Pioneer Mennonite Communities / 47

Bishop Jacob Oberholtzer was not the itinerant servant of the struggling churches as was Nold. He confined his labor to the local congregation and to his large family of twenty-one children, fourteen of whom were born in Ohio. When in the late 1820's diverse opinions arose about the Mennonite private school versus the public school, Oberholtzer took the position that the Mennonite school was a necessity in order to retain the German language. When his members favored the public school over the private school, Oberholtzer sold his farm and moved westward to land that was later to become part of Ashland County.

Two deeds of property should be noted in the 1830's. One was by Jacob Oberholtzer to Jacob Slutter and Jonathan Oberholtzer, trustees. It was dated January 17, 1834, and was "to be held in trust to and for the use of the Society of Mennonists in the vicinity for the purpose of erection and keeping thereon a meetinghouse for divine worship and for a schoolhouse and burying ground for the use of said Society in its neighborhood and no other purpose." The deed is recorded in Volume 18, page 560, of Colombiana County Deed Records. The other deed dated April 16, 1838, was by Bishop Jacob Nold's son, Jacob, to John Yoder and Peter W. Lehman, trustees. This deed was for the "religious society of the Mennonists" and is recorded in Volume 26, page 816, of Columbiana County Deed Records.

Courthouse marriage Record Books at Lisbon, Ohio, the county seat of Columbiana County, indicate that Jacob Oberholtzer and Henry Stauffer performed marriages as "ministers of the Gospel belonging to the society of the people called Mennonists." The former married Jonathan Oberholtzer and Elizabeth Stauffer on April 22, 1817, and the latter married Benedict Mellinger and Maria Bare on September 12, 1833.

Henry Stauffer's ordination to the office of bishop took place
in 1834, nineteen years after his ordination as minister, the first
of its kind of Columbiana County."' Further ordinations before the
first generation of leaders moved on were Matthias Tintsman as
minister in 1819; Jacob Wisler as minister in 1833; Jacob Nold, Jr.,
as deacon in 1822. Jacob Oberholtzer's removal to Wayne County
in 1834 and Jacob Nold's death in 1835 brought the era to a close.
It was in 1835 as Henry Stauffer assumed the role of local
leadership that a third meetinghouse was erected. After 1828 several
families from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, had settled in the