Mennonite Settlement of Ontario

[HondurasKeiser]

Someone's mention of Peter Hoover on another thread sent me down a very long rabbit-hole. The bottom of which hold a real treasure. A certain Rick Martin from the Waterloo area of Ontario has taken it upon himself to research and document with great detail the settlement of Waterloo by the Mennonites of Pa. Mr. Martin was actually raised Plymouth Brethren before giving himself over to atheism altogether but he has a deep knowledge of Menno culture and practice and has done an amazing work on his blog. As it turns out, he's a second cousin of Peter Hoover, though he doesn't seem to care for Mr. Hoover's view of a Radically Pure Church. The blog itself is a little hard to follow. I get the sense the posts were written somewhere else and latter uploaded en masse to Wordpress. The transition was not smooth but if you start on this link and work BACKWARDS I think you'll be able to read in order. If you're a Martin, Bechtel, Bricker, Eby, Erb, Schnieder/Snyder or Hoover...or have relatives from those clans you'll probably find that some of your ancestors are mentioned.

[barnhart]

Fascinating history. I was unaware of the interplay between the Six Nations Confederacy and the Anabaptist immigration. Another detail that caught my eye was ship Molly that arrived in Philadelphia in 1727, I descend from at least six people on that ship. My people didn't settle in PA nor went North but rather trecked down the great valley, over the Potomac into Virginia.

[HondurasKeiser]

I enjoyed his outsider’s perspective of the OO/Conference split. He seems to indicate that the OO’s were forging a new path in being Mennonite as much as the innovators in what would become the Old MC, were. I’ve never heard it portrayed that way but it makes some sense.