We usually see photos of fully-furnished Amish homes and farmhouses on the market. This one is a little different – the place has been emptied out already. We can see what it would look like for a buyer moving in. While it might be a little less interesting from the perspective of not seeing Amish […]

Continue Reading Amish Home For Sale (Empty Inside) – 26 Photos

Putting a bow on the topic of the Amish and the 2020 election, Lancaster Online asks “Was 2020 a breakout year for Amish voters? Here’s what the numbers show“. While exact numbers on Amish voters are not available, they analyzed the township data and found that it suggested that “the multi-year effort to register these […]

Continue Reading Did Amish Vote In Greater Numbers In 2020?

I’ve seen a lot less coverage of the Amish & COVID north of the border, perhaps because their populations are smaller and/or because I’m less plugged in to the Canadian media. It may also be – and this is just speculation – because Canadian media is less likely to publish stories readily identifying the subject […]

Continue Reading Ontario Amish & Mennonites Tied To COVID Increase

This photo comes from Paoli, Indiana. The photographer took it in 2009. He writes that “I passed these two, three times in two hours and they never had a customer” and that “Even the Amish are having a hard time making a living.”  This would have been during the “Great Recession,” so that adds some […]

Continue Reading Slice Of Amish Life: Business Is Slow

On a day we give thanks, here is a Thanksgiving song from an Amish school. This was filmed by Phil Sarlo in 2019, part of a program in a school in the Holmes County community. The song is called “And Father We Thank You”, and it was written by a local Amish man. Phil explains […]

Continue Reading Amish Children Sing For Thanksgiving (Video)

This happened at an Amish farmers’ market in Maryland. From the Star Democrat: EASTON — Two food stands at the Amish Country Farmers Market in Easton that were shut down by the county government for violating COVID-19 masks orders will reopen on Tuesday, Nov. 24. “We’re going to reopen,” said Eli Stoltzfus, who operates the […]

Continue Reading Amish Stands Closed For COVID Violations; Owner Feels “Targeted” By The County

Linda Stoltzfoos‘ 19th birthday was last week. It’s now been 5 months since she disappeared. Lancaster Online shares a brief update. Unfortunately there are few positive details in it, other than the fact the investigation is ongoing. However, I think that is good to keep in mind: Saturday marks five months since Linda Stoltzfoos disappeared […]

Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos’ 19th Birthday Passes; 5 Months Since Disappearance

Here’s the third Amish home in a row that happens to be up for sale. So if you’re in the market for a plain Amish home, here’s your chance 🙂 Well, of course location matters at least a bit. So where is this place? The home is located in Angelica, New York (Allegany County) in […]

Continue Reading Plain Amish Home For Sale: 41 Acres + Pond (13 Photos)

Molly asks a good question on the recent Lancaster farm stay post: Eric, would you tell us the differences between Lancaster county & Holmes county? We have visited Holmes county, but would like to know the differences. As the two largest and most-visited Amish communities, people often wonder which one of Holmes County and Lancaster […]

Continue Reading Which Community Should You Visit? 7 Differences Between Lancaster County & Holmes County

Each of these three videos features Amish either on the way to church, or heading home afterwards. But which communities were they filmed in? There are clues in each video which point to the answers. Number 3 is the toughest. Video #1 Video #2 Video #3

Continue Reading Name That Amish Community: Church Sunday Edition

Do the Amish get an unfair share of finger-pointing for their collective or individual behavior as regards COVID-19? Holmes County officials have formed a “defense team” to address different COVID-related topics, some of them regarding PR. First, what’s the team all about? Addressing statewide media queries, quarantine guidelines after exposure and updates for local status […]

Continue Reading Holmes County Forms Covid-19 “Defense Team”; Push Back Against “Amish-Blaming”

Is it possible to stay on an Amish farm in 2020? Hat tip to Linda, who sends along this National Geographic article on the current state of Amish farm stays in Lancaster County. You might not have known that it’s possible to stay on an Amish farm in some places – but it is. A […]

Continue Reading Lancaster County Amish Farm Stays (2020)

