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| Jacob Reiff Barn.
The Reiff Farmhouse, 775 Quarry Road, is an example of a transition house. Some parts date to the 18th and 19th Centuries. It is the home of the historic Jacob Reiff homestead and barn situated on 73 acres. The home features a wall cabinet, large cooking fireplace and circular stairs and displays many of the Township's historical artifacts, including the Reiff family bible.
Heckler Plains Folklife Society, Lower Salford Historical Society Newsletter, Fall-Winer 2016.
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| Maybe the beams of the Reiff barn indicate the strength of the Reiff sons |
[Hans George Bechtel, a minister in the Palatinate in 1727 came to Philadelphia on the the same ship Jacob Reiff returned from his first trip on, the Mortonhouse. Bechtel preached at Hereford until his death in 1759 (Wenger, 251).]
Jacob Reiff sponsored a Reformed church in his house. He later had two sons, Jacob Jr. and George III, but it is getting easier to prove Jacob was by then a Mennonite. Incidentals piling up include:
--his father and mother's burial in the Mennonite graveyard,
--his father's land that bordered Mennonite Ziegler's, the Mennonite pastor, and on the other side the Mennonite Hans Reiff, thought to be his cousin,
--his father's signing the Mennonite Trust as a witness,
--his mother's gift to the Mennonite Meetinghouse in 1738, and also his brother Peter's gift, recorded in the Skippack Alms Book,
-- and especially his wife's Mennonite family. A summary of the argument from Glenn Landis and Harry Reiff suggests that while his oldest son, Jacob Jr., the first elected member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly from Montgomery County (1786-89), who voted for the Pennsylvania convention to adopt the Constitution of the United States, followed a Reformed path in helping found the Wentz Reformed Church, his younger brother George married a Mennonite, a Hendricks!
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| On First Looking In the Jacob Reiff Window, Pennsylvania 1712-2012 |
--who married a daughter of Mennonite Bishop Christian Funk and became a minister with that prescient divine who endorsed the American Revolution. [please see A Brief History of Bishop Henry Funck and Other Funk Pioneers
--This John Reiff signed the preface with other ministers of the English version of Funk’s Mirror for all Mankind (Norristown, Pa.,1814).
-- In 1814 Jacob Reiff Jr. donated land for the first Funkite meetinghouse in Skippack (Wenger, 350), the same land that his son John later retitled to the Dunkards after the Funkite demise.
This tells us nothing directly of Jacob the Elder but it is harmonious with the notion that he married the daughter of the Mennonite Landis, and whose mother, also Anna, was buried in the Mennonite burial ground in 1753 with Muhlenberg's later obsequy in his Journal (I).
Jacob the Elder requires a separate treatment.
Lower Salford Historical Society
George Landis Reiff (4/7/1740 – 1/24/1808) is called George Reiff III. That is, George I was Hans George. George II was John George Reiff (c.1692-1759), oldest son of Hans George, but without issue.
Genealogists unsure of the maiden name of Jacob Reiff''s spouse took to differentiating this way, but the mother of George Landis Reiff was Anna Landis. George III thus was the second son of Jacob the Elder, and married Elizabeth Hendricks 2/15/1764. Along with his father and brother Jacob, George was recorded as a private in Captain Barnet Haines Company for Lower Skippack in the Revolution, but the same provisos for Mennonites at war may apply to him and to his son (see below, in the War of 1812). George Reiff and Elizabeth Hendricks are buried at Lower Skippack Mennonite Cemetery. Hendricks of course is an illustrious name in Pennsylvania, dignified by the signing by Gerhard Hendricks in 1688 of the protest against slavery.
Elizabeth Hendricks (4/9/1740 – 6/25/1817) was the daughter of Leonard Hendricks (b. Krefeld, 1698-1776, buried Towamencin Mennonite Cemetery) and Elizabeth Turner (born c. 1712 in Pennsylvania). Leonard Hendricks named his son-in-law George Reiff co-executor of his will, probated 3/8/1776.
If it had not begun sooner with Jacob's wife Anna Landis a Mennonite affiliation began with George’s marriage to Elizabeth Hendricks. Genealogist and historian Harry Reiff says: "Elizabeth Hendricks who married George Reiff III was a daughter of Leonard Hendricks, who in turn was a son of the immigrant Lawrence Hendricks. The Hendricks were part of the so-called Krefeld group who settled/established Germantown in 1683 and later. These people were called Dutch Quakers-induced by William Penn to come to Penn’s colony in America. Apparently there was a strong Mennonite population in the Krefeld/Munchen-Gladback area, and Quaker-Mennonite-Reformed families at times were mixed. At any rate, Leonard Hendricks owned land in the Towamencin area of present Montgomery Co., and was considered a Quaker” (Letters, 11December 2001).
Leonard’s father, Lawrence Hendricks (b. ca. 1670 Kriegsheim Germany, d. 1749 at Towamencin, Montgomery Co.), a Quaker and then a Mennonite, arrived in PA with his father Willem Hendricks (1649-1691) on the "Francis and Dorothy" on 12 October 1685. Lawrence’s father, William, was a Holland Dutch Mennonite who had arrived with Pastorious in 1682 and brought his sons Lawrence and Henry with him.
Lawrence Hendricks signed the 1728 petition for the Susquehanna Road or Line. Alderfer says "the list of signatures attached to the 1728 petition contains about twelve Mennonite names. The first six signatures are of men from the Towamencin Mennonite community. The first four (Jacob Godshalk, Godshalk Godshalk, Henry Hendricks, and Lawrence Hendricks) were the original 1714 settlers in what would later become the Towamencin Mennonite community…the Hendricks brothers may have been brothers-in-law to Godshalk Godshalk, oldest son of Jacob Godshalk, the first Mennonite bishop in America, who settled first at Germantown.” (Alderfer, 19-21).
Elizabeth Clemens herself is mentioned in a note in the famous diary which had belonged to her great grandfather, to which her grandfather Jacob made some later additional notes. Jacob states that “Elizabeth was married in 1763. She was then twenty years of age.” (Strassburger, 473) Jacob Clemens ended his years living with son John, but he had several sons. He called Gerhard the oldest, but born before him were Michael, 1729, Jacob 1739, twins Gerhard and Christian 1741. There were at least some five other sons and nine daughters (Strassburger, 471). Garret’s parents sold him two parcels of land in 1768 totaling 135 acres. Here he is called Garret Clements, Jr. after his grandfather.
