Individual Details

Birth

Melchior was an Anabaptist or Mennonite. In 1659 he was imprisioned in the castle at Thun for his faith. In 1671 he left Switzerland for Germany and religious freedom. With him he took his wife, 7 children, his horse, one trundle bed and bedding. He had been fortunate to escape with his life. He ended up at Grieshem, which was located 20 miles northwest of the city of Worms. He was doubtless living there in September or 1677 when William Penn visited and told of the state of Pennsylvania where people could worship without persecution.

Known as " Melchior the Exile " . The following are taken from Albert H. Gerberick's book " The Brenneman History " .
"Melchior Brenneman (the exile) seems... to have been born in Switzerland about 1631 . Research in the cantonal archives at Bern seems to establish the fact that his home was at Ober-Diessbach on the north slope of the Buchhalterbert . "
"From the very beginning of the Reformation there were religious leaders among the Protestants who did not believe in infant baptism , convinced that the Scripture taught that the ceremony should be postponed till riper years, when the candidate could recognize the spiritual significance of the act, the washing away of sin . In Holland and Switzerland there arose important congregations of these so-called Anabaptists . In the latter country the co-operation of Anabaptists with the great reformer Zwingli assisted greatly in the establishment of Protestantism . They later separated from him when he made it manifest that he intended to set up a state church . Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Anabaptists ( frequently called Mennonites from Menno Simons , their leader in Holland and Germany ) suffered continuous persecution in Switzerland. In sddition to their insistence upon adult baptism and their opposition to a state church , their refusal to take oaths or bear arms had made them objects of condemnation. Many were executed by drowning , burning and beheading, down to the martyr biship Hans Landis in 1614 . Others were sold to neighboring countries as galley-slaves. The mildest sentence was exile and comfiscation of property, forbidding a return to Switzerland on pain of death . "
"In the appendix it will be noted that Melchior Brenneman refused to abjure his Anabaptist beliefs , was warned , and finally punished by imprisonment in the castle of Thun in the year 1659 . We next hear of his flight to Griesheim in the year 1671 , unquestionably due to the severe government mandate of 1670 , which caused exiles to leave Switzerland for Germany in large numbers. "
It has also been noted that when Melchior and his wife fled Switzerland they first came to Kriegsheim near Monsheim in the Palatinate . Their total possessions included one horse , bedding and 43 Reichstaler .
After arriving in Germany they had two more children , Adam and Stephan . Both of these boys were born in Enkenbach .
By 1700 Melchior was one of 4 inheritance leaseholders of the Enkenbacher Klostergut together with David d'Arm , Jean Migeot and Hans Krayenbuhl .