Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church (Wayland, Iowa, USA)
Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church (Mennonite Church USA), located at 2670 330th Street, Wayland, Washington County, Iowa, was organized in 1862. Previous to its organization the congregation had been in charge of Joseph Goldsmith, the bishop of the nearby Henry County church, and was also served by preachers Joseph Wittrig and Christian Bechler. Meetings were held in private homes until 1868, when the first church, called the Noble Church, was built northwest of Noble. This meetinghouse was replaced in 1895 by a more modern building. A third church, built in 1911 on the same site, was in use in the 1950s. The first preacher and bishop after the 1862 organization was Benjamin Eicher.
After its separation from the Amish Mennonite Conference in 1874, the Eicher Church, as it came to be called, with about 50 members, followed an independent course for a number of years. In 1892 it joined the Middle District Conference (General Conference Mennonite) and in 1893 the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Those who served as pastors of the Eicher Church up to 1955 were Benjamin Eicher, H. G. Allebach, P. E. Stucky, S. M. Musselman, L. L. Miller, P. K. Regier, H. J. Schrag, A. H. Miller, D. E. Welty, H. D. Metzker, Walter H. Regier, Leander Fast, and H. L. Metzker. In 1953 approximately half of the congregation of 179 withdrew from the Mennonite Church to establish the Fern Cliff Free Evangelical Church under the leadership of Leander Fast. In 1955 the membership was 112, with H. E. Nunemaker as pastor.
Bibliography
Gingerich, Melvin. The Mennonites in Iowa: Marking the one hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Mennonites to Iowa. Iowa City, Iowa: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1939.
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. Mennonitisches Lexikon. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. I, 564.
| Author(s) | Walter H Regier |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1956 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Regier, Walter H. "Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church (Wayland, Iowa, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1956. Web. 18 Dec 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Eicher_Emmanuel_Mennonite_Church_(Wayland,_Iowa,_USA)&oldid=91666.
APA style
Regier, Walter H. (1956). Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church (Wayland, Iowa, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 18 December 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Eicher_Emmanuel_Mennonite_Church_(Wayland,_Iowa,_USA)&oldid=91666.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 168. All rights reserved.
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