Maple Grove Church (Topeka, Indiana, USA)

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The Maple Grove Mennonite Church, located in Topeka, Indiana, formerly a member of the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference, was organized with 18 charter members in May 1854 under the leadership of Bishop Isaac Smucker (1810-1893). Smucker was followed by Jonathan Kurtz (1848-1930) and Edwin Yoder (1889-), who was the bishop and senior minister in 1957. Others who served as associate ministers until 1957 were David F. Hartzler (1816-1889), David Morrell (1828-1905), J. S. Hartzler (1857-1953), Andrew Yontz (1864-1938), Raymond Hartzler (1893-1988), C. Norman Kraus (1924- ), and Ellis Croyle (1930- ). The first meetinghouse was a frame building erected south of Topeka in 1856, replaced by a larger brick structure in 1879. The congregation reached a peak of 225 members in the early 1920s. In 1924 after several years of growing dissatisfaction, about half of the congregation, which then numbered 150, withdrew from the Indiana-Michigan Conference and later merged with a small congregation in Topeka, Ind., belonging to the Central Conference, now called the Topeka Mennonite Church (General Conference Mennonite).

The group who remained with the conference erected a frame building with a seating capacity of 300, at the south edge of town, which was dedicated in May 1925 and is still in use. The membership in 1955 was 189, largely rural. The original families came almost exclusively from the Amish settlement in Fairfield Countyn, Ohio. The congregation is now an unaffiliated congregation.


Author(s) C. Norman Kraus
Date Published 1957

Cite This Article

MLA style

Kraus, C. Norman. "Maple Grove Church (Topeka, Indiana, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1957. Web. 19 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Maple_Grove_Church_(Topeka,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=92573.

APA style

Kraus, C. Norman. (1957). Maple Grove Church (Topeka, Indiana, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Maple_Grove_Church_(Topeka,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=92573.



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Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, pp. 474-475. All rights reserved.


©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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