By Gary Smucker
The Mathias Mennonite Church was formed in the 1970s when three Mennonite congregations in southeast Hardy County joined together. From the 1860s small Mennonite congregations were located in rural areas of Hardy County so people could walk to the services, but by the 1970s the roads had been improved and most families had automobiles so forming a centrally located church building made sense. The Mathias Mennonite Church is on Rt. 259 south of Mathias, West Virginia.
Dedication of the Mathias Mennonite Church building was September 16, 1973. John F. Shank and Linden Wenger spoke in the morning. Grace Showalter, a local historian and college teacher at Eastern Mennonite College (now University), gave a history of Mennonites in the Mathias area. Showalter’s mother was from Mathias. The dedication service was in the afternoon at 2:00 PM with David Augsburger bringing the sermon.
The three congregations which joined together to form Mathias Mennonite Church were Cullers Run, Mt. Hermon, and Buckhorn Mennonite Churches. The Cove Mennonite Church, the other congregation in the area, which met at the Whitmore School decided not to join because of the distance to the new location. Harley and Irene Good were leaders at Mathias Mennonite Church beginning in 1973 until 1990. Lewis E. McDorman served as pastor from 1990 to 1995.
Cullers Run Mennonite Church was one of the churches which joined to form the Mathias Mennonite Church. The school was used as a Mennonite meeting house. The churches services and Sunday School at Cullers Run School building were usually in the afternoons and the pastors from Buckhorn Church or Mt. Hermon Church met with that group when the group did not have a pastor.
“Cullers Run School is one of the most complete restorations of a one room school in the nation. It is chock full of authentic memorabilia: the original bell, pot-bellied stove, teacher’s desk, student benches, lunch buckets, textbooks, papers, and photographs.” (HWG, p 31) A log school building was built in 1879. A new building was built in 1898, and the additional room was added in 1914. Ken and Ann Shifflet restored the school building and donated it to the Cullers Run School Association which maintains the school today. The school is located on Cullers Run Road south of Lost River State Park.
Mt. Hermon Mennonite Church was on a hill next to Rt. 259 near the West Virginia/Virginia line. Church work started there in 1937. Beginning in the late 1940s the Linden Wenger family lived near the church building, and Linden was the pastor of the Church. Other pastors served the congregation over the years. After the congregation moved to the Mathias Mennonite Church, the building became a private residence and is still used as a home.
Itinerant Mennonite ministers began holding services in the Buckhorn Schoolhouse in 1930 in Hardy County. During the 1930s and ‘40s, young adults in Virginia Conference taught Summer Bible School in the highlands. The congregation at Buckhorn grew through the Sunday School, summer Bible school, and revival meetings held in the schoolhouse. The Buckhorn Mennonite Church building was built with volunteer labor in and dedicated in 1949. John and Katie Shank provided leadership in the early years of the congregation. The church building was located on Dove Hollow Road and the land adjoined the Lost River State Park. Today the renovated building exists as a vacation cabin.
The Whitmore School served as the Cove Mennonite Church building from 1954 to 1997. The building was on the Upper Cove Run Road. Charles and Alice Hartman gave leadership to the Sunday school. When the Mathias Mennonite Church was organized, plans were for the group from Cove Mennonite Church to join the Mathias Church. Bertha Halterman told the church district leaders that there were people living near the church who walked to the services and would go nowhere to church if the church closed. Linden and Esther Wenger provided part time leadership after their retirement. In 1997, the Northern District of the Virginia Mennonite Conference working with the leadership of the Cove Mennonite Church decided to discontinue the program and merge with the Mathias Mennonite Church.
The old schoolhouse was an ideal representation of a building which had been used both as a school and for worship. The Board of the Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center decided to move the building to the BMHC campus in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
In the summer of 2004, the bell tower, the front porch, and a rear classroom were removed by volunteers. The 20 foot by 23 foot building was sawed into three parts. In December of 2004 the building was moved to the Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center. Volunteers dug and poured a foundation on the top of the hill near the woods at the BMHC. The parts of the building were carefully reassembled, and the front porch and bell tower were reinstalled.
Today school groups, tourists, and busloads of visitors tour the Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center to learn the local history of Mennonites and Brethren in the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding mountains and valleys. Students sit at the desks in the Whitmore School building and learn about education in a one room school. The 120-year-old classroom educates a new generation of learners.
________
Chronicles, Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center, Spring 2005.
Daily News Record, “Mathias Church to be Dedicated” September 15, 1973.
Heritage Weekend Guidebook, Hardy County Tour and Craft Association, September 2024.
Wenger, Linden M. (n.d.). Fifty Years in Northern District of Virginia Mennonite Conference: Memoirs of Linden M. Wenger. N. C.: Self Published.
Yoder, Elwood, “Buckhorn Mennonite Church,” Elwood Yoder’s Blog, July 24, 2022
–Gary Smucker
–October 2024
The former Whitmore Schoolhouse now located at the Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center, Harrisonburg, VA
(Photo by Gary Smucker)