After last week’s 40-acre Wisconsin farm, this week, another Amish farm that is still on the market. This one lies in Cattaraugus County, New York, home of three Amish communities, including one of the largest in the state. This appears to be Conewango Valley, home to around 2,500 Amish. One thing is for certain, they […]

Continue Reading A 122-Acre Amish Farm For Sale (16 Photos)

How have Amish women’s lives changed in the last 50 years? Fran Handrick recently completed a PhD  entitled “Amish women: work and change – an investigation into the lives of Amish women in Pennsylvania and Ohio” at the University of Birmingham. You can access and read Fran’s full thesis here. Fran is here to share […]

Continue Reading 9 Ways Amish Women’s Lives Have Changed

Nic Stoltzfus (S. Nicholas Stoltzfus) is a 10th-generation descendant of Nicholas Stoltzfus, one of the best-known figures in Amish and Anabaptist history. Nic is also the author of a book released last year on his ancestor’s family: German Lutherans to Pennsylvania Amish: The Stoltzfus Family Story. The Stoltzfus surname is one that most who know […]

Continue Reading German Lutherans to Pennsylvania Amish: The Stoltzfus Family Story (Interview & 2-Book Giveaway)

The Amish are in the news again, this time as a backdrop to a speech given by President Trump in Lititz, Pennsylvania yesterday. You can see several young Amish-looking fellows in this clip below. This has gotten some strong reaction online, with multiple people claiming they are “fake Amish” or even “paid actors”. Jump to […]

Continue Reading Are These “Fake Amish”? (Updated: Not Fake)

An interesting letter just appeared at Lancaster Online. An excerpt: I have an idea for the state to make a chunk of change. Why not make the Amish register each of their buggies and have a yearly inspection and safety check, just like those of us with motor vehicles are required to do? I believe […]

Continue Reading Should Amish Buggies Have A Yearly Safety Inspection?

I enjoy looking at old postcards. I came across five interesting vintage Amish postcards on Flickr to share with you. Several of these are from the Lancaster County area. One or two have a touch of humor to them. Let’s have a look. 1. Greetings From The Pennsylvania Dutch Country This is a card with […]

Continue Reading 5 Vintage Amish Postcard Scenes

Swartzentruber Amish homes are among the very plainest. They tend to fetch lower prices when put on the market, in part due to their lack of basic amenities including not just electricity but bathrooms and plumbing. This Swartzentruber home was last listed at $130,000 in spring 2019, though the Zillow listing now has its “Zestimate” […]

Continue Reading An “English-Ready” Swartzentruber Amish Home (15 Photos)

This caught my eye yesterday. I’ve not often seen an online fundraiser for a person who left his or her Amish community. But that’s what this is, for a 27-year-old woman named Millie: Hi everyone, Millie may the decision to leave the Amish very recently. She had been shunned by her family and they would […]

Continue Reading A Go Fund Me For An “Amish Escapee”?

There is an interesting discussion on the Ag Talk forum about Amish pies. The original post is basically a complaint that pies made by the Amish in the poster’s area of central New York are not very good. An excerpt: I’ve tried 3 different Amish sources 2 on farms and one at a Amish store. Yesterday […]

Continue Reading Beware of Amish-Made Pies?

As it does around this time each year, the Young Center at Elizabethtown College has just published its Amish population estimates for 2020. The total estimated Amish population is 350,665, found in 31 states, four Canadian provinces, and two South American countries. Some interesting takeaways from the figures: 1. Four Large Settlements. The largest settlement, […]

Continue Reading The Amish Population Has Doubled Since 2000 – Now Exceeds 350,000 (2020 Amish Population Figures)

Well, not exactly like the Amish, if you’re ordering online. But I still wanted to draw your attention to Shetler’s Wholesale, a business based in Indiana with a long history of selling household goods to Amish via traditional catalogs. “Wholesale” is in the name, but they sell retail to individuals. They have now launched an […]

Continue Reading Shop Like The Amish At Shetler’s Wholesale (Now Online)

