Early Settlers in Trumbull County
In 1805 William and Mary Sager settled in Bristol Township of Trumbull
County, Ohio. William's father, Gabriel Sager, was a Mennonite minister who was born in Germany and ordained in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. From
there he moved to Shenandoah County, Virginia. Thence he removed to Bristolville in Trumbull County; Ohio, where apparently in 1808 he organized
the first Mennonite congregation in the state. Gabriel Sager preached and taught school for the community till his death in 1816.
though Mennonites continued to live in Bristol Township. Abraham Kagey, son of the Mennonite minister Jacob Kagey (1760-1815) of New Market, Virginia, bought land in Bristol Township in 1810 and in 1818 moved there with three brothers and a sister.
As an organized congregation the Mennonite Church in Columbiana and Mahoning counties dates from 1815. Jacob Oberholtzer who arrived in 1806 was the first ordained Mennonite minister of the settlement and to him goes much credit for laying the foundations of congregational life. The first worship services were apparently held in homes. Though handicapped by the indifference of some of the settlers of Mennonite parentage, he nevertheless persisted and in 1815 a congregation was organized in a log schoolhouse which became known as the Oberholtzer congregation." Tradition gives the location as in section 30 near the BeaverGreen Township line. In 1825 a meetinghouse was erected on
