Laurelville: A Lenape Woods and the Methodist Camp (pre-1943)

Laurelville: A Lenape Woods and the Methodist Camp (pre-1943)

For the past 50 years, I have had many associations with the Laurelville Retreat Center near Mt. Pleasant in western Pennsylvania. These relationships have been mainly as a neighbor living at Scottdale and as  part of the staff in the 1980s. Some of those personal interactions can be found in my blog during those years. But of a more general nature, in 2023, I wrote a short history which may be of interest regarding the longer time span of the center, especially some of the personalities in its history.

If you ask people about the origins of the Laurelville Retreat Center, they may talk about the Mennonites, the Methodists, and the Native Americans. A few may even recall the biblical creation story and how God has provided the beautiful natural setting we call Laurelville. Visitors today can enjoy over 600 acres of woodlands with many trees, animals, waterways, and rock formations going back hundreds, even thousands of years. 

We’ll acknowledge all these divine and human origins and go back several hundred years to the first Americans who lived with the flora and fauna of Laurelville, the Delaware or Lenape people. Several tribes lived and traveled through this region in the mid-1700s, but we’ll focus on the Lenape because they were the Native Americans who lived here when the Europeans arrived. They earlier lived along the eastern coast near what is now Philadelphia and New Jersey, when William Penn arrived. Within a half century they were pushed out beyond the Appalachian Mountains to Ohio country, western Pennsylvania and what is now Laurelville.    

And we’ll focus on one person: Tewea or Captain Jacobs ( ca 1730 -- 1756) because he was a notable Lenape or Delaware chief during the mid-18th century; a statue honoring his memory remains on the grounds; and Jacobs Creek is named after him. Captain Jacobs grew up as Tewea around the present day Juniata County, Pennsylvania, during a colonial period when Native Americans and Euroamericans often had mutually beneficial relationships of trading and sharing the land. The ideal was William Penn’s Peaceable Kingdom. An early history notes that during some difficult land negotiations between the Delaware and Europeans, Tewea stepped in and negotiated a peaceful settlement. He received his English name Jacobs from a colonial settler Arthur Buchanan with whom Jacobs made various social and financial transactions. Tewea’s mother was a Lenape and some genealogical accounts say his father was a French fur trader.

During the 1750s, relationships among the British, French and Indians became hostile and fierce; the American Indians were drawn into the Seven Years War in Europe between the French and British. In America it was called the French and Indian War, and the Delaware and Captain Jacobs were partisans in the conflict. One early historian said “These Red Men were not as unreasonable in their attitude, as has often been pictured.” They said to an English negotiator: “Why do you come to fight on our land? This makes everybody believe that you want to take and settle the Land.” The land was the issue, and now Captain Jacobs made cause with the better-known Delaware Chief Shingas leading the Indians in fierce resistance against the British and European colonists who were increasingly encroaching on Indian land west of the Allegheny Mountains. 

In this conflict, Captain Jacobs, his wife and a son were killed on September 8, 1756, when a British military party attacked and destroyed the Indian settlement of Kittanning about 40 miles north of present day Pittsburgh. But this notable leader Captain Jacobs is remembered here also because although his main home was at Kittanning, he and his braves had hunting cabins near here (about half-way between Mount Pleasant and Scottdale, specifically Bridgeport and the Green Lick Park to locals). On July 2, 1755, General Braddock stopped overnight and made camp  at Jacobs Cabins, during his ill-fated expedition to capture Fort Duquesne, now Fort Pitt. 

Over a century and a half later in 1937, a Mount Pleasant auto dealer named William C. Galley (1862-1938) crafted a stone sculpture of Captain Jacobs which has been well preserved by our Laurelville neighbors, the Alberts family. Over the years, much legend and oral tradition has grown up about Captain Jacobs and the family. But we’ll remember him here for both the beauty and and the tragedy of his people, the Lenape, the Delaware. And we remember him for the refreshing stream which runs through Laurelville and bears his name: Jacobs Creek. 

