Ontario Mennonite History
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Spring Meeting Celebrates 200 Years The spring meeting of the some members of the family Ontario Mennonite Historical Society of objected to other members joining Ontario included a full program the United Brethren. that celebrated the Swiss The MHSO spring meeting Mennonite pioneers who came to Mennonite also included the dedication of a Waterloo 200 years ago. Black Walnut Garden. Paul History The 20-minute play, Tiessen commented on the "Sunday Afternoon at the significance of the black walnut Brubachers," written by Barb tree and how this project came Draper, highlighted the Brubacher about. The black walnut, which THE family and the Mennonite pioneers grows in fertile soil, has been who settled in Waterloo Region. identified as a symbol of the NEWSLETTER The play was also performed Swiss Mennonites who came in OF THE outside on July 1 at the University search of good farmland. Just as of Waterloo Canada Day the oak tree and memorial garden MENNONITE celebrations and at Kitchener City is a tribute to the Mennonites who Hall on October 11 as part of the came to Canada from Russia, so HISTORICAL Oktoberfest Pioneer Day which the black walnut garden SOCIETY OF ONTARIO this year featured Mennonites. symbolizes the Mennonite pioneers who moved from Edsel Burdge Jr., the Pennsylvania to Ontario 200 years featured speaker for the spring MHSO meeting, has done ago. The tree was provided by extensive study of his home area Robert Woolner. Henry Paetkau, VOLUME XXIII of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. President of Conrad Grebel University College, led in NUMBER 2 He spoke about "A Land Beyond a prayer of dedication. • Their Expectations," describing why Mennonites from the NOVEMBER 2005 Cumberland Valley (including • Sherks, Schlichters, Reesors, ISSN 1192-5515 Schneiders and Burkholders) left Pennsylvania and moved to Waterloo. Although matters of conscience (military exemptions) may have been a drawing card, land hunger was a major factor that brought them to Canada. They seem to have had the financial backing of their parents and they were not without land or capital. Although he had no hard documentation, Burdge surmised that the pietist influence on the Mennonite community, with many This small black walnut tree was dedicated at the families joining the United spring meeting of the Mennonite Historical Brethren, may also have been a Society of Ontario. Photo by Maurice Martin. factor. They may have moved to Canada to avoid the conflict as Continued on page 2 Page 2 — Continued from page 1 — The Brubacher House Museum and the Brubacher family by Barb Draper the one who lives by the bridge over the brook. The name John (or its German equivalent, Johannes or Hans) has been carried down through the generations. Persecution of Anabaptists in Switzerland was sporadic through the 16th century, but it intensified in the 17th century. In The Brubacher House as it appeared in 1890. Photo 1637, a man named Peter courtesy of the Mennonite Archives of Ontario. Brubacher was imprisoned for his Photo by Maurice Martin. faith in Zurich, Switzerland, and John E. Brubacher was a second- was released after about a year. generation Canadian, born in what Lorna Bergey was happy to be (This information comes from the is now the city of Kitchener in able to attend the dedication of the Brubacher family, but is not 1822. His parents helped John and black walnut garden. The plaque independently verified.) Later, he his wife, Magdalena, establish a reads: The Black Walnut tree and his family fled to southern farm of his own where they cleared marks the 200th anniversary of the Germany where there was less the trees and built a large establishment of the German persecution of Anabaptists (who fieldstone house in 1850. This Company Tract in 1805. came to be called Mennonites). farm was among those purchased It commemorates the first Presumably the Brubachers moved by the University of Waterloo in Pennsylvania German Mennonite to Ibersheim, north of Mannheim, the 1960s to develop its 1,000-acre settlers in Waterloo Region. in the Palatinate where Brubacher campus. In the 1970s, the families were listed in the census Mennonite Historical Society of in the early 1700s. (Source: Ontario led a project to restore the Palatine Mennonite Census Lists, house to its original appearance. H. Guth, 1987) The Brubacher House Museum Three generations later, opened in 1979; it allows visitors about 1717, Johannes or Hans to get a glimpse of what life was Brubacher was among the like for Mennonites in the latter Mennonites who established a half of the 19th century. community in Lancaster, The Brubachers are a Pennsylvania (Ezra Eby, typical Mennonite family in Biographical History, of Early Waterloo Region who can trace Settlers of Waterloo Township). He their