Newbern Assembly, KS

The "Brethren in Christ", an Anabaptist denomination founded in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania built a church in Newbern Township, in Dickinson County, Kansas, in 1893. From 1910 to 1916, the church is believed to have had the largest attendance of any in the county. They ceased to have regular meetings in 1922.

About 1927, several families left Grace and Truth Gospel Hall over an issue with reception at the Lord's table, and leased space down the road from what was once Newbern Brethren in Christ church. The families included:

• Benjamin F. Jury (1870-1947)
• George & Elizabeth Roggendorff
  • Jonathan Roggendorff
• George Gruen and family
• Carl Botz and his wife May
• Linneas L. Engle (b. 1862 PA)

This assembly is thought to have been aligned with the Grant exclusives. Tom Robson, a grandson of George & Elizabeth Roggendorff, a retired pastor, born in 1930, remembers visiting the Newbern meeting when he was a child, probably when he was six or seven, which would suggest the assembly was still active in 1936 or 1937, but he does not recall when it folded, but T. Lee Gruen thinks it only met a few years. There was also a Tunbridge-Wells exclusive assembly around this time that met in the Abilene area, and it was the 1930's when Elm Springs Bible Hall hived off of Grace and Truth.

The property was sold in 1964 to Felix and Ronald Bolliger who razed it in the fall of 1965. The well-maintained cemetery still remains, which houses over 140 graves, including this author's great-great grandfather John M. Engle, and a large majority of his descendants, including my great-grandparents, grandparents and parents. The forementioned Linneas L. Engle is also a son of John M. Engle.

Sources

• T. Lee Gruen
• Tom Robson 4-7-2021
• Salina Journal. 1965-9-20 announcement of the building being razed.
• Find A Grave Newbern profile