The Hochstetler Massacre

September 19, 1757, was a terrible, terrible day for the Jacob Hochstetler family in Northkill, Pennsylvania. A new trilogy of historical novels brilliantly tells the story of the massacre that occurred then and the long-lasting repercussions of that tragedy.

The Facts

As the roadside marker indicates, the first Amish-Mennonite congregation in the U.S. was established by 1740 near Northkill Creek in Berks County, Pennsylvania, about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia. (For some inexplicable reason the date seems to be off by ten days.)

The home of Jacob Hochstetler and his family in Northkill was attacked by a band of Delaware and Shawnee Indians on the night of Sept. 19, 1757. It was an unspeakable tragedy for the family. Jacob's wife, whose name is not known, and two of the children were killed; Jacob and two sons, Joseph and Christian, were taken as captives.

Several months later, Jacob was able to escape from the Indian settlement and to return home. Joseph was 15 when captured and while completely resistant to his captors at first, he gradually assimilated into the Indian community and was reluctant to return to his Amish home when he had the chance to do that several years later.

Christian was captured when he was 11. He had the hardest time going back home when freed and becoming a member of the Amish community again.  

Plaque at the original Hochstetler homestead.

The Trilogy

Ervin Stutzman is the author the “Return to Northkill” trilogy, consisting of Jacob’s Choice (2014), Joseph’s Dilemma (2015), and Christian’s Hope (2016). They are engaging historical novels by an author who comes from the Amish tradition.

On the first Sunday I attended Rainbow Mennonite Church in 2011, I met Clif Hostetler and he has been a good friend (and soon became a Thinking Friend) ever since. Jacob Hochstetler was Clif’s 5^th great-grandfather. (The original German name was shortened by many of Jacob’s descendants.)

(Clif loaned me Stutzman’s books, and I enjoyed reading all three of them between April 2016 and January of this year.)

Author Stutzman (b. 1953) was born into an Amish home in Iowa and was baptized in an Amish community in Kansas. He later joined a Mennonite church. Stutzman, who earned a Ph.D. at Temple University, has been the executive director of Mennonite Church USA since 2010—and he is also a descendant of Jacob Hochstetler.

The Lessons

There is room to mention briefly only two of several “lessons” that can be learned from the Hochstetler massacre and its repercussions.

(1) The choice referred to in the first book of the trilogy is primarily about whether Jacob and his sons would use firearms to shoot the attacking Indians. The sons thought they should. Jacob’s choice was to remain true to the Anabaptist teaching of nonviolence. 

In Stutzman’s novel, Jacob tells God in prayer before the attack, 

This farm belongs to you. My family belongs to you. And if people come to take them from me, I will not take up arms against them. I will be faithful to you as my Savior and Lord. You alone are my defense (p. 72). 

Clearly, that choice resulted in the tragic slaughter of Jacob’s wife and two of his children. Many would say it was a foolish choice. But if he had killed some of the Indians then, it is quite likely that a later raid would have resulted in him and all his children being killed.

(2) The Indian way of life is attractively narrated. Far from picturing the Native Americans as “savages,” Stutzman portrays Indian culture in an appealing way that fosters harmony rather than animosity. These books promote deeper understanding of, and harmony with, others (“the other”) as well as nonviolence.

Maybe the Amish are Right (but Probably Not)

Mrs. Kikuko Fukuoka (June’s and my good friend from Fukuoka, Japan, whom I wrote about here four years ago) came to visit us again this month. I can’t remember why, but on her first evening here we talked some about the Amish.

What my Amish friend said

Fukuoka-san had never seen an Amish person and was interested in learning more about them. So the next day we drove up to the Jamesport (Mo.) area where I had gone in September. Among other things, we were able to talk briefly with Melvin Yutzy, my new Amish friend whom I wrote about on Sept. 30.

During our brief chat on Nov. 4, I asked Melvin about whether he and the other Amish in his community were going to vote on the following Tuesday. He quickly replied that he and all the Amish he knows have never voted and didn’t intend to this year.