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| George C. Reiff marker |
The older George C. Reiff, father of Abraham S. Reiff, married Maria Magdalena Bauer Schwenk (7/19/1794 – 3/28/1875) on 30 April 1814. As George's son Abraham llater performed in Worcester, this George Reiff was a trustee for purchase of Mennonite land in Skippack where he lived, one of "three Mennonite trustees, Jacob F. Kulp, Daniel Landes, and George Reiff," who executed a trust for land donated by Issac Kulp to build the new meetinghouse erected by the Old Mennonites of Skippack in 1848” (Wenger, 99).
The New Meetinghouse
This new meetinghouse ties several Old Mennonite strands together and illustrates aspects of the division between Old and the New. The seceding "new" Mennonites took over the meetinghouse in Skippack which the undivided congregation had built in 1844 (Wenger, 97). Old and then Old and New met together for a time, but the Old, or original group, refused to legally contest the expropriation of their property, from scruples of conscience against litigation (This later is the counsel of Old Mennonite Bishop Andrew Mack wishes in a similar division in Hereford. In Noah Mack's ms.) The Old built a new building in 1848, slightly smaller than the previous, although the deed was not made until August 21, 1849 (Wenger, 99). This was the land of which George Reiff served as trustee.
According to John F. Funk (The Mennonite Church and Her Accusers,1878) the building of a new meetinghouse illustrates what true Mennonites were all about. It also gives us a concrete means to understand the division of 1847.
“During the difficulties which occurred in the church, in eastern Pennsylvania, in 1847-48 on account of the disobedience and innovations of John H. Oberholtzer, in Bucks County, and the Hunsicker faction in Skippack, Montgomery County, there still remained, in the Old Church, so much love to God and the teachings of the Savior as to enable them, by the grace of God, to fulfill the teachings of Christ in a most noble manner, and leave to the world one of the most glorious examples of self-denial and devotion to their religious principles, presented to us in modern times.”
“The new factions claimed the old meeting-house and were determined to have it at all events. The property was one of considerable value and justly belonged to the Old Church, and any impartial judge or jury would have, without any scruples, freely accorded it to them, had they presented their claims, but instead of doing so, they chose rather to obey the scriptural injunctions “not to resist evil, and of him that taketh away thy goods, not to ask them again,” and quietly, leaving the new factions in possession, they purchased other grounds and built themselves a new house.” (Funk,128)
This account highlights the unworldly Old Mennonite belief as well as some of the deep interrelations of the Mennonite Reiffs. In acting as trustee for the new building in Skippack, George C. Reiff, was doing there exactly what John B. Bechtel, grandfather of Anna Mack Reiff, was doing in Hereford, when, at the 1847 division, he became the Old Mennonite pastor at the age of 41. Bechtel’s granddaughter, Anna Mack, was subsequently to marry George C. Reiff’s great grandson, Howard R. Reiff. Neither ancestor knew the other, but they acted in accord. Their children however, Anna and Howard, became new Mennonites in 1911.
Skippack Alms Book
The Old Mennonites of Skippack then became the "Upper Skippack" congregation, but while they surrendered the meetinghouse the Old Mennonites kept the Skippack Alms Book, that record of alms money with annual audits conducted yearly from 1738, the oldest such record of its kind in Pennsylvania. This Alms Book gives “a list of all the ordained men of the Skippack circuit since 1738" (Wenger, 97) and records the signatures of the three Reiffs of succeeding generations, starting with George [C.] Reiff who kept the Alms Book from 1835 to 1842, signing it four times (Wenger, 103). His son Abraham S. Reiff of the Worcester congregation, part of the Skippack circuit, signed the Alms Book three times, from 1877-79. Abraham's son, George L. Reiff, as noted, signed 34 times. A fourth signature, of Anna Reiff, was later discovered on the first page of the Skippack Alms Book. Thus the Alms Book and meetinghouse document three generations. [Prior to the Oberholtzer division of 1847 the hierarchy of the Franconia conference had been comprised of districts overseen by a bishop, but " the Skippack bishop district retained the 'circuit system' which evidently obtained in all the districts at first" (Wenger, 98). That is, the ministers of this district would rotate among the three congregations, from Skippack, the seat, to Worcester and Providence.]
Executor
George C. Reiff served as executor of his father-in-law’s will, Abraham Schwenk (5/25/1759 – 8/6/1843) and was named as guardian of the six children of Schwenk’s deceased son, also named Abraham. Here he is again simply called, George Reiff:
"Guardian of the persons and Estates of the minor children of my late Deceased Son Abraham named as follows, to wit, Isaac, Abraham, David, William, Margaret & Sarah—from the first Day of April last past, until each of the said minor Children shall attain the age of 21 years.—The sum of $500 being due to each of them on the said first day of April, and in the hands of the said George Reiff; and of the further sum or sums that will be due to them immediately after my decease…" (Strassburger, 301) We know that George Reiff adequately fulfilled that trust, because in “1854 others of the heirs acknowledged the receipt of their full inheritance from George Reiff…"(Strassburger, 303).
Nonresistence
Paradoxically for a Mennonite, but before his marriage in 1814, George Reiff was listed as a private in the War of 1812. This might explain his intimacy with his father in law, who was a Sergeant Seventh Class in the Philadelphia County Militia during the Revolution and in the Montgomery County Militia in 1786. Abraham Schwenk was then "a tanner in Germantown at the time of the [Revolutionary] war, nineteen years old, a tall, fine man, he was under age, but because of his size the officers did not know it. At the battle of Germantown he went upstairs in a house as he was wounded, where a woman said that British were coming. He replied, 'Let the devils come,' and he took a large stick from the fireplace and drove them back" (Strassburger, 296).
As a son of Mennonite parents it might seem important to explain how George Reiff was a Private in the War of 1812 (Captain John Wentz's Company, Sixth Class, Fifty-first Regiment), when, "apart from believers' baptism, the most distinctive doctrine of the Mennonites is their Biblical nonresistance" (Wenger, 57). That is, that "a Christian may not participate in, or support, war or violence in any form whatever" (Wenger, 57).
