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| This study came as a quest to ascertain what church connections
our early LeFevre family maintained during those early years in America.
They had been Reformed in France, and later in Germany. However,
a son of Immigrant Isaac LeFevre was named Philip, born near Kingston,
New York, March 15, 1710 and baptised a year later in the Old Dutch Reformed
Church in Kingston. We believe he married a Mary Herr, daughter of
Rev. Christian Herr, a Mennonite minister, who was also an early immigrant
in Lancaster County. Did Philip and Mary Herr LeFevre go to the Mennonite
Church or to the Reformed Church?
Records of that first generation, and some of the second generation
have not been found. The conclusions reached are that most of the
grandchildren presented THEIR children for infant baptism in Reformed and
related churches, thus seeming to rule out the likelihood of this entire family
having continued in the Mennonite faith. Furthermore, Mary Herr was
not included in her father's will, which we believe may have been because
she was shunned for having left her Mennonite faith. Proofs are very
difficult to locate, so we can only surmise by what facts we can uncover
almost 300 years later.
Paul Steigerwalt Lefever
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