Ohio and Canada West Mennonite Conference
The Ohio and Canada West Mennonite Conference (General Conference Mennonite) was organized in 1855 under the leadership of Daniel Hoch of Jordan, Ontario, under the formal name, "Conference Council of the United Mennonite Community of Canada West and Ohio." No list of member congregations is available, but in Ohio the only one apparently was the newly organized Wadsworth First Mennonite congregation, formed from families who came from the Oberholtzer Conference in Eastern Pennsylvania. The Canadians were small dissident groups from a number of congregations in Waterloo County and Lincoln County, possibly also in the Markham district north of Toronto. The chief purpose of the conference, which met annually at first, was the promotion of home missions and evangelism, and by September 1859, the conference had a fully organized "Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the Mennonites." Daniel Hoch was appointed traveling minister (Reiseprediger) at an early date. The conference joined with the Oberholtzer group in Eastern Pennsylvania and a small group in Iowa to organize the General Conference of the Mennonite Church of North America in 1860.
The Canada-Ohio Conference continued until about 1869. The group in Ontario disintegrated, most of the members ultimately joining the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, a new schismatic movement which started in 1874. The Ohio churches ultimately joined the newly formed Middle District Conference.
Bibliography
Krehbiel, H. P. The History of the General Conference . . . N.p., 1898.
| Author(s) | Harold S Bender |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1959 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Bender, Harold S. "Ohio and Canada West Mennonite Conference." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 16 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ohio_and_Canada_West_Mennonite_Conference&oldid=123671.
APA style
Bender, Harold S. (1959). Ohio and Canada West Mennonite Conference. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 16 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ohio_and_Canada_West_Mennonite_Conference&oldid=123671.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 30. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.