The Rev. John Herr is generally considered the founder of a sect popularly called “New Mennists.” They call themselves, however, “Reformed Mennonites,” and claim that they have only returned to the ancient purity of doctrine.
In Montgomery County, in 1873, I find the term New Mennonites applied to another sect, while those of whom I have just spoken are called “Herrelite,”[38] or followers of Herr. The former are followers or friends of a preacher named Overholtzer,—a man who refused to put on a coat of a peculiar cut when he became a preacher.
In, or near, the same part of our State certain Mennonites have left the society, desiring to “defend their country,” and to join oath-bound societies. They call themselves Trinity Christians.
How far the “Albrechtsleut,” or “Dutch Methodists,”—the Evangelical Association, as they call themselves,—have made converts among the Mennonites, I cannot tell.
Mr. Rupp, whose history of Lancaster County is as yet the standard, speaks of the Mennonites as the prevailing religious denomination in 1843, having about forty-five ministers preaching in German, and over thirty-five meeting-houses.
The Amish meet in private houses. (In this year 1882, when preparing my third edition, I hear, however, of their having so far broken through their old custom as to have built at least one meeting-house in this State.)
Although I have never heard that our Mennonites as a religious body passed any rules forbidding slaveholding, as did the Quakers, yet they are in sentiment strongly anti-slavery, having great faith in those who are willing to labor with their own hands. Of this strong anti-slavery sentiment I offer convincing proof in the votes by which they supported in Congress our late highly distinguished representative, Thaddeus Stevens.[39]
In the Columbian Magazine for January, 1789, appears an “Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania.” The writer, Dr. Rush, would properly have included Friends in the following passage: