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.
While the Plain People were among the earliest and most unique settlers
in Lancaster County, they were soon followed in large numbers by the
so-called church people of Europe: the Lutherans, the Reformed, the
Moravians, the members of the Church of England and the Church of
Scotland, whose descendants today constitute a large majority of the
inhabitants of this county.
The Lutherans who probably outnumber the members of any other religious
denomination in Lancaster County, were among the earliest settlers
having been associated with New Sweden as early as 1643. Many of their
churches were founded in the county in the second quarter of the 18th
century. The New Holland Trinity Church dates from 1730. The old Warwick
Church at Brickerville records baptisms from 1731. St. Michael’s in
Strasburg has a similar entry on May 1, 1730. Then there is the story of
Old Trinity in Lancaster, with its beginning in 1729, the year in which
Lancaster County was established. Its church building and school house
were commenced in 1734.
The German Reformed Church people, coming from the Palatinate, were in
the Conestoga Valley before 1725. For the next few years religious
meetings were conducted in private houses by Conrad Tempelmann. On
October 15, 1727 the first Reformed communion service was held in what
is now known as Heller’s Church in Upper Leacock Township. When
Lancaster became a Townstead, there were Reformed congregations at
Lancaster, Cocalico and Zeltenreich.
Among the churches that branched from Heller’s Church was the First
Reformed congregation in Lancaster. Its log church was built and
dedicated in 1734 on a plot of ground given by James Hamilton.
Among the 18th century Reformed congregations in Lancaster County are
Maytown, Muddy Creek, Bethany near Ephrata, Zion’s at Brickerville;
Christ Church, Elizabethtown; St. Stephens, New Holland; Zeltenreich,
near New Holland; Zion, New Providence; Swamp, West Cocalico; St.
Paul’s, Manheim.
Lancaster County is one of the centres of the Moravian Church in
America. The Lititz congregation was organized soon after 1742,
following the visit of Count Zinzendorf. The original Gemeinhaus was
dedicated a few years later. Trombones were substituted for French horns
in the church orchestra in 1770.
[Illustration: TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH]
The Moravian Church in Lancaster has an interesting history. Count
Zinzendorf preached in the Court House in Center Square, Lancaster, in
1742, when he was asked by some of his hearers to send a regular
preacher to serve them. When Bishop Spangenberg preached in the Court
House and advocated a merger of the church denominations, he was pelted
with stones. The result was that the Moravians of Lancaster erected a
stone church of their own on the corner of Orange and Market streets. It
is recorded that the brethren gathered from Warwick to Lancaster to haul
stone for the building, fifteen men and eight wagons in two days
bringing in 94 large loads of the finest stone.
The ministrations of the Church of England came to the Lancaster County
area very early. The rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church is known to
have made journeys on the road to Conestoga in 1717 and to have designed
to preach there once a month.
St. John’s Church, Pequea, has had an interesting history since 1728.
Probably the oldest inland Episcopal church in America is the Bangor
Church of Churchtown, founded by the early Welsh in 1722. The first
church built of logs was completed in 1734. This church derived its name
from the Bangor Cathedral in Wales. In its burial ground lie soldiers of
every war, including the French and Indian. It is said that George
Washington worshipped here in 1758 and later during his winter at Valley
Forge.
St. James’ is the Pioneer Episcopal church in Lancaster city. The first
entry in the record of St. James’ Parish is dated October 3, 1744. Land
for the building site was donated by James Hamilton. Thomas Cookson,
Lancaster’s first Burgess, raised the money for the building. The church
was built in 1754 on the lot still occupied for that purpose, and has
been an historic landmark in Lancaster for more than two centuries.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lancaster, dates from 1853. It was
established by Bishop Bowman and was known as St. John’s Free Church, in
which the seats would be free to all who desired to avail themselves of
the privileges of God’s house.
The Scotch Irish and the Welsh came to Lancaster County in the second
decade of the 18th century, and brought with them the tenets of the
Presbyterian church. The Rev. David Evans founded the Upper Octorara
Church in 1720 and was at Donegal in the same year. For twenty years the
immigration from Ulster averaged 20,000 a year. Donegal in Lancaster
County became one of the strong seats of Presbyterianism in America. The
Donegal Church became a center of patriotic endeavor, both in the French
and Indian War and in the American Revolution. Its story is unique in
American church history.
The Pequea Presbyterian Church dates back to the Rev. Adam Boyd who came
from Ireland in 1722 and organized a group of churches west of the
Octoraro. In 1731 the Pequea Church secured his services every sixth
Sabbath.
The first log Pequea Church stood near a large white oak tree, which is
still standing and marks the spot where Geo. Whitefield preached.
The Middle Octoraro Presbyterian Church was organized by the Rev. Adam
Boyd in 1727. In the lower end of the county the Chestnut Level Church
and the Little Britain Church belong to the early colonial period, as
does the Leacock Church of 1739.
