Every Burkholder who knows something about their history will recognize the names of the Burkholder immigrants who arrived in Pennsylvania in the 1700s. Perhaps the most well-known of them is Christian Burkholder who was a bishop in the Mennonite church during the Revolutionary War.
Some of the Burkholders in Switzerland and Germany stayed there. And there were some who were not Mennonite. One non-Mennonite Burkholder who immigrated in the 1700s and settled in Lancaster County has been largely forgotten.
Martin Burkholder was born in 1731 and naturalized in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1760. He was married to Anna Eve Amweg and had seven children. They lived in the Reinholds area West Cocalico Township. The children were baptized at the Swamp (Little Cocalico) Reformed Church.
Their first child died young. Henry, George and Michael lived in West Cocalico Township as well as their sister Anna Eve, wife of John Harnish. Peter sold his West Cocalico farm and moved to the Stouchsburg area of Berks County. Sophia married Samuel Batteicher and moved to Upper Bern Township in Berks County. Some of the descendants of Martin, especially the children of George, joined Mennonite or Brethren churches.
Martin died in 1811 and was probably buried in the cemetery of the Swamp (Little Cocalico) Reformed Church. His and his wife's graves may be marked by one of the many illegible field stones in the cemetery.
You can read the whole story in the July 2022 issue of Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage magazine published by the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society.
Swamp (Little Cocalico) Reformed Church built in 1806 to replace the earlier log building. It is now called Swamp Christian Fellowship.
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