ancestry to Pennsylvania, to settled on 500 acres of land along Photo by Roy Draper. Germany and to Switzerland. the Little Conestoga Creek. Hans Among the early Anabaptists who Brubacher married Anna Ernst Leanne Shantz, Vicky Roeder met in the village of Zollikon near who bore him six children. After Martin, Rick Weber and Randy Zurich, Switzerland in 1525 was a her death, he was married in 1730 Bauman shout out their lines for man named Hans Bruggbach. to another Anna, surname the play, "Sunday Afternoon at the Later the name seems to be spelled unknown, and the marriage was Brubachers" during the University Bruggbacher, or Brubacher. A blessed with another four children. of Waterloo's Canada Day translation of "Bruggbach" from Hans' children provided him with a Celebrations on July 1. Swiss German is "bridge-over-the- brook," and Brubacher would be — Continued on page 3 — Page 3 Continued from page 2 - request for help came to while Susannah rode on horseback. dependable source of labour, a Pennsylvania from some When they got to Waterloo, valuable commodity in a pioneer Mennonites who had moved to Susannah and John stayed with society. As well as a farm, he built Canada. These earliest Mennonite Susannah's daughter Mary, and her the first mill in this part of settlers to the Waterloo area feared husband, Benjamin Eby. By that Lancaster County. they might lose their farms time Benjamin had a few years of Hans Brubacher's oldest because of a political squabble experience as bishop of the son was also named John. When he about land titles. The government Mennonite churches in the was about 30 years old, he finally agreed that titles would be Waterloo area. travelled to Germany to visit granted if the large block of land Susannah stayed in Canada relatives and while he was there he that Richard Beasley had for about a year, keeping house for married Maria Newcomer. Soon purchased from the Six Nations John in a log cabin as he worked to after their marriage, the couple aboriginals would be paid in full. establish a farm on what is now came to Pennsylvania, bringing In the end, Mennonites from Frederick Street in Kitchener. with them John's cousin, Abraham. Pennsylvania formed the German When John was married to The Brubachers in Waterloo Company and paid cash for the Catherine Sherk in 1817, Susannah Region are descended from these 60,000 acres in question. returned to Pennsylvania. John and cousins John and Abraham One of the major Catherine lived in the log cabin for Brubacher. Maria died about a year shareholders of the German a few years, but one morning, after arriving in Pennsylvania and Company was Susannah Erb while Catherine was making John married Maria Dohner in Brubacher. Probably she became pancakes for breakfast, a fire broke 1751. John and Maria had ten involved because her brothers were out .and the cabin was burned to children. the major leaders behind this the ground. They replaced the Jacob Brubacher (second venture and because her sister cabin with a proper house with son of John and Maria) married Anna, married to John Bricker, eight rooms to accommodate their Susannah Erb in 1781. Like other was one of the early pioneers growing family. John and Mennonites in Pennsylvania, Jacob whose land title was in question. Catherine had 15 children and in was a hard worker and very Susannah bought ten lots most of 1838 they built another, even larger prosperous. Like his grandfather which were over 400 acres each. house. At the age of 60, John he had a milling business as well Susannah's parents, three brothers, retired from farming and built a as a farm. In 1793, while on a four sisters, a son and daughter all house on Brubacher Street. business trip to Philadelphia he eventually moved to the Waterloo Like his mother and other contracted yellow fever and died at area. She herself came for long ancestors, John bought un- the age of 35. His wife, Susannah, visits but continued to make her developed land when he could so was left with seven children—the home in Pennsylvania. that he could set up each of his oldest was 11 years and the In 1816, Susannah came to sons with a farm. John was youngest 6 weeks. Life must have Waterloo for a visit, accompanying ordained as a deacon at the local been difficult for Susannah, but her youngest son, John, who was Mennonite Church where he she played a key role in bringing moving to the area. Several other served with his brother-in-law, this Brubacher family to Canada. families travelled with them for the Benjamin Eby. Susannah had been a four-week trip. John drove a widow for about ten years when a Conestoga wagon with four horses Continued on page 4 Ontario Mennonite History is published semi-annually by the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario, Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G6, and distributed to all members of the Society.