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only for this settlement but for the other settlements planted in western Ohio. In 1849 he ordained John M. Brenneman as bishop in Franklin County though he (Stemen) continued to have bishop oversight of the Franklin-Fairfield-Perry County congregations. His travels on horseback (he was reputed to keep fine horses and care well for them) took him to Wyandot, Wood, Seneca, Williams, and Fairfield counties. A day's journey was often many miles

through the almost pathless forests and swimming his horse across bridgeless, swollen rivers while he knelt in the saddle. On these tiresome trips he preached, baptized, held communion services in churches or in private residences, with a congregation or with an isolated Mennonite family far from a congregation of their own faith. He preached funeral sermons over the graves of those who had been quietly laid away months before without a burial service because no minister could be summoned in time for the burial. He ordained bishops, ministers, and deacons in the churches under his charge. On at least one occasion he rode horseback to the conference in Mahoning County, and he made numerous trips to Fairfield [County] until after he had ordained John M. Brenneman bishop in Franklin County."

Bishop Stemen's heavy duties called for assistance and for this, in 1847 he ordained John Burkholder to the ministry. The abovementioned Christian Culp had been ordained in Fairfield County in 1846, and in 1852 he moved to Allen County. Further assistance for Bishop Stemen was found in George Brenneman who in 1853 moved from Fairfield County to the Great Black Swamp of Allen County. Already ordained as minister in Fairfield County, he was ordained bishop soon after his arrival in Allen County. Bishop Stemen, now seventy-eight years old, had to think of a successor. Though George Brenneman and Christian Culp had both moved to nearby Putnam County, aging Bishop Stemen considered them as candidates to succeed him and by the process of the lot George Brenneman was ordained in 1854, near his thirty-third birthday.

For reasons not known it appears that Bishop Stemen preferred not to give over his bishopric duties to George Brenneman. In 1855, perhaps at Stemen's inducement, John M. Brenneman moved from Franklin County to Allen County and it was to him, not to his brother George, that Bishop Henry Stemen officially delivered his bishopric office, preaching an eloquent sermon on the occasion. The sermon has been described as "full of solemn warnings concerning the future trials of the church, but with a dominant note of victorious hope. As if his work were at last ended, Stemen, nearly