Our Swiss Story, edited by Fred Steiner

MEDIA RELEASE__A free program focusing on the upcoming release of a new history book by the Swiss Community Historical Society of Bluffton and Pandora will be presented at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 19, at the society’s Heritage Center, 8350 Bixel Road.

The 264-page book Our Swiss Story contains details of the Swiss immigrants who settled in Allen County’s Richland Township and Putnam County’s Riley Township beginning in the 1830s and 1840s. 

The April 19 program will provide a preview of the book, which will be released this summer, according to Gary Wetherill, president of the historical society. Fred Steiner, the project’s editor, will present the program.

Wetherill said that Our Swiss Story contains three sections. First is a reprint of the 1925 P.B. Amstutz book Historical Events of the Mennonite Swiss Settlement in Allen and Putnam Counties, Ohio.

Historical material published for the first time makes up the remaining chapters. New material includes historical events of the Swiss Reformed Settlement in Richland Township, a section on Swiss immigrant women, Settlement country schools and significant persons who grew up in the Settlement.

The April 19 program is free and open to the public.