68 / Pioneer Mennonite Communities

Ohio, from Juniata County, Pennsylvania. He was ordained a bishop by Bishop Jacob Nold before 1830. Abraham Rohrer (1788-1878) came to Medina County, Ohio from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. John Miller ( -1845) served in Columbiana County, Ohio, and later moved to Iowa where in 1845 he was murdered by robbers. Henry Stauffer (1781-1851) came to Columbiana County from Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1801. He was ordained in 1815, likely to assist Jacob Nold. When Nold died in 1834, Henry Stauffer became the bishop in charge.

In the August 1864 Herald of Truth John Thut of Bluffton, Ohio, tells of a visit to a conference in Columbiana County "where brother Rohrer and brother Brenneman preached very edifying discourses upon important subjects to which other ministers also bore testimony and confirmed the same." Thut tells also of going to Wayne and Holmes counties and participating in communion services. In Paulding County he visited the brotherhood in the home of Moses Augsburger. On this third visit to the new congregation he noted that there were no ministers, and he uttered the following plea: "Dear brethren, let us not only visit the churches which already have ministers, but let us much more seek the sheep which have no shepherd."

In 1867 there is a record of the annual Ohio Conference.-" This record is a report by Editor John F. Funk of the Herald of Truth. The conference met at Martins Church in Wayne County with thirty ministers and deacons present. Subjects discussed were: unity of church, nonresistance, nonconformity, "plainness and simplicity of dress and avoidance of evening meetings."

The next record of the early Ohio Conference to survive dates from 1868." This document summarizes the decisions of the conference made at Nold's meetinghouse in Columbiana County. More than thirty bishops, ministers, and deacons were present from Ohio, Indiana, and Canada. The following decisions make up the report:

1st. Ministers shall seek diligently to conduct themselves and keep house according to the word of God.

2nd. The non-resistant doctrine shall in all things be strictly upheld and carried out, not only in taking up the sword or using the authorities, etc., but in our whole walk and conduct.

3rd. All ministers shall be careful in receiving applicants into the church, that they be not too fast in baptizing them before good works or fruits do appear, true repentance and a change of heart shown in their conduct.