The large organized searches for Linda Stoltzfoos have been stopped at this time according to the Facebook page dedicated to Linda’s search (“postponed until farther [sic] notice from authorities to resume directed searches in specific areas”). The latest significant news came from last Thursday’s press conference, in which new photos of Smoker’s car were released, […]

Continue Reading Linda Stoltzfoos’ Family Asks For Prayers & Letters

This week’s Amish home comes from Wisconsin. It is a 3-bedroom and 1-bathroom home of about 1600 square feet, sitting on almost 3 acres of land. It last sold for just $45,000 in 2018. This is in Waushara County, in central WI. This place is pleasant-ish inside, but I will not pretend that this is […]

Continue Reading Inside A $45,000 Amish Home (16 Photos)

Today a look inside a simple and plain Amish home in Springboro, Pennsylvania. This is in Crawford County in the northwest corner of the state. You’ll find Amish scattered across this county – there are six settlements, all or part of which lie within its borders. This looks like it is the settlement near Conneautville, […]

Continue Reading Inside A Plain Pennsylvania Amish Home (18 Photos)

Something unusual today. I managed to find a listing for an Amish home in Colorado (not currently for sale). This won’t remind you much of other homes we’ve seen (at least not on the outside). This is the Westcliffe community in Custer County. Not a lot of Amish in the Centennial State – only five […]

Continue Reading Inside A Colorado Amish “Mini-Ranch” Home (22 Photos)

As we learned in last year’s post on 5 interesting facts about Lehman’s, the customer makeup of this simple products retailer is more English than Amish (by a factor of 4 to 1). And the product line reflects this to some extent. The company has a wide array of products fitting the “old-fashioned/off-grid” concept. But […]

Continue Reading 6 Lehman’s Products Used By The Amish

Today a closer look at another of the seven Amish homes for sale in Fleming County, Kentucky. This little Amish starter is by far the smallest of the bunch, at just two bedrooms and 768 square feet. It actually looks more like a small shop from this angle which I shared in the original post. […]

Continue Reading Inside A Very Small (768 ft2) Amish Home (17 Photos)

I came across something that got my attention while searching for Amish homes to share with you. Right now there are at least 7 Amish homes for sale in the community at Hillsboro, Kentucky (Fleming County). What’s going on here? It looks like a lot of people are moving out of the area for some […]

Continue Reading 7 Amish Homes For Sale In One Community (40 Photos)

“Kettle will not stay, neither will the windmill.” That was the stipulation attached to this unusual listing for an Amish home in the Seymour, Missouri community. This Amish home caught my eye for several reasons. For one, the community. Seymour is a plain settlement where many homes have a distinctive shingle-siding plain look to them […]

Continue Reading Look Inside A (Very) Plain Amish Home (25 Photos)

We have a look inside a less commonly-seen home today – an Amish log home. It’s not that often that you find Amish families living in log homes. I’ve only come across them on occasion, though they might be more popular in certain settlements. This one is found in the Bonduel, Wisconsin community. The settlement […]

Continue Reading Look Inside An Amish Log Home (22 Photos)

Amish have lived in Pontotoc County, Mississippi for a quarter-century. I made an unplanned visit to this community in late January. It was slightly out of the way, but well worth it. I hope you enjoy these photos and my comments on this Swartzentruber Amish settlement of two church districts. Amish came here in the […]

Continue Reading A Visit To The Amish Of Pontotoc County, Mississippi (25 Photos)

Today’s look inside an Amish home comes from Mecosta County, Michigan. This is clearly a plainer Amish dwelling, especially compared to the Kentucky home we saw last week. This farmhouse (listed on Landflip) is set on a large-by-Amish-standards plot of land – 170 acres. There are numerous outbuildings, barns, and even a guest house on […]

Continue Reading Inside A Plain Michigan Amish Farm Home (18 Photos)

We’ve lately seen photos of Amish on the beach on Staten Island, so how about Amish singing an uplifting Christian song in the NYC subway?  Beautifully sung. There is some discussion in the Youtube comments over whether these are Amish, or a Mennonite or other Anabaptist church. Would you recognize this group as Amish? […]

Continue Reading Amish Sing “I Am Free” Underground In NYC (Video)

Gloria Yoder answers questions from time to time in her Amish Cook column. In her latest, she gets an interesting question from a reader: another friend and reader, Betsy, from Lebanon, Ohio…wondered if there are different levels of Amish and how we believe about our relationship with Jesus, which is so very sweet and important. […]

Continue Reading Are There “Different Levels” Of Amish?

