I’ve got some photos of the community at Daviess County, Indiana to share with you today. These were taken by a friend of mine and emailed to me several years ago. For whatever reason, at the time I didn’t get around to posting them. I wanted to share them because we have surprisingly relatively little on Daviess County on this site – and basically no…
An Amishman in Canada finds himself in an unusual and likely unique situation, serving as bishop for two Amish churches – one in New Brunswick province, and the other just across the border in the US, in Maine. That’s one of a number of interesting details in Gabriel Arsenault’s article “Understanding Amish Migrations to New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba” from the latest Journal…
I mentioned this idea of Amish “supercounties” in a recent post. This is the term I came up with to describe counties containing a large number of individual Amish communities. For one reason or another, these are counties which have just drawn Amish to settle in them, repeatedly. An alternate term might be “Amish-friendly counties”. There is something about these counties that makes them attractive…
Since yesterday, several people have reached out to let me know about this new video (including one Amish friend). This is by YouTube filmmaker Peter Santenello (new to me), who makes videos about different cultures in the US and around the world. In this two-part series, Peter walks around Pinecraft speaking with Amish people, as someone knowing relatively little about the Amish. He is given…
How about some winter shots from the New Wilmington, Pennsylvania Amish community? This is one of my favorite Amish settlements, dating back to my first visit one autumn going on 15 years ago. While the sights I saw then were of hues that matched more closely to the distinct brown-topped buggies of the local Amish, the wintry images in these photos better reflect our current…
On the morning of Christmas Eve, I visited an Amish community in Summers County, West Virginia. This is near the Virginia border, about a half hour’s drive from the Pearisburg, VA settlement. The town is Forest Hill. The first place we came across was this double-business – Shady Hillside Variety Store and Kountry Crust Bakery. Inside. Keeping things toasty. On completing my purchase, I…
A nice article in the Boston Globe on how the Amish came to settle Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Some excerpts: “They wanted to see a particular place,” Maclure recalled. “I told them it was getting awful dark. Let’s wait until morning. They asked if they might camp in a field or barn.” They’d brought sleeping bags. Maclure wouldn’t hear of it. “I said, ‘No, you’re not…
On Saturday I visited the Union Grove Amish settlement, one of two in North Carolina. This was a quick one as I was on the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway on a trip with my brother. We stopped in at the big attraction in the community, the Amish-owned Shiloh General Store. That was followed up by a stop at Wholesome Country Creamery just down…
Molly asks a good question on the recent Lancaster farm stay post: Erik, 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 do often wonder which one of Holmes County and Lancaster County is best to visit – and how they…
Where do the Amish live? A new resource has been published listing the locations of nearly 600 Amish settlements across North America. You can access the list at the Young Center’s Amish Studies website. This list actually includes two nations – the US, and Canada with its much smaller Amish population. Organized by state and province, it provides some basic useful information for each settlement:…