44 / Pioneer Mennonite Communities

father of Bishop Jacob Wisler who later organized the old Order Mennonites.) About the same year Joseph Detweiler from Franconia in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, arrived and like most of his predecessors settled in Beaver Township. A few settled in Salem and Fairfield townships.

Family ties were important in these early migrations as is illustrated in the case of John Lehman from Franklin Country, Pennsylvania. Accompanied by his wife's brother he moved to Fairfield Township in 1827. A nephew of John Lehman, Abraham Lehman, was in the group also, as were two of John Lehman's nieces and their husbands, Tobias Miller and Michael Wenger. Later arrivals from this area included Christian Witmer from neighboring Washington County, Maryland (1840), and Christian Lesher who came in 1850 from Franklin County.

Rockingham County, Virginia, furnished members for the settlement. Michael Kolb and family came to Columbiana County, perhaps about 1812. Peter Blosser came in 1825 and was followed two years later by his brother, John Blosser, and his uncle, Jacob Blosser. John Blosser was later ordained a minister. Deacon John Bare, his sister and her husband Peter Brenneman, came in 1827. Another minister to migrate from Virginia was John Shank who with his son Michael arrived in 1827. In the same year Abraham Burkholder, a son-in-law of Preacher John Shank, arrived with several of his sisters.

The first Mennonite congregation in Ohio was in Bristol Township of Trumbull County. Here William Sager (1772-1855) of Shenandoah County, Virginia, purchased land in 1802 to be followed by his brother-in-law Abraham Baughman in 1804. In 1805 William Sager and William Barb moved their families to Trumbull County. Since all these families were Mennonite there was enough population to begin a small congregation. The establishment of a congregation apparently took place when in 1808 William Sager's minister father, Gabriel Sager (1734-1816), moved to Trumbull County.-, Gabriel Sager had emigrated from Germany in 1756, lived in New Jersey and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, before going to Shenandoah County, Virginia, from whence he removed to Trumbull County in 1808 at the age of seventy-four. Apparently in this year and in this place Sager held religious services in the German language in his home, no meetinghouse being erected. The congregation, however, disbanded with his death in 1816,