FIRST PERMANENT EUROPEAN SETTLERS IN LANCASTER COUNTY 300 YEARS AGO BEING CELEBRATED - Donegal’s 290th next year
Much publicity is being given to the commemoration of the first permanent settlers in 1710 in what became Lancaster County about twenty years later. This European group of German-Swiss Mennonites had been given a large tract of land by William Penn in the area that is now Strasburg and Willow Street with the 1719 Hans Herr house being the oldest surviving building.
The celebration has been planned by the Mennonite Historical Society, and includes an event each month throughout the year beginning with a Festival of Roots and Music, Sunday, January 31 at 3 p.m. at the Strasburg Mennonite Church. Narrator is Kim Lemon, and soloists Amy Yovanovich, of Elizabethtown, and Jeryl Metzler, with Vietnamese choir, and bagpipe soloist. There is no admission charge.
This anniversary celebration has relevance for us at Donegal as our own Scots-Irish Presbyterian settlers followed close behind less than 10 years later. They were so numerous by 1721 that Andrew Galbraith was sent to Newcastle Presbytery to request pastoral supplies, and Donegal Church was begun in 1721. By 1722, the entire area, which was West Conestoga, was renamed Donegal Township. The township, reserved exclusively for the Scots-Irish, was so large that over the years it was divided into Rapho, Mount Joy, East and West Donegal, and Conoy townships and rapidly filled with hundreds of Scots-Irish families. This was the frontier at that time.
It is important to keep these dates in mind since we will be commemorating the 1721 anniversary of the founding of our church next year – our 290th. We are definitely the oldest in Lancaster County and also using the oldest continuous church building. Both church and Donegal Society are to be commended on preserving and maintaining this beautiful building and site including the spring and grove and cemetery. Our church founders would and should be very gratified that what they began in earnest faith has been blessed by God and so cherished and preserved by the members over these many years.
Last Edited on
01/31/2010