After 1776, the Europeans, the colonial Americans, settled into western Pennsylvania, with the Methodists spreading Christianity, Bible classes, hymn singing, abolitionism, temperance, and Sunday schools across the frontier. By 1884, Scottdale Methodist Episcopal Church was founded. It grew from 12 members to the time of its golden anniversary in 1924 with 817 members. And by this time the Men’s Bible Class was looking for a new project and appointed a committee to look for a summer camp site. On May 22, 1920, the church bought 46 acres from Charles R. Kalp of Laurelville which became their campgrounds under the formal name of the Scottdale Methodist Episcopal Church Camp. 

The Methodists built a large lodge which combined kitchen, meeting area, and sleeping rooms as well as some smaller cabins along the hillside. They added tennis and volleyball courts, and a swimming pool; these  became central physical features of the camp for many years. In their church literature, the purpose of the camp was to provide “vacational privileges,” as well as “recreation for our church people and their friends.'' The camp was to foster an “environment and spirit of a Christian family where rest and recreation may be obtained with the fewest distractions possible.” Meanwhile, by the early 1940s, the Mennonites, who had a denominational publishing house and conference offices at Scottdale, were also looking for a campground. The Methodists sold their camp to The Mennonite Camp Ground Association which became an acknowledged entity in 1943. And that begins the next stage of Laurelville Retreat Center’s history. 

Tewea or Captain Jacobs biographical information and context appear in numerous sources, among them: David I. Preston. The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667-1783. 2009; also David I. Preston, Braddock’s Defeat: the Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution, 2015; on Jacobs Creek naming in George P. Donehoo,  Indian Villages and Place Names, 1928, p 204; on Jacobs’ Cabins Norman L. Baker, Braddock’s Road: Mapping the British Expedition from Alexandria to the Monongahela, 2013, pp. 123-126. The Methodist ownership of Laurelville comes from the centennial book 1874-1974 of Trinity United Methodist Church, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, “Our Camp,” p. 14 and Directory: First Methodist Episcopal Church, Scottdale, Pa., 1923, pp. 11-13. Scottdale Attorney James Lederach provided information on land transfers and deeds of the Laurelville properties.

Laurelville: A Mennonite Church Center (1943 -1993)

 Laurelville: A Mennonite Church Center (1943 -1993)

When the Mennonites purchased the Laurelville camp they soon turned it into a cultural and church center for their denomination during the second half of the 20th century. If this effort sounds grandiose today, in the 1940s the founders were talking about a small group in a relatively small region east of the Mississippi River. Geographically, the camp along with the denominational publishing company in nearby Scottdale were within one-day car-driving distance of their large Lancaster and Franconia communities in eastern Pennsylvania, the Rockingham County Mennonites in Virginia, and the  Amish Mennonites in Holmes Wayne County Ohio and Goshen and Elkhart, Indiana. To the north were the Kitchener Waterloo Mennonites in southern Ontario. All of these communities became a part of Laurelville. 

At the heart of the Mennonite community were Abram Jacob (AJ) and Alta Metzler and they were also at the heart of Mennonite Laurelville for several decades. AJ’s story along with the other founders is vividly told in Where There is Vision: The Laurelville Story 1943-1993. Spanning most of the century, AJ (1902-1996), with unbounded energy and inexhaustible optimism, moved and awakened the Mennonite Church. One historian said he seemed to be everywhere--except at home. At home at Laurelville and Scottdale were Alta Maust Metzler (1905-2000) and a family of six children.  

Alta Maust had grown up in nearby Springs, Pennsylvania, and became friends with AJ at Eastern Mennonite School (now University) and thought she was marrying an aspiring entrepreneur; he was already a plant supervisor in an apple canning company. Soon after marriage, however, Alta’s husband was called to Christian ministry as a pastor, evangelist, publisher, and camp director. During the early years, every Spring Alta and six children would drive to Laurelville to get ready for the summer as she later reflected: “I put an awful lot of work into that place--opening each building, getting out blankets and sheets, cleaning out those buildings. Then in the fall, the last event was the early October Association weekend. Sunday afternoon cars would leave and we would be left with all those buildings to close up.”

