Old Order Amish Settlement

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Old Order Amish Settlement: Diffusion and GrowthAuthor(s): William K. CrowleyReviewed work(s):Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Jun., 1978), pp.249-264Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.on behalf of the Association of American GeographersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2562217.

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OLD ORDER AMISH SETTLEMENT:DIFFUSION AND GROWTHWILLIAM K. CROWLEY

ABSTRACT. The Amishoriginatedn Europe over 280 years ago. Althoughthey ventually isappearedn theirhomeland rea, theyhave survived emarkablywell in the New World.The spreadof Amish settlementn the United Statesen-compassesfive istinct eriods. n theearlyperiods heAmishfollowed hefrontier,similar o otherAmericans, ut generallywithoutuccessbeyondthenortheasternquadrantof the country.Amish numericalgrowthwas slow until the twentiethcentury.heyarepresentlyrowingapidly,nd each yearnewAmishcommunitiesare established.f ULTURAL geographersoncede religionmajor role in cultural dentificationndin culture ormation. eographers aveinvesti-gated topics such as religious ettlements,e-ligious distributions or a given area, andmodelsofreligiousystems, utthere ave beenfew attempts o trace the diffusion f entirereligious odies. The general utlines fspreadof major religiousgroups are cited in manyworks, utthesegroups retoolarge o examinein totality t a fine cale.The same constraints o not apply to thestudy f smallerreligions nd, particularly,e-ligious ects.The limited umbers f adherentsand the more confined real spread of thesegroups mean that their movements an bestudiedin greaterdetail than can large re-ligious organizations. his paperwill describeand explain the diffusionnd growth f onesuch religious ect, he Old OrderAmish.1

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND DIFFUSIONDuring the religious eformationn Europe,one of the religiousgroupsthat arose in con-

flict ithwhatbecamethe stablished rotestantchurcheswas the Anabaptists, o called be-cause oftheir elief n adultbaptism.The cen-ter of Anabaptist activity n the sixteenthcentury as Zurich, witzerland here hefol-Dr. Crowley is Associate Professor of GeographyatSonoma State College in Rohnert Park, CA 94928.1 Unless otherwise identified, ll future referencesto the "Amish" are specificto the Old Order Amish,since some of the statementswhich will be made are

not applicable to otherAmish groups.

lowersof thisdoctrinewere dentifieds SwissBrethren. likegroup also came to life n theNetherlandswherethe practitioners ere re-ferred o as Mennonites, nd soon the SwissBrethren lso became knownas Mennonites.The Anabaptistmovement egan in 1525, andbecause of the extremebent of manyof thepeoplewho werepartofthemovement, iffer-ences of opinionfrequentlyed to seriousfac-tionaldisputes.One of the disputes, ver whatoutsidersmightconsider a minor point ofdogma, ed to thefissioningff f a new groupunderthe leadershipof JakobAmman n theyears 1693-1697. Amman's principal oncernwas the Meidung,or shunning f excommuni-catedmembers. his practice ormerlyad beenmore important o the Mennonites,but hadlapsed in practiceduringAmman'sday. Am-man was determinedhat the Meidungshouldbe observedstrictly.He went on a tour inSwitzerlandndAlsace preachingheMeidung,and was so insistentn his point of view thathis followers ormed separatecamp,excom-municatingll otherMennoniteswho did notpractice hunning. y stumpinghe countrysideandvisiting nabaptist ongregations hereverhe could,Amman ucceeded n establishingismore conservativeAmishbranchof Anabap-tism.The followers fAmman becameknownas "ammansch," namewhich was corruptedeventually o thepresent Amish."2

2 This is disputed by JamesLandingwho suggests hename is derived from Amish attempts to distinguishthemselvesfromother "Menist" (Mennonite groups)."They apparently referred o themselves s 'a-Menists'(pronounced, in German, ah-man-EESH-ta), since the

ANNALS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS Vol. 68, No. 2, June 1978? 1978 by the Association of American Geographers. Printed in U.S.A.249


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250 WILLIAM K. CROWLEY June

S~~~~~va S TRIASJ I T A L Y.

