. Manor Twp., Lancaster Co.,

Pa.; d. 1819. Elizabeth3 (Witmer) Seitz; MichaeJ2 and Ann (Hiestand) Witmer; MichaeJt Witmer (1733 immigrant).

36. NISSLEY, Samuel, b. 1761, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1838; m. 1785 Barbara Kreider. Bishop SamueP Nissley; Johannes2 and Mary (Sechrist) Nissley; Ulrich1

Nissley. 37. KREIDER, Barbara, b. 1757, East Hempfield Twp.,

Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. Barbara3 (Kreider) Nissley; Martin2 and Elizabeth Greider (1724 immigrants); MichaeJt and Barbara (Graff) Greider.

38. HERSHEY, Christian, Jr., b. 1762, Warwick Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; d. 1834 Penn Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. Elizabeth Snyder. Christian4 Hershey, Jr.; Christian3 and Anna (Hernley) Hershey; Bishop Benjamin2 and Mary Hershey; Bishop Christian1 and Oade Hershey (1716 immigrants).

39. SNYDER, Elizabeth, b. Warwick Twp.; d. Penn Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. Elizabeth8 (Snyder) Hershey; Christian7

and Barbara (Reist) Snyder; Hannes6 and Susanna (Bauman) Schneider (1736 immigrants); Jacobs and Veronica (Schmitt) Schneider; Jacob4 and Anna Maria (MUller) Schneider; Peter3 and Susana (Reisz) Schneider; Jacob2 and Anna Maria (Breck) Schneider; Hannes1 and Catharina (Haus) Schneider (Bern, Switzerland).

40. SNYDER, Johannes b. 1770, Mount Joy Twp., Lan­caster Co., Pa.; d. 1841, bu. Kraybill Mennonite Cern.; m. Anna Hostetter. Johannes8 Snyder; Jacob7 B. and Maria (Herschi) Snyder; Hannes6 and Susana (Bauman) Schneider (1736 immigrants); Jacobs and Veronica (Schmitt) Schneider; Jacob4 and Anna Maria (Miiller) Schneider; Peter3 and Susana (Reisz) Schneider; Jacob2 and Anna Maria (Breck) Schneider; Hannes1 and Catharina (Haus) Schneider (Bern, Switzerland).

41. HOSTETfER, Anna, b. 1772, Manheim, Lancaster Co., Pa.; d. 1861, Mount Joy Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa., bu. Kraybill Mennonite Cern. Anna3 (Hostetter) Snyder; Bishop Jacob2 and Maria (Metzler) Hostetter; Jacob1

and Anna (Resh) Hostetter (1712 immigrants). 42. WITMER, Joseph, b. Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.;

m. Barbara Hiestand. 43. I-llEST AND, Barbara, b. Manor Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. 44. GARBER, Andrew, b. Hempfield Twp., Lancaster Co.,

Pa.; m. Maria Nolt. Andrew2 Garber; Christian1 Garber, Sr.

45. NOLT, Maria, b. Hempfield Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. 46. SECHRIST, Michael, b. Hempfield Twp., Lancaster Co.,

Pa.; d. Hempfield Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. Ann Garber. MichaeP Segrist; MichaeJ2 and Magdalena Segrist; Michael1 Segrist (1727 immigrant).

47. GARBER, Ann, b. Hempfield Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. Ann3 (Garber) Sechrist; Christian2 and Catharine Garber; Christian1 Garber, Sr.

48. STRICKLER, Henrich, b. Switzerland; d. 1796 Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.

49. 50. ERISMAN, Jacob, Sr., b. Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co.,

Pa.; d. 1792, Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa.; m. Elizabeth Metz. Jacob2 Erisman; Abraham1 Erisman.

51. METZ, Elizabeth, b. Rapho Twp., Lancaster Co., Pa. Elizabeth2 (Metz) Erisman; Ludwig1 Metz.

Mrs. George (Mary Frances Stricker) Haverstick (1789-1849)

52. HAVERSTICK, William, b. 1756, Lancaster, Pa.; d. 1823, Philadelphia, Pa.; m. June 10, 1779, Maria Deshler. William2 Haverstick; MichaeJt and Salome (Rausher) Haverstick.

53. DESHLER, Maria, b. 1759, Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1843, Philadelphia, Pa. Maria3 (Deshler) Haverstick; Anthony2

and Elizabeth (Bensell) Deshler; David1 and Maria (Wistar) Deshler.

54. STRICKER, John, b. Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1789, Philadelphia, Pa.; m. Mar. 19, 1785, Sarah Sellers. John3

Stricker; Peter2 and Ann Mary (Magdalen) Stricker; Henry1 Stricker (1733 immigrant).