After a few years, AJ and Alta leased a small plot of land from the Camp to build a family cabin. The family carried stones from the nearby creek for the foundation and a large wood burning fireplace. Alta admits about that “early project of starting Laurelville I was in on a lot, including committee meetings, because I knew as much about it as AJ.” Her gentle, accepting spirit enveloped and encouraged many beginning with her own children, and when she entered her retirement years, Laurelville had a cabin named Metzler’s Cabin and her children wrote a book: Things We Have Known: Through the 20th Century with AJ and Alta Metzler, edited by their daughter Alice Roth. 

Meanwhile, two other people represent much of the Laurelville evangelical and churchly spirit, especially its Christian spirit of witness, experimentation and outreach during the second half of the 20th century. Arnold Cressman (1928-1998) and Reid Carpenter (1938-   ) were both born in the Christian church, Cressman among the traditional Mennonites of southern Ontario, and Carpenter in a conservative Congregational church in Connecticut. Both had a high view of youth ministry; both incorporated business leaders into their projects; and both were visionaries and dreamers.  

In his 20s Arnold Cressman was a pastor and also earned a college degree in English and Bible. By the mid-50s he and his wife Rhoda Garber had moved to Scottdale where he headed up the denominational board of Christian education which included youth ministries and congregational life. Cressman idealized the 1970 Mennonite youth assembly in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, for its iconoclastic tone. And because Laurelville emerged from summer young people’s institutes at Arbutus Park in Johnstown, the youth emphasis was natural to Laurelville’s ministry. 

In 1968, Cressman was named  executive director of Laurelville Mennonite Church Center where his favorite biblical verse was Proverbs 29:18: Where there is no vision, the people perish. Ever the optimist, Cressman turned the traditional wisdom into a positive: where there is vision the people thrive, and when Laurelville’s 75th anniversary history was written, the title was: Where There Is Vision. During Cressman’s tenure, his dreams, persuasions, practical skills and risk-taking transformed Laurelville. Association: membership doubled, old buildings were redesigned and new ones added. Innovative programs trained youth and addressed critical issues in the church, business, society, the arts and families. 

Much of the above comes from Cressman’s wife Rhoda who supported him and Laurelville for most of its Mennonite sponsorship since 1943. She noted that “Arnold proposed long-term goals but also kept Laurelville flexible to respond to immediate challenges.” He called his style "aiming at a moving target," and the goal was the Hebrew Shalom. Cressman resigned as director in 1977, but assisted with programming for the next decade. Along with his wife Rhoda, another great contributor to Laurelville’s aesthetic was the Dutch American artist Jan Gleysteen who achieved some coordination in style, design and tone. Gleysteen  teamed with Cressman for several decades of Anabaptist heritage tours to Europe. The legacy continues with the Anabaptist and Mennonite names of the various cabins and buildings.  

Reid Carpenter came to Pittsburgh in 1961 and gave many years of his life to Campus Life as a regional director for Pennsylvania and neighboring states. Young Life was a Christian outreach program especially to young people, and Carpenter did it with Christian rock bands and youthful authenticity, often teaming with the British evangelist and pastor John Guest. Young Life grew from the hundreds to the thousands under Carpenter spanning from McKeesport’s inner city school to Mt. Lebanon’s affluent district. Carpenter needed resources to fund his evangelistic project and soon was connecting with Pittsburgh donors who created what was called The Pittsburgh Offensive, a group of leaders for many years hosted by Dora Hillman, widow of the regional industrialist J. Hartwell Hillman. Monthly this group came together to share with each other in prayer, personal sharing and song with one goal: to pray that Pittsburgh will become known for Jesus Christ.

The informal network grew to many ministries and organizations from drug rehabilitation to prayer breakfasts, but one of the longest standing institutions was a month of Fall Youth weekends at Laurelville. Already in 1963 Carpenter's organization would bring bus-loads of high school youth to Laurelville for weekends where along with rock music and mud battles, many youths made confessions to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. Today, over five decades later these groups still come to Laurelville under the name of Pittsburgh Kids Foundation and thousands of youth are impacted by this program. 