FIG. 1. Amish Expansion in Europe. Bern Canton,Switzerland, Alsace, and the Palatinate formed theoriginalhomeland core.As a result fAmman'sefforts,mish con-

gregationsrose nSwitzerlandBernCanton),Alsace, and the Palatinate. "How large thefollowing f Amman was is unknown."13hisearlyspreadof theAmishfactionwas accom-plishedalmostwhollythrough roselytizationand involved ittlemigration f people. Suchmissionaryervor nd attemptso.gain adher-ents tand nvivid ontrasto the absolutenon-proselytization racticedby the Amishtoday.Diffusion in Europe

A partial recordexists ndicating ome oftheAmish movementn Europe, thoughper-haps hundreds f migrations ccurred nvolv-inga fewpeople (Fig. 1). Fromthe core areasof Bern Canton, Alsace, and the Palatinate,contemporaryaccounts of that day commonly referto the 'Ominists,' the 'Hominists,' or the 'OministsSociety.' This term gradually became transliterated(sic) as 'Homish,' 'Omish,' and eventually Amish.'"James E. Landing, "Amish Settlement in NorthAmerica: A Geographic Brief,"Bulletin of the IllinoisGeographical Society, Vol. 12 (December, 1970),p. 65.3 Calvin Bachman, The Old Order Amish of Lan-caster County (Lancaster: Pennsylvania German So-ciety,1942 and republished in 1961), Vol. 60, p. 49.

the Amishfilteredntomany points n centraland western urope during heeighteenthndearly nineteenth enturies.One of the first fthe argermigrations usthave been from artsof Bern Canton (fromwhich the Amishwereexiled) down the Rhineto the Netherlandsn1711. Within ten years these Amish set upseparate ongregationst GroningenndKam-pen among the Dutch Mennonites.4Between 1710 and 1825 therewere severalmovements ut of Alsace. The Markirch reawas one ofthe centers f Amishfollowers ndfromhere emigrantsmoved to France, areasnear the Swiss border,Lorraine, and Luxem-burg.Othermovements rom heAlsace areawere to Breisgau n SouthernBaden in 1759;Galicia, Austria n 1783; and Regensburg,n-golstadt, nd Munich n Bavaria in 1802. Themovements o Austria and Bavaria were incombinationwith Amish fromthe Palatinate.Otheremigrantsrom hePalatinatemoved toWaldeckin 1730, Holland in 1750, Marburgin 1800, and Neuwied date unknown).ThoseAmishwho migratedoAustria ater ourneyedto Volhynia, Russia and eventuallyto theUnitedStates.5Most of the Amish movementin the eighteenthnd earlynineteenthenturieswas causedby religious ersecution.he Amishwere ferventbelieversin the separation ofchurch nd state ndthisgainedthemno favorinmany uarters.The peripatetic spect of the Amish yearsin Europe seemedto lead them n no particulardirection. heyremained enerally ithin reasofGermanic anguage, nd they learly voidednonreformistouthernEurope. Most of theirtransfers id not involvegreat distances,al-though he movement f the Swiss Amish toHolland, and Amish from he Palatinate andAlsace to Austria,were not short y Europeanstandards. In part, their destinationswereprobablydeterminedy wheretheywould bepermittedo worshipas they wished,and inpart theywere determined y the desire ofcertainnoblemen o employAmishas farmersbecause of the reputation heyhad gainedasworthyillers fthe oil.

4 C. Henry Smith, The Story of the Mennonites,fourthedition (Newton, Kansas: Mennonite Publica-tion Office,1957), pp. 141-42.5 John Hostetler, Amish Society, second edition(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1968),pp. 38-42.


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A t TEurope

1 7 1 7- 1 8 1 6Surviving *Exti n c t -

FIG. 2. The First Wave, 1717-1816. The originalperiod of Amish expansionin the United States. Thosecolonies which are still in existence are labeled "sur-viving," those which failed are labeled "extinct."Periods of Settlement oundation

By piecing together nformation romtheMennonite Encyclopedia; from many books,articles, nd dissertationsoncerningheAm-ish; and from mail survey o Amish settle-ments, have compileda fairly ccurate ac-countof theirhistory f settlement oundationand failure.13 o claim is made forcompleteaccuracy ince such a featwould be impossible.The settlement apsshowonlywhere he nitialoccupantsof a particular olony came from.In manycases other ettlers oon arrived romdiverse reas.I have divided Amish settlement istoryn13 The Mennonite Encyclopedia (North Newton,Kansas: Mennonite Publication Office, 1956-1959),4 vols.

