To education, Lancaster has given the services of three State Superintendents of Public Instruction, James P. Wickersham, E. E. Higbee and Nathan C. Schaeffer; also Thomas W. Burrowes, the father of the free school system of Pennsylvania. In art, Lancaster has contributed the portrait painter, Jacob Eichholtz, who painted more than two hundred and fifty portraits, among his subjects being Chief Justice Marshall and many others of the foremost people of his day. The well-known Baron Stiegel was for many years a resident of Lancaster County and established in the town of Manheim a glass factory, the wares of which are highly cherished by antiquarians.
There is a remarkable mingling in Lancaster County of the old and the new—an atmosphere of quaintness, friendliness and cordiality. The county is full of the beauty and bounty of God, as the old of yesterday and the new of tomorrow meet in the Lancaster area whose influence reaches far and wide in the shaping of the larger life of the nation.
Some Historic Churches in Lancaster County
By DR. H. M. J. KLEIN
In response to William Penn’s invitation, a large number of European people left their homes during the first quarter of the eighteenth century and came to Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom and economic opportunity.
Following the rivers and the Indian trails from Philadelphia they soon found their way to the rich soil which is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
As early as 1709 a small group of Mennonites, followers of the martyr Menno Simons—“Switzers” as they were called—arrived in Penn’s Province, found their way to the Pequea creek and took up 10,000 acres of land. They were the direct descendants of the bitterly persecuted Anabaptists of the 16th century. They brought with them their lay ministers and their Bibles, and worshipped at first in their log houses. Later when these pioneer farmers began to erect meeting houses, they divided the building into two apartments by a swinging partition suspended from the ceiling. One apartment was used for religious, and the other for school purposes. Today, large Mennonite ‘meeting houses’ as their church buildings are called, are found everywhere in Lancaster County: at Willow Street, Mellingers, Strasburg, Manheim, Warwick and Brecknock as well as in a score of other congregational centers. Their ministers are now educated in the Mennonite colleges and seminaries. Two customs, however, have been strictly maintained: feet-washing in connection with the communion service, and the prayer head-covering among the women of the church.
The Amish are an offspring from the Mennonites on the practice of shunning. They came to America later. The names of Amish families are found among the early settlers of Lancaster County as early as 1725. About 1740 an Amish congregation was established near the headwaters of the Conestoga and Pequea creeks in Lancaster County. This settlement has continued to be a prosperous Amish community, and today this region constitutes one of the largest Amish settlements in America.
The early Amish settlers worshipped in private houses. They believed that to erect houses of worship was a tendency toward worldliness. They all continued this practice of worship until more recently. Today there are “House-Amish” and “Church-Amish.” The branch which is known among them as the “Old Order” still continues to worship in private homesteads. The Church Amish acquired a ‘church house’ for use in public worship. Their plain meeting houses are to be found in northeastern Lancaster County. Religion, whether in homestead or church, has first place in Amish life.
The Church of the Brethren, sometimes called Dunkers, is another group of the plain People of Europe who accepted William Penn’s invitation in 1719 and to find its way to the Conestoga Valley. They follow closely the practice of the Apostolic Church. Since 1776 they have had higher institutions of learning, among them Elizabethtown College located within the boundary of Lancaster County. They have established homes for the aged, the infirm and the orphans in our area, and are well organized for missionary endeavor. Their substantial church buildings are scattered throughout the county.