AJ Metzler’s dedicatory prayer at Laurelville asked that all who stayed on the grounds would feel God’s touch in their lives in a new way: that “the Lord would bless everything from the highest leaf on the tallest tree to the last tea cup on the kitchen shelves.” The prayer may have envisioned a distinctive era of food services with the arrival in the mid-70s of Susie Ellen Bontrager (1929-2018) from Hutchinson, Kansas. Maynard and Jan Brubaker, longtime Laurelville staff and volunteers, had known Bontrager from their voluntary service days on the south side of Chicago where Bontrager had cooked in the public schools. 

Born the ninth of ten children to an Amish family, Bontrager brought a decade of rural élan to cooking, serving up summer thresher-style meals to guests. Always a positive spirit, she often came out to the dining room at the end of a meal and greeted the guests with a positive Christian testimonial, her breads and dishes becoming favorites from the youngest children to the oldest grandparents. She  somehow kept a staff involved in serving labor-intensive family style sit-down meals in the evenings. Susie loved the kitchen and dining room, calling it a “labor of love” to which God had called her. When she left Laurelville to return to Kansas to be closer to her mother, she spent the rest of her career as food services director of the Hutchinson (KS) Public Schools. She left behind an unusual legacy and a book: Susie’s Quantity Recipes & Laurelville Family Favorites (1984).    

Institutions often have mixed and complementary movements within themselves, and during Laurelville’s 50 years of quite focused Mennonite identity, it was also increasingly used as a retreat center beyond its denominational patrons. In the early 1960s Sherwood Day addressed an association members’ meeting with the title: God Uses Church Centers. When Laurelville changed its name in 1963-1964 from a camp to a church center, this identity shift may also have acknowledged God's calling for Laurelville as an organization to serve all churches. About this same time, Reid Carpenter was bringing busloads of Pittsburgh youth from many church backgrounds, including some from little Christian identity. This season of growth had Laurelville serving churches and organizations outside of the Mennonite tradition and needing year-round facilities. Buildings were winterized, moving Laurelville into a year-round venue. 

Meanwhile, the Mennonite presence diminished in western Pennsylvania with the Scottdale-based denominational offices moving to other locations; regional conferences and congregations diminished in size. Also, in the 1940s Laurelville was among the earliest of Mennonite camps; by the end of the century, over 50 camps and retreat centers had emerged, many now located in areas of the North American Mennonite world which Laurelville had earlier served. As a result, Laurelville returned to its roots, honoring its Mennonite heritage, but also recognizing its longer western Pennsylvania context and giving greater attention to the region and the larger Christian community. And that will be the subject of the next era.   

A comprehensive account of this period can be found in Harold and Ruth Lehman’s 50th anniversary book  Where There is Vision: The Laurelville Story 1943-1993. Alta and AJ Metzler’s descriptions can be found in Things We Have Known: Through the 20th Century with AJ and Alta Metzler, 2010, Alta’s comments, pp. 94-95. Arnold Cressman’s description comes from Ferne Cressman and Rhoda Garber Cressman in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia On-line. Reid Carpenter’s story can be found in Chapter 5, “The Master Connector and His Web of Influence: Reid Carpenter, the Pittsburgh Offensive, the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, et al., in Michael King, Bob Jamison and Bruce Barron, Steel Faithful: Stories of God at Work in Pittsburgh, 2018; Also Terry Burkhalter video with Brad Henderson on YouTube: Celebrating 55 years of Partnership with Pittsburgh Kids Foundation, April 18, 2019.  Susie Bontrager information comes from her obituary and her book Susie’s Quantity Recipes & Laurelville Family Favorites (1984).

Laurelville: A Christian Retreat Center (post-1993)

Laurelville: A Christian Retreat Center (post-1993)

Laurelville associates network, and in early 1995 when Rhea Zimmmerman of Elkhart, Indiana, heard that Laurelville was looking for an executive director, she contacted her  longtime friend from Out-spokin’ biking days: Don Rittenhouse. He was now in the real estate business in Champaign, Illinois. Was Don interested? He was--and fast. Within three months Don had sold his business, two cars, and a house. His wife Jane recalls: “It felt like someone had dumped us on a train passing by and threw us out at Laurelville!  We knew God was leading us here.” 

