My 7th great-grandmother, Catharina (Schneider) Weidner, moved to the community at the Ephrata Cloister, along with her young children, after the death of her husband.
The Ephrata Cloister, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1732. It was a religious community, founded by German immigrants. They were semi-monastic, with a monastery and convent, as well as a congregation of families. They were very strict in their beliefs and practices, sleeping on small wooden benches with wooden blocks as “pillows.”
In 1736, Catharina bought 100 acres adjacent to the Cloister on Cocalico Creek.1 She died in 1742 2 and is buried in the Cloister cemetery.
- McAllister, Anne Williams, Heinrich Weidner, 1717-1792, Catharina Mull Weidner, 1733-1804: Through Four Generations (Lenoir, N.C.: A.W. McAllister, 1992), p. 29. ↩
- Julius F. Sachse, “The Registers of the Ephrata Community,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Oct., 1890), online archives, JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/20083381 : accessed 8 May 2013), p. 300, entry no. 33, Schw. Widow Weyderin. ↩
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