| The Hagerstown Church of the Brethren |
| Tercentennial Minutes - May 2008 by Pastor Frank Ramirez of the Everett, Pennsylvania congregation |
| Hagerstown Church of the Brethren 15 S. Mulberry Street Hagerstown, MD 21740. Telephone: 301-733-3565. Fax: 301-733-3598. Office hours: Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 –4:00 p.m. |
| MISSION STATEMENT The mission of the Hagerstown Church of the Brethren is to celebrate the love of Jesus Christ and glorify the Lord by striving to live as Christ lived, experiencing the power of God's healing in our lives. We seek to nurture our faith community through prayer, music and the proclaimed Word, while enthusiastically reaching out to others with compassion, respect and love for everyone so that we may grow in faith and commitment together. VISION STATEMENT Journeying with Christ Serving Our Neighbors Uniting at the Master’s Table |
In continuing celebration of 300 years of the Church of the Brethren we are including a “Tercentennial Minute” in
each worship service. Written by Pastor Frank Ramirez of the Everett, Pennsylvania congregation, these short
articles highlight our Brethren history and challenge our deeper discipleship. I hope you enjoy them as much as I
do. We are including them in the Tidings for those who missed and those who want to hear it again. - Pastor Ed
each worship service. Written by Pastor Frank Ramirez of the Everett, Pennsylvania congregation, these short
articles highlight our Brethren history and challenge our deeper discipleship. I hope you enjoy them as much as I
do. We are including them in the Tidings for those who missed and those who want to hear it again. - Pastor Ed
A Rush of Distant Thunder: Eyewitness to the Johnstown Flood
At 4:07 PM on May 31, 1889 the residents of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, heard a low rumble that soon
turned into a devastating roar. 14 miles upriver the South Fork Dam had burst, sending twenty million
tons of water rushing towards the town at speeds of 40 miles an hour and more. 2,200 died and
thousands more were rendered homeless by the disaster.
Many of the steelworkers in the town were of German ancestry which meant there were Brethren
in the path of the flood. One of those who survived was Nannie Hanwalt Strayer (1863-1955) and her
son Clarence who was four at the time. Years later she remembered:
“I was in the living room and noticed a rush of water with wood. As I looked, I saw people on parts of
houses. I went to the rear and looked out of the bathroom window. All small buildings were swimming.
All the houses around us were floating away….
“The houses on the other side of the street were all gone. The brick ones melted away. We thought
our house would stand. Suddenly it was struck. The plaster came down. The front windows were broken.
Water was rushing in upon us. Papa saw a hole and some light and climbed out; took Clarence up and
then helped me get out of the drift wood….We were sailing with the wreckage but did not know we were
moving. Fourteen people were on our roof….
“The men of our party went down and helped to arrange a path that we could craw out. Al bridges
were gone and our only way out was toward Green hill….Clarence and I were getting along very well, I
thought. A man with two children came and took Clarence on his back….
“We did no weeping until we came to a battered tin room on which fourteen dead people were placed….
A great crowd of people was gathered, waiting and watching for their friends. I felt ashamed to shed tears
when we came to them. They had Clarence in their arms. They asked him where Papa and Mama were.
He said, ‘They are coming.’ They knew we were alive.”
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 4, 2008.
At 4:07 PM on May 31, 1889 the residents of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, heard a low rumble that soon
turned into a devastating roar. 14 miles upriver the South Fork Dam had burst, sending twenty million
tons of water rushing towards the town at speeds of 40 miles an hour and more. 2,200 died and
thousands more were rendered homeless by the disaster.
Many of the steelworkers in the town were of German ancestry which meant there were Brethren
in the path of the flood. One of those who survived was Nannie Hanwalt Strayer (1863-1955) and her
son Clarence who was four at the time. Years later she remembered:
“I was in the living room and noticed a rush of water with wood. As I looked, I saw people on parts of
houses. I went to the rear and looked out of the bathroom window. All small buildings were swimming.
