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Mennonite Meetinghouse

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1825; 1815 cemetery. 114 Wise Rd.
  • Mennonite Meetinghouse (Lu Donnelly)

Located on the outskirts of Harmony, this is one of the oldest unchanged Mennonite meetinghouses in North America and the oldest west of the Alleghenies. The Mennonite sect is named for sixteenth-century Dutch reformer Menno Simons, who advocated adult baptism by choice, nonviolence, and the teachings of the New Testament. This stone meetinghouse originally had three bays; the fourth, of brick, was an early addition. The fading Mennonite congregation ceased meeting in 1902, but, inside, the original bleacher-style benches, a desklike pulpit, and the original window sash and doors remain. The congregants were segregated by sex; men and women not only sat separately, they entered through separate doors. One-half mile east is a two-story, four-bay stone house built in 1816 for the first local Mennonite bishop, John Boyer (295 Perry Highway, U.S. 19). It, too, serves as an example of the Mennonite's stone building techniques.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Mennonite Shantz-Wise Barn
Harmony Museum
Frederick Reichert Rapp House
Harmony Inn (Austin Pearce House)
Neff and Schmidt Houses

Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Mennonite Meetinghouse", [Harmony, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-BU26.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 185-186.

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