River Brethren
Conoy Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
One of the first religious denominations founded in America, the group held its first baptism in the nearby Conoy Creek around 1780. Worship services were held down this lane at Magdalena House, the home of Jacob Engel, one of the founders. The River Brethren changed its name to the Brethren in Christ in the mid-19th century. Other organizations with River Brethren roots are the Old Order River Brethren and the United Zion Church.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Around 1780, amid the ferment of the Revolutionary era, a small band of Pennsylvania German believers gathered along Conoy Creek for their first baptism, founding one of the earliest home-grown American religious denominations. They worshipped down this lane at Magdalena House, the home of co-founder Jacob Engel, and came to be called the River Brethren for the streams in which they baptized. By the mid-19th century the group took the name Brethren in Christ, and its offshoots — the Old Order River Brethren and the United Zion Church — carry the lineage still.
Why it matters
It marks the birth of a distinctly American faith community rooted in the Anabaptist traditions the Pennsylvania Dutch carried across the Atlantic, part of the religious pluralism that flourished in colonial and early Pennsylvania.
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Related people
- · Jacob Engel
Themes & tags
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