Lewis James Heatwole

“ This venturesome spirit took many of our Mennonite people far beyond the border of regular settlements, and in fact some groups of families often located in the deeper recesses of the wilderness. In this way Mennonites found their way at very early periods into sections of the Cumberland valley of Pennsylvania and Maryland and the Shenandoah valley of Virginia, and where, for a whole generation, not a drop of Quaker or Mennonite blood was ever shed at the hands of the Indians. ”

“ After the first permanent colonies had been established by Mennonites at Germantown, Skippach, Lancaster, and other points in Pennsylvania, as referred to in previous chapters, there came the strong inclination, in the hope of obtaining the choicest lands and freedom from molestation from neighbors of different nationality, for our people to penetrate farther into the interior of the country. ”

“ Up until a certain period in the History of America it is evident that as a nonresistant and nonproselyting people the Mennonites are known to have more often fallen victims to persecution and disturbance from their white brethren of different customs and practices from their own, than from Indian attack. ”