This Unusual Amish Community Lies In Two States

And while it’s uncommon, it’s not the only one like that. The Amish community at Littlestown, Pennsylvania (Adams County) also stretches into Carroll County, Maryland. The young settlement is the subject of a recent report by WHP/CBS 21.

In 2021, Joe Donnermeyer compiled a list of Two-State Amish Settlements for us, which included over a dozen such communities. This one should also go on that list. WHP tells the story of this relatively new community:

ADAMS COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — When Amos Stoltzfoos moved his family to Littlestown in 2020, he said they were one of just 11 Amish families in the area.

Today, the owner of Pennland Greenhouse says his family is one of around 85-90 Amish families in the settlement, which also stretches down into Maryland.

His story exemplifies a small trend researchers at Elizabethtown College said they’re seeing with more Amish families moving from the Lancaster settlement to parts of Adams County and Maryland.

Around 225 Amish people live here now; it’s one of five Amish settlements in the state (not counting the Maryland spillover from another two-state community – Lancaster County, PA).

Here’s more on why Stoltzfoos – and no doubt others – found the area attractive:

Stoltzfoos said he moved from Mount Joy to his 120-acre farm, located off of 1365 Georgetown Road, due to the difference in land prices.

He said when they were initially looking to buy, farmland in Lancaster County cost somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 an acre. Meanwhile, the land he ended up buying in Littlestown cost closer to $7,000 an acre.

It sounds like a friendly community that has integrated well with the non-Amish population:

Stoltzfoos said he’d never want to be seen as standoffish.

“We’re not focused just on our church community, but also the Littlestown community,” he said during an interview with CBS 21 inside his home, located just a flight of steps down from the greenhouse.

Stolzfoos added that since moving to the area several years ago, he’s seen a great reception from non-Amish neighbors. The majority of customers at Pennland Greenhouse are non-Amish, he said.

That’s about what you’d expect from a Lancaster County daughter settlement. A non-Amish person describes them as “the perfect neighbor[s]”, and others, including the police chief, express their appreciation – particularly due to farmland being preserved.

Local businesses have appreciated the Amish commerce as well – one example being the Adams County Bank putting up a hitching post for its Amish customers’ convenience, something common to businesses which Amish patronize. There’s a good bit more to the report, so check out the full article at the link above.

Multi-state Amish communities rare, but not unheard of

While the article doesn’t focus much on this, while it’s unusual, it’s not unheard of to have an Amish community spanning two states.

Having families from one settlement in two states can make for some interesting differences within these communities. For example, the Adams County, Indiana community has families living across the border in Ohio. Buggies in Indiana require license plates, while those in Ohio do not. This may also show up in differences as to tax rates people pay and so on.

And though we’ve identified a collection of two-state Amish settlements, I’ve yet to hear of one that occupies parts of three.

One candidate for that might be a community in Amish-heavy Crawford County, Pennsylvania – which lies in that bit of PA which juts up between Ohio and New York – though I wouldn’t hold my breath, as there’d probably still have to be a lot of population growth.

Ditto to the Bryan, Ohio community (Williams County) or – perhaps likeliest of all, the Camden, Michigan settlement which already has families in Ohio, and lies very near Indiana as well (there’s a chance some already live there).

I happened to visit one of these two-state communities last week – the venerable Somerset County, Pennsylvania settlement has a church district or two lying over the border in Garrett County, Maryland (itself home to two other distinct Amish communities).

This topic is of niche interest, but I get a kick out of it, so it’s worth a post every now and then. And it’s something you’re going to come across here and there, especially since the Amish now live in over 650 locations in the United States.

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