(I had seen articles this fall about Amish voting—and voting Republican; for example, see this. But another article I saw said that perhaps only 10% to 15% of them do vote.) 

Anabaptist roots

There have been many Anabaptists through the years—and the Amish are clearly rooted in Anabaptism—who have taken a negative view toward not only voting but toward any active involvement in politics. At the beginning they even held that a Christian should not become a “magistrate.”

Unlike the Lutherans or the Reformed Church from which they separated, Anabaptists largely rejected Luther’s two kingdoms doctrine and opted for identifying wholly with the Kingdom of God and living as fully as possible by the values of that Kingdom—which notably included peace and justice.

Maybe the early Anabaptists and most of the current Amish are right: maybe we who are followers of Jesus Christ should be living in and working for the Kingdom of God rather than becoming involved in the “kingdoms” of the secular world.

Jesus, after all, called his followers to be salt, not the whole bowl of porridge.

When the followers of Jesus were a small minority, perhaps that was the optimal stance. But things changed. Christians came to make up a larger and larger segment of society. Of course, that led to what the Anabaptists have often called the Constintinian fall of the Church.

Accordingly, the 16^th century Anabaptists refused to entangle themselves in political affairs in the same way the first followers of Jesus did.

Neo-Anabaptism

More than six years ago I posted an article about Arthur G. Gish, a former Amish man (and then a member of the Church of the Brethren) who was the author of The New Left and Christian Radicalism (1970). That was one of the most influential books I read in the 1970s—or maybe have read in my lifetime.

In his seminal book, Gish writes about his Anabaptist forefathers with great appreciation—but then talks about the definite need now for those in that tradition to become more intentionally involved in the larger society. And that has, indeed, increasingly happened over the last 45 years.

Quite some time ago I started, but sadly never finished, writing an article about Neo-Anabaptism. Such is what Gish was advocating, for what I thought were legitimate reasons.

Rainbow Mennonite Church (in Kansas City, Kan.), the progressive church I belong to now, is a good example of a Neo-Anabaptist church, and I am happy to be a part of it.

So while I briefly wondered last week whether perhaps Melvin and his Amish friends are right about not voting, I have decided (again) that no, most probably they aren’t.

Is Utopia Possible?

Not many books on my “To Read” list are 500 years old, but Utopia was on that list until I read it recently. “Utopia” was a term coined by the author, Thomas More, for his book with that title published (in Latin) in 1516.

Introducing More

Many of you probably remember that More was a staunch Catholic who opposed King Henry VIII breaking away from Rome and declaring himself the head of the Church in England. Accordingly, in 1535 More (b. 1478) was convicted of treason and beheaded.

A few of you also may remember that “A Man for All Seasons” was the movie which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1966. That is a fine film about Thomas More, a fine man.

During the seventeen semesters I taught one of the required theology classes at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, Thomas More was always a part of my lecture about the beginnings of the Church of England. I would always tell my students how I admire More because he was a man of great integrity.

It is hard to know what to make of his Utopia, though

More’s Utopia

“Utopia,” from the Greek words meaning no place (ou topos), is said to be a pun on the Greek words meaning good place (eu topos). The first definition of utopia in the online Miriam-Webster dictionary is “an imaginary and indefinitely remote place.” But when capitalized, it means “a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions.”

The island of Utopia in More’s rather complex book was inhabited by people who lived quite differently than people in England—or in other parts of the world, for that matter. It was a socialistic society where people lived with little interest in gold (and all that that represents) and with a high level of equality—and satisfaction. 

Attempts to create Utopia

Since the time of More’s intriguing novel, there have been several actual attempts to create a utopian community. One such example was New Harmony, which I mentioned in my Aug. 20 blog article. Started by one idealistic group in 1814, the whole town was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy Welshman.