All the houses around us were floating away….
“The houses on the other side of the street were all gone. The brick ones melted away. We thought
our house would stand. Suddenly it was struck. The plaster came down. The front windows were broken.
Water was rushing in upon us. Papa saw a hole and some light and climbed out; took Clarence up and
then helped me get out of the drift wood….We were sailing with the wreckage but did not know we were
moving. Fourteen people were on our roof….
“The men of our party went down and helped to arrange a path that we could craw out. Al bridges
were gone and our only way out was toward Green hill….Clarence and I were getting along very well, I
thought. A man with two children came and took Clarence on his back….
“We did no weeping until we came to a battered tin room on which fourteen dead people were placed….
A great crowd of people was gathered, waiting and watching for their friends. I felt ashamed to shed tears
when we came to them. They had Clarence in their arms. They asked him where Papa and Mama were.
He said, ‘They are coming.’ They knew we were alive.”
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 4, 2008.
Too Late To Say We’re Sorry
The 1866 Annual Meeting at the Antietam Meeting House in Pennsylvania was filled with joy as
many Brethren, separated by the Civil War, were able to get together for the first time in years. The
great tents were erected, the open-air kitchens churched out meals, as friends and family were
reunited.
There was, of course the usual crowded agenda, but it was one bit of unfinished business that
provided some posthumous justice, even if it might have seemed too little, too late.
Unlike many denominations that were split in two during the Civil War, the Brethren did not
experience a separation over slavery. But just prior to the Civil War there were those was a great
controversy involving John A. Bowman of Tennessee. Brother Bowman, acting as executor of a will,
had taken a man to court who would not pay his debts to the estate because the man was dead. It was
generally recognized that the widow involved was very needy, and Bowman himself did not benefit
from the action. He had first asked for and received the permission of his congregation to go to
court. Bowman won the case but was thrown out of the Brotherhood.
It was Bowman’s intention to appeal this decision to the Annual Meeting, but the Civil War
intervened, preventing him from attending and pleading his case.
In late summer of 1863 Confederate soldiers stole horses from his farm. When Bowman attempted
to comfort one of the horses being led away he was shot through the stomach and then brained by a
blow from a rifle butt.
After the war the Brethren at Annual Meeting fully exonerated John Bowman posthumously and
accepted all he had baptized back into the fellowship. That it was a little too late was recognized by
one and all.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 11, 2008.
The 1866 Annual Meeting at the Antietam Meeting House in Pennsylvania was filled with joy as
many Brethren, separated by the Civil War, were able to get together for the first time in years. The
great tents were erected, the open-air kitchens churched out meals, as friends and family were
reunited.
There was, of course the usual crowded agenda, but it was one bit of unfinished business that
provided some posthumous justice, even if it might have seemed too little, too late.
Unlike many denominations that were split in two during the Civil War, the Brethren did not
experience a separation over slavery. But just prior to the Civil War there were those was a great
controversy involving John A. Bowman of Tennessee. Brother Bowman, acting as executor of a will,
had taken a man to court who would not pay his debts to the estate because the man was dead. It was
generally recognized that the widow involved was very needy, and Bowman himself did not benefit
from the action. He had first asked for and received the permission of his congregation to go to
court. Bowman won the case but was thrown out of the Brotherhood.
It was Bowman’s intention to appeal this decision to the Annual Meeting, but the Civil War
intervened, preventing him from attending and pleading his case.
In late summer of 1863 Confederate soldiers stole horses from his farm. When Bowman attempted
to comfort one of the horses being led away he was shot through the stomach and then brained by a
blow from a rifle butt.
After the war the Brethren at Annual Meeting fully exonerated John Bowman posthumously and
accepted all he had baptized back into the fellowship. That it was a little too late was recognized by
one and all.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 11, 2008.
