Trenton Mennonite Church (Trenton, Ohio, USA)
The Butler County, Ohio, community was the third Amish Mennonite settlement in Ohio. The first was located on Sugar Creek, in Tuscarawas County, in 1808, when a preacher, John Miller, came from Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The second being in Wayne County as early as 1817, when Jacob Yoder moved there from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania.
The Butler County pioneer was Christian Augspurger. He had been the manager of a farm near Strasbourg, France, owned by Charles Schulmeister. He came to North America in 1817 and settled in Pennsylvania and a little later, as far as the Miami Valley. Here he became discouraged and, in 1818, returned to France.
Finding that his farm had been leased to another man for a number of years, he returned to America in the spring of 1819 with his family within a group of 36 families. Of these, six families came to Butler County in August of the same year. They included Christian Augspurger, his brother Joseph, their second cousin, Jacob Augspurger, Christian Sommer, John Miller, and John Gunden. These were all Amish Mennonites.
Other families soon followed, but soon some families moved further west to Illinois, Lee County, Iowa, or Missouri. Historically this settlement is important as the first Alsatian Amish settlement in North America.
The first local minister, Jacob Krehbiel from Canada, came to Butler County in 1825. In 1828 Peter Naffziger arrived, having come from Europe by way of Canada. He at once became a leader in the colony. The congregation grew, and in 1830 Jacob Augspurger was chosen and ordained to the office of bishop, the first Amish Mennonite preacher ordained in Butler County.
The same year there was an immigration of Hessian Mennonites, who differed from the Amish Mennonites already here as they had musical instruments and wore more modern clothing. They were initially accepted into the Augspurger congregation, but the differences caused stress with the more plain Amish Mennonites, and by 1835 they could no longer worship together.
That year the congregation divided into the Augspurger Amish Mennonite and Hessian Mennonite congregations. Some outsiders called them the Hook-and-Eye and Button churches. The former emphasized plainness and wore hooks and eyes on their clothes instead of buttons, while the latter permitted freedom in dress and encouraged education.
There was also a small Collinsville congregation that dated from about 1835 and included Joseph Goldsmith and a Benedict King. Daniel Unsicker, a minister from Canada in 1834, identified with this group. After Goldsmith moved to Iowa and Unsicker died, the remaining members joined either the Hessian or Augspurger group.
In 1863, the Augspurger congregation built a meetinghouse near Overpeck on land donated by Christian Sloneker. When the congregation later merged with the Apostolic Mennonite Society, the land reverted to the Sloneker family.
That same year, the Hessian Mennonite congregation incorporated as the Apostolic Mennonite Society. It immediately contemplated purchasing land and building a meetinghouse. The congregation built the meetinghouse inn 1864, on land in St. Clair Township purchased from John Good. In 1892, the Apostolic Mennonite Society called its first trained minister, Henry J. Krehbiel. That same year it joined the General Conference of Mennonites of North America, and in 1893 joined the Middle District of that conference.
The Augspurger church and the Apostolic Mennonite Society merged in 1897. The combined group had a membership of 250 and used the name Apostolic Mennonite Church.
In 1900 the congregation built a parsonage for its pastor in the town of Trenton. Within four years, it began planning for a new church building in town. The new church, which cost $8,000, was dedicated on 11 October 1908. The congregation decided to tear down the former Hessian Mennonite building in 1919. In 2005 it added a fellowship hall and additional Sunday School rooms to the town building.
John E. Amstutz served as pastor of the congregation from 1921 to 1959 and stayed in the community until a couple of years before his death at age 100.
In about 1976, the congregation changed its name to Trenton Mennonite Church. This name had been used informally going back to Henry J. Krehbiel's ministry, but the Apostolic Mennonite Church name continued to be used in some articles in The Mennonite into the 1980s.
In 2022 the Trenton Mennonite Church changed its affiliation to Mennonite Church USA from the Central District Conference to the Ohio Conference of Mennonite Church USA.
Bibliography
"Apostolic Mennonite Church,..." The Mennonite 34, no. 5 (30 January 1919): 1-2.
Grubb, W. H. History of the Mennonites of Butler County, Ohio. Trenton: W. H. Grubb, 1916. Available in full electronic text at: https://ia601606.us.archive.org/26/items/historyofmennoni00grub/historyofmennoni00grub.pdf.
Neuenschwander, A. J. "Centenary Jubilee celebration." The Mennonite 34, no. 38 (25 September 1919): 2-3.
Rich, Elaine Sommers, ed. Walking Together in Faith: The Central District Conference, 1957-1990. Bluffton, Ohio: The Conference, 2003.