Mennonites were sometimes said to have served when they did not, but were included in the rolls anyway. Philip Geisinger, Henry Geisinger and John Geisinger had petitioned the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1778 for exemption from military service (Wenger, 60-2) and been penalized. Wenger reports that there are "about a dozen and half graves at the Saucon burying ground on which are Grand Army of the Republic, G. A. R. markers of the Revolutionary War, including …Johannes Geissinger (1739- 1811)…Henrich Geisinger (1737-1817)…Philip Geissinger (1732-1809) and Abraham Geissinger, (1749-1825). As John L. Ruth says, these are “the crowning irony which was to mark the memories of Jacob Yoder, John Geissinger, and their friends who sacrificed all they had to separate themselves from the Revolutionary War for conscience’ sake. For all their pains, their graves are yearly marked with American flags placed by modern patriotic organizations, who, having carelessly read the rosters of Colonel Siegfried’s militia, in their myth-making zeal designate these defenseless, dispossessed Christians as soldier heroes of the American Revolution.” (Ruth, 173) Of course there were also many Geissingers and Rosenbergers in the Saucon Valley not in the Mennonite Church. In fact however the opposite of the case is true. Some of those people were imprisoned for not serving.
If they did serve there were two ways around the prohibition. First, after the war to make a confession to the congregation and be reinstated. The second way was to not yet have been baptized, therefore not yet to be held accountable to Mennonite doctrine (Wenger, 64). Mennonites were baptized as adults. The minority of Mennonites who did serve in the American Revolution joined other denominations. The way back to the Old was not easy. To be reinstated the offender would have had to publicly repent the war before the congregation and then submit to their vote.
Although much later, an example of this issue occurs in the nonresistant dilemma of the two sons of Henry Mack, step brothers of Anna Mack Reiff and nephews of Bishop Andrew Mack, that is, Harvey and Philip. Harvey Mack went to France in 1918 as a conscientious objector and stayed to work for the Red Cross and the American Friends Service Committee (Wenger, 75). Philip went to Officer's Candidate School at Fort Meade and became a 2nd Lieutenant with every intention of going to France as a combatant, but the war ended.
Mennonites downplay such opposites. Wenger says that Philip G. Mack "accepted noncombatant service at Camp Meade; was again received into the fellowship of the church after the war, but later united with the General Conference Mennonites" (70). He however did not “accept” service, he sought it out and he wanted to fight. He was only a noncombatant because he couldn’t get to France in time. Philip's mother, Sarah Ann Geisinger Mack, of a long Old Mennonite tradition of noncombatants, wouldn’t let Philip in the house with his uniform on (recollection of Anna Elizabeth). Also,when Philip went from the “new” Mennonites to the Presbyterians shortly after his marriage, his nephew, JH Reiff, who lived across the street, remembered that when Philip came home in his uniform his mother wouldn't let him in the house or let him stay there. As his niece Elizabeth Reiff put it, "Philip got thrown out of the communion for going to OCS instead of registering as a CO."
Wenger says Philip was again received into the fellowship of the church after the war, but later united with the General Conference Mennonites" (70), but more accurately, Philip confessed and repented to the church for his mother's sake and was received in that fellowship again, after which he lived at home until he married in 1925, but shortly thereafter followed the way of his sister Anna into the new Mennonites and from there, with wife Catherine became Presbyterian.
A similar situation exists perhaps with Gottshall Gottschalk, who signed the Skippack Alms Book twice in 1791 (Wenger, 102), although 6 others signed that year also. If it is the same person, Godshalk (Boorse) Godshalk (1762-1835), buried in Towamencin Mennonite Cemetery, he is on the Muster Roll of Towamencin Township under Captain Daniel Springer on 11/24/1780 (Perkiomen Region, 387-8).
Another striking example of Mennonite military service seems to exist in the life of Bishop Heinrich Kolb Hunsicker (3/7/1752-7/8/1836), who, being both a farmer and a minister of the Lower Skippack Mennonites and a Bishop, was also listed as a member of the 6th Class of Captain Dull's Company of Militia, 1st Battalion, Philadelphia Co. under the command of Col. Daniel Heister in 1778. He began signing the Skippack Alms book in 1781 even while being listed as a member of the Philadelphia Militia that same year. He signed the Alms Book 33 times, until 1832
There is a divergence of theory and practice. It is possible to suppose that the military connection was watered down, whether in the life of George C. Reiff or Philip Mack. George C. and Maria Reiff are buried in the Lower Skippack Mennonite cemetery. While Mennonites would bury strangers for the sake of charity or geography, for the most part they buried their own in their graveyards.
Most of George C.'s children are explicitly denominated as Mennonites in the immediate area.
Schwenks/Bauers
But more can be said of the Schwenk family of George C.’s wife. In 1779 Abraham Schwenk lived in Claytonville, the home of Henry Mack and Jacob L. Reiff a hundred years later. He subsequently bought a large farm in Frederick Township at Delphi, also called Zieglerville Station, where he built a tannery and farmed till about 1808. After that he owned 176 acres in Skippack Township along the Perkiomen Creek opposite Schwenksville. The Schwenks were members of Keeley's Lutheran Church to which Abraham Schwenk gave the ground on which the Lutheran Church was erected in Schwenksville. His estate was divided equally among nine children. In the will his daughter who married George Reiff is sometimes named Maria, sometimes Mary. Intermixing Mennonites and Lutherans, as in Maria Schwenk’s family, occurred also with Andrew and Henry Mack’s brother Peter, who was a Lutheran minister in Hummelstown in the 1880’s.
Maria Schwenk’s mother, Veronica Landis Bauer (4/10/1756 – 9/13/1840), was a Mennonite whose father, Michael Bauer (c. 1720-1784) married Veronica Landis about 1744-45. This Michael Bauer was just sitting down to a wedding banquet in 1776, celebrating his oldest daughter’s marriage to Christian Meyer, when soldiers of the Continental Army plundered the feast and carried off a wagon load of spoils to their camp (Ruth, ‘Twas Seeding Time, 91).
Michael Bauer was in turn the son of Hans Bauer (d. 1748), who owned land on the Perkiomen in 1734. In 1742 he bought 105 acres in Butter Valley in Colebrookdale and in 1743, 134 acres in Douglas Manor (also later the residence of Henry Mack). Both these properties were annexed into Hereford Township in 1753. (Strassburger, 316f). Strassburger says that Hans Bauer was "no doubt" buried in the Hereford Mennonite Cemetery, but the tombstone has been effaced so he does not appear in the Hereford Burial List compiled by Henry Mack in 1934. This Hans Bauer (d. 1748), a Mennonite, is said to have emigrated between 1708 and 1717 before settling in Colebrookdale (Strassburger, 315). Veronica Landis' mother was the daughter of another prominent Mennonite settler, Johannes Landis, of Bucks County (Strassburger, 320).
