Our History

History of Erb Street Mennonite Church  

Early Years 

Erb Street Mennonite Church traces its origins to Pennsylvania Swiss Mennonites who settled along the Grand River in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Before their arrival, the Mississauga (Ojibwa) People called the area home. One of these Mennonite settlers, a young bachelor named David Eby, arrived in 1807 along with a group that included Joseph Schneider (of Joseph Schneider Haus National Historic Site, Kitchener). 

The Eby’s set up their farmstead on David’s land purchase where Erb Street West and Fisher-Hallman Road intersect today. Enough Mennonites lived in the vicinity by the mid-1830s for a preacher to be scheduled to lead worship at “David Eby’s” every fourth Sunday.  

For the Mennonites, scheduled Sunday worship rotated weekly among groups of loosely clustered localities. Members and preachers traveled to different meeting places each week. Over time as other settlers arrived, these groups were concentrated in and around Niagara, Markham, and Waterloo. 

The First Meetinghouse 

Worship meetings continued at David Eby’s until 1851, when a new brick Meetinghouse was built on the Eby’s’ land, across the intersection from their farm. Erb Street Mennonite Cemetery [hot link?] currently occupies that spot, at the corner of Fisher-Hallman Road and Erb Street West in Waterloo. 

Differences arose within the Waterloo area Mennonite community in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some wished to adopt new church styles; others wished to retain more traditional practices. In 1889, the Mennonites in Ontario split into the Mennonite Conference of Ontario (modernizing) and the “Old Order” Mennonites (traditionalist). The David Eby Meetinghouse group became part of the Mennonite Conference. 

The movement away from more traditional cultural mores and worship modes was at least a contributing factor in the decision to build a new church – the decision of a two-thirds majority achieved by the margin of a single vote. 

Waterloo Mennonite Church 

In 1902, from the remnants of their farm at what was then the developing edge of Waterloo, Samuel S. and Elizabeth Snider donated just under an acre for the building of a new church. Unlike the Meetinghouse, this building was outfitted with electric lights and connected to the power grid. 

Also, unlike the Meetinghouse, there was a basement which was where the “Sunday School”, a factor in the 1889 schism, was accommodated. Consequently, the fifty-year-old, rural David Eby Meetinghouse was abandoned for the Waterloo Mennonite Church in town. 

In this physical move, this relocation to town may have been the result of the spiritual changes in the church during the early twentieth century – a time newly energized by evangelical activity and mission projects. 

Erb Street Mennonite Church 

In the more than one hundred years since its construction, the “new” church building has accumulated some interesting history. 

It was, in 1908, the home church of the first Mennonite women’s group to be organized in Ontario. 

It was, one July afternoon in 1924, the staging ground for the greeting and billeting of more than eight hundred Mennonites in flight from Russia who, after a harrowing, four-week ocean passage, walked from their train at Caroline Street to the horse sheds out behind the church, many carrying all they owned in their arms. [hot link?] 

It was, beginning in 1940, a sort of “headquarters” for the Conference of Historic Peace Churches, a multi-denominational group that worked on behalf of Canadian conscientious objectors to coordinate an alternative service program not administered by the military. 

The original church building underwent several major renovations after 1902. 

A major construction and renovation, completed in 2002, added a new entrance foyer, kitchen, library, and classrooms, and expanded the lounge, basement, and office spaces. The sanctuary was given a complete refresh in 2025. 

Adapted from Karl Kessler, Path of a People: Erb Street Mennonite Church, 1851-2001