LANCASTER COUNTY. 83 



assembled to receive information. The Mennonites 

 never wasted money in rearing stately temples, or in 

 building massive colleges, in which to impart useful 

 knowledge. They ever observed it religiously, to have 

 their children instructed in reading and writing, at least, 

 since the days of Menno Simon, the great reformer, and 

 to bring them up in habits of industry, and teaching 

 them such trades as were suitable to their wants, expe- 

 dient and adapted to their age and constitution."* Their 

 sons and daughters were kept under strict parental au- 

 thority, and as a consequence, were not led into tempta- 

 tions by which so many youths, of both sexes, at the 

 present day, are ruined. 



Their religious meetings and schools were for a long 

 time held in the sam.e rude buildings. Among their first 

 preachers were Hans Herr, Hans Tschantz, Uirich Brech- 

 billjt who was accidentally killed,' while driving his 

 team on the road to Philadelphia. Their ministers were 

 men of sound minds, of irreproachable conversation. — 

 In this country, the Mennonite ministers, especially in 

 this county, are not, in the parlance of the age, classi- 

 €ally educated. " In Europe, at Amsterdam, the Menno- 

 nites have a college, in vv^hich all the useful branches are 

 taught. Students of Theology receive instruction in a 



*"Haltetimd foerdert dia kindern zu lesen und schreiben ; 

 Ichret sie spinnen and andere Haende werkthim, was ihren 

 Jahren und personen nach fueglich, nuetzlich, ertracglich und 

 bequem ist." — Menno Simon. 



tlT39, October den 19ten, Uirich Breckbill, cin diener der 

 gemeinde ist auf der Philadelphia Slrasse, ir.it seinem wagen 

 ploctzlich umgekommen. — Mcylin's Family Bible. 



0;7=-Samuel Miller, son of Jacob Miller, was the first child 

 born in the Swiss Colony; he v/as born January 22, 1711. 



Jacob Miller, Samuel's father, was born in Europe, 1663, 

 cameto America, in 1710, died ths 20th April, 1739— interred 