Butter Valley was a fertile area containing Hereford and Colebrookdale, both Mennonite colonies. The first Hereford meetinghouse was built about 1743 and is the location of the oft-mentioned Hereford burial ground. In 1749 Michael Bauer inherited lands in Colebrookdale from his father. He signed the petition of 1753 to the Philadelphia Court to erect the new Hereford Township and was among the Hereford residents taxed in 1758. Michael and his wife Veronica Landis are probably also buried in the Hereford ground. Their son Samuel (1746-1822) is. There were only three children, Samuel, Fronica and Anna. Veronica married Abraham M. Schwenk in 1779.
Like Abraham S. Reiff and John B. Bechtel in the Oberholtzer Division, the Bauer and Landis trails cross profoundly with another tributary of the Reiffs, the Bechtels and the Macks in the Mennonite church of Hereford.
Abraham Schwenk Reiff ( Jun 1817 - 30 Aug 1879) the last unchanged Old Mennonite, married Sarah (Sallie) Detweiler Landis (4 Oct 1820 – 18 Jan 1891) in 1840. Between 1843 and 1860 they reared nine children.
Most notable was their first son George L. Reiff (1846-1932), known as Uncle George to succeeding generations (J.H. and Elizabeth), who maintained the farm in Worcester much visited by his youngest brother Jacob with his son, Howard, wife Anna and family, (Howard, Elizabeth and Florence). He also maintained the Old Mennonite ways. One purpose for which his brother Jacob first bought a car was to stay in touch with this brother, the farm and his roots; somewhat contradictorily, because Old Mennonites did not much drive. He used that car in the 1920’s to travel to Worcester to take communion with those he had grown up with. Among Mennonites the week prior to communion is an important service of repentance, it and the yearly communion not to be marker missed. Jacob, Abraham's youngest child, as opposed to George, the oldest, stands between the Old Mennonite and the New and was still going to worship with Uncle George in Worcester in 1929 when he could. In one letter to his grandson Howard, Jacob refers to their father Abraham:
“My father was always willing to pay a bill which he did know was correct in all its items. I can recall my father sent me to Norristown for a load of feed with 3 horses and in making the turn at Jeffersonville, through my carelessness, I tore off another man’s wheel of his wagon. The man went to my father and told him what I done and demanded him to pay the damage and father was willing. As I grew older I came to realize that extreme carefulness has been one of the foundation stones of my father’s success” (Letter of 27 Jan 1929).
We surmise that Uncle George obtained his father’s land in Worcester (Methacton) after his father’s death in 1879. The Worcester Mennonite burial ground there, begun about 1744, is the final resting place of Abraham Reiff and Jacob L. and probably other Reiffs, along with many soldiers who died in the battle of Germantown. Christopher Sauer, the polemicist and printer of the German Bible is buried there with other first settlers.
Actual details are scarce, but a signal one occurs with the name "Abraham Reiff" inscribed upon a beam in the attic of the third Worcester meetinghouse. Such actualities are always wonderful, like the ornate signature of John Bechtel below in The Wandering Soul or the signature of Jacob and Anna Reiff carved in the old mill in Skippack. Sometime prior to 1771, maybe as early as 1739, that first meetinghouse had been used as a school, then rebuilt about 1804 and again in 1873. Abraham Reiff was a member of the building committee of this third meetinghouse when he so inscribed his name (The Perkiomen Region [PR] I, 104).
Trustee
He was also one of three designated trustees for the receipt of land in 1860 when that congregation had added to the "Mennonist Society burying ground of Worcester" (Wenger, 107) and he served as trustee, August 9, 1873, for the purchase of the land where the third meetinghouse was built. So Abraham Reiff's name is preserved in relation to the Mennonites three ways, trustee for the cemetery addition, trustee for land for the new building and member of the building committee. He was ordained in 1877 as a deacon at Worcester "as an old man" (Wenger, 99) and served until his death two years later. His son, George L. Reiff (12/8/1846 – 10/8/1932), the above “Uncle George,” continued his father's service to this church as Deacon from 1881 until his death in 1932.
All these generations knew one another. Mennonite Bishop Andrew Mack, refers to George Reiff’s advice in his letter of 8 Oct 1874, “that is what George Reiff said we should do.” Worcester is notable also as a Schwenkfelder settlement. Church, school and burial ground hold antiquarian interest, but Abraham Reiff had originally came from Skippack and Salford where preceding Reiffs had lived.
Jacob Landis Reiff (30 Oct 1857 – 8 Jun 1929)
If you know Henry Mack at all by now you know he mistreats nobody, gives people the benefit of the doubt, is not doctrinaire, seeks peace, even friendship! Jacob Landis Reiff the father of Howard R. is the opposite of Henry Mack. Jake is a dealer, like his name sake in the Book. He doesn't seem to like Anna. He wants to own his son. He says the wrong thing at the wrong time. His chief success is in vexing those he loves. He had diabetes. He is not the kind of man who loves cats. He is the kind who only by accident or mistake offends another man. But is there a bully hiding under the skin of a prig? Jake was a bully of women and children, but since the purpose of the bully, as is the purpose of evil, is to bring out the goodness of those around him, we should look into it.
Henry Mack first records that Jacob L. Reiff operated a general store, probably in Bechtelsville, starting about March 5, 1890: "J. L. Reiff's – dry goods and groceries," where he sold him "272 lbs. of pork @ 5 ½ lb." The $14.96 in trade this generated was taken as
Mar. 5. l bu clover seed, etc. $ 4.10
Mar. 12 Groceries 2.95
Mar. 25 l gal molasses, sundries .51
May 20 Dry goods and groceries 4.95
June 20 " " " " 2.45
Henry patronized several different stores of this kind, but after this one series of transactions he does not record another visit to J. L. Reiff until 4 years later when he buys dry goods and groceries, and once a great deal of cloth in May, June and October 1894 and March 1895. Before and after the 1890 transaction he traded at Bechtels (W. B. Bechtel), Mary's and with J. F. Stauffer, each time buying roughly equivalent kinds of goods. If we seek a reason for the 4 years hiatus we speculate that either J. L. Reiff was out of business for that while, which doesn't reckon, or that maybe Henry wised up, for as Lib says of J.L., "he was a born trader and soon had a reputation for making sharp deals" (5). Jacob L. no doubt was involved in similar enterprises before 1890.