[Illustration: FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH]
The First Presbyterian Church of Lancaster began in 1763, when James
Hamilton granted Lot No. 19 on East Orange Street, on which a church
building was erected in 1767. Services were held in the old Court House
in Centre Square while the church was being built with funds secured by
a lottery enterprise. This method was frequently used in the 18th
century to build churches or construct roads.
The Presbyterian Church of Strasburg was dedicated on Christmas Day,
1833; that of Marietta in 1821; of Mt. Joy, 1840; of Christiana, 1859;
Memorial Presbyterian Church of Lancaster, 1871.
Methodist ministers first visited Lancaster County in 1781, and a year
later the Lancaster Circuit was formed. Bishop Asbury, who died in 1816,
was well known in Lancaster County. He frequently stayed in Strasburg at
the Inn of John Funck who painted his portrait on a now famous wooden
panel in Washington, D. C. The Methodists erected a church near Willow
Street in 1791, and another at Strasburg in 1807.
Fifty-four clergymen are named as having supplied the local Methodist
churches of Lancaster County up to the year 1802 when the Soudersburg
church was erected. Boehm’s Church, still standing in Pequea township,
was a pioneer Methodist institution. Henry Boehm had a great deal to do
with the founding of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lancaster
in 1807. The church building was erected in 1809 at the corner of Walnut
and Christian streets. In 1840 ground was acquired extending the church
lot to Duke street, where a handsome church structure now stands.
[Illustration: ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL]
St. Paul’s Methodist Church dates from 1849; Broad Street from 1867;
Bethel African Methodist Church from 1821. Many Methodist churches are
found in southern Lancaster County and in the Octoraro Valley, and in
all the Boroughs.
The Church of the United Brethren was the outcome of a meeting held in
the Isaac Long barn near Oregon, Lancaster County, in the middle of the
18th century, when leaders of four denominations decided to be Brethren.
It was not, however, until 1800 that the new denomination was separately
organized. The oldest United Brethren congregation in Lancaster County
is Ranck’s in the New Holland Circuit. The congregation met for forty
years in a private house until a church was built in 1844.
There are many United Brethren churches in rural Lancaster County. The
Otterbein U. B. Church in Lancaster City began in 1902 as a Mission
Sunday School and has grown into one of the most vigorous churches in
the city.
It is impossible in this space to do more than mention some of the other
denominations, some of which are comparatively strong in Lancaster
County. There are the United Evangelical churches, the Winebrennerians,
or Church of God, members who have been active in the county for more
than a century; the German Baptists and the English Baptists; the Church
of Christ; the Swedenborgians and the Evangelical Association.
The Quakers crossed the Atlantic with Wm. Penn, and soon found their way
into what is now Lancaster County. John Kennerly settled near Christiana
in 1691. The first Friends meeting house was erected by Sadsbury Quakers
in 1725. The Bart meeting house, erected 100 years later, represented
the views of the Hicksite Friends. In 1758 the Penn Hill meeting house
was built. The Quaker meeting house at Bird-in-Hand dates from 1749, the
same year in which the Lampeter meeting house was built.
The Church of Our Father (Unitarian) was a rather late arriver in
Lancaster. It was organized in 1902, and the stone church on West
Chestnut Street was dedicated in 1909. The lecture hall in connection
with the church was named Emerson Hall.
Independent congregations like the First Baptist, Calvary Independent,
Seventh Day Adventists, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal Association,
Christian Scientists, and Latter Day Saints have substantial church
buildings in Lancaster. To this group we may add the Monastic Orders of
provincial Ephrata, with their remarkable buildings at the Cloister.
These Seventh Day Baptists, with their Prayer Hall, (The Saal), built
about 1734, are unique in American history and folklore.
The first Roman Catholic Mission in Lancaster was established in 1741. A
log church was built in 1742 on the site of the present St. Mary’s
Convent. Father Keenan served St. Mary’s Church for more than half a
century. St. Joseph’s and St. Anthony’s followed in the 19th century.
St. Peter’s of Elizabethtown was founded in 1752. A number of Catholic
churches are to be found in the boroughs of the county, and impressive
churches have been erected in the city.
The Jewish faith has been established in Lancaster since 1732. The first
organized congregation of Jews in Pennsylvania met at the home of Joseph
Simon, a Lancaster merchant. Later they met in a building on the
northwest corner of North Queen Street and Centre Square. The first
Temple was built in 1866, and the present structure at Duke and James
Streets was dedicated in 1896.
In the nature of the case, we must forego reference to most of the
individual churches in the Lancaster area, in this brief outline. My
purpose in writing this article has been to impress on the public the
fact that religion since early colonial and provincial days has been a
vital factor in the area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
[Illustration: DONEGAL CHURCH AND WITNESS TREE
In June, 1777, the members of Donegal Church (est. 1719), one of the
major centers of early American Presbyterianism, forced their
pastor, Mr. McFarquhar, to gather with them under the tree outside
the Church and “bear witness” to support of the sacred cause of the
American Revolution. The “Witness Tree,” a fine old oak, and the
church, still stand. Both may be visited.]