Eight-year old Johann and his family arrived in Pennsylvania in 1747 on a ship named Restauration. The Thomas family, Mennonite pacifists escaping persecution in Europe, arrived just in time to experience the end of the Friends' control of the Pennsylvania legislature with pacifism as the official state policy toward Native Americans. This historical fiction traces Johann's next ten years through the unfolding French and Indian War.
Includes extensive footnotes to document the information and to provide information on past genealogical errors.
Summary
"To God Alone The Honor documents the family relations of the first Mennonite pioneers who settled in 1710 in what is now Lancaster County, and ends with the impoverished "Mennonists Swissers' who arrived at Philadelphia in 1754 on the ship Phoenix. The British Parliament described the Mennonite immigrants as a 'sober, quiet and industrious people.' And they were, but we remember them more for their faith- a faith which lives today in the hearts of many of their descendants." [book jacket]
Chapters: Interconnected families/ Faith through tribulation/ The 1710 Mennonite immigration/ The 1717 Mennonite immigration (land records, Chester County property tax assessements, 1729/30 Naturalization Act)/ List of Mennonites living in present Lancaster County by 1717/ The Pioneer families/ Menno Simons on: [various texts by Menno Simons]
xxii, 656 pages : illustrations (some color), coats of arms, facsimiles, genealogical tables, maps, portraits ; 28 cm
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (pages 533-551).
Contents
Flash forward: Nora Musser (1881-1929) -- The Old World. The Swiss plateau ; Von Lunkhofen and Snewli ; Von Seedorf and Moser ; Du Ranc de Vibrac ; The Reformation ; Zürich: the Albis and the Oberland ; Bern: the Emmental and the Oberland ; Anabaptist exiles (the Kraichgau, Alsace, the Jura) ; The Protestants -- The New World. The Pequea Colony ; Eighteenth century Lancaster County ; Weaverland ; Musser migrations ; the Bowmansville Mennonites ; Henry Musser (1730-1805) ; Bowmansville kith and kin ; The churchmen ; Mathias Musser (1764-1834) ; Daniel Musser (1797-1869) ; David Musser (1829-1905) ; Samuel H. Musser (1858-1934) -- Afterward: the Mussers and the Hornings -- Appendices. Ahnentafels ; Revising the Rancks.
Summary
"This narrative history based on the ancestry of Nora Musser (1881-1929), who was born in Lancaster Co., Pa., follows the intertwined histories of about a dozen families from the Albis region in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, and another dozen similar families from the Emmental and Bernese Oberland in the Canton of Bern, during the 15th and 16th centuries. The author traces the fate of these ancestors through the periods of persecution of Anabaptists in Zurich and Bern, and their forced exile and subsequent emigration to Lancaster Co., Pa., in the 17th century. It chronicles their relationship to the American society that grew up around them over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, including intermarriages with several Reformed and Lutheran families. Among the principal descent lines considered are: Musser, Good, Weber/Weaver, Musselman, Gehman, Bowman, Oberholtzer, Huber, Kendig, Rutt, Tschantz, Ranck, Messner, Schnader, Lied, and Frey. The author also takes a critical look at published claims that three particular lines of Nora Musser's ancestors might be traced as far back as the High Middle Ages."