Latshaw family VI: David H. Latshaw, son of John B. and Maria (Hiestand) Latshaw, and now the leading merchant at Bechtelsville, was born in Douglass township, Montgomery county, Feb. 28, 1878. He attended the local schools of his native district, and worked upon the home farm until he was twenty-one years of age. He then became a clerk in the general store of Jacob L. Reiff, at Bechtelsville, and after clerking there for a year and a half, succeeded him in business, buying out the entire property, stock, fixtures and good will. He carries a complete line of general merchandise, and deals largely in wholesale salts, handling the famous Genesee salts. Since October, 1901, he has been postmaster at Bechtelsville. He is a member of the Mennonite Church, belonging like most of the family, to the church at Bally. He has been active in the Sunday-school for many years, being superintendent and chorister in the Bechtelsville Sunday-school.
What do these tell us about Catharine Rosenberger? In the 1850 Census for Hatfield Township, Montgomery County, PA two families are listed for the same dwelling:
Jacob Gehman, listed as family head # 35 (farmer, born in PA, living alone,)
and family #34, Abraham Clemmer, 60, Elizabeth Clemmer, likewise 60, and Catherine Clemmer, 22 (all born in PA). Next door to them is family #36, Samuel Rosenberger, 38, and Mary Rosenberger, 36.
In the 1860 Census a Jacob D. Gehman, 34, and Catherine Gehman, 34, are listed together with Henry Gehman, 4 and William Gehman, 18 (Jacob's brother?), so it appears that Catharine Clemmer married Jacob Gehman after 1850. Also living with them at that time is a Catherine Rosenberger, age 4, which is the age she would have been in 1860.
Jacob L. Reiff (1857 - 1929) was the son of Abraham S. who had a large family.
Latshaw family:VI) David H. Latshaw, son of John B. and Maria (Hiestand) Latshaw, and now the leading merchant at Bechtelsville, was born in Douglass township, Montgomery county, Feb. 28, 1878. He attended the local schools of his native district, and worked upon the home farm until he was twenty-one years of age. He then became a clerk in the general store of Jacob L. Reiff, at Bechtelsville, and after clerking there for a year and a half, succeeded him in business, buying out the entire property, stock, fixtures and good will. He carries a complete line of general merchandise, and deals largely in wholesale salts, handling the famous Genesee salts. Since October, 1901, he has been postmaster at Bechtelsville. He is a member of the Mennonite Church, belonging like most of the family, to the church at Bally. He has been active in the Sunday-school for many years, being superintendent and chorister in the Bechtelsville Sunday-school.
On Feb. 20, 1902, Mr. Latshaw was married to Mary Clemmer, daughter of Abraham and Mary (Funk) Clemmer, and have one daughter, Amy Lola C. Beside his store Mr. Latshaw has a forty-two acre farm, and is noted for his success as a potato raiser.
Howard Rosenberger Reiff (1880-1927)
Howard Rosenberger Reiff (12/15/1880 – (5/16/1927) was an Old Mennonite too. But we know less of what requirements Anna Mack sought in her husband other than his being the son of a storekeeper instead of a gentleman farmer. It makes us interested to hear his attributes: "Howard, quiet, sensitive…Annie "outgoing, cheerful, ambitious and determined" (2).Lib remarks of her father's "fine features" evident in a tintype at the age of seven (3). She says he showed early "ability at mathematics" (4), wrote "a beautiful flowing script," was "left handed." His diploma from Eastman Business College of Poughkeepsie, NY is extant with this recommendation, dated September 23, 1901: "Mr. Reiff is a young man of good habits and possesses a thorough knowledge of account keeping" (Lib, 4). His daughter, Anna Elizabeth Reiff, writes that "the class picture shows six young men in high stiff collars, all very impressed with their new status. Even an unprejudiced observer would concede that Howard is handsomest of the group" (4).
Upon graduation Howard worked in his father's general store, "probably in Bechtelsville" (Lib, 4). Later his father opened a store inAllentown (1903) where Howard worked until he began as a clerk with the Philadelphia
Jacob Howard (Mack) Reiff (1908-1994)
The roster is;
1. Hans George Reiff (c. 1659-1726) Buried Salford Mennonite Cemetery.
2. Jacob Reiff the Elder (1698-1782) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Cemetery
3. George Landis Reiff (1740-1808)
4. George Hendricks Reiff (1768-1847) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Church
5. George Clemens Reiff (1793-1860) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Meetinghouse
6. Abraham Schwenk Reiff (1817-1879) Buried Methacton Cemetery.
7. Jacob Landis Reiff (1857-1929) Buried Methacton Cemetery.
8. Howard Rosenberger Reiff (1880-1927) Buried Northwood Cemetery, Top of Broad St.
9. Jacob Howard (Mack) Reiff (1908-1994) Buried West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala-Cynwyd.
10. Andrew Edwin (Yeo) Reiff (1941-
11. Aeyrie Edwin Arthur (Carlson) Reiff (1985-
Executor
George C. Reiff served as executor of his father-in-law’s will, Abraham Schwenk (5/25/1759 – 8/6/1843) and was named as guardian of the six children of Schwenk’s deceased son, also named Abraham. Here he is again simply called, George Reiff:
"Guardian of the persons and Estates of the minor children of my late Deceased Son Abraham named as follows, to wit, Isaac, Abraham, David, William, Margaret & Sarah—from the first Day of April last past, until each of the said minor Children shall attain the age of 21 years.—The sum of $500 being due to each of them on the said first day of April, and in the hands of the said George Reiff; and of the further sum or sums that will be due to them immediately after my decease…" (Strassburger, 301) We know that George Reiff adequately fulfilled that trust, because in “1854 others of the heirs acknowledged the receipt of their full inheritance from George Reiff…"(Strassburger, 303).
Nonresistence
Paradoxically for a Mennonite, but before his marriage in 1814, George Reiff was listed as a private in the War of 1812. This might explain his intimacy with his father in law, who was a Sergeant Seventh Class in the Philadelphia County Militia during the Revolution and in the Montgomery County Militia in 1786. Abraham Schwenk was then "a tanner in Germantown at the time of the [Revolutionary] war, nineteen years old, a tall, fine man, he was under age, but because of his size the officers did not know it. At the battle of Germantown he went upstairs in a house as he was wounded, where a woman said that British were coming. He replied, 'Let the devils come,' and he took a large stick from the fireplace and drove them back" (Strassburger, 296).