The Arrest of Christopher Sauer II
The Sauer family was one of the most influential in Colonial Pennsylvania. The first Christopher
Sauer is famous for having printed the first Bible in a European language in America in 1743. His son
Christopher Sauer (1721-1784) was a Brethren minister, and shared the leadership of the mother
church, the Germantown congregation with Alexander Mack, Jr. The younger Sauer continued the
family printing business and published bibles in 1763 and 1776. He also printed newspapers and
other periodicals, along with publications for many different churches. Under his leadership the
press began to move into English language publications. And like his father his charitable activities
were well known and much admired.
However during the war of the Revolution Americans of German ancestry found themselves the
object of prejudice and persecution. Angry mobs forced Sauer to flee on more than one occasion.
Brethren, who had been granted freedom to practice their faith under British rule, were like many
colonials suspicious of the revolutionaries. Their faith did not allow them to swear oaths, and
therefore Brethren such as Sauer refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the new American
government.
Sauer fled from Philadelphia in 1777 once that city was captured by the British. On May 22 of 1778
he returned to Germantown, and was arrested the following night. His clothes and shoes were
confiscated and he was given rags to wear that barely covered his nakedness. The old man was then
forced to march many miles at bayonet point for the amusement of the mob. General Peter
Muhlenberg interceded with General Washington for his release, but Sauer was prevented from
returning home for several weeks.
Upon his return in July he discovered that he had been denounced as a traitor back in May and
because he had failed to launch an appeal his possessions had been seized. His protest that he had
only found out about the legal action after his return fell on deaf ears. His press, his property, his
personal medicine, everything was auctioned off except the clothes off his back, and he was paid in
worthless Continental paper currency.
Sauer was much beloved and many sought to help him. He spent the final years of his life paying
off all his debts, and died on August 26, 1784, after having walked twelve miles to preach at a
Brethren church.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 18, 2008.
The Sauer family was one of the most influential in Colonial Pennsylvania. The first Christopher
Sauer is famous for having printed the first Bible in a European language in America in 1743. His son
Christopher Sauer (1721-1784) was a Brethren minister, and shared the leadership of the mother
church, the Germantown congregation with Alexander Mack, Jr. The younger Sauer continued the
family printing business and published bibles in 1763 and 1776. He also printed newspapers and
other periodicals, along with publications for many different churches. Under his leadership the
press began to move into English language publications. And like his father his charitable activities
were well known and much admired.
However during the war of the Revolution Americans of German ancestry found themselves the
object of prejudice and persecution. Angry mobs forced Sauer to flee on more than one occasion.
Brethren, who had been granted freedom to practice their faith under British rule, were like many
colonials suspicious of the revolutionaries. Their faith did not allow them to swear oaths, and
therefore Brethren such as Sauer refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the new American
government.
Sauer fled from Philadelphia in 1777 once that city was captured by the British. On May 22 of 1778
he returned to Germantown, and was arrested the following night. His clothes and shoes were
confiscated and he was given rags to wear that barely covered his nakedness. The old man was then
forced to march many miles at bayonet point for the amusement of the mob. General Peter
Muhlenberg interceded with General Washington for his release, but Sauer was prevented from
returning home for several weeks.
Upon his return in July he discovered that he had been denounced as a traitor back in May and
because he had failed to launch an appeal his possessions had been seized. His protest that he had
only found out about the legal action after his return fell on deaf ears. His press, his property, his
personal medicine, everything was auctioned off except the clothes off his back, and he was paid in
worthless Continental paper currency.
Sauer was much beloved and many sought to help him. He spent the final years of his life paying
off all his debts, and died on August 26, 1784, after having walked twelve miles to preach at a
Brethren church.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for May 18, 2008.
Catharine Hummer, first woman to preach among the Brethren
The story of Catharine Hummer of White Oak, Pennsylvania, is an important, if largely forgotten,
event in our Colonial history. In 1762 a Brethren teenager in Colonial America claimed she saw
angels. She said she looked into heaven and saw people who were baptized after death – three times
forward of course – and saved. And she preached about it. That made her the first woman to preach
among the Brethren.
