Waterloo County (Ontario, Canada) From GAMEO Mennonite settlement began in Waterloo County in the spring of 1800 when Joseph Schoerg and Samuel Betzner, with their families, arrived on the banks of the Grand River in what was then Upper Canada, from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. They were the first white settlers in this county. The settlement grew steadily until by 1828 there were 1,000 Mennonite members and 2,000 hearers. The land was taken from the Beasley Tract, this being 94,012 acres of Six Nations Indians' lands in the Grand River Basin purchased from them by one Richard Beasley through the government of Upper Canada which acted as trustee. In November 1803 an agreement was signed between the German Company on the one hand, representing the Mennonites, and Beasley, on the other hand, for the purchase of 60,000 acres of his land for the sum of 10,000 pounds. On this land there was a mortgage of $20,000. Precisely when this fact was discovered is a matter of some doubt. Suffice it to say that Joseph Sherk and Samuel Bricker went to Pennsylvania to procure this money. In April 1803 a joint stock company was organized in the home of "Hannes" Eby in Lancaster County to raise the mortgage money. This was done within two years, for on 29 June 1805 the deed for the 60,000 acres was executed in the Registry at Berlin, Ontario. Mutual faith and co-operation motivated this transaction. Most likely it was "Hannes" Eby who persuaded his brethren in Lancaster to aid their brethren in Waterloo. Most of the early settlers came from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and some from the Franconia area - Bucks, Montgomery, and (a few) Franklin counties.
In 1957 there were 18 active Mennonite Church (MC) congregations in the county with a membership of 2,899. Dates given are those of the erection of church buildings, as closely as can be determined, although in many cases services were held in homes prior to the building of a church. Names of congregations are listed as in the Mennonite Yearbook, being both family and place names. The former are the survival of the pioneer custom of naming a church after the family from whose land the property was secured, either by purchase or donation. These congregations are First Mennonite, 1813; Snyder (Bloomingdale), 1826; Wanner (Hespeler), 1829; Detweiler (Roseville), 1830; Geiger (New Hamburg), 1831; Cressman (Breslau), 1834; Latschar (Mannheim), 1839; Blenheim (New Dundee), 1839; Weber (Strasburg), 1840; Shantz (Baden), 1840; Hagey, now called Preston, 1842; St. Jacobs, 1844; Waterloo (David Eby), 1851; Biehn (New Hamburg), 1865; Floradale, 1896;