As a son of Mennonite parents it might seem important to explain how George Reiff was a Private in the War of 1812 (Captain John Wentz's Company, Sixth Class, Fifty-first Regiment), when, "apart from believers' baptism, the most distinctive doctrine of the Mennonites is their Biblical nonresistance" (Wenger, 57). That is, that "a Christian may not participate in, or support, war or violence in any form whatever" (Wenger, 57).
Mennonites were sometimes said to have served when they did not, but were included in the rolls anyway. Philip Geisinger, Henry Geisinger and John Geisinger had petitioned the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1778 for exemption from military service (Wenger, 60-2) and been penalized. Wenger reports that there are "about a dozen and half graves at the Saucon burying ground on which are Grand Army of the Republic, G. A. R. markers of the Revolutionary War, including …Johannes Geissinger (1739- 1811)…Henrich Geisinger (1737-1817)…Philip Geissinger (1732-1809) and Abraham Geissinger, (1749-1825). As John L. Ruth says, these are “the crowning irony which was to mark the memories of Jacob Yoder, John Geissinger, and their friends who sacrificed all they had to separate themselves from the Revolutionary War for conscience’ sake. For all their pains, their graves are yearly marked with American flags placed by modern patriotic organizations, who, having carelessly read the rosters of Colonel Siegfried’s militia, in their myth-making zeal designate these defenseless, dispossessed Christians as soldier heroes of the American Revolution.” (Ruth, 173) Of course there were also many Geissingers and Rosenbergers in the Saucon Valley not in the Mennonite Church. In fact however the opposite of the case is true. Some of those people were imprisoned for not serving.
If they did serve there were two ways around the prohibition. First, after the war to make a confession to the congregation and be reinstated. The second way was to not yet have been baptized, therefore not yet to be held accountable to Mennonite doctrine (Wenger, 64). Mennonites were baptized as adults. The minority of Mennonites who did serve in the American Revolution joined other denominations. The way back to the Old was not easy. To be reinstated the offender would have had to publicly repent the war before the congregation and then submit to their vote.
Although much later, an example of this issue occurs in the nonresistant dilemma of the two sons of Henry Mack, step brothers of Anna Mack Reiff and nephews of Bishop Andrew Mack, that is, Harvey and Philip. Harvey Mack went to France in 1918 as a conscientious objector and stayed to work for the Red Cross and the American Friends Service Committee (Wenger, 75). Philip went to Officer's Candidate School at Fort Meade and became a 2nd Lieutenant with every intention of going to France as a combatant, but the war ended.
Mennonites downplay such opposites. Wenger says that Philip G. Mack "accepted noncombatant service at Camp Meade; was again received into the fellowship of the church after the war, but later united with the General Conference Mennonites" (70). He however did not “accept” service, he sought it out and he wanted to fight. He was only a noncombatant because he couldn’t get to France in time. Philip's mother, Sarah Ann Geisinger Mack, of a long Old Mennonite tradition of noncombatants, wouldn’t let Philip in the house with his uniform on (recollection of Anna Elizabeth). Also,when Philip went from the “new” Mennonites to the Presbyterians shortly after his marriage, his nephew, JH Reiff, who lived across the street, remembered that when Philip came home in his uniform his mother wouldn't let him in the house or let him stay there. As his niece Elizabeth Reiff put it, "Philip got thrown out of the communion for going to OCS instead of registering as a CO."
Wenger says Philip was again received into the fellowship of the church after the war, but later united with the General Conference Mennonites" (70), but more accurately, Philip confessed and repented to the church for his mother's sake and was received in that fellowship again, after which he lived at home until he married in 1925, but shortly thereafter followed the way of his sister Anna into the new Mennonites and from there, with wife Catherine became Presbyterian.
A similar situation exists perhaps with Gottshall Gottschalk, who signed the Skippack Alms Book twice in 1791 (Wenger, 102), although 6 others signed that year also. If it is the same person, Godshalk (Boorse) Godshalk (1762-1835), buried in Towamencin Mennonite Cemetery, he is on the Muster Roll of Towamencin Township under Captain Daniel Springer on 11/24/1780 (Perkiomen Region, 387-8).
Another striking example of Mennonite military service seems to exist in the life of Bishop Heinrich Kolb Hunsicker (3/7/1752-7/8/1836), who, being both a farmer and a minister of the Lower Skippack Mennonites and a Bishop, was also listed as a member of the 6th Class of Captain Dull's Company of Militia, 1st Battalion, Philadelphia Co. under the command of Col. Daniel Heister in 1778. He began signing the Skippack Alms book in 1781 even while being listed as a member of the Philadelphia Militia that same year. He signed the Alms Book 33 times, until 1832
There is a divergence of theory and practice. It is possible to suppose that the military connection was watered down, whether in the life of George C. Reiff or Philip Mack. George C. and Maria Reiff are buried in the Lower Skippack Mennonite cemetery. While Mennonites would bury strangers for the sake of charity or geography, for the most part they buried their own in their graveyards.
Most of George C.'s children are explicitly denominated as Mennonites in the immediate area.
Schwenks/Bauers
But more can be said of the Schwenk family of George C.’s wife. In 1779 Abraham Schwenk lived in Claytonville, the home of Henry Mack and Jacob L. Reiff a hundred years later. He subsequently bought a large farm in Frederick Township at Delphi, also called Zieglerville Station, where he built a tannery and farmed till about 1808. After that he owned 176 acres in Skippack Township along the Perkiomen Creek opposite Schwenksville. The Schwenks were members of Keeley's Lutheran Church to which Abraham Schwenk gave the ground on which the Lutheran Church was erected in Schwenksville. His estate was divided equally among nine children. In the will his daughter who married George Reiff is sometimes named Maria, sometimes Mary. Intermixing Mennonites and Lutherans, as in Maria Schwenk’s family, occurred also with Andrew and Henry Mack’s brother Peter, who was a Lutheran minister in Hummelstown in the 1880’s.
Maria Schwenk’s mother, Veronica Landis Bauer (4/10/1756 – 9/13/1840), was a Mennonite whose father, Michael Bauer (c. 1720-1784) married Veronica Landis about 1744-45. This Michael Bauer was just sitting down to a wedding banquet in 1776, celebrating his oldest daughter’s marriage to Christian Meyer, when soldiers of the Continental Army plundered the feast and carried off a wagon load of spoils to their camp (Ruth, ‘Twas Seeding Time, 91).