If Don and Jane Rittenhouse and their two young daughters Leah and Krista speedily moved to Laurelville, their background also pointed them in that direction. Both Don and Jane had worked with outdoor programs, Christian service and business ventures. For several years, they had volunteered and worked for the Mennonite’s bicycling program called Out-spokin’ and had consulted with Gene and Mary Herr in planning the Hermitage, a spirituality retreat center in Michigan. With Don’s leadership, Laurelville grew, adding a Youth Village for summer campers and a large recreation building called Shenandoah. Don was always enthusiastic about life and his faith, and Laurelville staff and guests remember his positive signature: Take Home a Blessing.  

While Don’s executive director work was sometimes all consuming, the family was able to be part of what was happening, helping lead summer camps such as Music and Drama Week. It was a busy, and sweet season for five years, Jane recalls, until tragedy struck. During the summer of 2000, at age 43, Don died in an auto accident.

But the family tragedy did not end Jane and the daughters relationship with Laurelville; it continued two decades in staff, volunteer and board work. Jane worked in the kitchen during the school hours of daughters Krista and Leah. She later served as volunteer coordinator for the many Association members who gave time and energy to Laurelville. Their daughters followed the parents in doing an extended Christian service adventure assignment in nearby Johnstown, with Leah also serving as Laurelville’s summer camp director. Eventually Leah joined the Laurelville staff year-round as the children and youth programmer, an assignment she shares half-time while also serving half-time as pastor of the Scottdale Mennonite Church. 

 

If the Rittenhouse family adopted Laurelville and the western Pennsylvania community,   Kim Miller inherited it. Born in 1955, Kim joined the Laurelville board bringing some broad instincts to the project. He grew up in Westmoreland County, attended Laurelville camps as a child, and became a visionary leader in business and agriculture. For a number of years he served as president of Pennsylvania’s sustainable agriculture organization. Among the many strong board chairs Laurelville has had over the past eight decades, Kim was among the most gregarious and decisive. When Kim was asked whether he could chair the board after two people had turned down the position, his response was: “Yes, I can, but I don’t know if I want to do it.” Silence for several minutes, and then Kim said: “I’ll do it.” 

He continued for the next 12 years when Laurelville both changed, stabilized and grew, especially becoming more regionally focused. Kim wanted Laurelville to change from being seen as an exclusive Mennonite country club to being seen as a generous Christian community center. Kim came by these feelings honestly; as a youth on staff during the 1960s he was part of the counterculture crowd who indulged in smoking pot  and petty vandalism, such as damaging Laurelville’s tennis nets and breaking into buildings. 

And he remembers a seminal experience. He and some other “hoodlums” broke into the Meetinghouse, played the piano and sang a rude song about Verna Hertzler, Laurelville’s gracious office associate. At that time an intercom system connected the office to the various buildings. And all at once the speaker came on and it was Verna’s voice: “I can hear you.” 

“We felt terrible,” Kim recalls, but Verna never said a word to anyone. Reflecting back as an adult, it was a profound experience for him: Verna’s generosity and mercy which stayed with Kim and led him to say yes in leading the board in her honor. Laurelville was a place of forgiveness and goodwill and he felt the desire to give back to this organization in light of his experience.

Kim arrived on the board when a new dining hall was built in the nineties. However spacious and needed, the building had burdensome cost overruns and resulted in a million-dollar debt. But a few providential elements converged; eight association members generously purchased about 300 adjacent wooded acres called Pine Run doubling the size of Laurelville, and Kim was vital in securing substantial gas and oil agreements which helped wipe out the indebtedness. About this same time during Kim’s board leadership, another providential change occurred: the arrival in 2016 of a new executive director Jeanette Lahm.

Lahm worked at Pittsburgh’s The Neighborhood Academy, which provides college preparatory education for underserved families and sent some students to an art and ceramics weekend at Laurelville. Teachers needed to accompany them and when one got sick, they called on their development and marketing director as a substitute: Jeanette Lahm. They knew she liked the outdoors; it was an emergency, and she could take along her young son Noah.  

Overnight Lahm had watch duties with the students at the kiln for the ceramic art project. With her son in a sleeping bag nearby and drinking hot chocolate with ceramics staffer Keith Hershberger, Lahm mentioned that she might be interested in this type of work again. She had been involved with outdoor camping in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hershberger connected her to the executive director Michael Yoder who was leaving to join his brother’s business in Ohio. She told him of her background, and Yoder said Laurelville is looking for someone exactly like her.