Additional Information
Address: 2 East Main Street, Trenton, Ohio 45067
Phone: 513-988-0313
Website: Trenton Mennonite Church
Denominational Affiliations:
Ohio Conference of Mennonite Church USA
Pastoral Leaders at Augspurger Church (1825-1897)
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Jacob Krehbiel (1781-1860) | 1825-1832 |
| Peter Naffziger (1787-1885) | 1828-1835 |
| Jacob Augspurger (1786-1846)(Bishop) | 1830-1846 |
| Joseph Goldsmith (1796-1876) | 1831-1835? |
| Benedict König/King (1764-1840)(Bishop) | ?-1835? |
| Peter Schrock (1802-1887) | 1832-1887 |
| Joseph Kinsinger (1801-1857) | 1844-1857 |
| Nicholas Augspurger (1811-1872) | 1847-1872 |
| Christian Ramseyer (1836-1891) | 1860-1865 |
| Joseph Kinsinger (1825-1894) | 1861-1868 |
| Peter Imhoff (1819-1896) | 1861-1896 |
| Joseph Augspurger (1806-1864) | ?-1864 |
| Peter Kinsinger (1827-1888) | 1867-1888 |
| Joseph Augspurger (1818-1887) | 1872-1887 |
| Joseph Meyer (1812-1886) | ?-1886 |
| Christian K. Augspurger (1839-1907) | 1867-1897 |
Pastoral Leaders at Hessian Church/Apostolic Mennonite Society (1835-1897)
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Peter Naffziger (1789-1885) | 1835-1844 |
| Michael Kistler (1808-1876) | 1835-1842 |
| Peter Holly (1791-1854) | 1836-1854 |
| Daniel Holly (1818-1886) | 1841-1848 |
| Jacob Mueller | 1945-1855 |
| Peter Kennel (1813-1896) | 1947-1896 |
| Christian Holly (1820-1882) | 1860-1882 |
| Joseph Augspurger (1816-1896) (Bishop) |
1860-1862 1860-1892 |
| John Augspurger (1830-1912) | 1867-1897 |
| John Unzicker (1834-1886) | 1867-1886 |
| Henry J. Krehbiel (1865-1940) | 1892-1897 |
Pastoral Leaders at Collinsville Congregation (1835-1860s)
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Joseph Goldsmith (1796-1876) (Bishop) |
1835?-1838 1838-1847 |
| Daniel Unzicker (1798-1863) | 1835?-1863 |
| Benedict König/King (1764-1840)(Bishop) | 1835?-1838? |
Pastoral Leaders at Apostolic Mennonite Church/Trenton Mennonite Church
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Henry J. Krehbiel (1865-1940) | 1897-1909 |
| John E. "J. E." Amstutz (1881-1981)(Supply) (Pastor) |
1909-1911 1921-1959 |
| T. J. Simpson (Supply) | 1911-1913 |
| William H. Grubb (1879-1940) | 1913-1917 |
| Andrew J. "A. J." Neuenswander (1888-1972) | 1918-1920 |
| Kenneth M. Shelly (1930-1994) | 1959-1964 |
| Russell F. Schnell (1907-1998) | 1964-1969 |
| James W. Arn (1945-2003) | 1969-1973 |
| Richard Bright | 1973-1975 |
| Timothy D. Kissel | 1976-1985 |
| Larry Grunden | 1986-1992 |
| Dennis W. Wagner | 1992-1996? |
| Clare J. Osinkosky | 1996-2000? |
| Glenn H. Martin | 2002?-2006 |
| June Thomsen (Interim) | 2006-2007 |
| C. Lindell "Lin" Sylvester | 2008?-2012 |
| Ronald L. Wenzel | 2012- |
| Sylvia Wenzel (Music) | 2012- |
Membership at Trenton Mennonite Church
| Year | Membership |
|---|---|
| 1920 | 241 |
| 1930 | 235 |
| 1940 | 239 |
| 1950 | 167 |
| 1960 | 135 |
| 1970 | 153 |
| 1980 | 133 |
| 1990 | 134 |
| 2000 | 138 |
| 2009 | 126 |
| 2020 | 69 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By J. E. Amstutz. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 136-137. All rights reserved.
The Trenton Mennonite Church in Trenton, Ohio (Mennonite Church USA) (formerly called the Apostolic Mennonite Church, officially named the Apostolic Mennonite Society), was originally an Amish Mennonite settlement established in 1819 by Christian Augsburger and five other families from Alsace, France, who organized an Amish congregation in 1825. In 1832 a shipload of Mennonites from Hesse settled here. Since the two groups did not get along well together two separate congregations (Amish-Augsburger, and Mennonite-Hessian) were organized, although the first meeting houses were not built until 1863 and 1864, respectively, by the two congregations. In 1897 the two were merged and in 1907 a brick church building, with a seating capacity of 250, was erected. A third faction, which did not agree with either the Augsburger or the Hessian group, organized separately at Collinsville in 1835 but the group was never large and dissolved after a generation, the members joining the other two groups.
Historically this settlement is important as the first Alsatian Amish settlement in North America and as the mother colony from which the many first Alsatian Amish settlers went to central Illinois (beginning in 1829) and later to eastern Iowa (beginning in 1840), to Henry County (Wayland) and Davis County (Pulaski). Joseph Goldsmith, a prominent early Amish bishop, was ordained here in 1838. The Augsburger (Amish) congregation belonged to the Amish General Conference, 1862-1878, but never joined the later Eastern Amish Mennonite Conference. In 1892 the Hessian congregation joined the General Conference Mennonites.
| Author(s) | Samuel J Steiner |
|---|---|
| Date Published | February 2023 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Steiner, Samuel J. "Trenton Mennonite Church (Trenton, Ohio, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. February 2023. Web. 18 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Trenton_Mennonite_Church_(Trenton,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=178443.
APA style
Steiner, Samuel J. (February 2023). Trenton Mennonite Church (Trenton, Ohio, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 18 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Trenton_Mennonite_Church_(Trenton,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=178443.
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