Germantown Mennonite Church
6121 Germantown Ave

In 1683, thirteen Mennonite and Quaker families arrived from Crefeld, Germany and created the first permanent settlement of Mennonites in the New World. On January 20, 1770, in a congregational meeting of the Germantown Mennonite Church, a building committee was selected to a build a new meetinghouse. Fifty-eight subscribers pledged amounts varying from 7 shillings, 6 pence to 11 pounds each. From these subscribers they raised 195 pounds, 2 shillings, 7 pence. When the new meetinghouse was completed it had cost 202 pounds, 5 shillings. While the original meeting house was made of log in 1708, the current building was constructed of native stone, a schist rock used widely in colonial Germantown. When the new house was built in 1770, the congregation had 25 members. Fifty-two members were added in the nineteen years that followed. In 1908, a Sunday school room was attached to the East End of the building. Germantown Mennonite Church is North America's oldest Mennonite congregation.