German Seventh-Day Baptists

Description

Under the leadership of Conrad Beissel in 1728, a group of German Baptists (Dunkers) in Lancaster County, PA separated from their brethren over the issue of the Sabbath. They formed a self-sufficient, monastic community at a place now known as the Ephrata Cloister. German Seventh Day Baptists, as they called themselves, had one of the earliest printing presses in the colonies. They produced the Martyrs' Mirror (a work similar to John Foxe's The Book of Martyrs, originally in Dutch), Continental currency, and translations of the Declaration of Independence for distribution in other countries. German Seventh Day Baptists had the first Sabbath School (several years before Robert Raikes started a similar movement in England) until 1777 when the Revolutionary War necessitated another use for the buildings. After the battle of Brandywine, on September 11 of that year, the Brothers and Sisters cared for five hundred sick and wounded soldiers at the Cloister. Although two hundred soldiers died (and were buried on the Cloister farm), the majority recovered sufficiently to return to their homes. The toll on the community, however, was considerable, in people and in property. Disease killed many of the residents, and those who remained had to burn some of the buildings to limit the contagion. The members of the Ephrata community established branch societies elsewhere in southern PA, including one at Snowhill (Franklin County) in 1758 and another at Salemville (Bedford County) in...

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