Tag Archives: Meetinghouses

Ministers of the Eastern District of the General Conference Mennonite Church, 1898

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Ministers of the Eastern District of the General Conference Mennonite Church, during a conference session at the Springfield meetinghouse near Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1898.  While the Eastern District never printed rules for attire, ministers wore distinct garb into the late nineteenth century. Picture from left to right are Levi Schimmel, Silas Grubb, Harvey Clymer, Augustus Shuhart (layman), Jacob Moyer, Andrew Shelly, Anthony Shelly, William Gottshall, Allen Fretz, and Nathaniel Grubb.

Forrest Moyer Moyer, Archivist, Mennonite Heritage Center

Deep Run Mennonite Cemetery, 1949

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The old Deep Run Mennonite Cemetery, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, full of eighteenth-century fieldstone markers, photographed by Walter Rush in 1949. The brand new meetinghouse of the Deep Run “East” congregation is in the rear. This is the Franconia Conference congregation. Deep Run Mennonite Church West, of the Eastern District Conference, has a meetinghouse just a few hundred feet to the west. Today, the two congregations have a friendly and cooperative relationship. At the time of this photo, sheep were still used to keep the grass down in the cemetery.

Forrest Moyer, Archivist, Mennonite Heritage Center

First Mennonite Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania,1958

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Members leaving worship at First Mennonite Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1958. This photo was one of a series promoting expansion of the church building at that time. By the late twentieth century, demographics had changed and the First Mennonite Church declined in membership, with nearly all members living outside the city. In 2006, the congregation closed, and the building was taken up by the Eastern District Conference for a English-Spanish bilingual church plant called Christ Fellowship.

Forrest Moyer, Archivist, Mennonite Heritage Center

Brick Mennonite Church, Richfield Pennsylvania

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Brick Church - east side
Brick Mennonite Church is located one mile west of Richfield, Pennsylvania. The building was constructed in 1868 and replaced an 1800 log meeting house. It has not been used for regular services since the 1930s and has been restored by the adjoining Juniata Mennonite Historical Center.
Beidler History Center Photos 022Interior of the restored Brick Mennonite Church located one mile west of Richfield. The restored building is used for an annual public hymn sing, the third Sunday in September, and other special events by appointment.
Beidler History Center Photos 013Brick Mennonite Church cemetery in foreground with south end of the church in view. Directly across the road is the former John Kurtz farm. This family lost five infants and toddlers before 1872.  When the diphtheria epidemic came through the Juniata Valley in 1872, they lost six of the seven surviving children in one week. The parents and eleven children are buried in this cemetery.
All photos courtesy of Beidler collection -Juniata Mennonite Historical Center