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  Historical Committee
Archives
Scrapbook Page, Goshen Archives
Dennis Stoesz
| Several Quaker and one Mennonite family, Jan Lensen,
emigrated from Krefeld, Germany, and sailed on the Concord, which
reached Philadelphia on October 6, 1683. They settled at Germantown,
six miles northwest of Philadelphia,on October
6, |
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1683. They settled at
Germantown, six miles northwest of Philadelphia, what became the first
ongoing Mennonite settlement in the United States. Lensen was a linen
weaver who leased 50 acres of land from Jan Streypers, and passed on
the trade to his son, Leonard Lensen. This USA postage stamp was issued
April 29, 1983 to commemorate this German immigration. In 1983 German
Americans made up largest ethnic group in USA (52 million), followed by
the Irish (44 million) and the British (40 million). Mennonite Publishing House
Collection
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Jacob Hertzler (1703-1786) and Catherine Reugy were
from Bern, Switzerland, before persecution forced them to emigrate
north to the Palatinate, Germany, and then to Berks County,
Pennsylvania, USA in 1749. They, with their children, lived on a 100-
acre farm of which they named “Contentment”, located two miles west of
Hamburg. Jacob Hertzler served as an Amish Mennonite minister and
bishop of the Northkill Amish congregation, and later the congregation
at Malvern, Pennsylvania. He and his wife and a son are buried in the
Northkill Amish cemetery on this farm. John E. Sharp Photograph
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Passport stamps dated July 15, 1825, allowing Friedrich
Hage (1794-1863), from Bavaria, to travel in Germany. He was an Amish
Mennonite minister, who with his wife, two children, and a hired hand,
emigrated to USA and landed in Philadelphia on August 18, 1826. He
served the Amish community in Holmes County, Ohio. Friedrich Hage Collection
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Drawing of refugee woman and
child, 1929-30. It appears on the cover of the scrapbook given to
Mennonites in United States who aided Russian Mennonites in escaping
Soviet Union in 1929 and being able to settle temporarily in Germany,
before emigrating to Brazil and Paraguay in 1930. Signed by “The
Refugee Camps Moellin, Hammerstein, and Prezlau [Germany], in the
Winter of 1929-30.” Source:
Mennonite Central Committee Photograph Collection |
| Grandmother Helene Thiessen, 70 years old, to board the
ship General Stuart Heintzelman, which left February 25, 1948, from
Bremerhaven, Germany, for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Women made up about
60% of the adults of these Mennonite refugees who emigrated to Paraguay
from 1947-49. These refugees had emigrated from the Soviet Union with
the retreating German armies in 1943 during World War II, and five
years later were able to emigrate. Many of the men had been taken away
during the Stalin purges from 1937-41. Source:
Mennonite Central Committee Photograph Collection |
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Mennonite Historical
Bulletin
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Mission
Statement:
"God calls us to preserve our faith heritage, to interpret our stories,
and to proclaim God's work among us."
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