page_title: Regional Municipality of Waterloo
section_title: 1820 to 1852
hierarchical_section_title: Regional Municipality of Waterloo / History / Kitchener-Waterloo area / 1820 to 1852
caption_attribution_description: English: Martins Old Order Mennonite Church between Waterloo and St. Jacobs, Ontario in July, 1947. Citation: Mennonite Community Photograph Collection, The Congregation (HM4-134 Box 1 photo 011.4-2). Mennonite Church USA Archives, Goshen, Indiana.
context_page_description: The Regional Municipality of Waterloo, commonly known as Waterloo Region or Region of Waterloo, is a regional municipality and metropolitan area located in Southern Ontario, Canada. It consists of the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo, and the townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich. The region is 1,369 square kilometres in size and its seat of government is in Kitchener, the region's largest city.
  The region's population was 535,154 at the 2016 census. As of 2019, the estimated population is 617,870. In 2016, the Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo area was the third
  best place in Canada to find full-time employment based on data from StatsCan.
  The region was preceded by Waterloo County, Ontario, created in 1853 and dissolved in 1973. That entity consisted of five townships: Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot, Waterloo, and North Dumfries, including the cities and towns in each area.
context_section_description: John Eby, druggist and chemist, arrived from Pennsylvania in about 1820 and opened a shop to the west of what would later be Eby Street. At the time, it was common for settlers to form a building "bee" to help newcomers erect a long home. Immigration from Lancaster county continued heavily in the 1820s because of a severe agricultural depression in Lancaster County. Joseph Schneider, from that area, built a frame house in 1820 on the south side of the future Queen Street after clearing a farm and creating a rough road; a small settlement formed around "Schneider's Road" which became the nucleus of Berlin. The home was renovated over a century later and still stands.
  The village centre of what would become Berlin (Kitchener) was established in 1830 by Phineas Varnum who leased land from Joseph Schneider and opened a blacksmith shop on the site where a hotel would be built many years later, the Walper House. A tavern was also established here at the same time and a store was opened. At the time, the settlement of Berlin was still considered to be a hamlet.
  By 1830 the village of Preston was a thriving business centre with Jacob Hespeler, a native of Württemberg and a prominent citizen. He would later move to the village of New Hope that was renamed Hespeler in 1857 in recognition of his public service and the industries he started there. Jacob Beck from the Grand Duchy of Baden founded the village of Baden in Wilmot Township and started a foundry and machine shop. Jacob Beck was the father of Sir Adam Beck.
  Many of the Mennonite places of worship (meeting houses) were basic frame buildings and this type is still common among Old Order Mennonite groups in the rural areas of Waterloo Region.
  By 1835, many immigrants to Waterloo County were not from Pennsylvania. Many settler came from German, and also from England, Ireland and Scotland. The immigrants from Germany settled in areas such as New Germany in the Lower Block of Block Two. In 1835, approximately 70% of the population was Mennonite but by 1851, only 26% of the much larger population were of this religion.
  The first newspaper of the county (first issue dated August 27, 1835) was the Canada Museum und Allgemeine Zeitung, printed mostly in German and partly in English. It was published for only five years.
  By the 1840s, the presence of the German-speaking Mennonites made the area a popular choice for German settlers from Europe. These Germans founded their own communities in the south of the area settled by the Mennonites, the largest being the town of Berlin (changed to Kitchener, named for Lord Kitchener, due to anti-German sentiments during World War I).
  The Smith's Canadian Gazetteer of 1846 states that the Township of Waterloo (smaller than Waterloo County) consisted primarily of Pennsylvanian Mennonites and immigrants directly from Germany who had brought money with them. At the time, many did not speak English.  There were eight grist and twenty saw mills in the township. In 1841, the population count was 4424. In 1846 the village of Waterloo had a population of 200, "mostly Germans". There was a grist mill and a sawmill and some tradesmen. Berlin (Kitchener) had a population of about 400, also "mostly German", and more tradesmen than the village of Waterloo.
caption: Martins Old Order Mennonite Church
exif: {"Thumbnail ImageWidth": "256", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "178", "Thumbnail BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail PhotometricInterpretation": "6", "Thumbnail SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "122", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7388"}