Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1888 — German Baptists or Dunkards. [ARTICLE]

German Baptists or Dunkards.

New York Graphic. The principal portion of this peculiar people are found located in Pennsylvania and Indiana, though there is a considerable number in Kansas and smaller congregations in the farming sections of other Western States. The German Baptists or Dunkards number over 60,000, have 350 churches or congregations and 1,578 ministers. They are governed by bishops. The Pennsylvania Dunkard is of the stolidest “Dutch” order. Their traditional headquarters are at Germantown, but they have scattered widely therefrom. They are always farmers and rural mechanics and are always well-to-do. The Dunkard wears clothes of a coarse gray cloth cut in the Quakerish fashion; the women are not permitted jewelry, lace or “dress improvers,” and wear poke bonnets of the homeliest hideousness, while the men wear for headgear a stiff, broad-brimmed felt hat, not wholly unbecoming to them. They are very simple and formal in their manners, each sex saluting their own members with a kiss on meeting Out in Indiana the question of permitting younger Dunkard males to grow moustaches has been under consideration. It has been decided against them Alexander Mack founded this strange sect in Germany in 1708. Rigid adherance to the forms instituted by Christ himself and urged upon His followers by the Apostle Paul, and plainness in dress and manners, were the two fundamental principles in the creed. It was a creed that proved so attractive that it was accepted by hundreds within a year or two, and the early experiences of the Friends were repeated. As a result of this Pastor Mack organized an emigration to the colony found* ed by Mr. Penn. The entire church migrated. Landing in Boston they moved to Philadelphia, and on Christmas Day, 1724, formed their first congregation in America at the house of John Gomery, Germantown. The Dunkards were strong Whigs during the Revolution, as they were loyal to the Union eighty-five years later. There were some 5,000 in attendance at the Indiana Conference.