55. SELLERS, Sarah Maria, b. Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1789, Philadelphia Pa.

56. GABLE, __ _ 57. 58. 59. 60. OBERDORFF, George, Sr., b. Lower Windsor Twp.,

York Co., Pa.; d. May 24, 1828, Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa.; bu. Canadochly Lutheran Cern., Lower Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa.; m. 1777 Elizabeth Shafer.

61. SHAFER, Elizabeth, b. Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa.; d. Nov. 5, 1828, Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa.; bu. Canadochly Lutheran Cern., Lower Windsor Twp., York Co., Pa. Elizabeth2 (Shafer) Oberdorf£; Christopher1

and Christina Shafer. 62. 63. . 0

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Research Notes Researchers are invited to share synopses of their

research projects. Entries should include title, summary of scope, expected date of completion or publication, and name and address of author or compiler. Send items to Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602.

Anabaptist-Mennonite Involvement in the Charismatic Movement: This project surveys Anabaptist-Mennonite responses to the many charismatic renewal movements from 1525 to the present and will be completed in the winter of 1981-1982.

-john I. Smucker c/o Elim Bible Institute

7245 College Street Lima, NY 14485

Berkey History and Genealogy: An extension of the work of the late Rev. William A. Berkey of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this project will trace seventeen lines of variant spellings and will be indexed by first names and surnames of those who married Berkeys. This 250-page paperback (approximate size) should be published by the summer of 1982.

-Ruth Berkey Reichley 2939 North Nottingham Street

Arlington, VA 22207

Blacks in the Mennonite Church, 1898-1980: A Statistical History: This project traces the rise of the Black cultural movement and of the Black Church, the beginning of Mennonite involvement in Black communities over the past fifty years, and a summary of the Black response. It proposes to share conclusions in the context of suggesting how the church can effectively communicate the Gospel across cultures. The completion date is expected to be in 1982.

-Le Roy Bechler 8806 Third Avenue

Inglewood, CA 90305

Demographic Patterns and Family Structure in Eighteenth-Century Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: This project, a study o£- j amily life from 1710 to 1800, is a doctoral dissertation from the State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, and will be finished by May 1982.

-Rodger C. Henderson 5 84 Beecher Street Elmira, NY 14904

Denlinger Family History: This project, involving three compilers, is seeking information from the colonial period to the present on members of the Denlinger family whether or not they bear that surname. The other compilers in addition to me are William W. Denlinger, P.O. Box 76,

28

Fairfax, VA 22030 and Carl E. Denlinger, 720 Inwood Place, Maumee, OH 43537. No publication date has been set.

-Ralph E. Denlinger 6 Media Road

Oxford, PA 19363

Directory of German-Americanists of the Society for German-American Studies: This directory will include the name, academic affiliation, address, degree, specific research interest, work in progress and other activities, and full bibliographic entries for German-American publi­cations, including book reviews. A hardbound edition will be published in the spring of 1982.

-Steven M . Benjamin Department of Modern Languages

Clarion State College Clarion, PA 16214

Elder Members of the Mennonite Church-A We Review: This project is based on forty interviews of elderly Mennonites from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Elkhart County, Indiana; and Harvey County, Kansas. The purpose is to gather demographic data and record how elderly Mennonites view change within the Mennonite Church and within themselves. The expected date of completion is June 1982.

-Dwight E. Roth 738 East Main, #2

Akron, PA 17501

Our Palatine Ancestors: This publication will be a collection of letters written from 1671 to 17 50 and translated from German, Swiss-German, Dutch, and French. It is expected to be finished in the spring of 1982.

-Clyde L. Groff 713 Columbia Avenue

Lancaster, PA 17603

Pennsylvania German Dictionary: This will be the first scholarly Pennsylvania German dictionary which presents the English word first. The work is at the printer but the date of publication is uncertain.

-C. Richard Beam 406 Spring Drive

Millersville, PA 17551

Zimmerman Genealogy: This project will update information found in two previously published books: (1) A Twig of the Zimmerman Off-Spring of Clause Zimmerman by David N. Zimmerman, M . S. Zimmerman, and Ezra S. Zimmerman (2) Hans and Christian and Their Descendants by Erie C. Zimmerman. Expected date of completion is the spring of 1982.

-Enos N. Zimmerman Route 4

Ephrata, PA 17522

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

Genealogical Tips Readers are invited to share suggestions and new findings.

Address items to Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602.

