Delaware Amish

Delaware is home to a single but long-established Amish community

Tiny Delaware is home to one sizable and long-lived Amish settlement. Founded over 100 years ago, the community just outside state capital Dover faces land pressures, with many families moving away in recent years to found daughter settlements. However, the community continues to grow, and today well over 1,700 Amish still live in the Dover settlement. Updated January 2022

Only one Amish community is found in Delaware, outside of state capital Dover

Amish in Delaware

Amish first settled in the middle of Kent County, the central county of the state’s three, in 1915. Settlers arrived here from states as diverse as Wisconsin, Montana, Alabama, and Ohio. Today, the community numbers 12 church districts, with approximately 1,800 people.

In Delaware, Amish farms have given way…

The Dover community is one of a few truly “East Coast” communities, along with Lancaster County, the St. Mary’s County, Maryland Amish community, and a few others. In fact–leaving out the atypical Pinecraft, Florida Amish community–the Dover group may be the most “coastal” of all, in the sense that they are within feasible buggying distance of the ocean.

At the Dover settlement, traditional plain white shutterless homes mix with suburban and rural English dwellings. Numerous buggy signs alert drivers to the presence of the Amish, cautioning vehicles to maintain low speeds when passing buggies.

Capital land pressure

The Amish at Dover are also close to another landmark of importance–the state capital. With suburban growth, the Amish community has found itself interspersed with large neighborhoods. Fields of McMansions stand where corn once did, and a number of golf courses are found in the area. With the rise of settlement by non-Amish, road traffic inevitably increases as well.

…to suburbs and golf courses

Years ago the Dover Amish began leaving the settlement in significant numbers due to these pressures–with some no doubt enticed by the high land prices. Indeed, a family can sell its farmland and comfortably purchase one, two or even more farms in less-densely populated regions of the country.

Numerous Amish from Dover have migrated and started daughter settlements. An example of such community is the Halifax County, Virginia Amish group, or that at Burke’s Garden, Virginia. Realtor’s signs in some Amish yards as well as formerly Amish homes now wired for electricity are signs of such changes in the settlement.

An Amish buggy on a busy road in the Dover community

As a result of the land situation, few Amish at Dover remain in full-time agriculture. The price of land in the area generally prohibits young men starting up in full-fledged dairy farming. High land prices may make some question why they continue to farm themselves. In fact, a number of those still owning large farms rent the land to be farmed by English farmers. In the early 2010s, a local Amish person estimated that only around 20 full-time Amish farmers remain.

Delaware Amish businesses

Amish furniture company signs in the Dover, DE settlement

While farming has dwindled, Amish have opened numerous businesses, consistent with the general trend in Amish society. At the Dover settlement, Amish are involved in a number of trades, including furniture, buggy-making, blacksmithing, greenhouses, sawmills, and a number of shops, including dry goods, quilts, and appliance stores.

Shops are typically located on-site at Amish homes, with roadside signs advertising their presence. As with all Amish, Dover businesses are closed on Sundays. Read more about Delaware Amish furniture businesses.

Dover buggies

The buggies driven by the Amish in Delaware are of particular interest due to their unique style. Dover buggies feature rounded sides, fully-opening back doors, and a generally bulky size. Some have likened their appearance to that of hearses. The distinctive look is seen only in the Dover community and other Delaware Amish spin-off settlements.

Characteristic Amish buggies parked in a lot in the Dover settlement

Amish future in Delaware

Amish settlements–even sizable ones–have gone extinct in the past. Despite land pressures, the Dover community retains a still-significant size, and has even continued to grow over the past decade, adding several church districts to the community since 2011.

As for the state itself, given its small size and relatively high land prices, Delaware is not very likely to attract much additional Amish settlement. The general trend of Amish migration has been northward and westward – unlike in the early 1900s when more of the country was up for agricultural development and the first Amish settlers arrived in Delaware from diverse states in the West.

A yellow warning sign alerts drivers to the presence of horse-drawn transport in Delaware’s sole Amish community

The Dover community has a long history and though its proximity to the capital may continue to hamper its growth, it is not going anywhere. The trend of Amish from Dover starting new communities and/or settling in existing Dover daughter settlements is likely to continue however. Amish in the community are likely to find the best opportunities for growth by focusing future settlement westward, opposite from the expanding capital. Occupations which don’t require large amounts of land – such as home businesses like furniture making or carpentry crews also provide ways for Amish to make a living and remain in the community without the large capital outlay that purchasing a dairy farm would require.

For a more in-depth look at this community, try the Dover, Delaware Amish settlement report.

For further information, see:

“Amish Population in the United States by State and County, 2021” (https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/files/2021/08/Amish-Pop-2021_by-state-and-county.pdf)

“Amish Population, 2021” Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College (https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/statistics/population-2021/)

Delaware Amish Directory: 2005

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