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A Reformed Mennonite church was located in what is now Providence Township, quoting Wilmer J. Eshleman. It was built near Ref ton in 1832 by Bishop Henry Bowman, who is buried in the graveyard nearby, and was known as Bowman's Meeting-house. It was located on the road which goes from Ref ton to Smithville, on the south-west corner where the hard road turns to the left as the dirt road leads off straight ahead. This meeting-house had a seating capac-ity of two hundred fifty persons and was torn down around the turn of the century, because many members moved away and the re-mainder of the congregation attended services elsewhere.
Mr. Eshleman said that his grandmother, Mrs. Jacob C. Weaver, who lived nearby when a child, told him that Union soldiers on their way to Gettysburg stopped to get a drink of water from her home and to rest. They scattered in her yard and filled the little church-yard, many of the soldiers sitting on the porch. After several hours they shouldered their arms and started on toward Gettysbuqg. The Reformed Mennonites also had regular services at Georgetown and Mt. Nebo.1 _
Lancaster County Historical Society, Vol. XLIX, No.4, 1945.