BRENNEMAN: In the Mennonite Historical Library at Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio, is a very old photocopy of the Melchior Brenneman family Bible inscriptions that we have in our collecrion. I had shared this some years ago with Albert H. Gerberich, author of the 1938 Brenneman genealogy, and both of us tried to locate the original without success. The following is a deciphering of this writing as far as I have found possible:

Dass Buch gehortt dem Heinrich Janss [?] zu ich habb ge kauft vor 7 R Anno 1705. Die Bibell gehort dem Milcher Breniman zu and ich hab es kauft vor 7 gielden Anno 1715. Mein sun der Melcher Brenneman ist geboren da man zahlt 1719 ist drei Wochen nach dem Krist dag in dem Widder Zeichen. [A line is now drawn, evidently by Melchior, Jr.] Mein sun der Peder ist geboren da man zahlt ["Daman Zeit" here and elsewhere]1740 den 12 dag Augst in dem Leo Zeichen. Mein sun der Melcher ist geboren da man Zahlt 1741 sechs wochen vor weihnacht im Zailig Zeichen. Mein Sohn der Hanss ist geboren da man zahlt 1744 zu letzt im Januari [The rest is illegible-evidently a sign of the Zodiac.] Mein sohn der Abraham ist geboren da man zahlt 1745 den elfden Dag Junius im scorbion Zeichen. [The rest is illegible; it doubtless begins with "Mein Sohn Isak."]

-Delbert Gratz, Librarian Mennonite Historical Library

Bluffton College Bluffton, OH 45817

Three new periodicals of genealogical and historical source material have appeared: St. Clair's Bedford-The History and Genealogy of Bedford County, Pennsylvania; Conemaugh Country-The History and Genealogy of Cambria County; and A Standing Stone-The History and Genealogy of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Each will concentrate on primary source records which have never before been published and will also include a number of early printed sources unavailable to the average researcher. The period covered by each will range from earliest times to the demise of the last Civil War veteran. The twenty-four page quarterlies will be of special interest not only to genealogists researching Bedford, Cambria, and Huntingdon counties but also to those who can trace their ancestors to quite a number of related counties as well. Sources covered will include: early land surveys, wills, estate inventories, school records, cemetery inscriptions, deeds, diary excerpts, Bible records, personal and business correspondence, ledgers, naturalizations, census records, tax lists, road petitions, newspaper items, obituaries, sales notices, baptisms, births, marriages, deaths, Revolutionary /Civil War records, and much more. Each issue will be indexed for the convenience of the researcher, and a query column will be available to aid readers in the exchange of information. Subscription information is available from:

-Southwest Pennsylvania Genealogical Services P.O. Box 253

Laughlintown, PA 15655

Genealogical Computing, a bimonthly newsletter for genealogists and home computerists, began in 1981. Beginners

january 1982

and those advanced in genealogy and computing will find a direcrory of genealogy-oriented programs for personal computers, instrucrive columns on how to computerize family research records, program reviews, and interchanges among those using their computers for genealogical purposes. It is edited by Paul and Saralou Andereck, operators of the Family Historians' Form, a computerized genealogical message system. Callers using terminals or home computers can access the auto­answering Forum by calling (703) 978-7561 at no cost (except long distance charges) from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. on weekdays, and noon to 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, Sunday and holidays, Eastern Time. Subscription information is available from:

-Data Transfer Associates 5102 Pommeroy Drive

Fairfax, VA 22032

HERR: I would like to make a correcrion on my Herr ancestry as it appears in the April 1981 issue of Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, page 29, number 32. It is given there as recorded by Theodore W. Herr in the Genealogical Record of Rev. Hans Herr. After studying some wills and deeds at the Lancaster County Courthouse, I am convinced that is not correct.

The will (E-1-252)-written on August 5, 1783, signed by Abraham Hare, and probated September 15, 1785-names his wife, Anely Hair, and the following children: sons-Abraham, John, and Christian; daughters-Mary Long, Barbara Myers, Elizabeth Stoner, Magdalena Frick, and Christiana Huffman; and son-in-law Ulrick Ashleman for the children he had by his daughter Frena/ Verena.

Will H-1-255, written March 20, 1794, by Abraham Herr and probated January 22, 1803, names wife, Fronica, and four children: son Christian, daughters-Ann, wife of John Graff; Magdalen, wife of Jacob Smith; and Fronica, wife of Henry Kaufman.

Deed L-3-583-588 reviews all former transfers of this parcel of land, beginning on November 30, 1717, when 600 acres of land, then in Strasburg Township, Pennsylvania, was granted to Abraham Herr by the Penns (Patent A-5-358). This Abraham Herr died intestate, and on May 18, 1736, 275 acres of the above 600 acres was granted to Abraham Hare, Jr., eldest son of said Abraham. On January 30, 1756, Abraham Hare, Jr., and Anna, his wife, sold 246 acres of their 295 acres to Abraham Herr. On December 10, 1799, this Abraham Herr and Fronica, his wife, sold 229 acres and 20 perches of the above 246 acres to their only son, Christian Herr.

