After last week’s animal cruelty case, I really wasn’t looking to write more on Amish-owned dogs coming to harm. But here we are. Today we see a report on an Amish dog breeder named John S. Stoltzfus Jr. The Lancaster County resident got himself into trouble after it was learned that, in late 2023, he had killed four Sheepadoodle puppies which weren’t selling. From the…
Horse Progress Days 2026 happened last weekend in the Arthur, Illinois community. Like he did last year, Budget Newspaper publisher Milo Miller shares a great batch of photos he took while at the event. For those unfamiliar, Horse Progress Days is the marquee event for horse-drawn farming equipment. It draws thousands of Amish attendees from across the country each year. It’s an event not only…
A “devastating” fire tore through an Amish-run sawmill in Geauga County, Ohio, Thursday evening, leaving behind smoking remains that are expected to smolder for days to come. Twenty mutual aid companies from four counties responded to help Middlefield Fire in battling the blaze – a sign of how powerful the blaze was. The business is called M. K. Hardwoods, and going by their reviews they’ve…
Nearly a year after the deadly van wreck in Tuscola County, Michigan, that killed six people – five of them Amish – authorities have made an arrest. Why the delay? They had to figure out who was actually driving the pickup truck that (reportedly) ran a stop sign and crashed into the van. More from ABC 12’s report: Twenty-six-year-old John Stacey is facing 20 felony…
Jim Halverson is back with another look around the Cass City, Michigan Amish community. This photo set takes in a local Amish-attended garage sale, marked with balloons out front – along with a few other sights from around the settlement. We’ve previously seen how garage sales are popular with the Amish in northern Indiana. This one was being run out of a greenhouse: secondhand dresses…
Amish parents in New York face a setback in the latest of a back-and-forth series of court decisions. In news released Tuesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the Amish parents and schools in the long-running case over vaccine requirements in New York schools. As a reminder, the current NY law requires vaccines not only in public schools, but in privately-operated ones…
The county, for its part, “vehemently den[ies]” that claim, according to new reporting at Cowboy State Daily. The issue is one we looked at last week in the Amish community at Hulett, Wyoming. A non-Amish rancher claimed that Crook County officials were driving Amish families away due to how it was handling a dispute over Amish use of outhouses. The man in question claimed that…
Ben & Rose have just released a new tune – “Stroll Over Heaven” is a gospel song written by Carl L. Trivette in 1952. It was popularized more recently by Alan Jackson on his 2005 gospel release Precious Memories. This is their first since their team-up with Rose’s siblings Mike & Marty on “Palms of Victory”. We actually got a short demo clip preview of…
A really sad, and maddening, story was reported last week out of upstate New York. Some of this is hard to read. Via WWNY: POTSDAM, New York (WWNY) – Warning: the photos and description of the dog’s injury may be upsetting The St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a suspected case of animal cruelty after a severely injured dog was brought to the Potsdam…
Michigan is home to America’s sixth-largest Amish population. Over 21,000 Amish live in more than 50 settlements across the state. These ten communities are the largest in Michigan, based on the most current Amish population estimates (2026). Population numbers via Young Center for Anabaptist & Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College (source link at bottom). 1. Centreville Centreville (St. Joseph County) Community founded: 1910 Total Amish…