the United States into fiveperiods.The firstperiod astedfrom1717 to 1816 and includedthe era of the firstmigration ave and the en-suing decades. The second period extendedfrom1817 to 1861, the years of the secondmigration ave. The third eriod ncluded heyearsfrom 1862 to 1899. At the end of thethird eriodruralfrontierpaces in theUnitedStateswere closed. The fourth eriod ncludesthe twentieth entury hroughWorldWar II,and represents he stage duringwhichAmishtechnologyeganto differreatly rom hatofotherUnited Statesfarmers. he fifth eriod,1945 to the present, epresents time of un-equalled settlementoundation or theAmish.

The First Wave, 1717-1816. During theoriginalmigrationwave thefirst mishsettle-ments were establishedat several points insoutheasternPennsylvania (Fig. 2). BerksCountywas the site of the earliest ettlement,withothers uicklyfollowingn Lancaster andChestercounties.Of the first ix settlements,onlyone survivedhe ast halfofthe eighteenthcentury,he one begunin 1757 in LancasterCounty. ome of the other arlyattempts erepoorlyocated and ndians extinguishedhem.14Fromthis tarting oint he foundingf newcolonies n thefirst eriodproceeded n a fairlyregularwestward rogression,he newcoloniesresultingargelyfrom he growth f the olderones.The bulk ofthe settlementseremade inPennsylvania,ndby the end of the eighteenthcenturyhe Amishhad onlyone existingettle-mentbeyond heborders fthat tate GarrettCounty,Maryland n thePennsylvaniaorder).In Pennsylvania olonies survivednot onlyinLancaster,but also in Somerset foundedin1768) and Mifflinfounded n 1780) counties.Before he econdwave ofmigrationheAmishhad spread into Holmes and Tuscawarascounties 1809) in Ohio. Pennsylvania, hio,and Marylandwere the only states withcol-onies at theendof thisperiod, lthough and-ing reports hat "Amish familiesfoundtheir

14 Maurice A. Mook, "A Brief Historyof Former,Now Extinct, Amish Communities in Pennsylvania,"Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 38(1955), pp. 33-34. It is the Lancaster County settle-ment, continuouslyoccupied since itsfounding, hat isperhaps the most famous Amish settlement n theUnited States today.


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 253way southwardntotheCarolinaslongbeforetheRevolution."'15SincetheMennonitesweretheAmish losestreligiouskin, it mightbe assumed that theysought o settlenear one another n the NewWorld. According o Beachy,exactly hecon-traryoccurred.Bitter feelinghad developedbetween he Amish ndMennonites nEurope.When theyeach moved across theAtlantic norder to sustain their religiousbeliefs, thisbitternessrossed he ocean with hem.As eachgroup expandedbeyond southeasternennsyl-vania theMennonitesmovedsouthward longtheCumberland nd Shenandoahvalleys,whilethebulkof the Amishproceededwestward ptheJuniata alley.16

A feature f thesettlementharacter f theAmishthat became evidentduring his earlychapter f their xistencen America, nd onethatwould continue hrough ach era of theirsettlement istory,ncluding he present,wasa predelictionormoving reatdistances wayfromthe previousplace of residence. Why?Often, uch a move was a choice to advancenear or at thefrontier,ut it was not alwaysnecessary omove so far.The Amish eapfrog-ging endencies renot easilyexplained, nlessone considersrugged ndividualism satisfac-torystimulusfor such behavior.Perhaps thebeliefthat the moreunsettled hecountryside,theeasier itwouldbe to followthe prescriptsof one's religionwas also a motivatingactor.In lateryearsexaggerated longhops" by theAmishcontributedo thefailure f some com-munitiess the Amishfound hemselvesn un-familiar nvironmentsnd out of contactwiththeir rethren.That the Amish were at timespioneersisunquestioned.Clearly, theywere the first et-tlers in Berks County, Pennsylvaniawheremanyofthemwerevanquishedby Indians. nLancasterCounty, owever, heyhadbeenpre-ceded by the Welsh.'7 The first ettlers nSomerset ounty, ennsylvaniarrivedn 1762or 1763, with the Amishfollowingn 1767.15 James E. Landing, "Exploring Mennonite Settle-ments in Virginia," The Virginia Geographer, Vol. 4(Spring, 1969), p. 9.16 Beachy,op. cit.,footnote12, p. 264.17 Grant M. Stoltzfus,"History of the First AmishMennonite Communities in America," The Menno-niteQuarterlyReview, Vol. 28 (1954), p. 242.

