Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/51

 in smaller numbers in the adjoining states of New York, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

It is not definitely known when and where the first Mennonites set foot on the shores of America, but it appears that with the invasion of the Dutch settlements at New Amsterdam, now New York, in 1664, there had for some years previous been located with them a community of Mennonites. After the occupation of New Amsterdam by the English, these people crossed over to the Long Island side in search of homes where they would not come in direct contact with their new English neighbors.

The place they selected for their home was at Gravesend, several miles out from the Brooklyn shore, by the forks of a stream flowing southward into the lower portion of New York Bay. As at Germantown, Pa., some twenty years later, the colony at Gravesend consisted of both Quakers and Mennonites who conducted public worship together by the men taking turns to read from the Scriptures on Sabbath days. This became necessary because it appears that at no time a minister had been provided for the colony.

The place, like Germantown, has the historical distinction of having been the scene of a battle ground during the period of the Revolutionary War. Both the name of the place as well as the settlement itself, is now included within the Borough of Brooklyn and hence there is little if anything left to show where possibly was located the earliest Mennonite community in America.