Mennonite Meetinghouse (Germantown Mennonite Church) is a historic

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radi ...

church building at 6119 Germantown Avenue in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. The first settlers in Germantown in 1683 were Dutch or Germans recruited by

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

. Most of the settlers had a Mennonite background but joined the Quaker meeting. By about 1690 several families attended non-Quaker services and they built a log church in 1708. This church was the first Mennonite Church in America. William Rittenhouse was the first minister. The log church was replaced by the present church at the same site in 1770, constructed by Jacob Knorr. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1973.

References

External links

Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust
(Official Website) * Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Historic American Buildings Survey in Philadelphia Churches in Philadelphia Mennonitism in Pennsylvania Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania Germantown, Philadelphia Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania {{Pennsylvania-church-stub