Instead of Abraham Herr's (m. Anna Miller) being understood as one man who married twice (each wife having a son Christian and a daughter Magdalena), acrually this refers to

two men, father and son. The correcr sequence would be: Christian5 Herr; Abraham4 and Feronica (Martin) Herr; Abraham3 and Anna (Miller) Herr; Abraham2 and Anna (Bare?) Herr; Hans 1 and Elizabeth (Kendig) Herr.

-Louise W. Herr Route 1, Box 826 White Oak Road

New Holland, PA 17557

HERSHEY: Relatives of Jacob and Anna (Newcomer) Hershey have erected a new tombstone, inscribed in English, for this Hershey couple. They are buried in the Old Hershey

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This newly erected Hershey memorial stone stands in the Old Hershey Mennonite cemetery in Salisbury Township.

Mennonite cemetery, which is on the original tract of ground in Salisbury Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The original tombstones remain.

-f. Eby Hershey Box 346

Intercourse, PA 17534

Die Familie Hostetter is a new periodical for and about the known Hostetter immigrations to America as follows: (1) Jacob Hostetter, 1712, a Swiss Mennonite exile from the Canton of Zurich who lived and died at Lancaster, Pennsylvania (2) Oswald Hostetter, who arrived August 11, 1732, on the ship Samuel (3) Jacob Hostedler, September 1736, on the ship Harle (4) Michael Hostetter, on the same day and the same ship as Jacob (5) Jacob Hostetter, November 9, 1738, on the ship Charming Nancy (6) Ulrich Hostetter from the Canton of Glarus, arrived in Philadelphia on September 11, 1849, on the ship Priscilla. Four days later the ship Phoenix arrived at the same Port carrying Christian, Ulrich, and Nichlaus Hostetter. Die Familie Hostetter first appeared in the summer of 1981 and is published three times a year. Persons interested in subscribing may write to:

-Harry C. Hostetter 718 West Race Street Pottsville, PA 17901

KREIDER: Through the generosity of Rodger K. Curry of Peekskill, New York, the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society · received a donation of the Jacob Kreider (Sept. 10, 1735-Dec. 19, 1818) and Barbara Quickel (Ocr. 22, 1742-May 3, 1814) family Bible of Conestoga Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jacob married Barbara on April 27, 1761, and had five children unnamed in the Bible. The sixth child was Michael (Dec. 20, 1770-May 1, 1851), who on February 18, 1800, married Elizabeth Hess (Dec. 24, 1779-Sept. 12, 1834). They had the following children: Johannes (Nov. 22, 1800-Aug. 18, 1801), Susanna (Aug. 1, 1802-Aug. 10, 1802), Elizabeth (Aug. 4, 1803-June 11, 1804), Anna (b. Oct. 14, 1805), Barbara (b. June 26, 1808), Michael (b. May 1, 1811), Jacob (b. March 5, 1814), David Ouly 29, 1824-0ct. 13, 1825).

Legal Terms for the Genealogist is a new publication that defines terms often found in historical and genealogical research. It includes such entries as "abatement," "eleemosynary," and "nuncupative will." Write to:

-Southern Resources Unlimited P.O. Box 29

Nashville, 7N 37221

The number of researchers borrowing federal census microfilms has risen-from 10,500 requests in 1974 to 400,000 requests in 1981. Most of this increase has been the result of the burgeoning ranks of genealogists, but now this borrowing privilege is endangered by proposed budget cuts. Suggestions have been made to continue the present service with a fee, require people to purchase the microfilms they want at $15.00 per roll, or institute borrowing services only at regional branch centers. Whatever the solution to this parricular problem, genealogists should support upgrading the National Archives by urging their congressional representatives to pass Senate Bill S1421, which would detach the National Archives from its present status as a part of the General Services Administration. If passed, this bill would clarify the budgetary needs of the National Archives and allow it to serve genealogists and historians better.

-David f. Smucker, Genealogist Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society

2215 Millstream Road Lancaster, PA 17602

Queries

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage will publish members' historical and genealogical research queries free of charge. Those received too late to be included below will appear in a future issue. Each genealogical query must include a name, a date, and a location. Send queries to Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602.

BOEHM: Who were the parents of Susanna Boehm Oune 7, 1775-Apr. 4, 1848)? She married Jacob Ressler (Nov. 16, 1767-Dec. 23, 1843), also of Lancaster County. They had eleven children and were buried in the Strasburg Mennonite Church

30

cemetery. Was she related to Rev. Martin Boehm? -Nina R. Breidenthall

1601 Turner Street Allentown, PA 18102

EBY: Who were the parents and grandparents of John Eby, born about 1795 in a county unknown but believed to have been Lebanon? He married Mary Graybill, and both died in and are buried in Schaefferstown, Lebanon County, Pa.

