Festival celebrates 300 years in Lancaster

Over 1,000 pack Strasburg Mennonite for anniversary of European settlement.

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More than 1,000 people packed Strasburg (Pa.) Mennonite Church on Jan. 31 in celebration of the 300th anniversary of European settlement in Lancaster County. The event, called Lancaster 300: a Festival of Roots and Music, was sponsored by the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society and cosponsored by the Parish Resource Center of Lancaster and the Lancaster Council of Churches. The festival served as the kickoff to a year of events celebrating the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first permanent European settlers—a group of Swiss-German Mennonite families—to Lancaster County.

A crowd of over 1,000 people attended the "Festival of Roots and Music" at Strasburg (Pa.) Mennonite Church. Photo by Jeremy Hess.

Merle Good, who serves on the board of the Mennonite Historical Society and chaired the festival steering committee, named three main reasons for the event: to celebrate the original families that came in 1710, to recognize the contributions of Native Americans both before and after 1710 and to celebrate the cultural diversity of Lancaster County today.

The organizers chose to hold the festival at Strasburg Mennonite because of its historical connections. The meetinghouse sits on part of the original plot deeded by William Penn to the original group of Mennonite families. Lancaster County served as the main entry point to the United States for Swiss-German Mennonites for 150 years.

The program included a diverse mix of music, with historical moments of speaking throughout. Daryle "Soaring Hawk" Diedrich represented the Native American perspective, and Luis Torres, born and raised in Lancaster County, spoke about the Puerto Rican experience. Other speakers included Monsignor Thomas Smith from St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Lancaster, Father Alexander Veronis from the Greek Orthodox community, Ted Darcus, representing an African-American perspective, and Suk Shuglie, a Korean immigrant.

The music included a Latino worship team, a Vietnamese choir from a local Vietnamese Alliance Church, the choir from Ephrata Cloister, bagpiper Tom Miller, an Old Order River Brethren group and soloists Amy Yovanovitch and Jeryl Metzler.

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