A comment by Al in KY got me thinking about how many Amish settlements I’ve actually visited. I had tallied this up before, but it was years ago. So I thought it a good idea to put together a fresh list. I believe the very first settlement I went to was Lancaster County, but that […]

Continue Reading My Amish Settlement List (58 Communities)

Amish Cook Gloria Yoder is expecting, and she is thinking about a name for her boy or girl. How do Amish parents decide on a baby name? Gloria shares her family’s approach – and some common Amish naming conventions – in her latest column: While some Amish communities stick with using only one name, in […]

Continue Reading How Do Amish Choose Baby Names?

Lovina Eicher makes it in this week’s edition of Lovina’s Amish Kitchen. As she describes it, pon hoss is “a fried dish made from leftover hog meat.” It is also another name for scrapple. Photo: Lovina’s Amish Kitchen The dish was first created by German settlers in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here is […]

Continue Reading What Is Pon Hoss?

From time to time we see Amish properties up for sale online. Two such homes appeared in Ohio and New York. Comparing those two cases, you can see how different Amish homes can be. The Ohio home is from a New Order Amish church. The New York home is from a Swartzentruber community. They are […]

Continue Reading Look Inside A New York Amish Home (12 Photos)

Why do some Amish use scooters, but not bikes? It’s a common question. I’ve never really come across a definitive answer, though have hit upon a theory or two after looking into it. Today at Lancaster Online, Steve Nolt provides an answer. It includes a couple of elements I did not expect. First, some brief […]

Continue Reading Why Do Some Amish Ride Scooters (But Not Bicycles)?

We caught a glimpse of North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish settlement in an article back in May, when someone interviewed a man from this community as he waited at an Alabama Amtrak station. More recently I previewed the community auction which was to take place in late November. Amish began moving to the area near Ellenboro, […]

Continue Reading Visiting North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish Community (31 Photos)

“I feel like one thing they learned, is they ‎could stay culturally Amish, and doctrinally be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” That is an LDS church member speaking about 3 Ohio Amish convert families – in a new video titled “Amish Latter-day Saints: Blending Two Worlds into One”. This […]

Continue Reading “Amish & Mormon”: 8 Things That Caught My Eye In The Latest Video

Half of them are in Indiana. Two apiece in Pennsylvania and Ohio. And one in Illinois. The list of the top 10 largest Amish settlements doesn’t change much from year-to-year. These places generally have similar steady growth, and relatively few people leaving. Photo by Don Burke Still, I like to do a fresh post from […]

Continue Reading The 10 Biggest Amish Communities (2019)

Reader Jim Halverson, who gave us a look at the Amish of Lagrange County, Indiana last summer, recently attended Yoder’s Consignment Auction in the same community. Jim spotted differences in the styles of clothing of those in attendance – particularly noticeable in the women’s dress. Clearly the Amish at the event were not all from […]

Continue Reading Amish Women’s Clothing – What Differences Do You Notice? (16 Photos)

So after I visited Charlotte County, Virginia in April, I wrote about a local Amish variety stand. In that post I mentioned the following, about a different place: As I finished up my purchase, the girl directed me to a dry goods store not too far away. After she gave me directions explaining that it was […]

Continue Reading A Visit To An “Off The Map” Amish Dry Goods Store

On the heels of the “20 Unique Ways Amish Raise Their Kids” article, another click-magnet piece popped up on my news feed this morning. This one is called “15 Insane Rules All Amish Kids Must Follow.” I take “Insane” in this context to mean crazy, odd, or absurd (that is, according to the article writer/editor). […]

Continue Reading 15 “Insane” Rules All Amish Children Must Follow..?