The Wikipedia article about Owen (1771–1858) says, “In 1824, Owen travelled to America to invest the bulk of his fortune in an experimental 1,000-member colony on the banks of Indiana’s Wabash River. . . . New Harmony was intended to be a Utopian society.”

But guess what? It didn’t work. In spite of all the grand plans and lofty ideals, they were unable to create a utopian society—and so has been the case of similar experiments throughout the last 500 years.

Pride, greed, sloth, and other inherent human weaknesses (sins) seem to have doomed most (all?) attempts to create Utopia.

The best examples I know of utopian societies that have existed for any length of time are those which did not seek to form Utopia but rather simply to follow the example of Christians in the Book of Acts.

For example, the Bruderhof, the Hutterites, and to some extent the Amish all seem to have been successful, at least to some degree, in creating utopian communities. Those groups all have roots in the Swiss Anabaptist movement that began in 1525, just a few years after More wrote Utopia—and a movement he would have opposed.

Does More’s Utopia, or especially the groups I just mentioned, have anything to teach us today? Most likely—if we just had the will to put the needs of all ahead of the privileges of the few.

Amish Grace

October 2, 2006. You doubtlessly remember the terrible tragedy that occurred ten years ago on that date in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. You may not have remembered the name of that small town, but that is where ten Amish girls were brutally shot in their one-room schoolhouse.

Such a horrendous event is unforgettable.

The Shooting

Charles Roberts, a local 32-year-old man who was not Amish, entered the school just before 10 o’clock on that Monday morning. He released all the boys but kept the ten girls hostage. The teacher escaped and ran for help—but to no avail.

Even though the police soon arrived, they were unable to do anything to stop Roberts from shooting all ten of the girls. Three died at the scene and two more died the next morning. One survived with severe brain injury. The other four recovered and were able to go back to school.

Donald Kraybill and two colleagues wrote a powerful book about that school shooting and its aftermath. They titled their book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (2007). Kraybill arrived at Nickel Mines on the morning following the shooting. The first part of the book is based largely on his observations and interviews with many Amish and “English” people who lived in the community.

Kraybill (b. 1946), the world’s leading expert on the Amish, is also the co-author of a 500-page book titled simply The Amish (2013).

I first became acquainted with Kraybill’s name when I read his 1978 book The Upside-Down Kingdom not long after it was published. I have been an admirer of him ever since, and reading Amish Grace for the first time this month increased my admiration of him.

The Movie

Perhaps many of you have seen the 2010 made-for-television movie “Amish Grace” that was in part based on the book—although the movie’s central character, and her family, was fictional. A couple of weeks ago, June and I watched the movie for the second time and were deeply moved by it again.

Thankfully, the shootings were not shown, but the grief of the parents was made very evident. What was of particular interest, and amazement for many, was the forgiving attitude of the Amish community.

To make it a more interesting movie, though, the fictional mother Ida, whose oldest daughter was one of the five who were killed, at first resented the forgiving attitude of Gideon, her husband, and the larger Amish community.

In reality, as well as in the movie, beginning on the very day of the shooting some of the local Amish people began reaching out to killer’s wife as well as to his father, expressing loving concern and forgiveness. The fictional part of the movie portrayed well the positive change in Ida’s life when her attitude changed from anger to forgiveness. 

Gideon & Ida (from the movie)

My Visit

More or less on a whim, the next day after watching the movie I drove 70-plus miles to just south of Jamesport, Mo. By chance, or providence, I met and had about an hour of delightful conversation with Melvin Yutzy, an Amish farmer with eight children, including a daughter who looked much like the schoolgirls in the movie.

He said an “English” friend drove to his place on the afternoon of October 2, 2006, and told him about the shootings. When I asked him what he thought about the forgiving attitude of the Amish in Nickel Mines, he was in complete agreement.

Just like the Amish people Kraybill interviewed soon after the shootings, my new friend Melvin emphasized that forgiveness is the only option for followers of Jesus. 

My daughter Kathy was with me and took
this picture of me by the Yutzy's buggy.
What do you make of the Chiefs sticker?