Trail of the Conestoga, The
The Trail of the Conestoga (Toronto, 1924 and 1942), a novel written by B. Mabel Dunham, for many years librarian of the Kitchener (Ontario) Public Library and writer of historical fiction, who was of Mennonite descent. The novel sketches the pioneer trek of Mennonites from Pennsylvania to make the settlement in Waterloo County, Ontario, and pictures the motives, the difficulties, and also the rewards of this Mennonite pioneering venture. The leading characters, Benjamin Eby, Joseph Sherk, and Sam Bricker, are well portrayed.
Miss Dunham wrote a sequel to The Trail of the Conestoga in Toward Sodom, which follows the religious careers of the children of the Horst family in the early Waterloo settlement, as they, all but one, leave the faith of their fathers to join other churches or none at all. All of them, however, make outstanding contributions to church and society. In both novels Mennonite life is sympathetically portrayed.
Bibliography
Bender, Elizabeth H. "The Mennonite Theme in Contemporary American Fiction." Proceedings of the Fourth . . . Conference . . . on Cultural Problems. North Newton, 1945.
Cressman, J. Boyd. Review of The Trail of the Conestoga and Toward Sodom. Mennonite Quarterly Review III (1930).
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. Mennonitisches Lexikon. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe; Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 372.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 742. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.
©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.
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MLA style: Bender, Elizabeth H. "Trail of the Conestoga, The." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 06 September 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/T731.html>
APA style: Bender, Elizabeth H. (1959). "Trail of the Conestoga, The." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 06 September 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/T731.html>
