There seems to exist in the human mind a profound repugnance to the idea of being lost or annihilated. A certain speaker some years ago in discussing the question of immortality made the assertion that if he were permitted to choose between total annihilation and the never-ceasing torments of Dante's infernal lake of fire, he should choose,the latter.
Although not every one may be of the same mind, yet we all endeavor instinctively not only to avoid death and lengthen our lives, but we try to perpetuate the memory of ourselves and of our friends and also of good deeds performed and of the things which belonged to us and to our forefathers.
To this end did the ancient Egyptians erect their towering pyramids; to such an end are the lettered tombstone and the costly monolith placed by the graves of the departed; to such an end has been organized our Historical Society, and to such an end, in part at least, has this paper been prepared on Two Dead and Lost Churches of the Swatara.
A kind but somewhat hypercritical friend has suggested that another qualifying phrase should have been substituted for the words "dead and lost" in the headlines of my paper, but since the term is borrowed from the infallible pen of an ex-president of the Pennsylvania German Society, it must remain and stand as quite correct and eminently proper!
More than a century and a half ago on a spot which at the present time is enclosed within cultivated fields, quite a distance from any public road, about halfway between Fredericksburg and Jonestown and near the line of the South Mountain Railroad (another defunct institution) stood the unpretentious structure known in its day as the "Church of the Swatara."
Presumably it was built of logs from the "forest primeval," hewn down and roughly dressed by the axes of the early settlers. Neither dome nor spire crowned its roof, no hideous gargoyles grinned from dizzy heights upon the passer-by, and its rude interior knew neither - nave nor transept, neither carved capital nor fluted column.
Whether, like many of the churches of the early Pennsylvania Germans, it had a little neighbor in the shape of a schoolhouse, history sayeth not. In fact history has so little to say in regard to this place of worship, and the data for the compiler are so meagre, that it is not surprising to find it spoken of as "one of the dead and lost churches" of the Reformed, or, as one writer phrases it, "the German Presbyterian communion."
Whether the building was erected, and a congregation of worshipers formed, by the earlier tide of settlers, namely, the Scotch-Irish who seemed to have gone before that greater and more thrifty stream of sturdy Rhinelanders who came to stay and of whom we have some imperfect records, is not known. The fact that it has been termed a "German Presbyterian church" would seem to indicate that under its roof first assembled a congregation who listened to sermons and sang hymns in the language and of the doctrines of John Knox. But in the absence of all positive evidence this is nothing but mere speculation.
With such a paucity of data perhaps the only thing which may render this paper worthy of a place among the archives of our society is the historical fact of its existence, and the geographical certainty of its location within the present borders of Lebanon county, at a spot away from all large and small centres of population, a place in fact which would not be chosen in our day as the site for a congregation to hold religious services.
The church must have been built long years before Frederick Stump and William Jones staked off town lots at Nassau and Williamsburg, and no doubt its congregation was composed of simple and unpolished pioneers and settlers.
In substantiation of this statement it may be pointed out that Williamsburg, now Jonestown, was laid out in the forks of the Swatara in about the year 1761; while the village of Nassau, afterwards named Stumpstown and now Fredericksburg, was founded seven years earlier, in 1754 on land for which John Reynolds took up a warrant as early as 1727, and which he later sold to Frederick Stump.
And from the best authority we learn that the Swatara Church existed as a place of worship where met people of the Reformed faith prior to 1740. This authority is no less than the early book of records, or church register, which is still in an excellent state of preservation in the possession of C. D. Zehring, Esq., at Jonestown.
The entries are in the German script but a great portion have been translated into English by Mr. Zehring, who possesses not only a knowledge of both languages, but also the attributes of a courteous and obliging gentlemen.
In this book is recorded the fact that "in the year 1752 was this church book purchased by the Elders, Peter Klob and Henrich Sauter for the use of the Reformed Church on the Swatara, to be used as a Church Register by the minister, Conrad Templeman."
Although this entry was without a doubt made by the minister's own hand, and although it gives the date of 1751 as the time of buying the book, in it are recorded incidents of Rev. Templeman's clerical ministrations as early as 1740. At first sight these statements seem conflicting, but it may have been - probably was - the case that the first entries were made from notes or from another book since destroyed or lost.
