[For presentation at the WOC Annual Conference Session at Lakeside, June 9, 2010]
James Barbee, Chairman, West Ohio Commission on Archives and History
Carol Holliger, Archivist, Archives of Ohio United Methodism
[Slide 1 – Title of Presentation] As United Methodists, one of our predecessor denominations is the Church of the United Brethren in Christ or United Brethren (UB). The denomination began after a meeting between [Slide 2 – Otterbein] Phillip William Otterbein, a German Reformed pastor, and Martin Boehm, a Mennonite pastor. [Slide 3 – the Barn] In 1767, they met in a barn in Lancaster County Pennsylvania where Boehm was preaching. After the service, Otterbein, stirred by the sermon, went forward, [Slide 4 – Otterbein and Boehm] embraced Boehm and said, “Wir sind Bruder!” (German for “We are Brethren!”). Otterbein, Boehm and their followers continued preaching to German immigrants and organizing churches in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. This led to the organization of United Brethren annual conferences in the east, beginning in 1800.
When the Northwest Territory opened for settlement in the late 1700s; many persons in the east, including these German immigrants, began moving west. At that time, Ohio was a rough, wilderness country with roads that were little more than trails. [Slide 5 – Map w/Zane’s trace] A popular migration path into the new territory was Zane’s Trace, which ran from Wheeling, through Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe and on to Kentucky. Another migration path was down the Ohio River to the Cincinnati area. Many of the German speaking settlers had been part of the U B church in the east. Class meetings, house churches and then organized congregations soon followed. Some [Slide 6 – Warren St. church] of the early organized UB churches were Warren Street, started in 1806 by Andrew Zeller[Slide 7- Zeller], now Germantown UMC in Montgomery County; [Slide 8 –] Taylor’s Creek, founded in 1807, is still in existence today as Zion UMC in Cincinnati. [Slide 9 – Bonebrake] Bonebrake, founded in 1808, still in existence today as New Hope UMC in Preble County;
Because of distance and travel conditions, it was difficult for preachers in the west and bishops in the east to come to a common location for annual conference sessions. [Slide 10 – Newcomer] Christian Newcomer, a protégé of Otterbein and Boehm, and later to become bishop, was sent to Ohio in1810. Writing in his Journal, Newcomer describes his experiences on that journey. [Slide 11- Creider House] On July 16th, he recorded in his diary the following words “ – came to Mr. Creider’s, in Ross county. The people are generally employed in gathering their grain; the harvest is very abundant; I doubt whether I have ever seen handsomer wheat than what I saw this season in this country; frequently I said to my fellow-travelers, ‘Oh, what a country this will be in half a century hence’; [Slide 12 – Newcomer Diary] On August 13, Newcomer wrote in his diary “… today I had a little conference with the brethren; fifteen preachers were present; bless the Lord for the brotherly love and unanimity which prevailed throughout …” [Slide 13 – The Minutes in German] The minutes are shown here in German. [Slide 14 – repeat Creider House.] The conference over which Christian Newcomer presided was at the house of Michael Creider in Hopetown, a few miles NE of Chillicothe. This meeting, on August 13, 1810 (200 years ago this summer) was the first annual session of the Miami Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The Creider House, where all this took place, is still standing today. This house was the cradle of the United Brethren movement in Ohio. The newly created Miami Conference included the entire state of Ohio together with northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana. [Slide 15 – conference boundaries] In 1818 the Muskingum Conference was formed and in 1825, the Scioto Conference was formed. The names and boundaries of the conferences continued to change through the years as the church grew and population shifted..
[Slide 16, 17, 18 (2 sec. delay between each) – repeating slides 4, 7, 10 – Otterbein and Boehm, Zeller, Newcomer] Today we recognize and honor those early pioneers of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Their actions at that first conference set the stage for the growth of the United Brethren Church in Ohio. The subsequent merger with the Evangelical Church in 1946 to form [Slide 19 – EUB logo] the Evangelical United Brethren Church was followed in 1968 by the merger of the Evangelical United Brethren Church with The Methodist Church to form [Slide 20 – Cross and Flame] The United Methodist Church of today.
Thanks be to God for these, our forbearers in the faith.