Where can you stay on an Amish farm? We often get this question, and happily around this time last year were able to point to amishfarmstay.com. The site lists Lancaster County Amish-owned properties where you can pay to stay overnight. As of last summer the site featured 6 Amish hosts; this year the listings have doubled […]

Continue Reading 12 Amish Farms Where You Can Stay Overnight (Lancaster County – 2019)

I have lately been seeing a lot of list posts on one or another aspect of Amish life. These typically have catchy titles and are designed to get you to click on them. Hard to resist a list! (I’ve been known to create a few myself 😉 ) One caught my eye this week – […]

Continue Reading 20 “Unique” Ways Amish Raise Their Children..?

You may have come across the term “Amish Mennonites” before. It popped up on the site here recently, in our post on the first Amish settlement in America. Both Jim Potter and Al in KY wondered, what does the term mean? You might see it in some accounts referring to a modernizing group which emerged […]

Continue Reading Who are the “Amish Mennonites”?

So another memorable stop from my recent Holmes County trip was at a farm I had first visited a decade earlier. This is a Swartzentruber Amish farm, technically located in Wayne County. They have a creaky signpost by the road displaying whatever it is they have for sale. At the time, the only items on […]

Continue Reading A Visit To A Swartzentruber Amish Rug Seller (12 Photos)

Where was the first Amish community in North America? Lancaster County is the oldest Amish settlement still around today. But it’s not the first place Amish settled on this side of the Atlantic. That distinction belongs to the Northkill settlement that existed in neighboring Berks County*. It was organized by 1740, predating today’s Lancaster settlement […]

Continue Reading The First Amish Settlement in North America

Amish are well-known for living by guidelines and rules governing technology, dress, and other aspects of daily life. But Amish churches are not all the same. Some are more traditional, and others more progressive. Some do things one way, and others do things another way. So how do Amish know the dos and don’ts specific […]

Continue Reading 6 Examples of Amish Ordnung Rules

What do Amish wear to church? In addition to their many women’s head coverings, the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center also has several items of church clothing on display. The Woman’s Cape & Apron First of all, a woman’s cape and apron: The cape and apron are commonly worn on Sunday across communities (we had a […]

Continue Reading Amish Church Clothing (8 Photos)

Why don’t they just build buggy lanes wherever Amish live? People often ask just this, especially when there is a bad buggy accident in the news. Realistically, it’s an idea constrained both by budgets and practicality. But in some limited cases, areas with larger Amish populations have done just that. And some Amish-heavy areas will […]

Continue Reading Buggy Lanes In Action (11 Photos)

Ever noticed how Amish women in different places wear different head coverings? A good example is the heart-shaped Lancaster women’s covering, versus the straight-sided, pleated coverings worn by Amish women in the Midwest. Like other items of Amish clothing, there are quite a few different styles of women’s coverings, and some with rather subtle differences. […]

Continue Reading Comparing Amish Women’s Head Coverings (19 Photos)

Donald Kraybill is the author of over a dozen books on the Amish, and currently serves as Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. I asked Don if he’d answer some questions for us today on the Amish and his newest book, called Simply Amish: An Essential […]

Continue Reading Donald Kraybill on Simply Amish (Q-and-A & Giveaway)

In our interview with Nic Stoltzfus on German Lutherans To Pennsylvania Amish: The Stoltzfus Family Story,  we also learned about the contribution of Nic’s father Elam, who provided many of the beautiful photos in the book. Today, Elam shares part 1 of 4 in a series he wrote on the Ausbund. This was originally published […]

Continue Reading Elam Stoltzfus: Rediscovering the Ausbund (Part 1)

“People especially now want to get away…they want something that will draw them away from the complicated life, and the uncertainty.” Elizabeth Byler Younts is an author of Amish-themed fiction who spent part of her childhood in an Amish family. She digs into the question of why readers love Amish fiction in a podcast from […]

Continue Reading Elizabeth Byler Younts: Why Readers Love The Amish