Church of the Brethren records

The Union Grove Church of the Brethren is one of the early churches of Delaware County. Its early history was written by Elder George L. Studebaker in 1902. "About 1838, several families of Brethren located in Delaware County. This same year, Elders Isaac Karns, John Darst and John Younce, a minister from Miami County, Ohio moved in and the Church was organized."*

In those days the denomination was called Dunker, or German Baptist Brethren. The congregation was called the Mississenewa German Baptist Church. It met in the homes of various members for many years. Finally a meeting house was built just south of Eaton, Indiana, close to the River for which it was named. A cemetery was started and still exists on Indiana 3, just west of the original church (it is now known as the Union Cemetery). The congregation grew and meetings were held in Shideler, Royertown, Hartford City, and Union Township, as well as the original Mississenewa Church. In 1885, the Union Grove meeting house was built and it is the only one existing today of the Mississenewa Church. Other congregations were formed at Bethel Center, Northwest of Hartford City, and in Muncie which included portions of the area of outreach of the Mississenewa Church.

Early leaders, whose descendants have continued long in connection with this church are 1841, John Younce, George W. and John U. Studebaker, 1843, David and John S. Studebaker, David Rench and Jacob Kunkle, others were Alexander and John Snyder, Jacob Gump, John Rarick, Scott Richardson, Isaiah Howard, Christian Davis, William and Manly Deeter, C.F. Eiler and A.C. Young, J. W. and A.C. Miller, V.B. Browning and Clavin Moomaw, A.P. Wenger, Ira Shoemaker and Elton Brinson. Many of these and their descendants went out from Delaware County and were leaders in the Dunker Denomination and founded churches elsewhere in Indiana and west across the United States. Most of these originally came to the Mississenewa from western Ohio and previous to that from Dunkard settlements in Lancaster and York Counties, Pennsylvania, and the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.

*Excerpts from History by Rev. Merle C. Rummel