During her meeting with the search committee which included the current board chair Larry Miller, she finally said: “But you recognize that I am not Mennonite?” Yes, they did and that was a part of her qualifications, in a manner of speaking. She brought a new set of eyes to Laurelville, outside the denominational circle. Lahm had grown up among Lutheran Christians and was now attending a large non-denominational church in the Pittsburgh suburbs.  

But Lahm was also inside the circle, singularly prepared to lead a Christian retreat center. As a teen, she led high adventure canoe trips, horse programs and high ropes. By her 20s she had a university degree in recreation and communications and had worked as a YMCA leader in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In recent years, she was a development and marketing officer with various non-profits.  

Today, she enjoys Laurelville immensely: “It has been incredibly rewarding to see the path God led you on to gain experience in so many facets, then to have those skills come together in a role that makes a difference in the lives of so many.” She, Kim Miller and the Board teamed up in continuing to turn toward the community, adopting the name Laurelville Retreat Center. A new pool draws a large summer attendance and an adjacent gathering center building with a well-marked parking area welcomes all arrivals. Next up in 2023, the board chaired by Larry Miller took up building a gathering place building project to help Laurelville build capacity as it heads into its next 80 years. Lahm confessed: “It’s exhilarating and an honor to be a part of Laurelville’s important mission.”  

The Laurelville story, executive director Lahm says, is God’s story, and in human terms so are the guests, staff, neighbors, association members, volunteers and supporters. It is people, creation, and a creek, Jacobs Creek. So, we’ll conclude this brief biographical history by noting people who Laurelville has named the Creekside Circle. This award has been given to people who in many ways represent the hundreds of people who have supported Laurelville over the decades. 

AJ (1902-1996) and Alta (1905-2000) Metzler: The Metzlers were introduced earlier in this text and could be considered the founders of the 1943 Laurelville. Their  legacy continues in Alice and Willard Roth and Joyce and Jep Hostetler of Goshen, Indiana.    

CF Yake (1889-1974): Clayton and Martha Yake of Scottdale were key supporters of the Mennonite chapter in 1943. They were associated with Mennonite publishing, and CF served as board secretary; he preferred the name Camp Rhododendron.   

Dwight Hartman (1923-2017): Dwight and Ellen Hartman of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and their family were staunch board, financial and programming supporters during the second half of the century. 

Cleo Weaver (1921-2013): Cleo and Edith Metzler Weaver lived and worked in College Park, Maryland, for forty years. Cleo served as board president and was a sports and music enthusiast, organizing various golf and tennis benefits for Laurelville. 

Arnold Cressman (1928-1998): Arnold and Rhoda Cressman of Scottdale were key Laurelville leaders during the second half of the century. Arnold was introduced earlier in the text.

Nelson, Henry, Joe (1935-2018) and Perry (1932-1991) Brunk: The Brunk brothers and their wives Ruth, Edna, Mary Louise, and Fern were originally from the DC Maryland metro area; for decades they were key financial and building supporters of Laurelville.    

Maynard and Jan Brubaker: In the 1960s camp manager Kenneth (1919-2001) and Laura Ann (1923-2019) King of Goshen, Indiana, brought their children Jan and Maynard Brubaker who also brought their children Rachel and Mike Weaver, all still supporting Laurelville.  

Dan and Mary Miller: The Millers with much experience in hospitality services from Walnut Creek, Ohio, have been steadfast supporters of Laurelville projects and programs, as have their children Eric and Jody Burkholder Miller.   

Ed and Carol Nofziger: The Nofziger family of Archbold, Ohio, has brought its entrepreneurial, philanthropic, music and worship gifts to Laurelville since the 1970s. Their devotion and financial support has been crucial to many Laurelville projects.     

Don (1957-2000) and Jane Rittenhouse: The Rittenhouse family has been involved with Laurelville since 1995, and were profiled above. 

A Christian Retreat Center (post-1993)

This section was written from reviewing annual reports and also from conversations with current (2023) staff and board members.