Author's Preface

The Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference numbers about 13,000 members and is part of the Christian brotherhood of the various Mennonite bodies which total about 175,000 in the United States. The conference members are chiefly descended from the Anabaptist movement that arose in Europe in the sixteenth century. While most of the conference congregations are scattered over the state of Ohio, there are a number of congregations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida. This dissertation will trace the European

origins in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the transplantations to America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the

growth of church and community life of the New World frontiers; and the founding of those organizations, institutions, and programs by which a people have sought to promote their way of life and fulfill their mission.

The preparation of this dissertation was made possible by a confluence of interests. The Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference since 1951 had been actively concerned to have its history written. In that year O. N. Johns, C. Z. Mast, and Gerald C. Studer were appointed as a committee to advance this project. In 1955 the committee was reorganized with Mahlon O. Krabill replacing O. N. Johns. Orland Grieser and Loren S. King were added to the committee.

In 1956 a wide program was launched to gather documents and a handbook was issued to guide local and regional historians. Walter E. Oswald served as coordinator of this undertaking, and much credit goes to him for compiling and summarizing the many congregational histories; O. N. Johns and I. W. Royer read and corrected certain of the histories which Walter E. Oswald compiled.

The writer was asked to undertake the historian's task for the conference in 1960 and devoted a number of summers to travel and

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