North Carolina Amish

Two weeks, 5 states, 15 communities. Five (plus) pounds. It was a whirlwind trip as I packed a month of visiting into 2 weeks of time.  I spent the past weekend zonked out and resting up (3700 road miles will do that to you). But I’ve recovered enough to put together a collection of highlights [...]

Continue reading Amish trip roundup and highlights

I’m happy to introduce a new feature on Amish America: the Amish State Guide. The Amish State Guide will be a comprehensive resource on Amish communities in all 28 states where they are currently found (plus Ontario, Canada).  We previewed this a few weeks ago with an entry for Michigan Amish. The State Guide features information [...]

Continue reading Introducing the new Amish State Guide

North Carolina is my home state, and not one known for having a large Amish population.  Amish have attempted to settle NC in the past, however, and today one settlement does exist, at Union Grove, a hamlet lying some miles west of Winston-Salem. Union Grove, which began in 1985 as a spinoff of the Guthrie, [...]

Continue reading Union Grove and Yanceyville, NC Amish settlements

photo:  Scroonch From Lancaster, Pennsylvania, through Ohio and Indiana and on out to other long-established settlements in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, we tend to associate the Amish with the nation’s middle latitudes.  Since their earliest years in America, the Amish have gravitated to the cooler climes of these corn and dairy regions.  However, the Amish [...]

Continue reading Southern Amish

Today, a small New Order Amish settlement is found in western North Carolina, near the town of Union Grove. Before this settlement came about, (and not counting a short-lived community in the late 50′s), the only other full-fledged attempt to settle in the Tar Heel State occurred in 1918, lasting a full quarter-century before extinction [...]

Continue reading NC Amish history: Skeeter birds, flaming muck, and the Dismal Swamp