Bowman's Meetinghouse
Located at Canal Winchester the meetinghouse was named after Jacob Bowman, a bishop ordained in 1879. The building was used regularly till 1898 after which the land and building were sold. The congregation continued worshiping at the nearby Stemen Church until it became extinct in 1911.
colony was established that flourished for over half a century, the congregation being organized about the same time as the one in
Sugar Creek Township of Allen County.'-'
The Fairfield County Mennonites continued to prosper despite
the drain on their population and the loss of certain leaders. The
meetinghouse at Pleasant Hill, sometimes called the Bremen meetinghouse, could not serve the entire settlement, it appears, and in
1858 a small church building, twenty-six by twenty-four feet, was built at Turkey Run in nearby Perry County. The planting of the Mennonite community in Allen County can
not be told without an account of Bishop Henry Stemen and his "band of hardy pioneers." Arriving in 1841, ten years after John Stemen had penetrated the trackless area, Bishop Stemen was to play a decisive role as the white man replaced the Seneca and Shawnee Indians in the dense forests of northwestern Ohio. Cutting their way from Lima to Sugar Creek Township, some of them moved into log cabins already built. Others slept in their wagons, cooked meals in the open, and burned away trees in order to build log cabins. These settlers became known as skilled woodsmen.
It was Bishop Henry Stemen who provided the leadership not
