Normanvillars was a Mennonite settlement on the border of the Sundgau (southern Alsace) and the Territory of Belfort in a forest area called by that name. It was about 10-15 miles (16-25 km) northeast of Montbeliard, southeast of Belfort, and north of Delle in Switzerland. The settlement was established in 1747-1780 by Mennonite families coming from the Swiss Jura to the south and a few Amish families coming from the Montbeliard area to the southwest. By 1791, according to a military census, 23 of the 97 families in the commune of Florimont were Mennonite. By the end of the 18th century this rather extended settlement was divided into two organized congregations, both meeting in homes, the one to the north called La Maie (later Belfort), the one in the south called Florimont. The first meetinghouse at Normanvillars, the Chapelle des Fermes, was erected in 1849 after many members had emigrated. The beginning of emigration to North America was in 1819. A number of families settled in Putnam County, Ohio, others in western Waterloo County, Ontario.
For a detailed account of the Normanvillars settlement see Delbert Gratz, Bernese Anabaptists and their American Descendants (Scottdale, 1950), 89-95 et passim.
|Author(s)||Harold S Bender|
 Cite This Article
Bender, Harold S. "Normanvillars (Alsace, France)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1957. Web. 26 Oct 2014. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Normanvillars_(Alsace,_France)&oldid=113557.
Bender, Harold S. (1957). Normanvillars (Alsace, France). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 26 October 2014, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Normanvillars_(Alsace,_France)&oldid=113557.
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