This Conrad Templeman was a remarkable man. His full name was John Conrad Templeman, and he was the son of a miller of Weinheim in the Palatinate. Born in 1692, living for some thirty years at the famous Castle of Heidelberg, almost within the shadow of the great University of that name, he acquired an education in the old country, which enabled him to preach and to teach school on coming to America. He arrived here between 1721 and 1725, the exact time not being known, and though a tailor by trade he took up 200 acres of land in Lebanon township.
He lived near Cornwall, in a house the picture of which is hanging on the wall of Rev. Mr. Bromer's study in the parsonage of the First Reformed church of this city. He began preaching in 1725. In a letter written by him in 1733 he says that the church, meaning the "Reformed Communion of the time," had its origin in 1725 at Conestoga, "with a gathering here and there in dwelling-houses upon Sundays and holidays." How soon after this the Swatara Church was built is not known. Templeman preached at the "Hill Church" also, as well as at his own house.
Frequent mention of Templeman is made in Rev. Michael Schlatter's journal. From one entry bearing date of June 1747 I quote as follows: "A certain tailor from Heidelberg, named Templeman, was some twenty years ago urged by the people into their service as preacher, they being willing to be instructed and comforted by a pious layman, rather than be wholly without the public service of God. This man," Schlatter continues, "is reported by the congregation as a person of correct views, quiet and peaceable in his spirit."
It will be noticed that the journal was written in 1747 and that some twenty years before, it says, he was called and began his labors as a preacher. Though a layman and not ordained as a minister, he was regarded as quite orthodox, and was invited to preach even by Schlatter himself on the occasion of the latter administering the Lord's Supper at White Oak Land.
On this same occasion it was that Templeman requested to be "placed in such circumstances that as a regularly constituted minister he might conduct the holy service," (this language is quoted from the journal,) "in the congregations of Quittopahilla, Swatara, Donegal, etc."
In short his petition was that he be ordained by the proper authorities as a regular minister of the Reformed Church. His application was supported by Schlatter and forwarded by him to the old country, where by the Synod of North Holland were his wishes at length granted in the year 1751 after preaching as a layman and performing clerical ministrations nearly twenty-five years.
Seven years before meeting Schlatter, Templeman officiated in the church of the Swatara by baptizing infants, according to the entries in the old church-book.
The first of these acts was the baptism of John Henry, a son of Martin and Margaret Ezler on Oct. 1, 1740, the sponsors being Henry Dubs and wife. The second was that of a son of Philip and Anna Margaretta Houtz on Dec. 16 of the same year. The whole number of baptisms in that year was five, in 1741 four others received the rite, eight more in the following year, eleven in 1747 and various numbers up to 1752.
Among these we find the names of Ottman Schnebly, Ludwig Bore, Thomas Mattern and Daniel Shugar. Also the more or less familiar names of Walborn, Fisher, Shuey, Moyer, Miller, Sigmund, Long, Bindnagle, Kremer, Noll,, Winkelblech, Epler, Bucher, Schmael, Sholl, Bachman, Brunner, Bluth, Wagner, Klein, Hetrich, Croll, Gettel, Kolb, Sauder, Dietzler, Bollman, Gerst, Schnotterly and Schaeffer.
In 1754, two or three years after Templeman's ordination, he received into the church and administered the Holy Sacrament to Nicholas Boltz, Peter Gutman, Mary Magdalena Matter, Veronica Schnevely, Susanna Weiss and Anna Barbara Schnevely.
Besides Templeman, it is said that Rev. Michael Schlatter and Rev. John Casper Stoever, the two great pioneer organizers of the Reformed and Lutheran churches in this section, both preached in this church of the Swatara. And in addition to these there were still others as we shall note.
Among the Germans of Pennsylvania in the first half of the eighteenth century were many diverse religious elements. Besides the Lutherans and Reformed, there were Moravians, Dunkers, Mennonites, Schwenkfelters, Seventh Day People, and certain Mystics known as New-Born, Ronsdorfers, Inspirationists and others.
An effort was made early in the forties to form a sort of union among these different denominations. Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian leader, was one of the instigators of this movement which resulted in what was called the "Congregation of God in the Spirit." This association comprised many of the emotional natures belonging to different sects or organizatians, and may, perhaps, in a measure be likened to the Christian Endeavor Society of our day. Of this body were two men, Rev. Christian Henry Rauch and Rev. John Brandmuller, who preached in the Church of the Swatara between the years 1745 and 1750.
