Waterloo County, Ontario
Waterloo County, now the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, is located about 60 miles west of Toronto, Ontario. The county was established as a second tier of municipal administration on January 1, 1853, with Berlin, now Kitchener, as the county seat.
It was composed of the five townships of Waterloo, Woolwich, Wilmot, Wellesley, and North Dumfries, as well as a number of incorporated communities. Due to the strong presence of Pennsylvania German and European German immigrants, the county’s identity was predominantly German in character. Waterloo County passed into history on January 1, 1973, when it was replaced by the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, encompassing the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, as well as four of the townships that had previously belonged to the county. The German presence has remained strong in Waterloo Region: descendants of Pennsylvania and European German pioneers, together with post-World War II European German immigrants in the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo contribute to the region’s unique character. According to the census of 2001, 103,620 out of a total of 433,875 residents of Waterloo Region, which is close to 24 percent, still identify themselves as being of German ethnic origin (Statistics Canada Census, 2001).German-speaking Mennonites, who arrived from Pennsylvania in the early 1800s, marked the beginning of the modern settlement history of Waterloo County. They cleared the land and started operating farms, thereby establishing the continuing strong agricultural tradition in Waterloo Region’s rural townships. Devoid of links to the anglophone outside environment, the defining parameters of the encapsulated Pennsylvania German group settlement were the pioneers’ shared Anabaptist faith, the common use of the German language, and their pre-existing social fabric, which they had brought with them from Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania German pioneers such as Joseph Schneider, Benjamin Eby, and John and Abraham Erb became the founders and early community leaders of Berlin, Preston, and Waterloo. The most conservative groups among the Menno- nites have maintained the isolation of the early pioneer period into the twenty-first century.Most often on their way to the American Midwest through Upper Canada, now Ontario, immigrants from Germany, arriving in North America from the late 1820s on, learned of the area’s German character and decided to make Waterloo County their new home, abandoning their original destination farther West. This pattern makes the settlement of Waterloo County with European German immigrants a byproduct of German immigration to the United States. Arriving in Waterloo County, newcomers found first employment on Mennonite farms or in their trades in one of the region’s growing villages. Newcomers from Germany were joined by such immigrants who came to Waterloo County after having lived in the United States for a number of years, bringing with them to Canada strong ties to family members, ethnic neighborhoods, and German-speaking groups and institutions in the United States.
Pennsylvania German migration to Waterloo County came to an end by 1830, when Mennonite settlements in the American Midwest began to absorb Pennsylvania’s surplus population. From the 1820s well into the 1870s, when the opening of the Canadian prairies caused a shift in migration patterns among European German immigrants as well, Waterloo County attracted thousands of immigrants from those territories that in 1871 united within the German Empire. In the census of 1871 some 158,000 Ontario residents identified themselves as belonging to the German ethnic group, 115,189 (almost 75 percent) of which were living in Waterloo County and adjacent areas (Government of Canada, Census of 1870—1871).
Even though Pennsylvania Germans and European German newcomers were aware of their differences in religious commitment and lifestyles right from the beginning, a relationship of mutual appreciation developed, in the center of which was the common use of the German language, isolation from the mainstream of British traditions and religious affiliations, and both groups’ strong cultural and ethnic conservativism.
Their relationship, however, became increasingly strained during the second half of the nineteenth century when urbanization and industrialization changed the character of Waterloo County. The more urban lifestyle in the county’s towns, particularly in Berlin, contrasted greatly with the Mennonites’ traditional way of life. While some German Menno- nites took on leading roles as economic and community leaders in the county’s new urban and industrial center of Berlin, Pennsylvania and European Germans generally grew apart throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. There was a growing tendency, particularly among the county’s European German population, to look down upon the Mennonites as not being “real” Germans. Opposing political allegiances further added to the split. While the European-born residents of the county’s urban centers Berlin and Waterloo overwhelmingly supported conservative candidates in elections, Pennsylvania Germans in the surrounding townships almost exclusively voted Reform/Liberal. It was not before 1878 that the Liberal Mennon- ite vote of Waterloo County was broken for the first time.The European Germans’ arrival fundamentally changed the socioeconomic structure of Waterloo County. Lutheranism superseded the Mennonites’ Anabaptist faith as the area’s predominant denomination. A rich cultural life developed in the county’s growing communities: German churches, a German-language press, Turnvereins, choirs and musical societies, theater groups, and other organizations contributed to the area’s increasingly European German appearance. The most outstanding cultural event in Waterloo County’s history was the Friedensfest (peace festival), held in Berlin and Waterloo in May 1872 in commemoration of the founding of the German Empire. It attracted more than 10,000 people from within and outside the county. Large- scale choir festivals, the Saengerfests, equally attracted thousands of visitors to Berlin and Waterloo. Such manifestations of immigrants’ ethnic self-perception reinforced the strong cultural and ethnic conserva- tivism that had prevailed from the settlement’s early period.