There was tremendous controversy. Some who heard her preach insisted they saw angels as well.
Others questioned the source of her visions. She saw these visions, according to the accusation,
only when alone in the presence of the doctor Sebastian Keller, a married man who’d left his wife
behind at the Ephrata Cloisters. Her father, the first minister of White Oak, fiercely defended her.
Conrad Beissel, the charismatic head of the Ephrata Community, believed her visions and recorded
them, inviting her to stay.
Like a meteor across the sky she attracted the attention of Colonial Pennsylvania, Brethren and
non-Brethren alike. For a moment she was the brightest thing in the heavens. And like a meteor she
vanished, without a trace. Despite the fact she was a central figure in a major controversy. Most of
her life is a mystery. Not even the dates of her birth and death are known.
More important than Hummer herself was the Annual Meeting decision that followed on May 28,
1763. Twenty-two Brethren elders, including Alexander Mack, Jr., and Christopher Sauer II, came up
with one of the most extraordinary decisions that Brethren have never paid attention to, one that
should certainly speak to us today.
“…we advise,” they wrote, “out of brotherly love, that on both sides all judgments and harsh
expressions might be entirely laid down, though we do not have the same opinion of that noted
occurrence, so that those who think well of it, should not judge those who are of the contrary opinion,
and those who do not esteem it, should not despise those who expect to derive some use and
benefit from it.”
The Brethren, who prized uniformity in their nonconformity to the world, decided they could
achieve that uniformity in action and appearance – but not in thought. They could not and would not
legislate what fellow Brethren ought to believe with regards to the truth of Catharine’s visions. Their
only concern was about the outward behavior of Brethren towards each other.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for today, May 25, 2008.
The story of Catharine Hummer of White Oak, Pennsylvania, is an important, if largely forgotten,
event in our Colonial history. In 1762 a Brethren teenager in Colonial America claimed she saw
angels. She said she looked into heaven and saw people who were baptized after death – three times
forward of course – and saved. And she preached about it. That made her the first woman to preach
among the Brethren.
There was tremendous controversy. Some who heard her preach insisted they saw angels as well.
Others questioned the source of her visions. She saw these visions, according to the accusation,
only when alone in the presence of the doctor Sebastian Keller, a married man who’d left his wife
behind at the Ephrata Cloisters. Her father, the first minister of White Oak, fiercely defended her.
Conrad Beissel, the charismatic head of the Ephrata Community, believed her visions and recorded
them, inviting her to stay.
Like a meteor across the sky she attracted the attention of Colonial Pennsylvania, Brethren and
non-Brethren alike. For a moment she was the brightest thing in the heavens. And like a meteor she
vanished, without a trace. Despite the fact she was a central figure in a major controversy. Most of
her life is a mystery. Not even the dates of her birth and death are known.
More important than Hummer herself was the Annual Meeting decision that followed on May 28,
1763. Twenty-two Brethren elders, including Alexander Mack, Jr., and Christopher Sauer II, came up
with one of the most extraordinary decisions that Brethren have never paid attention to, one that
should certainly speak to us today.
“…we advise,” they wrote, “out of brotherly love, that on both sides all judgments and harsh
expressions might be entirely laid down, though we do not have the same opinion of that noted
occurrence, so that those who think well of it, should not judge those who are of the contrary opinion,
and those who do not esteem it, should not despise those who expect to derive some use and
benefit from it.”
The Brethren, who prized uniformity in their nonconformity to the world, decided they could
achieve that uniformity in action and appearance – but not in thought. They could not and would not
legislate what fellow Brethren ought to believe with regards to the truth of Catharine’s visions. Their
only concern was about the outward behavior of Brethren towards each other.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for today, May 25, 2008.
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