Ohio History Journal

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282 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

282     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL SKETCH OF THE SWISS

MENNONITES OF ALLEN AND PUTNAM COUNTIES, OHIO

By DELBERT L. GRATZ

 

To write a precise history of any certain group of people, one must

know the individual history of each family which goes to make up the

group. This was especially true in the case of the Swiss Mennonites, since

their faith was chiefly a family religion, and in no way a matter of cults

and ceremonies. The church and home were to coincide and marriages were

consecrated to become the "holy cell" of the Holy Community. One of the

most devastating methods of persecution used by the Swiss authorities in

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was that of tearing apart Mennon-

ite family relationships and nullifying marriages whenever other methods

failed in destroying Mennonitism. Marriage of any member to someone

outside its own ranks was strictly forbidden and is even now looked upon

with some scorn.

Therefore, in order to write a correct and complete history of the

Swiss Mennonites, the first thing that must be done is to gather together all

the data and information possible concerning the family history and gene-

alogy of the individual families of which they are composed.

Mennonite family histories differ from most others in that they do not

record stories of princes and generals or of picturesque marches over battle-

fields or of ancient coats of arms. They rather present to the world a

record of the attempt to live a life of peace and simplicity as taught in the

Bible.

But before we look into individual family histories, let us give the

general background of the Swiss Mennonites a hurried glance.

In 1520 several of Zwingli's associates broke away from his reforma-

tion group when he allowed the state to enforce church decrees. Besides

opposing a church-state relationship they refused to bear arms, swear oaths

or baptize infants. Some years later they became affiliated with another

group of peaceful Anabaptists led by Menno Simons in Holland. For their

beliefs, many of them suffered martydom, others were sold as galley slaves

into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, many were thrown into filthy prisons,

but the great majority were banished from their beloved Switzerland.

Those of the Emmenthal region of Canton Berne were never completely

annihilated but during the years 1671 to 1710 some 500 families were exiled.

They found a refuge in the Rhenish Palatinate, Alsace and Holland. From

1710 to 1760 a large number of these Swiss Palatinate Mennonites accepted

William Penn's invitation to settle in Pennsylvania. About the same time

a large group of the Emmenthal Mennonites found a refuge under severe

restrictions in the Jura Mountains located in the northern part of Canton

Berne. The largest group here was the Sonnenberg congregation. Each