Mennonites are descendants of a revolutionary Anabaptist wing of the Protestant Reformation, and are followers of Menno Simons, who lived from 1492 to 1559. Anabaptists believe that only adults should be baptized, when they are at an age where they know what they are doing. They also refuse military service and the swearing of judicial oaths. For this, they endured centuries of persecution in Europe before a group of Rhinelanders accepted William Penn's invitation to go to Pennsylvania, where all nonconformists would be guaranteed civil liberties. In 1683, they founded Germantown, now part of Philadelphia. This group were the first of more than 3000 Mennonites from Switzerland and Germany to travel to Pennsylvania over the next fifty years. However, being pacifists, Mennonites were not popular with some people during the American Revolution, and some had their animals, wagons, and produce confiscated as the price for not fighting. At the end of the war, Mennonites were once again guaranteed their religious freedom but some began to look north, where Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe was inviting Mennonites, Quakers, and other groups to Upper Canada.

The earliest Mennonite settlers came in 1786 and settled on the Twenty, near today's Vineland. These were the families of John, Tilman, and Christopher Kolb (later Culp), Franklin Albrecht (later Albright), and Frederick Hahn. Over the next ten years, 33 families from Bucks County in Pennsylvania moved to the Vineland-Beamsville area of the Niagara Peninsula. In 1800, members of the families met at Dilman Moyer's house to receive direction from the bishop in Bucks County, Pennsylvania about organizing a congregation. They were advised to choose their own leaders so they chose John Fretz as deacon and Valentine Kratz as minister. Fretz and Kratz thereby became the first Mennonite deacon and minister in Canada. A year later, Jacob Moyer was selected as minister and in 1805 he became the first Mennonite bishop in Canada. Between 1800 and 1810, a log house was used to hold church meetings. It was known as the Moyer Mennonite Church and was the first Mennonite church in Canada. The church, but not the building, still exists in Vineland.

In 1788, Jacob Sevits Jr. (Sewitz or Zavitz) was the first of a group of Mennonites to settle between Fort Erie and Port Colborne.  This group, the Bertie Congregation, named for the township, founded a log church about a mile east of Sherkston in 1828. The first leader was Preacher George Zavitz, son of Jacob. The log church served for 30 years and was replaced by a brick church in 1860. However, little by little, the Mennonite community was absorbed by other churches until in 1931 the church building was sold to the Tunkers. The building still stands at the corner of Sherkston Road and Holloway Bay Road in Ridgeway.

Jacob Burkholder, from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and five children settled on the Hamilton "mountain" in October 1794 near where the present Mohawk Road intersects Upper Sherman Avenue. Like many early Mennonites, they were without a church for many years, making do for spiritual guidance with occasional visits from ministers on their rounds between the Twenty and Block 2 (Waterloo). The first church was founded by David Burkholder, Jacob's son, as a Mennonite church but eventually became Methodist. The present Burkholder Church, successor to David's log cabin, is a United Church and is on Mohawk between Upper Sherman and Upper Wellington. The cemetery next door is fifty years older than the church and has never been part of the church. The first school in the area was a log cabin built in 1839 on the cemetery lot and was used as a church until a separate church was built in 1858. The cemetery is believed to be haunted.

1800 was the year that Joseph Schoerg (Sherk) and Samuel Betzner Jr. moved to the Waterloo area after wintering over on the Twenty. Within a year, another party from Franklin County in Pennsylvania joined them. This party included Samuel Betzner Sr. and his son-in-law John Reichert. Betzner Sr. and Schoerg settled across the Grand River from Doon. Reichert settled near Freeport. Samuel Betzner Jr. settled on what is now Cedarbrook Farm near Blair.

Cedarbrook Farm

Later the same year, another group arrived from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. This party included Abraham Bechtel and his family, including his son, the future leader of the Mennonites in the Preston area, Jacob Bechtel. The Bechtels settled near Blair and Jacob's house still stands off the Blair Road in Cambridge.

Jacob Bechtel House

John and Samuel Bricker arrived the following year from Cumberland County along with Joseph Bechtel. Sam became the instigator of the first German Company and Joseph was the first Mennonite minister in Waterloo County. John Erb, the founder of Preston and builder of the Cambridge Mills, came in 1805. The same year came the Ebys, George and his brother, known as Indian Sam. George settled on Lot 1 of the German Tract and Sam on Lot 18, the next lot to the west. In 1806, Jacob Schneider (Old Yoch Snyder) and Simon Cress came. Old Yoch settled in Bloomingdale and Cress settled in St Jacobs. Later in 1806, Benjamin Eby, the future Bishop, and Henry Brubacher arrived to stay with Benj's cousin George while they looked around. Benj was so impressed, he bought Lot 2 next to his uncle.

