The Weaverland Mennonite Church (Lancaster Conference)

  There have been four meetinghouses here at the site of the present-day Weaverland Mennonite Church (Lancaster Conference). The first church house was a log building. It was located north of today’s brick building. The Martin brothers would have been most familiar with the second meetinghouse. It was built here in 1766 and was constructed of stone.
To construct that second church building George and Elizabeth Martin sold a small parcel of land to Preacher Peter Shirk and Deacon Michael Witwer. The building was 34 feet by 50 feet, with a seating capacity of 240. There was a dwelling space on the west end for the sexton. The building was soon transferred to church ownership.

In 1853 a new addition increased seating to 400. Two ten-plate stoves in the center aisle heated the building. The congregation demolished that second meetinghouse in 1883, and replaced it with a larger building of stone. It had seating capacity for 600.
In 1926 the stone building was replaced by a larger building of brick construction. This brick church house was 120 feet by 60 feet with a seating capacity of 950. The building has been expanded several times to create the present building.

  The Second Graveyard at Weaverland adjoins the Old Order Meetinghouse and its horse sheds, as shown in the map above. This graveyard was started in 1792. The Martin brothers' parents and grandparents are buried here. But the Martins were not Old Order, because that conservative group began several decades after the parents’ deaths. The graveyard is older than the meetinghouse.
The Old Order Meetinghouse was built in 1894 by a group that broke away from the Lancaster Conference the previous year. That separatist group was led by Bishop Jonas H. Martin, who was ordained bishop in 1881. Bishop Martin and his followers disagreed with new changes to the Lancaster Conference, such as the introduction of Sunday schools, the use of English instead of German, and the use of pulpits instead of a preacher’s table.

This new meetinghouse was an exact replica of the 1883 meetinghouse across the road, which was being used by the parent group, the Lancaster Conference group. That 1883 meetinghouse was the one with which the Martin Brothers would have been most familiar. In 1966 a six-foot addition was added to this Old Order meetinghouse.
Barton Martin never saw this 1894 Old Order meetinghouse, as he passed away four years before it was built. Jonas Martin lived until 1921, so he may have been familiar with this new meetinghouse for the Old Order Mennonites.