Almost completely separated from Ontario’s anglophone charter group, Waterloo County Germans developed little interest in Canadian affairs outside of the community context. Awareness of their own difference from Ontario’s mostly anglophone environment resulted in the creation of a strong local and regional identity that was primarily defined along ethno-cultural lines.Waterloo County community leaders played an important role in the Canadian government’s attempt to attract more German immigrants to Canada. Local printers produced pamphlets describing the political, climatic, economic, and social conditions in Canada, which were distributed among potential German emigrants in Europe. When the government in 1872 adopted a proactive immigration policy, resulting in a system of immigration agencies in Europe, Waterloo County residents Jakob Emil Klotz, Wilhelm Hespeler, and Jacob Yost Shantz took on leading roles. Jakob Emil Klotz of Preston became a Canadian emigration agent in Hamburg, while Wilhelm Hespeler of Waterloo was appointed Canadian immigration agent in charge of all German-speaking territories in Europe and took up his post in Straβburg, Alsace. Berlin industrialist Jacob Yost Shantz became a leading organizer and activist for the settlement of several thousand German-speaking Russian Mennonites in Manitoba, and later established his own colony in Didsbury, Alberta, which attracted many descendants of German pioneers from Waterloo County.
Lack of new immigrants combined with the forces of acculturation resulted in the decline of language maintenance among the members of the Canadian-born generations during the last decades of the nineteenth century. A language question evolved, with most of the county’s German churches answering the increased demand for English by introducing additional English-language services, while maintaining German as the main language in denominational life. After the turn of the century many German clubs and newspapers merged or were dissolved in view of an ever-declining clientele and the younger generations’ adoption of the English language.
Against this background, World War I, with its complete rejection of all things German served as a catalyst for sociodemographic changes that had their origins in the prewar period.World War I imposed a loyalty question on Waterloo County. The county’s pacifist Mennonites were attacked for their religiously determined unwillingness to enlist; they became disenfranchised in 1917. As with other areas in Ontario, Waterloo County failed to meet overambi- tious recruitment numbers for Canada’s overseas’ contingent. The county’s former seat, Berlin, which had left the county structure following incorporation as a city in 1912, was in the center of anti-German propaganda, and in the fall of 1916 the community’s name was changed to Kitchener as a demonstrative act of loyalty. Former Waterloo mayor and wartime member of Parliament for the riding of Waterloo North, William Weichel, who was a son of German immigrants, took a strong stand in the House of Commons and publicly addressed the war’s challenges from the local German Canadian perspective. Answering the Speech from the Throne—an annual parliamentary tradition in Canada and part of the opening of the new Parliament by the governor-general as representative of the king and queen—in February 1915, Weichel emphasized that his constituents were loyal citizens of Canada. Being Canadian and being proud of one’s ethnic heritage, he argued, was not mutually exclusive.
As the rest of Canada, Waterloo County underwent fundamental changes during the twentieth century. Berlin, Galt, and Waterloo left the county administration upon incorporation as cities in 1912, 1915, and 1948, respectively. With declining numbers of German immigrants and the group’s increased willingness to assimilate, Waterloo County became more integrated into mainstream society. The open rejection of the county’s European German heritage during World War I resulted in an increased emphasis on the county’s Men- nonite pioneer past. Into the twenty-first century writers, historians, and artists perpetuate the Mennonite myth, glorifying the Pennsylvania German pioneer society and its traditions.
The creation of this myth allowed county residents to remain connected to the region’s rich history without having to confront the issues and wounds created by World War I.In 2005 Waterloo Region is a thriving area, being home to more than 400,000 people, with a high concentration of leading industries, two universities, and recently acquired international think tanks, such as the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the Academic Council for United Nations Studies, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Waterloo Region remains a mixed urban- rural area in which the urban centers Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge have remained closely connected to their rich agricultural hinterlands. Immigration of Germans after World War II, primarily during the fifties and sixties, has reinforced the German presence in the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, while German-speaking Mennonites are highly visible in the surrounding countryside. The area north of Waterloo and around St. Jacobs is known as “Mennonite country” and attracts thousands of visitors each year.
Ulrich Frisse
See also Berlin/Kitchener, Ontario; Canada, Germans in (during World Wars I and II); Pennsylvania; Waterloo, Ontario
References and Further Reading
Bloomfield, Elizabeth. Waterloo Township through Two Centuries. Kitchener, ON: Waterloo Historical Society, 1995.
Frisse, Ulrich. Berlin, Ontario (1800—1916): Historische Identitaeten von “Kanadas Deutscher Hauptstadt. ” Ein Beitrag zur Deutsch-Kanadischen Migrations-, Akkulturations- und Perzeptionsgeschichte des 19. und fruehen 20. Jahrhunderts. Kitchener, ON: Transatlantic Publishing, 2003.
Government of Canada. Census of Canada 1870—71. Recensement du Canada. Volume I. Ottawa, 1873.
Hayes, Geoffrey. Waterloo County: An Illustrated History. Kitchener, ON: Waterloo Historical Society, 1997.
------. “From Berlin to the Trek of the Conestoga: A Revisionist Approach to Waterloo County’s German Identity.” Ontario History XCI, no. 2 (1999): 131-149.
McLaughlin, Kenneth. “Waterloo County: A Pennsylvania-German Homeland.” In From Pennsylvania to Waterloo: Pennsylvania-German Folk Culture in Transition. Eds. Susan M. Burke and Matthew H. Hill. Kitchener, ON: Friends of the Joseph Schneider Haus, 1991, pp. 35-∣5.
Statistics Canada, Census 2001, http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/ home/index.cfm (cited May 15, 2005).