Jacob Woolner, Mennonite Preacher
June 21, 2009
Maryanne Szuck
This is a story of a young orphaned English Anglican boy who became a German Mennonite preacher in Breslau way back in the 1860s.
My great - great - great grandfather, Isaac Woolner was born in 1792 in the County of Suffolk in England. In 1812 Isaac Woolner and his brother, William, came to Canada to fight the War of 1812 between the colonies and Upper Canada. For their military services they were awarded land in this area.
In 1832 Isaac brought his wife Sarah Hembling and their 5 children to Canada to claim that land. They sailed for several months to reach Canada.
Jacob, one of the children was born in 1826. He was 6 years old when the family came to Canada in 1832. Very shortly after arriving in the Bridgeport area Jacob and his siblings found themselves motherless. Jacob`s mother, Sarah and the youngest brother died of cholera.
Jacob stayed with Deacon Samuel Eby family and the remaining Woolner children were placed in different foster homes while Isaac continued on to Marsville near Orangeville where the promised lands were located. Isaac made an unpleasant discovery there. His land was occupied by a surviving widow, Bridget Connor, who needed help to farm the property. Isaac worked to avoid a prolonged and expensive legal battle as well as to acquire a mother for his orphaned children. So he married Mrs. Connor.
Back in Bridgeport, Jacob sadly missed his mother and absent father. Young Jacob being raised by the Mennonite Deacon Samuel Eby and his wife, became part of that family and was thus grafted into the Mennonite community. But as the months passed, he came to love his foster parents and the Eby children and soon the young English boy spoke Pennsylvania German like all the local folks.
When Jacob`s father, Isaac, finally arrived to claim his son, Jacob did not recognize him and Jacob did not want to live with a new step-mother either. So Isaac agreed to let Jacob live with his adoptive family - The Samuel Eby family - that reared him to manhood.
Jacob married a Pennsylvania German Mennonite woman, Hannah Schiedel in 1849 and they farmed one mile west of Kossuth which is now airport property just south of Breslau.
Jacob and Hannah were part of the Cressman Mennonite meetinghouse.
In 1867, the year that Canada became a nation, Jacob was ordained as a Mennonite “preacher” by Bishop Joseph Hagey at the Cressman Mennonite Church in Breslau. Hagey was also from the Breslau Mennonite community. Jacob Woolner could preach fluently in both English and German.
The Mennonite church had reaped the benefit of the services of an energetic leader in Jacob: the harvest that Samuel Eby and his wife Elizabeth had sown. Mennonite ministers, or “preachers” as they were commonly called, were chosen by “lot”. Several men would be selected from the membership and a stack of Bibles would be placed at the front of the church. In one of the Bibles was a slip of paper, and the man who chose the Bible with that slip of paper in it was considered to have been selected by God as preacher. Jacob was the oldest minister in the Ontario Conference, being ordained over 50 years.
Jacob and Hannah had 10 children, including John, my great-grandfather and Jacob S. Jr. who also became a Mennonite preacher.
Jacob Woolner served as preacher here at Breslau from 1867 to 1890. He died in 1917 at the age of 91 and is buried in our Breslau Church cemetery.
In April of this year, a new monument was erected for Jacob Woolner to replace the old marker including a memory to Sarah Hembling, Jacob`s mother.
Hannah and Jacob`s son, John (one of ten) was born in 1855 and died in 1925. John was my great grandfather, married Hannah Clemmer and they had 6 children. One of their sons was Nelson, my grandfather, who was born in 1889. The Woolner family farmed on the west side of the Grand River across from the airport. Nelson married Ida Snyder in 1912. They had 5 children and the oldest was my mother Priscilla. In 1941 my father, John Szuck and my mother Priscilla, moved to Breslau until her death in 2006.
Jacob Woolner is also the second great grandfather of Gary Gingrich, Bryan Bowman, Alice Roeder, Dan and Diane Burkhart who are members of this congregation. Dan through Jacob and Diane through Hannah Schiedel.
At Woolner Reunions, we always sing “Faith of our Fathers” and remember our roots of English and Canadian Mennonite heritage.
Regardless of from whom we descend, we have much to thank our ancestors for - their great courage, strong bodies and minds, and their abiding faith in God along with the vision of future life in this land of Canada.
I praise God for the many blessings he has provided me through the efforts of my pioneer fathers and mothers. May we all continue to give thanks and remember to have the Faith of our Fathers.
Today, in this year of our 175th anniversary we grace the licensing service of Darren Kropf, a new minister here at Breslau Mennonite Church.
Blessings to Darren.
Update from Maryanne as of Sept 9
Corrections to My Story - sent to me as being well researched by a genealogist of the Woolners.
1. Jacob and his siblings were not orphans. Their mother Sarah, and youngest brother James, died of cholera, and the surviving members were taken into the care of other families.
2. Isaac and William did not come to Canada to fight the War of 1812. They were both enlisted members of His Majesty's 43rd Regiment of Foot which fought in various places in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. They never saw duty in Canada.
3. Isaac and Sarah came to Canada in 1832. William and his wife Phyllis, came in 1834. They did not sail for several months.
4. Re: "Isaac made an unpleasant discovery there."
After establishing himself on the land accorded him by the Land Registry Office in Montreal, he married widow, Bridget Connor, and started a second family. Some years later it was discovered that the land had, in 1825, been deeded to a United Empire Loyalist and after considerable legal effort to have the error corrected, he was to forfeit his title to this property. He was allotted alternative land and financial compensation for the development he had done including the buildings. The disputed land was in no way connected to Bridget Connor.
5. Also note we have no ties to Lucy Maude Montgomery and the PEI Woolners. WE DO NOT. Although their forefathers also came from Suffolk, if any connection is to be made, it is well prior to 1700. Research is ongoing.