View source for Wood County Mennonite Church (Jerry City, Ohio, USA)

Wood County Mennonite Church ([[Mennonite Church (MC)|Mennonite Church]]), founded ca.1835-1845, became extinct 1882-1885 when several groups of families left for Elkhart County, [[Indiana (USA)|Indiana]], and ten families moved to Alanson, Michigan, leaving only six members. The last minister had moved to [[Wayne County (Ohio, USA)|Wayne County]], Ohio, in 1884. The meetinghouse, built of hewn logs with a poplar board ceiling before 1856, was razed in 1885, and in 1910 Lewis P. Risser and George Milner, "trustees of the Mennonite Cemetery Association," deeded the cemetery plot on the northeast banks of the South Branch of the Portage River to "the trustees of Perry township." Some of the early settlers were from the Franconia district in southeastern Pennsylvania. Names of members included Tyson, [[Landes (Landis) family|Landis]], Pletcher, Risser, Legron (Lechrone), Bachman, Brandt, and Boyer. Ministers of the congregation were Jacob Kaempfer, Henry Pletcher, and Jacob Tyson. Jacob Kaempfer preached only in German; his wife, a member of the Winebrennerians (Church of God), never attended services with him. Henry Pletcher could preach in both English and German, preferred English, favored Sunday school, and was silenced as too "liberal," before he and his friends moved to Indiana and united with the [[Yellow Creek Mennonite Church (Harrison Township, Elkhart County, Indiana, USA)|Yellow Creek]] congregation. His successor, Jacob Tyson, sided with the Wisler faction. The congregation never had a resident bishop, but was served by Bishop [[Brenneman, John M. (1816-1895)|John M. Brenneman]] until his retirement and then by Peter Imhoff, bishop of the Wisler congregations in Ashland and western Wayne counties. Unsatisfactory health conditions in the "Black Swamp" area may have been a determining factor in the removal of a large part of the congregation to [[Michigan (USA)|Michigan]]. Typhoid and malaria took a heavy toll. The church was near Jerry City.
= Bibliography =
Umble, John.  "Extinct Mennonite Churches in Ohio." ''Mennonite Quarterly Review'' XVIII (1944): 89-116.
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