It is of interest to note that the cousins of the South African Boers who have in this year of grace, 1900, been robbed of their independence by grasping England, namely the people of old Holland, were extremely kind and helpful to our German forefathers of Pennsylvania, in sending assistance in the shape of men and money to the struggling Reformed churches here.
According to a certain Dutch writer they forwarded to the latter $1200 annually for a period of sixty years, or about sixty to seventy thousand dollars. Dr. Good thinks this estimate is too high, and he places it at a total of nearly $26,000. Out of this sum the Church of the Swatara received ten pounds and eight shillings annually for quite a number of years.
It is sad to state that Rev. Templeman's eyesight failed and that he became stone blind a year or two before his death. He departed this life in 1761 and his remains lie buried on what is known as Templeman's Hill near his early home about five miles south of Lebanon.
About the year 1765, soon after Templeman's death, the congregation of the Swatara separated into two divisions, one part going for greater convenience to the village of Stumpstown to worship in a new Union church called St. John's, and the other part doing the same thing at Jonestown even to the building of the same kind of church and give it the same name.
The old place was abandoned, and in all probability it fell into neglect and decay and was finally razed to the ground; the land surrounding it reverted to the adjoining farms, now the property of Mrs. Rebecca Overholtzer and that of the heirs of John Krall, deceased, and in course of time every vestige of the building disappeared.
It may not be out of place in a history of this old church to relate an adventure which befel one of its members in its vicinity. It was during the fearful times of the fifties in the last century, that a terrible incursion of Indians from the north occurred, when a large district underwent a veritable reign of terror, and many farms were devastated by the savages who were instigated and armed by the French. Heads of families were killed in the fields; women and children were murdered and carried away captive, and many settlers were driven from their homes.
Among the sufferers was a Schnevely family whose members in all probability were of Rev. Conrad Templeman's congregation, for the name occurs more than once in the old book of church records.
Their farm lay a mile to the northwest of the church and was one of the ill-fated places visited by the red-skinned marauders. Jacob Schnevely the owner was murdered but his family made their escape and reached the Tulpehocken settlement. Here they remained with friends for some weeks or months until the savages were said to have taken their departure, and times to have settled again into apparent quiet in the district. The widow Schnevely, who evidently was a remarkably courageous woman, determined to travel up the country and see for herself if it was safe to return with her children and take possession of her home.
She traveled on horseback, and although there is no public road near the site now, her bridlepath led past the church; As she approached the spot two Indians rushed forth from their place of concealment with the evident purpose of capturing both her and her horse. Urging her animal on to his utmost speed she narrowly escaped the savages, although one of them hung on to her saddle cloth for some distance when he lost his hold and she sped on her way back to her friends in the Tulpehocken region with whom she took up her abode until it was safer to return. This she eventually did, and, marrying a second time, became Mrs. Michael Decker. A son of hers, John Adam Decker, entered Captain Moser's company of Pennsylvania soldiers and fought the British in the Revolutionary War, and she had the honor of becoming the great-grandmother of my friend C. D. Zehring, Esq., to whom I am indebted for the facts of this narrative.
Close by the old church towards the north was a graveyard, but whose bones found rest there tradition fails to say and records there are none. It is said however that no bodies were ever disinterred and removed from the place, and it is more than likely that the dust of such as found burial there has long since mingled with the common parent of all flesh where it will forever remain.
Although no lettered tombstone marks their graves, yet we are safe to bslieve that their rest is as unbroken and their sleep as profound as that of the rich and the great whose bones repose in costly tombs under monuments of sculptured marble and pyramids of ponderous stone. The site, as near as I could locate it, is a very quiet spot not far from a small streamlet which, like Tennyson's book, gurgles on forever amid the meads and glades stretching to the north and south.
A hundred years, more or less, after the erection of the First Church of the Swatara, and long after its decay and disappearance, there arose another edifice on the banks of the same stream, but on its southern shores and about a mile or more to the southeast of the site of the former.
It, too, was of modest dimensions and of simple architecture, for it was built of partly dressed logs with the interspaces between them filled with short slabs of wood and mortar.
Originally designed and erected as a schoolhouse, it was used for that purpose from the time of its construction in 1838 until the township adopted the free school system.
Of the old-time schoolmasters
on the hard benches! within its walls, very little is known. One of them bore the name of Ferdinand Deitzler and another that of John Peter.
The structure was built on land of Joseph Kreider Sr., by the farmers of the vicinity, each of whom contributed a log of timber or two, as well as more or less of manual labor and some money. Abraham Light and Christian Wenger were the building committee.
