Ephrata Cloisters -yet more

Being the 275th anniversary of the Ephrata Cloisters, I decided to celebrate in my usual style - by getting a book. In this case, VOICES OF THE TURTLEDOVES (2003) by Jeff Bach. This illustration is from the historic site giftshop

There is a brief mention from cloister documents about universalism and George de Benneville is mentioned. There is plenty about mysticism and even pages about alchemy. Looks good.

There is also a map of Cloister colonies - including 4 in South Carolina
Beaver Creek (c1748-)
Broad River (c1754-)
Cloud's Creek (c1768-)
Edesto (c1770-)
he defines these as "Mixed Congregations of Seventh-Day and First Day Dunkers and English and German Sabbatarians").

He doesnt mention his reference for this, but it's slightly possible it's the Brethren Encyclopedia, Volume 3 (1984) which lists those four congregations -although the BE had Edisto spelled the usual way. The BE map was titled "the Colonial Brethren Congregations and Settlements 1719-1770".
and also lists the nearby Georgia and NC congregations, of which one in NC was small u universalist and the one in Georgia a 7th day group. the Georgia folks moved to Cloud's Creek and Broad River area of SC prior to the American Revolution

for those of you confused - these Churches above were the founding blocks of the churches later affliated with the "Universalist Church of America".


The Ephrata Cloisters was a German Pietist settlement near what is now Lancaster Pa in the mid 1700s. It consisted mainly of folks formerly associated with what we now called the Church of the Brethren. It is believed by some that David Martin, founder of those SC churches above, was the son of George Adam Martin. G. A. Martin was hand picked by the founder to be the leader of Ephrata, and GA Martin was a leader at Snow Hill. Thus the importance to Universalist history.