Earlier, the founders of the village of Ancaster, James Wilson, St John Rousseaux, and Richard Beasley bought Block 2 of the Six Nations Reserve from Joseph Brant. This block of land contains the present cities of Kitchener and Waterloo and the surrounding area. Soon after, Beasley bought out his partners. To try to sell the land quickly, he promoted the land to Betzner and the other Mennonites who had settled near Doon and soon more settlers began to make the trek from Pennsylvania to Block 2. Schoerg bought 260 acres by selling a horse. John Biehn (Bean) and George Bechtel bought 3000 acres each and these tracts were known as the Bean and Bechtel Tracts.

It came as a great shock to these honest, hardworking people to find that Beasley had taken out a mortgage on the land. Beasley was caught in a Catch-22 situation. To pay for the land, he was forced by the government to take out a mortgage so that the interest would go to benefit the Six Nations. He could only pay off the mortgage by selling the land, but prospective buyers were wary of buying mortgaged land fearing that they could lose it if Beasley defaulted. So, when confronted by a group of angry Mennonites, Beasley explained the situation and suggested that they organize a company to buy 60,000 acres of Block 2 so that he could discharge the mortgage. Sam Bricker returned to Pennsylvania to try to raise £20,000 from the Mennonites there. These Mennonites soon organized a company that came to be known as the German Company. Bricker and the Erb brothers, John and Jacob, returned with 200 bags, each containing £100, to buy 60,000 acres of Block 2 from Beasley. With the money, Beasley discharged the mortgage and the block of land belonged to the German Company.

In 1806, looking for future expansion, some Mennonites from Block 2 began to think about Block 3. They were assisted by two reputable men who were also friends of Joseph Brant: William Dickson, a lawyer and owner of Block 1, and Augustus Jones, Deputy Surveyor and son-in-law of a Mississauga chief. Brant had originally sold the block to William Wallace, who unfortunately had not paid for it. So Augustus Jones helped John and Jacob Erb form a second German Company to buy part of Block 3, about 45,000 acres of the original 86,000. Jones surveyed the land into 130 lots of about 350 acres.

In November 1807, after their trip to Canada, Henry Brubacher and Benjamin Eby returned to Pennsylvania, taking with them Jones' map of the surveyed land. The intention was to repeat the first German Company's successful sale of land. In this the second German Company was just as successful. Within a short period in 1808, all lots were sold. Where the second company was not as successful was in getting people to settle on the land. For a time, most Mennonites travelling to Canada preferred to settle on First German Company land in Waterloo Township, so that, as late as 1825, Second German Company land in Woolwich Township only had 84 inhabitants. And most of these were people who had settled just over the border from Waterloo Township.

Early settlers in Woolwich Township (Block3) included Simon Cress, who built a house on the banks of the Conestogo River on the east side of the present King Street in St Jacobs, and David Musselman, who settled and built mills in Conestogo including the mill still operating.

The Mennonite settlement of Markham began when Peter Rieser (Reesor) made a trip from Franklin County in Pennsylvania looking for land for his father and his family. After travelling to York, he sent back enthusiastic reports to his father. Christian, the father, felt that he could not leave his own ailing father, so it wasn't until 1804 that the Rieser family moved to  Markham Township. Christian bought 200 acres of land (Lot 10 Concession 9) in Markham from Levi Collier. When Christian died in 1806, the land belonged to Peter, who in 1802 had married Esther Eby, sister of George and Indian Sam Eby, early settlers of Block 2, and cousin of Benjamin Eby. The next year it was owned by Peter's brother Preacher John, and it was passed between members of the Reesor family. The property now contains the Lewis J. Burkholder House, a heritage building dating from 1904.

Preacher John Reesor founded the Reesor Mennonite Congregation about 1848. His brother Samuel founded the Cedar Grove Mennonite Church in 1861 when he built the church building on Reesor Road south of 14th Avenue in Markham. Rev. Lewis Burkholder was Samuel Reesor's grandson and was a member of the Cedar Grove church.