until the end of the last century, to obtain the necessary information from North America for his purpose; but it is apparent, upon looking at the remarkable names of places, that very much is wanting. They wrote to him, however, that he might mention as distinct communities Schiebach,[1] Germantown, Mateschen, Indian Kreek, Blen,[2] Soltford,[3] Rakkill,[4] Schwanin, Deeproom,[5] Berkosen,[6] Anfrieds, Grotenswamp,[7] Sackheim,[8] Lower Milford, with two meeting houses, Hosensak, Lehay,[9] Term, Schuylkill, and forty in the neighborhood of Kanestogis.[10] In 1786 the community in Virginia is also specially mentioned. For some years this statement remained unchanged. The list of 1793 says that the number of the Mennonite communities of North America, distinct from the Baptists, was two hundred, and some estimate them at over three hundred, of which twenty-three were in the Pennsylvania districts of Lancaster and Kanestogis. This communication was kept unchanged in the Name List of 1810, but in the next, that of 1815, it was at last omitted, because, according to the compiler, Dr. A. N. Van Gelder, “for many years, at least since 1801, we have been entirely without knowledge or information.”
In 1856, R. Baird, in his well-known work, “Religions in America,” says that Pennsylvania is still the principal home of the Mennonites in the United States, and that they have four hundred communities, with two hundred or two hundred and fifty preachers and thirty thousand members, who are, for the most part in easy circumstances. Perhaps these figures are correct, so far as concerns Pennsylvania; but according to the “Confer-
