Henry County Mennonites - 1874

EICHER, YODER, CONRAD, BERGE

Posted By: Ann Miller White (email)
Date: 4/29/2004 at 20:38:42

Mt. Pleasant Free Press; May 28, 1874

Editor’s Column

I’ve been to Sunday School today and to a German conference meeting. The Mennonites have been holding a sort of minister’s conference at the residence of Mr. Conrad of Washington County. There have been upwards of twenty preachers in attendance; there were five or six sermons today preached in Mr. Conrad’s barn. And such a crowd of Germans, more than a thousand I should think, the men plainly dressed, many of the wealthy in home made jeans and coarse muslin shirts; the women in plainly made dresses with no trails or bustles or hoops or polonaises or any of the fanciful rigging which would surely characterize a crowd of American women; their tidy white caps on old and young of the females were very tasty. There seemed to be none of those wasp-waists so often seen amongst American girls. They seem fitted to be the mothers of a sturdy race. Moderate enterprise and patient endurance are characteristics of this people. I cannot give you an exact idea of their faith but I think the Amish branch of the Mennonite church are non-resistants, something after the style of the Quakers. Most of them are wonderfully conservative, clinging closely to the manners and traditions of their ancestors, and to no one thing do they cling with more fidelity than to that custom which ordains that men shall wear hooks and eyes on their coats and vests and utterly discard buttons. This custom is an old one. It dates as far back as the middle of the 16th century. In fact, at that date, all the populace of the canton of Berne in Switzerland, protestants, catholics, and unbelievers, all wore hooks and eyes. This was not through any prejudice in favor of hooks and eyes, but more that buttons had not been introduced. The common intermingling of one district or canton was not known. Society was not so frequently stirred up by the introduction of new elements then as now. But it came to pass that the Mennonites were banished from their homes on account of their religious convictions. They found a safe shelter and a secure retreat in that terribly devastated—formerly French and now German—province of Alsace. It was found by the proprietors of the soil that none more trusty, more honest, more persevering, or more industrious were to be found than the exile Mennonites. And all the Mennonites coming from Berne work hooks and eyes, hence the hooks and eyes came to be looked upon as a sign on honesty and integrity by the Alsatians, and as a sign of mutual recognition by the Mennonites—The tradition and its observance are fast losing hold in the minds of members of the church. Most of the younger members ordinarily wear buttons and only wear hooks and eyes in conformity with the desires of the older members of the church. Most of the ministers insist upon the old style, but some even of the ministers, deeming it no longer a necessary custom have departed from the old way.--- One of the most prominent ones who has rebelled against the old custom is Mr. Benjamin Eicher, a gentleman well known in this section of Henry County, and to whom I am indebted for most of the facts above. Mr. Eicher was at the conference today with buttons on his coat and vest. It is generally expected that he and the members of his church that will not conform to the general rule will be banished from the church. Mr. E. is a man of broad and liberal views, is well versed in the history of his church, is able and willing to inculcate his own views, and is, I believe, not only willing but anxious that his church should keep up with that spirit of improvement which so strongly characterizes this present age. I had the pleasure of listening to two sermons this P.M., one by Rev. Joseph Berge of Illinois and the other by John K. Yoder from, if I remember rightly, Pennsylvania. Could not understand a word, but Mr. Yoder seemed to me to be an eloquent man. The conference lasts until Thursday or Friday of this week. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa are represented.

Submitter is third great grand-niece of Rev. Benjamin Eicher