Martin, Abraham W. (1834-1902)
Abraham Weber Martin: bishop and farmer; b. 27 April 1834 near St. Jacobs in Waterloo County, Ontario to John and Anna (Weber) Martin. He was the second son and third child in a family of three sons and nine daughters. On 17 March 1857 he married Elizabeth Bauman (1838-1902). Soon after their marriage they took possession of the farm on which Abraham was born and they lived there the rest of their lives. Abraham and Anna had three sons and seven daughters. Abraham died 8 February 1902. Elizabeth died 30 April of the same year.
Little is known of Abraham Martin's education, although it was certainly limited to the primary schools of the day. He was said to be of "medium height, well proportioned and rather fleshy," with a "pleasing countenance" and an easy and dignified bearing.
On 1 September 1861 Joseph Hagey ordained Abraham Martin as the minister for the congregations in the Woolwich Township area north of the village of Waterloo. On 17 September 1867 Hagey ordained Martin as the bishop for these congregations—one of three bishops in the Waterloo County Mennonite community.
Abraham Martin can be considered the father of the Old Order Mennonite movement in Ontario. He corresponded frequently with leaders of the earlier conservative movement in the United States, and he took traditional positions on most of the contentious issues. In the 1870s he called a meeting of ministers and deacons at his home to discuss disputed issues within the Mennonite Conference of Ontario. The conservatives indicated that they would drop their objections to protracted evening meetings and English-language preaching only if Sunday schools were not continued in the conference. Their objections to Sunday schools included the following: 1) Sunday schools promoted associations with other churches that were not nonresistant; 2) teaching was often done from books or materials other than the Bible, and 3) Sunday schools usurped the parental role of teaching their children. This effort at reconciliation ceased, and conservative opposition on all these issues continued. Evening meetings and English preaching also encouraged relationships beyond the Mennonite community, and the emerging Old Order group ultimately rejected these innovations as well.
In 1885 preachers Noah Stauffer and Solomon Gehmen held evening meetings in Woolwich Township, the geographic area in which Abraham Martin was bishop. Thirty persons requested baptism because of their experience in the meetings, but Martin refused to give them instruction or to baptize them because of the nature of these meetings. Bishop Elias Weber later baptized the group, but this quickly led to a more formal schism in 1889 when the two factions within the Mennonite Conference of Ontario held separate annual meetings with their ordained leaders.
Despite his conservative theology, Martin was not as rigid as other conservative leaders. In 1885 he decried the "inflexible" discipline of the Stauffer Mennonites in Pennsylvania.
As bishop of the largest group of Old Order Mennonites in Ontario, Abraham Martin had enormous influence on the first years of the group's development. He was not a flamboyant, charismatic leader, but he represented the theological views of a high percentage of those in congregations for which he was responsible.
Bibliography
Burkholder, L. J. A Brief History of the Mennonites in Ontario. Kitchener, ON: Mennonite Conference of Ontario, 1935: 149, 197ff.
Eby, Ezra E. A Biographical History of Early Settlers and Their Descendants in Waterloo Township, with additional information by Eldon D. Weber. Kitchener, ON: E.D. Weber, 1971: 226, S-27.
Horst, Isaac R. Close Ups of the Great Awakening. Mt. Forest, ON: I.R. Horst, 1985: 128-129, 147-148, 173 ff.
| Author(s) | Samuel J Steiner |
|---|---|
| Date Published | July 2002 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Steiner, Samuel J. "Martin, Abraham W. (1834-1902)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. July 2002. Web. 16 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Martin,_Abraham_W._(1834-1902)&oldid=165298.
APA style
Steiner, Samuel J. (July 2002). Martin, Abraham W. (1834-1902). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 16 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Martin,_Abraham_W._(1834-1902)&oldid=165298.
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