Wadsworth (Ohio, USA)
Wadsworth, Ohio, the site of the first Mennonite higher school in America (Wadsworth Mennonite School, 1868-78) and the first Mennonite Sunday school in Ohio (1854), is located 30 miles (50 km) south of Cleveland in southeastern Medina County. Once an agricultural center and then a coal-mining town, it is now an industrial city of 10,000, known for the production of matches, valves, rubber soles, brick and tile, and iron castings.
The Mennonite community is located for the most part west of town, where they settled north and south along the River Styx as early as 1828. The Wisler Mennonite Church stands on the site of the original church (three miles southwest). Almost all of its 30 members are rural, half of them living in the Wadsworth area. Nearby is the Bethel Mennonite Church (MC), (132 members), organized after the division of 1872. Of its 40 families, 33 consider Wadsworth their shopping center, and 40 per cent earn the major portion of their incomes in town. Wadsworth First Mennonite Church (GCMC), founded on the outskirts in 1852 and moved into town forty years later, is over 80 per cent urban, but 22 per cent of its 250 members are identified with other communities.
Bibliography
Kreider, Rachel. "One Hundred Years in Wadsworth." Mennonite Life 8 (October 1953).
| Author(s) | Rachel W Kreider |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1959 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Kreider, Rachel W. "Wadsworth (Ohio, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wadsworth_(Ohio,_USA)&oldid=163366.
APA style
Kreider, Rachel W. (1959). Wadsworth (Ohio, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wadsworth_(Ohio,_USA)&oldid=163366.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 866. All rights reserved.
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