The ground on which it stood is a somewhat rocky slope, or hill, known in the neighborhood as the "Ox-Head," a few rods east of Wenger's bridge spanning the Swatara. It is on the north side of the public road and about midway between Mt. Zion and Jonestown.
Swatara was one of the first townships in the county that accepted the free school system, and incidentally also the state appropriation, and after that event the building was no longer used as an educational institution.
The land was part of a tract which the "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, by patent dated the 13th of March, 1811, did grant unto Henry Light, enrolled in Patent Book H, No. 4, page 555, and which the said Henry Light and his wife by their indenture, dated the 3d of April, 1822," etc., sold to Joseph Kreider. This Joseph Kreider transferred part of the farm to his son, Joseph L. Kreider, who with his wife, Hannah, executed the deed conveying 81 perches for the consideration of One Dollar, unto three persons, Joseph Kreider, the elder, Henry Light and John Firestein, trustees of the meeting-house, then denominated the "Church of Christ," later known as "Kreider's Meeting-House" and called by the ungodly the "Ox-Head meet'n-house."
The deed of conveyance is recorded in the office for the recording of deeds in and for the county of Lebanon, in Deed-Book R, Volume I, page 607, and therein is described in the tiresome verbiage of the law, the half acre of ground very exactly and minutely.
The legal instrument further states "that the above particularly described tract is for the sole purpose of a place of religious worship of God by the people of the Church of Christ, and for a place of burying the dead, as also the privilege unto Christian Wenger to hold his meetings in the house on the above tract of land."
It may be noted that it was known as a meeting-house, and seldom, save in the deed of conveyance, as a church. Now be it known that there were, and there are churches; and there were, and there are meeting-houses. This statement may require an explanation: John G. Saxe, an American poet whose witty rhymes won him the title of the "prince of poetical punsters," once divided the inhabitants of earth into two classes, namely, "those who have money and those who have none!" During the time of which this history is written, that is, during the time when this other "dead and lost church of the Swatara" flourished and had its being, as well as since and at the present time, the devout people of Lebanon county have also been divided into two classes. But with this division worldly possessions and impecuniosity have little or nothing to do, at least not directly. But it is by their religious inclinations that the division has been made, and made somewhat after the fashion of dividing Catholics from Protestants, or Episcopalians from dissenters, into "Church folk and meet'n folk."
As the temples of the established church in England are named churches and cathedrals, while those of the dissenters are only chapels, so the Lutherans and Reformed were known as "church people" and their temples as "churches," while members of other protestant denominations were "meeting people" and their places of public worship were "meeting-houses."
The "meeting people" comprised the United Brethren, or followers of Otterbein; the Evangelical persuasion, or disciples of Albright; the Church of God, or Winebrennarians, and others.
The meeting-houses included also the churches of the Mennonites and those of the German Baptists. Many of the "meeting folk" were opposed to steeples and bells which they regarded as sinful. I remember one Mennonite farmer-preacher whose prejudices extended even to dinner bells and who would permit none on his farm.
And so this schoolhouse became a "meeting-house," and was partly refurnished. A pulpit and pews of unpainted wood and of the simplest pattern were provided, and it was transformed into a sanctuary and consecrated to sacred uses early in the forties, although the land was not conveyed to the trustees before the year 1849.
Rev. John Light, (F. S.) preached the dedicatory sermon to a crowded house and it was converted into a "Church, of Christ" with the stipulation in the deed that the German Baptist preacher, Rev. Christian Wenger, should have special privileges. By common consent its door was wide open and no sect professing Christianity was excluded.
Among the eloquent divines who stood up in that rude pulpit to preach the gospel of the crucified Nazarene, may be mentioned Rev. Charles H. Leinbach of the Reformed church; Revs. Henry H. Gelbach and John Light of the U. B. denomination; Rev. John Firestein of the Children of Zion; Rev. Christian Wenger of the German Baptists; Rev. George Petry well-known as an orator of the Winebrennarians, and Rev. Christian Siegrist of the southeastern part of the county, who with his followers, among whom was a certain Michael Krumbein, subscribed to a creed which prohibited all members from engaging in the liquor traffic! Besides these there were others of other sects.
The last regularly chosen trustees were Henry Bean, David Light and John Firestein. These served until death, John Firestein surviving the others. As they, one after the other, joined the majority beyond, their places remained vacant, and as Grover Cleveland would put it were he writing this history, the meeting-house fell into innocuous desuetude and finally into decay and ruin.
