Bishop Benjamin Eby

The first Mennonite Bishop in Ontario, the esteemed Benjamin Eby, father of eleven children, as a boy made barrels in his father’s cooper shop in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

In 1806 he came to Berlin, erected a log house and rode home to Pennsylvania on horseback, returning with his wife the following year. He was chosen and ordained a Mennonite minister in 1809 and Bishop in 1812. Meetings were held in local homes, but because of constantly increasing membership, in 1813 Bishop Eby instigated the building of log meeting houses.

One such log meeting house was erected at the site of the First Mennonite Church in Berlin. In this building, during the winter months, he also taught school, continuing the classes held since 1809 in a one-room log cabin and taught initially by an Irishman, John Beatty.

In 1834 a new A Eby’s Meeting House, was built on the same site.