Religiöser Botschafter: an early Mennonite newspaper in America

The partly unreadable Botschafter title on the exhibit can be identified through Mennonite archival sources as Religiöser Botschafter, also styled Der Religiöse Botschafter. John H. Oberholtzer began the paper at Milford Square, Pennsylvania, in 1852. The Mennonite Heritage Center lists surviving issues under this title, while the Mennonite Library and Archives preserves a biography describing Oberholtzer’s labor as writer, editor, typesetter, and printer.

Publishing gave widely separated congregations a way to exchange Christian teaching and discuss common work. Oberholtzer used the press to encourage fellowship, education, and mission. The enterprise continued under the successor title Christliches Volksblatt, linking the early newspaper to the developing network of congregations that formed the General Conference Mennonite Church.

The exhibit calls the 1852 paper the first Mennonite periodical in America. That claim needs a qualification: Heinrich Bertholet had already issued a single number of Der Evangelische Botschafter in 1836. The Mennonite Encyclopedia therefore describes Oberholtzer’s venture as the first successful Mennonite journal. Distinguishing the short-lived 1836 attempt from the sustained 1852 publication preserves both histories without assigning the earlier paper’s title to the later one.