The last time that religious services were held beneath its roof was on the occasion of Mrs. Joseph Kreider's funeral in the summer of 1877.
It may be questioned whether when the sower went forth to sow in this field of the "Ox-Head," he did not scatter most of his seed in stony places ; in other words, it has at times seemed1 doubtful whether the religious teaching in this "lost church" was productive of much real good, for-from the neighborhood in the midst of which it stood, came more litigation to the courts of our county, entailing greater expense to the county treasury, within the last quarter of a century than from any other district of like area within their jurisdiction.
The region received and has borne the nickname of "Rooslandt," and became notorious in years gone by for the number of incendiary fires, more than half a dozen barns and dwelling houses having been burned down within the quarter of a century.
Somewhere late in the seventies the work of wanton destruction commenced. It appears that on a certain Sunday evening in the summer of 1878 two young rustic swells from the region of Black Oak Hill in ascending the western slope of the "Ox-Head" in a buggy, conceived the funny idea of having a good time by hurling stones through the consecrated windows.
In carrying this brilliant plan into execution they were seen by some residents of "Rooslandt" who at once proceeded by threatening them with arrest, to extort a penalty from the vandals and mulcted them out of five dollars hard cash.
Soon after this occurence every pane of glass in the windows of the old meeting-house was smashed by persons unknown. Probably the young bucks in a malicious spirit of revenge took out the balance of what they deemed extortionate in the amount of hush money.
The broken windows were never reglazed, and soon the whilom sanctuary became a lodging place for tramps, while bats and squirrels and birds of the air made it their dwelling-place. The door was broken in, the pews and benches disappeared one by one, the stove and pulpit were stolen,, and even the wainscoating was torn off and carried away by the thief and spoiler. Thus it stood for years, so to speak, an open but silent witness to the mutability of all things, even those dedicated to the service of Jehovah. And the process of decay continued.
In 1896 Henry L. Kreider, of whose ancestral domain the "Ox- Head" once formed a part, being the oldest survivor of the Kreider family as well as the oldest representative of the congregatian, obtained the sanction in writing of the surviving members to act as trustee, and in that capacity, after going through a considerable amount of legal red tape, obtained an order from the Lebanon county Court to remove the bodies from the graveyard and to sell ground and building to the highest bidder.
The sale took place on January 11, 1896, and the sum of Fifty-five dollars was realized, the land bringing five and the building fifty dollars. Out of these proceeds were paid lawyers' fees and the expense of exhuming the dead and reinterring them in other cemeteries. Nearly all of them were taken to the graveyard of the German Baptist meetinghouse, a mile northeast of Jonestown, and a few found rest in other consecrated grounds.
Then every part of the old building was removed, save some of the foundation stones, a small pile of which is the only thing that marks the site of this "dead and lost church of the Swatara."
I retain a vivid recollection of driving past the place on a beautiful Sunday morning in the month of June twenty-five years ago, about half an hour before the time for services. The preacher had not yet made his appearance and the congregation were assembled in knots and groups on the knoll in the open air, evidently engaged in gossiping, flirting, discussing the crops, and all enjoying the delightful morning.
There were the older folks in their sober and somewhat uncouth atttire; there were the young men in their smart Sunday suits ; there were the country lasses in bright gowns, fine hats and gay ribbons, and, taken all in all, the scene was very fair and serene and interesting.
I have sat, one among thousands, under the voice of the Bishop of Stepney in St. Paul's cathedral in the mighty city of London; I have gazed with feelings of awe, if not reverence, upon the architectural wonders of Cologne's famous Cathedral which was 600 years in building; my soul has been thrilled by the pealing tones of the grand organ at early Christmas mass in the great Catholic church of St. Ursula in Munich, the art centre of Bavaria; I have wondered at the grinning gargoyles jutting out from the lofty spires of Westminster Abbey; I have stood among a throng of Israelites listening to the reading of the law by a venerable-looking Rabbi in a Jewish Synagogue on the banks of the Isar, and I have viewed with delight the treasures of religious art in Notre Dame, the magnificent, in the beautiful capital of France, but for a restful picture of celestial quiet and pastoral serenity and peace, my thoughts turn back to the little log meeting-house and the assembly of rustic worshipers on that beautiful Sabbath morning in June by the banks of the Swatara.
Lebanon County Historical Society. v.1 no.14; June 22, 1900.