-Richard A. Eby 82 Valleybrook Drive Lancaster, PA 17601

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

ETTER: Who were the parents of Fannie Etter (1820-1863), the second wife of Moses Light (1817-1904)? Moses was an orchardist at Sunset, Lebanon County, Pa., and a farmer and a miller near White Oak, Lancaster County, Pa. Their son, Henry Etter Light (1848-1920), was a bishop in the Church of the Brethren, first at White Oak and then at Mountville, Pa.

-jack Shand Gettysburg College

Box 2145 Gettysburg, PA 17325

GROFF: Jacob Barr (1723-1803), eldest son of Rev. John Barr, married secondly Elizabeth Brubaker, daughter of John Jacob Brubaker (1725-1802). One of his two daughters was Susanna Barr Groff. Who was her husband?

-Grace M. Vellema N. W. Highway 45

Route 27, Box 283-B Parkville, MO 64152

HEILMAN: Were Sarah Heilman's parents Frederick and Catherine (Barth/ Bardt) Heilman? She was born in 1823 and married Samuel Light.

-Mrs. jack R. Noe 21325 Shainsky Road

Sonoma, CA 95476

HELM: Who were the parents of Elizabeth Helm (Apr. 28, 1797-Feb. 6, 1870)? She married John Kempfer Tyson (Aug. 29, 1797-Feb. 28, 1853), and they are buried in the Norriton Brethren cemetery located south of Fairview Village, Pa. I suspect that she had Brethren background and could have come from Lancaster, York, or Lebanon counties.

-Wilmer Reinford Creamery, PA 19430

HERR: Where and when was Eliza Herr born, where and when did she die, and who were her parents? She married Henry ]. Mifflin (1815-1887) about 1848 or 1849. The couple lived in both Lancaster County and Philadelphia, Pa. She subsequently married R. C. Von Belough on February 21, 1889. Eliza and Henry's children were Abram, Charles, and Samuel.

-Thomas F. Bresnehen, Jr. 3207 Top Hill Road

San Antonio, TX 78209

KAUFFMAN: Mareah Kauffman (May 8, 1826-Apr. 18, 1907) married Jacob McLane about 1847. I am seeking information on her parents, Isaac and Elizabeth (Stahl) Kauffman, and any family- members. Mareah lived in Washington Boro, Pa., during all of her married life.

- Kathryn McLane Charlson 3821 Euclid Avenue Madison, WI 53711

KELLENBERGER: I would like to correspond with descendants of Peter Kellenberger, who appears first in Lancaster County on the 1810 census. Three of his known sons were: John (1806-1851), Upper Leacock Township, m. (1) Catherine Rudy, m. (2) Hannah; Joseph (1807-1899), Leacock Township, m. Mary; Peter (1815-1885), m. Joanna Hoover, Upper Leacock Township.

january 1982

-Robert L. Reeser Route 3, Box 146F

Koser Road Lititz, PA 17543

KISER/KEYSER/KYSOR: Where were Michael Kiser (b. ca. 1740) and Mary Lingle married? Michael was probably born in Germantown, Pa., and married about 1761 in Pennsylvania. They moved to Rockingham County, Virginia, about 1784. I would like information also on their children, all born in Pennsylvania: Valentine (b. 1762), Jacob (b. Apr. 6, 1763), Phillip (b. 1768), Daniel (b. Sept. 21, 1772), John (b. ca. 1773), Elizabeth, Eve, Anna Maria, Mary, and Catherine.

-Mrs. Virginia Kiser Womacks 44 28 Randall Drive

Springfield, OH 45503

LANDIS: Who were the parents of Preacher Henry Landis (1700-1760), who married Fronika Graf, daughter of Hans and Susanna Graf!Groff of Groffdale, Lancaster County, Pa. Their children were: Frena, m. John Shrantz; Anna, m. John Downer; Christina, m. Peter Good; Barbara, m. Arnold Becker; Susanna, m. John Hess; Elizabeth, m. Abraham Hershey; Margaret, m. Jacob Alter; Catherine, m. Benjamin Hershey; Henry, m. Mary Erb; and Mary; m. Michael Shank. Widower Henry (b. 1700) married secondly a ,widow, Mary Shelly, and is buried at Hammer Creek in the Roseville cemetery.

-Col. Robert K. Weaver 880 Alhambra Avenue

St. Augustine, FL 32084

MUSSELMAN: What was the maiden name of Judith, wife of Christian Musselman (1779-1855) and what were her parents' names? Christian and Judith lived on the ancestral farm in 1813 in Bowmansville, Pa., and built the present house in 1813.

