Prior to erection of meetinghouses in the area, the people met for public worship in large farmhouses in the district.
During the summer of 1819, a stone meetinghouse, 28 feet by 36 feet, was erected on eighty perches of ground donated to the congregation by their pastor, Abraham Brubaker. A cemetery was enclosed on the same premises, where the pioneers of the congregation are buried. Also in 1819, the Hammercreek Mennonite meetinghouse was built.
Abraham Brubaker was the first minister for the Indiantown congregation. He came to America in 1751 at the age of 19 years and settled first near Hammer Creek, but later acquired a part of the last Indian reservation in parts of current Clay and West Cocalico townships, where he erected a home, farm buildings and a schoolhouse. Here he preached the Gospel on Sundays and taught school on week days, during the winter months. He also set apart a small plot of ground adjoining the schoolhouse on the southern slope of a wooded hill, for a family graveyard, where he and many of his descendants are buried. He died at 80 years of age on January 30, 1811.
Abraham Brubaker, youngest son of the above, was also a minister for the same congregation. He acquired his father’s farm, and from the southern end of the same farm, he gave the land for erection of the first house of worship and for a new graveyard. He died on September 15, 1850, at the age of 76, and was buried in the old graveyard near his father.
In 1838, Christian Bomberger was ordained as bishop for the local Mennonite churches. In 1879, the first Indiantown meetinghouse was dismantled and a larger one was built. In 1924, the meetinghouse was remodeled. In 1942, there was another remodeling project including an addition to the building. Ground was broken for the present church building in 1962 with the first service in the new building held on January 20, 1963 and dedication services in March 1963. In the fall of 1992, an addition and remodeling project began on the present building.
The church is located on ground that was once the location of a village of the Nanticoke Indian tribe. This is the reason for the name of our congregation. On October 16, 1932, a large group of people gathered on the church grounds to attend a program of the Lancaster County Historical Society for the unveiling of a bronze tablet set in a red sandstone boulder to mark the site of the Nanticoke Indian village. The Nanticoke Indians moved to the area around 1721 and lived here until 1748, at which time they moved farther north.
The Indiantown congregation was part of the Ephrata District of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference until 2010 when the congregation voted to leave the Lancaster Mennonite Conference. The Ephrata District congregations were formerly part of the Hammercreek District until it was divided. Currently, a team of ministers from outside the congregation provide oversight to the church’s leadership team.
Sources:
Mennonites of Lancaster Conference, Martin G. Weaver, Mennonite Publishing House, 1931
Lancaster County Historical Society
