Too often, we hear stories of criminals seeking out Amish victims. Their crimes include: Burglary when homeowners are known to be absent (eg, Sunday morning) Swiping cash from roadside stands (both manned and unmanned) Assault and robbery Last Thursday, Amish once again fell prey to wrongdoers, this time in Lawrence County, Tennessee. One woman has been captured, and two more suspects are being sought, following what…
Somewhat confusingly, the words “Nebraska Amish” often refer to the “white-topper” group of Pennsylvania and Ohio which bears that name–legacy of an associated bishop and early church members from the Cornhusker State. Less is heard about the small population of Amish who actually live in Nebraska. Amish America contributor Tom Geist today shares his visits to the handful of communities in the state. Verdigre #1 The…
File this one under “Not A Spoof”. Chad Adams, a police sergeant for Pulaski Township in Western PA, recently spent time walking local roads dressed as an Amish woman. Why would he do such a thing, you’re surely wondering? The department was trying to catch a man who had been exposing himself to Amish children walking home from school. Adams was accompanied by a female officer…
Last month, contributor Don Burke gave us a look at the Kalona, Iowa Amish settlement. Don returns today with a selection of photos from the Jamesport, Missouri Amish community. At eight church districts, Jamesport (Daviess County) is the third-largest of Missouri’s three dozen+ Amish settlements, smaller than only Seymour (Webster County) and Clark (Audrain/Monroe/Randolph County). Founded in 1953, only the Bowling Green community is older among the Show-Me State’s…
2017 UPDATE: This year’s two editions of the Honeyville Quilt Auction will be held Saturday, April 8, and Saturday, September 16. The first Honeyville Quilt Auction of 2014 takes place tomorrow (Saturday April 12th) in the Elkhart-Lagrange, Indiana Amish settlement. We usually post auction photos taken during the event. Today is a little different, with a pile of pre-auction pictures showing all the neat things…
Contributor Tom Geist recently shared his visit to South Dakota’s only Amish community. It was a nice post but a little short on images. Today, the photos. Hutchinson County contains a grand total of 7,187 people (as of 2012), spread over 814 square miles, or just under 9 people per square mile. By comparison, similarly-sized Lancaster County, PA has about 535 people per square mile….
One of our contributors recently paid a visit to the Wayne County settlement. The weather did not quite cooperate that day. However that gave him a great excuse to duck into one of the more prominent Wayne County Amish businesses. Fountain Acres (Amish-owned Food Store) Fountain Acres Foods is a sizeable Amish-run “foods and more” store in the Wayne County Amish community, in the Fountain…
You’ve heard of the Amish barn raising–but what about the Amish “barn moving”? Not only do Amish work together to put up a barn in short order, sometimes they team up to literally pick up and move a structure. And there are a handful of videos on Youtube showing this in action. First, from Wisconsin. The video maker writes: This took place in rural Dalton,…
The Coshocton Tribune and Indianapolis Star recently published a series of stories on the deer farming industries in Ohio and Indiana. Amish people figure prominently in a number of the articles. The first is about an Amish craftsman putting deer antlers to a creative use. Amish-Made Deer Antler Pens Some have wondered what Amish deer farmers do with the animals they raise. The answer: a variety…
You may have heard the term affiliation used to describe this or that Amish group. So just what is an “Amish affiliation”? Broadly speaking, affiliations describe groupings of Amish churches of similar practice, identity, and lifestyle. The best discussion of Amish affiliations I’ve come across is in Chapter 8 of The Amish by Donald Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven Nolt. The authors describe the concept:…