-David R. Silcox 404 East Broad Street Shillington, PA 19607

NEGLEY: Who were the parents of Elias/ Eliab Negley, believed to have been born in 1746 in Lancaster County, Pa., and to have died on October 8, 1825, at Welsh Run, Montgomery Township, Franklin County, Pa.? He married Barbara Poorman/ Bohrman (Dec. 2, 1748-Nov. 2, 1835) about 1770. Her parents were Stephen and Anna Poorman of Lancaster County, Pa. He and Barbara had these children: John; Ann; Elizabeth; Jacob, m. Mary Bowermaster; Joseph, m. Elizabeth Strickler; Barbara, m. John Myers/ Meyers; and Christian, m. Barbara Newcomer.

-Atlanta Baugh Bussey 420 Ross Way

Sacramento, CA 95825

PAUL: Who are the parents, brothers, and sisters of Hannah Paul (b. Sept. 10, 1772), who was married in 1791 to Christian Shantz? Christian and Hannah first lived near Pottstown in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and in 1810 moved to Freeport, Ontario.

-Ian H. Schiedel 20206 Dewdney Trunk

Maple Ridge, B.C. V2X 3E1

REIFSNYDER: Who were the parents, brothers, and sisters of Samuel Reifsnyder (Dec. 18, 1836-Dec. 28, 1906), who married Caroline Becker (Oct. 15, 1840-July 2, 1930). They lived on a farm between Bowmansville and Center Church, Brecknock Township, Lancaster County, Pa.

-Charles L. Reifsnyder 15 Turkey Hill Road, Box 67

Montville, N] 07045

31

RIFE/REIFF: What was the surname of Elizabeth, wife of Jacob Rife, who died about 1819 in Letterkenny Township, Franklin County, Pa.? He bought land in 1792 in Greene Township, Franklin County, but was born in Lancaster County, Pa. His will was probated in March 1819. They had these children: a daughter, married to Jacob Heague and deceased by March 1819; Mariah, married to William Maxheimer and also deceased by March 1819; Christian (d. before 18:32), married to Susanna; Abraham (1777-1838); John (1779-1859), married to Catherine; Henry (ca. 1784-after 1860); .Barbara; and Anna. What were the names of the spouses of these children who all lived in Greene, Hamilton, and Letterkenny townships?

-Helen M. Niewendorp 21-755 Fig Street #C

Elmendorf AFB, AK 99506

RODGERS: What was the surname of Rachel Oan. 15, 1820-Jan. 14, 1895), who married Moore Rodgers (Dec. 11, 1824-July 24, 1899)? They had no children and were buried in Leacock Presbyterian cemetery in Lancaster County, Pa.

-Mel Evans, Jr. 265 3 Sutton Place

Lancaster, PA 17601

TREUDEL: I am seeking information on Elisabeth Treudel, who married Friedrich Zeppernick on August 11, 1761, according to Trinity Lutheran Church records, Lancaster, Pa.

-Laura Zepernick King 14553 North River Road

Pemberville, OH 43450

WITMER: I would like to receive additional information ·on Peter Witmer (b. 1712 in Switzerland), whose will, dated November 20, 1784, was proven on July 28, 1792, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Who was his first wife? His second wife was Magdalena Shellenberger (parents unknown), and his third wife was Catharine Engle (born about 1739 in Switzerland), the daughter of Ulrich and Ann (Breckbill) Engle. Is this the Peter Witmer who came to America in 1744 and is known to have lived in Manor Township as early as 1751? Peter Witmer is known to have had seventeen children from his three marriages: Christian; Elizabeth; Magdalena; Peter; Mary; John; Anna, rn. Christian Funk; Henry (d. 1815), m. Susannah Eversole?; Catharine, m. John Eshbach; Abraham; Christina; Jacob; Esther; David (1772-1843), m. Magdalena Kauffman; Barbara; Daniel; Susanna; and Frena. I need the dates of births and deaths as well as spouse's name for most of these children.

-Evelyn Rosemary Frantz 7225 New Castle Road

Lafayette, IN 47905

YODER: Who are the parents of Elizabeth Yoder who married Samuel Pletcher? Their son, Samuel, Jr., was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1778. The Pletchers moved to Centre County, Pennsylvania, in 1795 and then to Crawford County, Ohio, in 1821.

-Betty R. Murray 7627 N. W. Westside Drive

Kansas City, MO 64152

Book Reviews

Anabaptism in Outline: Selected Primary Sources, edited by Walter Klaassen (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1981. 354 pages, bibliography, index of persons, list of Anabaptist and other writers, $12.95).

This excellent book is the third in a series entitled Classics of the Radical Reformation, sponsored by the Institute of Mennonite Studies, Elkhart, Indiana. It is a collection of English translations from German and Dutch sources written by Anabaptists during the formative period of that religious movement from 1524 to 1560. The predecessor to this volume, Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, edited by George Huntston Williams and Angel M. Mergal, appeared in 1957 and contains thirteen translations with extensive footnotes.

