150 / Transitions, Leaders, and Changing Churches (1865-1900)

cline continued, with the last member dying in 1953.

The Long Green community was drained of its members by a number of influences. According to John S. Mast, a bishop who gave oversight to the congregation in many of its declining years, an important reason was the establishment of a nearby Dunker church which attracted a number of the members. Quite a few of the members moved to other states and their descendants for years have held annual homecomings on the premises of the church. They have preserved the neat white-walled cemetery nearby where eighty-five graves are marked. Reasons for the decline of what might have been a large community by the mid-twentieth century are often advanced by the descendants who have retained a remarkable attachment to the area. It is clear thát leaders were lacking over a long span of the congregation's history. There are those who say also that the community was isolated too much from sister congregations. These reasons together with the attractions from other religious groups seem to account for the failure of this congregation to keep in its course in the midst of change.

Transitions in Western Pennsylvania

The Amish, formerly from Mifflin County, who settled in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, in 1846 underwent essentially the same changes. Differences developed in time on the questions of dress and manner of worship. In 1872 a church was built for those who felt it no longer necessary to worship only in the home and that certain traditional dress patterns were no longer necessary. Sunday school was started the following year.''

The outstanding leader during the period of change was John R. Zook (1842-1910), the first Sunday school superintendent and also organizer of the young people's meetings. Zook became bishop and was a promoter of revival meetings. By 1890 there were eighty members each in the two churches, but this number was not destined to grow for the most progressive group. During the nineteenth century many members left to go westward for cheaper land. Jonathan Hartzler in an article in the Herald of Truth of June 1, 1902, estimated that in the last fifty years a total of fifty-one families had moved away from Lawrence County. The community was somewhat isolated from other congregations and as a result had perhaps more than its quota of "outside" marriages, another factor that worked against the growth of the church.