Mercersburg Mennonite Church (Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
The Williamson Mennonite Church, in Williamson, Pennsylvania, was rooted in the Brown's Mill congregation, part of the Franklin County Mennonite settlement that shared ministerial leadership. In 1830, the Mennonites in Antrim Township built a meetinghouse near Lazarus Brown's Mill. The brick meetinghouse followed the design of earlier meetinghouses in Lancaster County, and was called Browns Mill. In 1867, as the congregation's demographics changed, it decided to build a new meetinghouse on a plot with a cemetery located north of Marion. This building became the Marion Mennonite Church.
The distance to the new Marion meetinghouse was excessive for some members who lived near Williamson and Upton, which was approximately ten miles away. These members built a frame meetinghouse in 1869, about 1.5 miles from Williamson. These two meetinghouses shared pastoral leadership until 1948.
The Williamson members began a union Sunday school in 1898 in cooperation with other local Protestant congregations, although it only lasted a few years.
During the years of low membership in the first decades of the 20th century, the Marion congregation considered closing the Williamson meetinghouse, which held services only every four weeks. However, it finally began to rally in the 1930s when several families joined to assist with the work.
In 1980-1981, the Williamson congregation built a new building in Mercersburg and dedicated it on 26 April 1981. It changed its name to Mercersburg Mennonite Church.
In 2017, the congregation became part of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference when the small Franklin Mennonite Conference withdrew from Mennonite Church USA and voted to become a bishop district of the Lancaster Conference (later LMC: a Fellowship of Anabaptist Churches).
Bibliography
"Bro. Mahlon Eshleman...." Gospel Herald 41, no. 13 (30 March 1948): 308.
Burdge Jr., Edsel and Samuel Horst. Building on the Gospel Foundation: The Mennonites of Franklin County, Pennsylvania and Washington County, Maryland, 1730-1970. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2004: 180-184, 275-276, 448, 453-454, 565.
"A dedication service...." Gospel Herald 74, no. 18 (5 May 1981): 363
Additional Information
Address: 10060 Buchanan Trail West, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania 17236
Telephone: 717-328-9282
Website: https://mercersburgmennonite.org/
Denominational Affiliations:
LMC: a Fellowship of Anabaptist Churches
Pastoral Leaders at Mercersburg Mennonite Church
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Jacob Lehman (1772-1831) | 1805-1831 |
| Christian Shirk (1771-1831) | 1813-1831 |
| Jacob Hege (1780-1863) | 1832-1863 |
| Benjamin Lesher (1815-1897) | 1850-1895 |
| Jacob W. Hege (1845-1922) | 1893-1922 |
| George W. Ernst (1853-1952) | 1898-1945 |
| William W. Hege (1859-1929) | 1907-1929 |
| John "J. Irvin" Lehman (1895-1985) | 1922-1948 |
| Norman H. Martin (1910-1985) | 1937-1948 |
| Mahlon D. Eshleman (1926-2015) (Bishop) |
1948-1960 1960-1998? |
| Lloyd W. Gingrich (1933-2023) | 1961-1998? |
| Douglas Miller | 1985-1991 |
| Allen R. Eshleman | 1998?-2015 |
| David Possinger (Associate) | 2001- |
| Steve Sauder (Pastoral Care) | 2021- |
| Ethan Myers (Associate) | 2024- |
Mercersburg Mennonite Church Membership
| Year | Members |
|---|---|
| 1909 | 6 |
| 1916 | 4 |
| 1920 | 7 |
| 1930 | 6 |
| 1940 | 20 |
| 1950 | 51 |
| 1960 | 56 |
| 1970 | 74 |
| 1980 | 75 |
| 1990 | 101 |
| 2000 | 109 |
| 2009 | 150 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By Clarance Shank. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 957. All rights reserved.
Williamson Mennonite Church (Mennonite Church), located one mile west of Williamson in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, a member of the Washington County, Maryland, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania Mennonite Conference, had a joint ministerial body with the Marion congregation until 23 March 1948, when Mahlon Eshleman was ordained exclusively for this congregation (Williamson). Previous to 1869, when the meetinghouse was built, the members worshiped jointly with what is now the Marion congregation, the meetinghouse then being located at Brown's Mill. By 1924 the membership had dwindled to 5, but by 1954 had risen to 65. In 1957 the minister was Mahlon D. Eshleman, and the membership was 49.
| Author(s) | Samuel J Steiner |
|---|---|
| Date Published | September 2025 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Steiner, Samuel J. "Mercersburg Mennonite Church (Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. September 2025. Web. 19 Jan 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mercersburg_Mennonite_Church_(Mercersburg,_Pennsylvania,_USA)&oldid=181248.
APA style
Steiner, Samuel J. (September 2025). Mercersburg Mennonite Church (Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 January 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mercersburg_Mennonite_Church_(Mercersburg,_Pennsylvania,_USA)&oldid=181248.
©1996-2026 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.