Michael Bauer was in turn the son of Hans Bauer (d. 1748), who owned land on the Perkiomen in 1734. In 1742 he bought 105 acres in Butter Valley in Colebrookdale and in 1743, 134 acres in Douglas Manor (also later the residence of Henry Mack). Both these properties were annexed into Hereford Township in 1753. (Strassburger, 316f). Strassburger says that Hans Bauer was "no doubt" buried in the Hereford Mennonite Cemetery, but the tombstone has been effaced so he does not appear in the Hereford Burial List compiled by Henry Mack in 1934. This Hans Bauer (d. 1748), a Mennonite, is said to have emigrated between 1708 and 1717 before settling in Colebrookdale (Strassburger, 315). Veronica Landis' mother was the daughter of another prominent Mennonite settler, Johannes Landis, of Bucks County (Strassburger, 320).
Butter Valley was a fertile area containing Hereford and Colebrookdale, both Mennonite colonies. The first Hereford meetinghouse was built about 1743 and is the location of the oft-mentioned Hereford burial ground. In 1749 Michael Bauer inherited lands in Colebrookdale from his father. He signed the petition of 1753 to the Philadelphia Court to erect the new Hereford Township and was among the Hereford residents taxed in 1758. Michael and his wife Veronica Landis are probably also buried in the Hereford ground. Their son Samuel (1746-1822) is. There were only three children, Samuel, Fronica and Anna. Veronica married Abraham M. Schwenk in 1779.
Like Abraham S. Reiff and John B. Bechtel in the Oberholtzer Division, the Bauer and Landis trails cross profoundly with another tributary of the Reiffs, the Bechtels and the Macks in the Mennonite church of Hereford.
Most notable was their first son George L. Reiff (1846-1932), known as Uncle George to succeeding generations (J.H. and Elizabeth), who maintained the farm in Worcester much visited by his youngest brother Jacob with his son, Howard, wife Anna and family, (Howard, Elizabeth and Florence). He also maintained the Old Mennonite ways. One purpose for which his brother Jacob first bought a car was to stay in touch with this brother, the farm and his roots; somewhat contradictorily, because Old Mennonites did not much drive. He used that car in the 1920’s to travel to Worcester to take communion with those he had grown up with. Among Mennonites the week prior to communion is an important service of repentance, it and the yearly communion not to be marker missed. Jacob, Abraham's youngest child, as opposed to George, the oldest, stands between the Old Mennonite and the New and was still going to worship with Uncle George in Worcester in 1929 when he could. In one letter to his grandson Howard, Jacob refers to their father Abraham:
“My father was always willing to pay a bill which he did know was correct in all its items. I can recall my father sent me to Norristown for a load of feed with 3 horses and in making the turn at Jeffersonville, through my carelessness, I tore off another man’s wheel of his wagon. The man went to my father and told him what I done and demanded him to pay the damage and father was willing. As I grew older I came to realize that extreme carefulness has been one of the foundation stones of my father’s success” (Letter of 27 Jan 1929).
We surmise that Uncle George obtained his father’s land in Worcester (Methacton) after his father’s death in 1879. The Worcester Mennonite burial ground there, begun about 1744, is the final resting place of Abraham Reiff and Jacob L. and probably other Reiffs, along with many soldiers who died in the battle of Germantown. Christopher Sauer, the polemicist and printer of the German Bible is buried there with other first settlers.
Actual details are scarce, but a signal one occurs with the name "Abraham Reiff" inscribed upon a beam in the attic of the third Worcester meetinghouse. Such actualities are always wonderful, like the ornate signature of John Bechtel below in The Wandering Soul or the signature of Jacob and Anna Reiff carved in the old mill in Skippack. Sometime prior to 1771, maybe as early as 1739, that first meetinghouse had been used as a school, then rebuilt about 1804 and again in 1873. Abraham Reiff was a member of the building committee of this third meetinghouse when he so inscribed his name (The Perkiomen Region [PR] I, 104).
Trustee
He was also one of three designated trustees for the receipt of land in 1860 when that congregation had added to the "Mennonist Society burying ground of Worcester" (Wenger, 107) and he served as trustee, August 9, 1873, for the purchase of the land where the third meetinghouse was built. So Abraham Reiff's name is preserved in relation to the Mennonites three ways, trustee for the cemetery addition, trustee for land for the new building and member of the building committee. He was ordained in 1877 as a deacon at Worcester "as an old man" (Wenger, 99) and served until his death two years later. His son, George L. Reiff (12/8/1846 – 10/8/1932), the above “Uncle George,” continued his father's service to this church as Deacon from 1881 until his death in 1932.
All these generations knew one another. Mennonite Bishop Andrew Mack, refers to George Reiff’s advice in his letter of 8 Oct 1874, “that is what George Reiff said we should do.” Worcester is notable also as a Schwenkfelder settlement. Church, school and burial ground hold antiquarian interest, but Abraham Reiff had originally came from Skippack and Salford where preceding Reiffs had lived.
Jacob Landis Reiff (30 Oct 1857 – 8 Jun 1929)
Henry Mack first records that Jacob L. Reiff operated a general store, probably in Bechtelsville, starting about March 5, 1890: "J. L. Reiff's – dry goods and groceries," where he sold him "272 lbs. of pork @ 5 ½ lb." The $14.96 in trade this generated was taken as
Mar. 5. l bu clover seed, etc. $ 4.10
Mar. 12 Groceries 2.95
Mar. 25 l gal molasses, sundries .51
May 20 Dry goods and groceries 4.95
June 20 " " " " 2.45
Henry patronized several different stores of this kind, but after this one series of transactions he does not record another visit to J. L. Reiff until 4 years later when he buys dry goods and groceries, and once a great deal of cloth in May, June and October 1894 and March 1895. Before and after the 1890 transaction he traded at Bechtels (W. B. Bechtel), Mary's and with J. F. Stauffer, each time buying roughly equivalent kinds of goods. If we seek a reason for the 4 years hiatus we speculate that either J. L. Reiff was out of business for that while, which doesn't reckon, or that maybe Henry wised up, for as Lib says of J.L., "he was a born trader and soon had a reputation for making sharp deals" (5). Jacob L. no doubt was involved in similar enterprises before 1890.
