page_title: Waterloo County, Ontario
section_title: 1800 to 1819
hierarchical_section_title: Waterloo County, Ontario / History / 1800 to 1819
caption_attribution_description: English: Conestoga Wagon (1883) by Newbold Hough Trotter (1827-1898). Painting in the State Museum of Pennsylvania Nederlands: Conestoga Wagon (1883) door Newbold Hough Trotter (1827-1898). Schilderij in het State Museum of Pennsylvania
context_page_description: Waterloo County, created in 1853 and dissolved in 1973, was the forerunner of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Situated on a subset of land within the Haldimand Tract, the traditional territory of the Attawandaron, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples, Waterloo County consisted of five townships: Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot, Waterloo, and North Dumfries. The major population centres were Waterloo, Kitchener, Preston, Hespeler, Blair, and Doon in Waterloo township; Galt in North Dumfries; Elmira in Woolwich; and New Hamburg in Wilmot. All are now part of the Regional Municipality.
context_section_description: Settlement of the what became the Township of Waterloo started in 1800 by Joseph Schoerg and Samuel Betzner, Jr. (brothers-in-law), Mennonites, from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Other settlers followed mostly from Pennsylvania typically by Conestoga wagons. The early group purchased land from Richard Beasley who had acquired it from the Six Nations. The first school was begun in 1802 near the village of Blair. The first teacher's name was Rittenhaus of Pennsylvania.
  Many of the pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania after November 1803 bought land in a 60,000 acre section of Block Two from the German Company established by a group of Mennonites from Lancaster County Pennsylvania. The Tract included most of Block 2 of the previous Grand River Indian Lands. Many of the first farms were least four hundred acres in size. The German Company, represented by Daniel Erb and Samuel Bricker, had acquired the land from previous owner Richard Beasley; he had gotten into financial difficulties after buying the land in 1796 from Joseph Brant who represented the Six Nations. The payment to Beasly, in cash, arrived from Pennsylvania in kegs, carried in a wagon surrounded by armed guards.
  The majority of the settlers of the Lower Block along the Grand River (including areas such as the current Freeport and Hespeler) were also Mennonites from Pennsylvania often called Pennsylvania Dutch although they were actually Deutsch or Deitsch, German. Others immigrated from the British Isles and directly from Germany, producing a mix of cultures.
  Later declared the founder of the city of Waterloo, Abraham Erb, a German Mennonite from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, bought 900 acres of bush land in 1806 from the German Company; (this would later be part of Waterloo Township). He built a sawmill in 1808 and a gristmill in 1816; the latter operated continuously for 111 years. Other early settlers of what would become Waterloo included Samuel and Elia Schneider who arrived in 1816. Until about 1820, settlements such as this were quite small.
  By 1804, the cemetery in the village of Blair (now part of Cambridge) was already in use. The next cemetery to be started is the one next to Pioneer Tower in Doon; the first recorded burial at that location was in 1806. The cemetery at First Mennonite church at 800 King St. East in Kitchener is not as old, but contains the graves of some notable citizens, including Bishop Benjamin Eby who died in 1853, Joseph Schneider, and Rev. Joseph Cramer, founder of the House of Friendship social service agency.
  In 1807, 45,195 acres (182.9 km²) of Block 3 (Woolwich) was purchased by Pennsylvanians John Erb, Jacob Erb and others.
  Later named the founder of Kitchener, Benjamin Eby (made Mennonite preacher 1809, and bishop in 1812) arrived from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1806 and purchased a very large tract of land consisting of much of what would become the village of Berlin (named about 1830). The settlement was initially called Ebytown and was at the south-east side of what would later become Queen Street. (Eby was also responsible for the growth of the Mennonite church in Waterloo County; he built the first church in 1813.) Abram Weber settled on the corner of what would become King and Wilmot Streets and David Weber in the area of the much later Grand Trunk Railway station. Benjamin Eby encouraged manufacturers to move to the village. Jacob Hoffman came in 1829 or 1830 and started the first furniture factory. 
  Almost as important as Benjamin Eby in the history of Kitchener, Joseph Schneider of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (son of immigrants from southern Germany) bought lot 17 of the German Company Tract of block 2 in 1806. While farming, he helped to build what became "Schneider's Road" and by 1816 built a sawmill. Years later, Schneider and Phineas Varnum would help form the commercial centre of Ebytown.
  The War of 1812 interrupted settlement. The Mennonite settlers refused to carry arms so were employed in non-combatant roles in camps and hospital and as teamsters in transport service during the war.
  William Dic
caption: Many of the  Mennonite Germans from Pennsylvania arrived in Conestoga wagons.
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