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The two founders of the United Brethren denomination, Martin Boehm and William Otterbein, met at a "great meeting" in a barn in Lancaster, Penn., in 1767. Boehm was a Mennonite preacher and Otterbein was a German Reformed pastor at the time.

United Brethren was loosely organized for 30 or years or among German-Americans in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio. Then in 1800, 13 United Brethren ministers gathered for their first "general conference." They adopted the name of Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and they elected Boehm and Otterbein as bishops.

At first United Brethren preachers, many of them unpaid men who did other work full time, traveled circuits to preach the Gospel and organize churches. A "lay leader" would be in charge when the preacher wasn't present. Church meetings would be held in private homes until churches were built. Eventually preachers became full time but still did farming or other work on the side to supplement their modest pay.

The church expanded westward, sending a missionary wagon train from Iowa to Oregon in 1853, and by 1889 had more than 200, 000 members. However, at that time the church split over a disagreement about changing its constitution.

Bishop Milton Wright (father of the Wilbur and Orville Wright) and a small group of followers who wanted to leave the constitution unchanged left the larger group. They continue as the United Brethren Church. Its headquarters and college were established in Huntington, Ind., in 1897. Much of its growth since then has been outside the United States.

Both the main group and Wright's group used the same name, Church of the United Brethren in Christ, until 1946. They were distinguished from each by calling Wright's group "the radicals" and the other "the liberals." In 1946 "the liberals" formed the Evangelical United Brethren Church with the Evangelical Association. In 1968, they merged with the Methodist church, forming the United Methodist Church.

Wright's United Brethren church now nearly 500 churches in 18 countries with 40 percent of them in the United States.

Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA History http://ub.org/about/history/

United Brethren Historical Center Archives at Huntington University (includes search) http://huntington.edu/UBHC/Genealogical-Information/

The church's history in West Virginia http://www.rwilt.com/lrc.htm

The church's history in Kansas GenWeb archives transcription from Kansas: A cyclopedia of state history, published 1912. http://www.skyways.org/genweb/archives/1912/u/united_brethren_church.html

Church history in Indiana http://myindianahome.net/gen/switz/records/church/ubzion.html