Finding My Connections

First Mennonite Church, Vineland, Ontario

On my father’s side of the family, the paternal line runs back to 17^th century Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a small group of German Mennonites. In a pioneer story similar to the ones I wrote about in Muskoka’s Main Street, seven families made the trek in 1799 from Hilltown to the raw wilderness that dominated the Niagara peninsula at that time.

This is a 400 mile walk we’re talking about. Done four times by two of the men in the party; first during the summer on a “prospecting tour” when they bought 1100 acres of land, some on the Niagara escarpment and some lying near the shores of Lake Ontario. On the second trip, they brought seven families, each of whom had a four-horse team and a cow. My connection in the group is with John Honsberger, said to be a tailor; his 18-year-old son Christian would father my great-great grandmother Magdalena.

Unlike the pioneers of Muskoka, these folks at least had decent farmland to homestead. Still, the first winter was a severe one, with food shortages and inadequate shelter. At least one young child perished the first year.

Looking at the maternal line (my dad’s mother), the grand ancestor was “Weaver John” Fretz, also of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His son, “Canada John” Fretz made the same trek to Niagara as the Honsbergers did, one year later in 1800. Canada John was 70 years old at the time, patriarch of 10 children, eight of whom travelled with him and his wife Mary Kolb Fretz, along with the sons- and daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Again a perilous journey in wagons and on foot, and again a tragic death – John and Mary’s three-year-old grandson, who was buried in a clearing along the trail.

These two groups of pioneers founded the first Mennonite church in Canada, still called First Mennonite in Vineland, which still exists on Rittenhouse Road, just down the street from where my father grew up. He knows the church well. Although he was not raised Mennonite, he attended summer bible school there, under the direction of Bishop S.F. Coffman, whom my dad says had the best bass voice he’s ever heard. When I contacted the current pastor Carol, she was stunned to be able to tell me that she lived in my father’s childhood farmhouse for 20 years and had just sold it the day before our conversation.

This is the best part of genealogy: finding connections! And mine run deep in Niagara. From a tiny band of half a dozen or so pacifist pioneers arriving in the early 1800s, comes many of names on the Niagara Atlas of 1876. Many of these names  still dominate in Vineland and Jordon, and two of these are my direct lines.