Wright County Amish Mennonite Church (Dayton Township, Iowa, USA)
Wright County Amish Mennonite Church, now extinct, located one mile east of the Dayton Center Schoolhouse, was founded in 1893 when five families from Johnson County, Iowa, led by Solomon Swartzendruber from McPherson County, Kansas, settled near Clarion, joined in the following years by more families. From the beginning church services were held the Gilette Schoolhouse in Dayton Township. In 1898 a meetinghouse was built on a plot of land donated by Joel Swartzendruber. Early in its history some contention arose over the observance of Amish traditions and practices and later over the use of the German language in church services. In the spring of 1901 Solomon Swartzendruber and his brother-in-law John Gunden moved away from the colony. The remaining members tried to maintain their church life, but unrest continued and more moved away. In 1911 the last families left the community and a promising congregation in one of the finest farming communities in the United States became extinct. A few years later the church building was dismantled and rebuilt in Daytonville, Iowa, for the Daytonville Mission. Later it was sold. The cemetery, which contained the remains of some half-dozen members of the congregation or their children, was discontinued in 1941, when the bodies were exhumed and shipped to the settlements where the former residents of this church now live, and laid away in the family burial plots.
Author(s) | S. C Yoder |
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Date Published | 1959 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Yoder, S. C. "Wright County Amish Mennonite Church (Dayton Township, Iowa, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 9 Sep 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wright_County_Amish_Mennonite_Church_(Dayton_Township,_Iowa,_USA)&oldid=69380.
APA style
Yoder, S. C. (1959). Wright County Amish Mennonite Church (Dayton Township, Iowa, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 9 September 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wright_County_Amish_Mennonite_Church_(Dayton_Township,_Iowa,_USA)&oldid=69380.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 990-991. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.