Latshaw family VI: David H. Latshaw, son of John B. and Maria (Hiestand) Latshaw, and now the leading merchant at Bechtelsville, was born in Douglass township, Montgomery county, Feb. 28, 1878. He attended the local schools of his native district, and worked upon the home farm until he was twenty-one years of age. He then became a clerk in the general store of Jacob L. Reiff, at Bechtelsville, and after clerking there for a year and a half, succeeded him in business, buying out the entire property, stock, fixtures and good will. He carries a complete line of general merchandise, and deals largely in wholesale salts, handling the famous Genesee salts. Since October, 1901, he has been postmaster at Bechtelsville. He is a member of the Mennonite Church, belonging like most of the family, to the church at Bally. He has been active in the Sunday-school for many years, being superintendent and chorister in the Bechtelsville Sunday-school.
What do these tell us about Catharine Rosenberger? In the 1850 Census for Hatfield Township, Montgomery County, PA two families are listed for the same dwelling:
Jacob Gehman, listed as family head # 35 (farmer, born in PA, living alone,)
and family #34, Abraham Clemmer, 60, Elizabeth Clemmer, likewise 60, and Catherine Clemmer, 22 (all born in PA). Next door to them is family #36, Samuel Rosenberger, 38, and Mary Rosenberger, 36.
In the 1860 Census a Jacob D. Gehman, 34, and Catherine Gehman, 34, are listed together with Henry Gehman, 4 and William Gehman, 18 (Jacob's brother?), so it appears that Catharine Clemmer married Jacob Gehman after 1850. Also living with them at that time is a Catherine Rosenberger, age 4, which is the age she would have been in 1860.
Jacob L. Reiff (1857 - 1929) was the son of Abraham S. who had a large family.
Latshaw family:VI) David H. Latshaw, son of John B. and Maria (Hiestand) Latshaw, and now the leading merchant at Bechtelsville, was born in Douglass township, Montgomery county, Feb. 28, 1878. He attended the local schools of his native district, and worked upon the home farm until he was twenty-one years of age. He then became a clerk in the general store of Jacob L. Reiff, at Bechtelsville, and after clerking there for a year and a half, succeeded him in business, buying out the entire property, stock, fixtures and good will. He carries a complete line of general merchandise, and deals largely in wholesale salts, handling the famous Genesee salts. Since October, 1901, he has been postmaster at Bechtelsville. He is a member of the Mennonite Church, belonging like most of the family, to the church at Bally. He has been active in the Sunday-school for many years, being superintendent and chorister in the Bechtelsville Sunday-school.
On Feb. 20, 1902, Mr. Latshaw was married to Mary Clemmer, daughter of Abraham and Mary (Funk) Clemmer, and have one daughter, Amy Lola C. Beside his store Mr. Latshaw has a forty-two acre farm, and is noted for his success as a potato raiser.
Howard Rosenberger Reiff (1880-1927)
Upon graduation Howard worked in his father's general store, "probably in Bechtelsville" (Lib, 4). Later his father opened a store in
He too had a stepmother, "not unkind." It looks like Howard got a double dose, stepmother "cold, inhibited and rigid" (3) father domineering. You can see that opposites attract. Anna, heroic, a fighter, resists the forces of authority by exercising her choice.
When he courted Anna he would hire a livery at the railroad station, always trying to get the same horse, Billy, who he would gallop extravagantly up the lane and immediately upon arrival would pull on the reins and skid to a stop in the dust, with the exclamation, "Whoa, Billy." To the appreciative audience of her four younger brothers.
The reading I got about Howard, filtered through his son J. H., was of an intense, formal person and a disciplinarian, like any good father should be(?). Of the photographs
of him on the beach in presumably his late teens and early 20's he looks to be a competitor, stocky of build, powerful, complicated, or contradicted. (Quote from his letters viz. His sense of humor, etc.)
The roster is;
1. Hans George Reiff (c. 1659-1726) Buried Salford Mennonite Cemetery.
2. Jacob Reiff the Elder (1698-1782) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Cemetery
3. George Landis Reiff (1740-1808)
4. George Hendricks Reiff (1768-1847) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Church
5. George Clemens Reiff (1793-1860) Buried Lower Skippack Mennonite Meetinghouse
6. Abraham Schwenk Reiff (1817-1879) Buried Methacton Cemetery.
7. Jacob Landis Reiff (1857-1929) Buried Methacton Cemetery.
8. Howard Rosenberger Reiff (1880-1927) Buried Northwood Cemetery, Top of Broad St.
9. Jacob Howard (Mack) Reiff (1908-1994) Buried West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala-Cynwyd.
10. Andrew Edwin (Yeo) Reiff (1941-
11. Aeyrie Edwin Arthur (Carlson) Reiff (1985-
12. Andrew Edwin Arthur (Carlson) Reiff (1989 -
13. Theodore Kristopher Aeyrie (Bullens) Reiff (2015-
13. Theodore Kristopher Aeyrie (Bullens) Reiff (2015-
14. Nikolai Agassi (Bullens) Reiff (2018-
15. Jameson Alan Edwin (Melton) Reiff (2020-
Works Cited
Joel Alderfer, "Several Documents Relating to Early Franconia Conference Mennonites." In Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania, Newsletter Supplement, July, 1984.
Richard Warren Davis. Emigrants, Refugees and Prisoners. Vol. II. 1997.
Douglas L. Good. The Growth of a Congregation: A History of the Hereford Mennonite Church New Order. Bally, PA. 1988.
Christian Funk. Mirror for all Mankind. Norristown, PA,1814.
John F. Funk. The Mennonite Church and Her Accusers. Elkhart, Indiana: Mennonite Publishing Company, 1878.
The Perkiomen Region [PR] Originally published by the Historical and Natural Science Society of the Perkiomen Region, Pennsburg, PA, 1921, republished by Adams Apple Press, 1994.
Fred J. Riffe. Reiff to Riffe Family in America, 1995.
John L. Ruth. ‘Twas Seeding Time: A Mennonite View of the American Revolution. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1976.
Ralph Beaver Strassburger. The Strassburger Family and Allied Families of Pennsylvania. Gwynedd Valley, PA, 1922.
J. C. Wenger. History of the Mennonites of the Franconia Conference. Telford, PA. Franconia Mennonite Historical Society, 1937. Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, PA, 1985.
