The thousands of Mennonites who emigrated to Pennsylvania from Europe in the early 1700s flourished in the following 80 years, buying up and clearing the land, taking over large swathes of Lancaster, Berks, and Bucks counties. Towards the end of the century, they needed more land and so looked west to Ohio and north to Upper Canada, where land was being opened for European settlement.
Furthermore, after they had lived in relative peace for almost a century, the revolutionary war (1775 to 1783) tested their commitment to pacifism and brought back nightmares of the endless wars that had overwhelmed their ancestors for so long in Europe. Because the British had made their home in Pennsylvania possible, many of them instinctively felt some loyalty to the British.
For whatever reasons, Mennonites started crossing the Niagara border in the 1790s looking for land. A number of families settled at “The Twenty” around present-day Jordan and Vineland, and one family ventured as far west as the Hamilton mountain area. Soon, word of land for sale deep in the heart of the forests along the Grand River reached these settlements.
In the spring of 1800, two Pennsylvania Mennonites, Joseph Shoerg (Sherk) and his brother-in-law Samuel Betzner Jr, and their families arrived on the banks of the Grand from The Twenty, where they had over-wintered, and started the laborious process of clearing the land. The Betzners’ place was just east of where the village of Doon developed, while the Shoergs’ land was directly across the river, near where the Pioneer Memorial Tower now stands. A few weeks later, Betzner’s parents and other members of the extended family arrived from Pennsylvania.
Later that summer, a group of seven inter-related families arrived. John Biehn (Bean) purchased 3,600 acres from Beasley, stretching west from the Grand River at what is now the village of Doon (the Biehn Tract), as well as several other lots near Blair, while George Bechtel purchased 3,150 acres just to the north of that (the Bechtel Tract). All seven families settled on this land, with the remainder subdivided and later sold to other immigrant families.
By the end of the year 1800, about a dozen families, most of them Mennonites, had purchased land and started settling in the Lower Block. (See “The First Settlers” for more details on the immigrants of the year 1800.)
This was the beginning of a speculation and flipping frenzy. In the following 2 years, many other lots were purchased, and many lots were flipped to new owners, or subdivided and sold on. By 1803, there were some 25 to 30 Mennonite families who had started to clear the forests and build simple log homes and out-buildings, who were actually living in the Lower Tract. Many more lots had been sold, but were not yet settled.
Sources:
Bricker, I. C. “Trek of the Pennsylvanians to Canada, 1805.” Waterloo Historical Society Annual Report, volume 22 (1934).
Bricker, I. C. “Waterloo Township History to 1825.” Waterloo Historical Society Annual Report, volume 22 (1934).
“Ezra Eby’s Introduction,” From Pennsylvania to Waterloo: A Biographical History of Waterloo Township (http://ebybook.region.waterloo.on.ca/ebyintro.php).
500 Years of Migration 