Plotting the Story of the Abbeyville Mennonite Meetinghouse and Cemetery … Peter Brubaker
This is the burial place of Isaac Kauffman. Isaac lived on a farm with his children not far from the meeting house. When I visited the house back in 200?, I learned from Jere Dickerson that there were many graves in the area that fell to the push of development. Jere himself had rescued the house and found and recovered several headstones that he stored in his basement. I have yet to research who these people were. (The Isaac Kauffman stone says he lived for 11 months and 4 days, so was not THE Isaac Kauffman)
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Anna Kauffman Isaac Kauffman
So, Jere told me of the Abbeyville Mennonite Meeting House not far away. We drove there and found nothing but a housing development.
A bit of research and we were able to determine who was likely buried there. As you can see, they make reference to the Kauffman/Coffman family.
Above is a story about the cemetery. I have requested a copy.
Additionally there was a story about the impact of development on the cemetery.
Hi there! I’ve been looking off and on for years for any kind of an image or early photo of the former Brubaker Mennonite Meeting House which was originally off of Abbeyville Rd, prior to being re-erected north of Rohrerstown, and then a third time as a brick structure in Rohrerstown. The story you reference above is by my great-grandfather’s brother, Landis H. Brubaker.
Anyway, the photo of the home above caught my attention. I am supposing this is the farmhouse on Gamber Lane? It certainly looks like it; I spent my very early childhood there in the early to mid 1960’s.
Small world; both of my parents are Brubakers; the aforementioned Landis Brubaker is from my mother’s side of our larger Brubaker family; I have Gambers who on my father’s side of our larger Brubaker family. And by extension, Haversticks also, if I recall.
So…in conclusion, I’d love to learn anything additional that you might have related to the original Mennonite meetinghouse at Abbeyville, the old Maple Grove Mill, or the larger Gamber family. I have documented my Gamber lineage back to Rudolff Gamber (1742-1785).
Also…in the possible burials listed in Uncle Landis’s submission above is a reference to a Mary Hershey, wife of C. Binkley on Ye Olde Mill Road. My Brubaker ancestors on my father’s side at one time owned that mill after the Binkleys did. My grandfather had the mill torn down in the 1980s out of an abundance of caution for fear of someone getting hurt playing around within the deteriorating remains of it.
Small world…especially here in Lancaster County!
I am interested in the cemetery that was I believe adjacent to the meeting house. This is where Isaac Kauffman was buried. I understand that the meeting house was destroyed and the cemetery plowed over in the 1960s. Are these one and the smae? THanks for your note.