In contrast this book comprises brief selections, ranging from a paragraph to three pages, organized according to seventeen comprehensive subject headings: Jesus Christ: God's Revelation; The Work of God in Man; The Holy Spirit; Cross, Suffering, and Discipleship; The Church; Church Order; The Bible; Baptism; The Lord's Supper; Church Discipline; Economics; Government; Non­resistance; The Oath; Religious Toleration; Relations to

Other Christians; and Eschatology. Each heading includes

32

from ten to twenty pieces and Klaassen introduces them with a brief and pointed survey of the ideas represented.

Major figures such as Menno Simons, Jacob Hutter, Balthasar Hubmaier, Hans Denck, Pilgram Marpeck, Michael Sattler, and Peter Riedeman receive broad coverage as well as some less familiar persons-Leonhard Schiemer, who was a former Franciscan and died a martyr's death; Hans Muller, who wrote a plea for religious toleration from prison; and Hans Mandl, who joined the Hutterites and died at the stake in Innsbruck. German and Dutch Anabaptists were more prolific writers than their Swiss counterparts so that fewer selections appear from the latter group.

This book is both more comprehensive and accessible than the collection of Williams and Mergal with respect to the northern part of Europe. Klaassen excluded Italian and English Anabaptists for reasons of space. As he hopes, it should become useful to "college, university, church and home." In universities it should acquaint scholars and future researchers with the wealth of Radical Reformation materials which still remain untranslated. Perhaps Anabaptism in Outline will provide the bait which results in full translations of some of these partial selections.

Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage

The book will have no problem in the college setting since it arose from Klaassen's needs as a teacher at Conrad Grebe] College in Waterloo, Ontario. The sensitive teacher will want his or her students to reap its benefits and hear what Anabaptists had to say for themselves. At home and in church groups the brevity of these translations should mitigate the theological density of some of them, and thus encourage diSCl.IS.'!ions which seek to identify and empathize with the actual religious passions of those sixteenth-century Christians. As a handy and well­organized reference work this book should inspire many sermons as well as more informal devotions.

-David]. Smucker

Plain Buggies: Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren Horse­Drawn Transportation, by Stephen Scott (Lancaster, Pa.: Good Books, 1981. 96 pages. Illustrations, map, glossary, index, $2.95).

There is a surprising amount of recent interest in buggies, carriages and wagons-a dozen books on buggi~ displayed at the Witmer Coach Shop in Leola, a report m the Tri-County News, and Stephen Scott's new book. Scott's book is on the top with its care and accuracy. I am buying a dozen. It is done by an outsider, but an insider could not have done as well.

Scott touches on the impact of plain buggies on the lives of these people. Most outsiders do not realize how extensive this impact is. Twenty miles is a long trip for a horse so that distance becomes an important factor in many decisions, including whom you will find to become your marriage partner if any. You need to consider the weather if you pick up a friend for a wedding on weekdays or go on the regular Sunday night visits.

Some deep thought went into the first chapter. I might add that young people and children feel safe and settled within the restrictive limitations of a lifestyle involving horse and · wagon transportation. During the era of contention on whether or not to allow motorized vehicles, some wanted to allow them in order to hold the young people. Now we can see that those people who held back in humility and self-denial will not pass any judgment but live in Gelassenheit and strong hopefulness.

We should pay attention to the fact that an Amish person in Pennsylvania cannot call his vehicle a buggy-to him it is a weggli. A carriage is a dach weggli or roof wagon. These dialect terms refer to the time when carriages and buggies were used by the "world." There ~as a period of time when the plain churches counseled aga1nst factory-made carriages or buggies and regarded them as a rich man's pleasure wagon or plasier weggli as opposed to simple, homemade or springless wagons or even wagons at all. Also, counsel of the Old Order Mennonites stresses the importance of humbly allowing motorized vehicles to pass on hills or in heavy traffic.

The chart on page 25 describes the top prices, but the map on pages 48-49 represents extensive study. More could be written on plain buggies, but for its size Scott's book is tremendous.

-P. S. Hurst

Amish Life, by John A. Hostetler (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1981. 40 pages, full-color illustrations, map, bibliography, $2.95).

John A. Hostetler's 1952 and 1959 editions of Amish Life are now replaced by his completely rewritten 1981 edition with the same title. A bit smaller in size, it abounds with full-color photographs.

The current booklet fulfills well the goal in the introductory note, which states, "This publication is designed for the reader and traveler who wants to know the essentials about the Amish without intruding, and who has neither the time nor opportunity to sift through the maze of published literature." Essential facts and insights relative to Amish history, faith, and lifestyle are well and sensitively presented for the intended reader audience.

The following eighteen headings, printed in artistic, bold-faced type, introduce the reader throughout the book to the various aspects of Amish life: A Little Commonwealth; A Redemptive Community; The Amish View of Other Anabaptists; Survival in America; Agriculture; Amish-Scale Technology; The Nonfarming Amish; The Family; Schools; The "New Birth"; Marriage; The Grandpa House; Community Cohesion; The Rules, Banning, and Shunning; Loss of Members; The Cost of Being Amish; Wealth and Class; and The Joys and Satisfactions. The author has high praise for the good management practices of the Amish farmers of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: "No other Amish community today excels this area in outward appearance-in well­kept farm dwellings and fields, abundant gardens, and tidy children" (p. 10).

To receive a brilliant explanation of Amish practices in agriculture, schools, family, and church life-not just a superficial look at the facts-and to do so with a sensitive understanding of attitudes and motivation, one must read this book. This newest edition of Amish Life brings the reader up to date on statistics and changes among the Amish. Facts are put into proper perspective historically and theologically.

This reviewer is happy that the author admits the false assumptions and predictions of experts in sociology: "The experts predicted that the Amish would be assimilated into the dominant society once the vitality of their European customs was exhausted. The predictions have not come true. The Amish population has doubled in the past twenty-five years. Their communities are distinctive and viable" (p. 5).

Some people will be happy to see the map of the Amish church districts in eastern United States and Canada. A helpful list of selected readings includes books under the categories of history and culture, photographic studies, fiction, Amish schooling, cookbooks, and quilts. This list includes an educational film.

Because of the superb text this reviewer feels it unfortunate that the full-color pictures almost without exception have an off-color hue to them. This printing deficiency keeps the book from being a prize presentation.

-Omar B. Stahl

~ Mennonite Historical Society 1982

January 1, New Year's Day .................................................. Library Closed February 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bimonthly Used-Book Auction March 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Lecture

Beulah Hostetler, "American Fundamentalism and Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonites"

March 27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Genealogy Conference April 9, Good Friday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Library Closed April 16 ................... : . ................................ Bimonthly Used~Book Auction April 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seminar: Historic Mennonite Needlework April 24 . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herr House Benefit Auction May 31, Memorial Day ........•.............................. . · ............ Library Closed June 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Lecture

I. Clarence Kulp, "Meetinghouse Architecture and Mennonite Theology''

June 11 • • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bimonthly Used-Book Auction June 26 . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Library Closed June 26-27 .... ... .... .. ................ . Annual Meeting, East Petersburg Mennonite Meetinghouse August 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Bimonthly Used-Book Auction August 14 .................................................. Hans Herr House Heritage Day August 20-21 .......................................................... . Bookworm Frolic September 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Lecture

Wilmer J. Eshleman, "The Reformed Mennonites: A Historical Overview"

October 5-November 23, Tuesday Evenings (7:00p.m.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Genealogy Seminar October 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bimonthly Used-Book Auction October 16 .......................................................... Harvest Festival '82 November 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herr House Foundation Annual Lecture November 25, Thanksgiving Day .............................................. Library Closed December 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Lecture

A. Grace Wenger, "Mennonite Women in Mission" December 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bimonthly Used-Book Auction December 25, Christmas Day ................................................. Library Closed

In addition, spring and fall educational field trips, one to Virginia and others to local sites of historical interest, are being planned. Dates and details on these and the above meetings will appear in the bimonthly Mirror. Book auctions begin at 6:30 p.m., and other meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. unless listed otherwise.

Board of Directors The board of directors meets at headquarters on the second Monday evening of each month: Noah L. Hershey,

chairman; Charles E. Good, vice~hairman; Martin E. Ressler, secretary; John M. Rutt, treasurer; Henry G. Benner, fifth member; Vernon H. Charles; Lloyd M. Eby; Earl B. Groff; J Eby Hershey; Clarke E. Hess; Amos B; Hoover; John S. Landis; Miriam E. LeFever; Ezra M. Martin; John Jacob Oberholtzer; Marvin R. Sauder; D. Ernest Weinhold; Edna K. Wenger. Honorary members: Harold K. Book; Christian E. Charles; J. Lloyd Gingrich; Chester C. Graybill; H. Elvin Herr; Elmer F. Kennel; Christian J. Kurtz; Ivan D. Leaman; Norman W. Nauman.

Staff Ann M. Lapp, receptionist; Noah G. Good, German translator ($8.00 per hour) and researcher; Gladys S.

Graybill, bookkeeper; Earl B. Groff, curator, Hans Herr House; Glenn M . Lehman, development director; Warren W. and Dorothy D. Martin, custodians; Rosa Y. Moshier, interim librarian; David J. Smucker, genealogist; L. Virginia Weaver, secretary; Carolyn C. Wenger, director.

Hours 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday except holidays.