This was still two years priorto the time thatthe area was officiallypenedforoccupation.18In the first eriod the Amish establishedpattern f settlement ailure hat continued ocharacterize hem n latertimes.Eleven of fif-teen attempts ventually ailedor did not con-tinue to be Amish.The Second Wave, 1817-1861. During thesecondperiod f settlement,rom 817 to 1861,there were two currents f Amish movement(Fig. 3). One current nvolvedthe immigrat-ingAlsatians ounding olonies n western hio,central llinois, and southeasternowa. In ad-dition to a search for land, the compulsorymilitary rainingaws of Europe were an im-portant impetus to Amish emigrationfromEuropeatthis ime, ince the Amishwere andare) pacifists.19 he other current vident ntheseyears nvolved he ame sortof expansionfrom firstwave settlements s had occurredduring he astpart of the first eriod. Severalnew settlementsn Ohio and northeasternn-diana were the result of this progression.nsome cases, Alsatians joined the establishedAmish in these colonies. Outposts of Amishgrowth n the second period were located inNew York, Ontario, nd westernMissouri.

Colonies founded exclusivelyby AlsatianAmish did not survive as Amish settlementsbeyond about 1870. In many cases the peoplemoved elsewhere, nd in other nstances heyjoined more progressiveMennonite bodies.WhiletheirAmish brethren ho had come tothe United States in the firstwave remainedlittle hanged, he Alsatians apparently nder-went some alteration n Europe beforetheycame to the United States. In general, theyfoundthe residentAmish n the United Statestoo conservative.20he Amish arriving romGermanareas were also less progressivehanthe Alsatians and their survival rate as OldOrder Amishwas significantlyigher.All ofthe settlements adein Illinoisduringthesecondperiod, ll but one in Iowa, and allbut one in Ohio eventually ailed. This wasgenerallyhe case elsewhere, ne reason beingthe large numberof Alsatian colonies amidstthe total. Twenty-threef thirty-twoommu-

18 Beachy,op. cit., footnote 12.19Melvin Gingerich,The Mennonitesin Iowa (IowaCity: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1939),p. 95.20 Gingerich, p. cit., footnote 19.


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FIG. 3. The Second Wave, 1817-1861. The second period of Amish expansion in theUnitedStates,and the last period of Amish migrationfromEurope.nitiesfoundedduring hesecondperiodfailed(at least in termsof maintainingheirAmishcharacter).The oneareaof significanteviationfromthis trendwas in northeasternndiana,wherefive oloniesestablished uring hesec-ond wave have survivedto the present.AsLandingpointsout,successwas not easy,norimmediate.21The bulk of the growth f these

21 James E. Landing, "The Spatial Development andOrganization of an Old Order Amish-Beachy AmishSettlement:Nappanee, Indiana," unpublisheddoctoraldissertation, he PennsylvaniaState University, 967.

settlements as come in the last fifty ears.Some of the argest nes todaynearlywitheredin the beginning.The Amish expanded theirhorizonsveryquicklyduring hefirst alf of the nineteenthcentury, articularly omparedto the ratherslowdiffusionfthe eighteenthenturywithintheUnited tates.The increased ateofgrowthwas consistent, owever,with heAmishfron-tieringendencies.By examininghedatesthattheAmishfirstestablished hemselvesn various counties, t


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 255can be concludedthat on occasion theywerethe originalpioneers n a particular rea, ashad been thecase in the first eriod. n mostother nstances heywereprecededby Scotch-Irishor otherGermanicsettlers, lthough heAmish seem neverto have been far behind.Theywere the original ettlersn somepartsofOhio.22 Since the Amish reached McLeanCounty n central llinoisby 1829 an Amish-man was likelythe firstwhite settler n thisarea as well. In MarshallCounty n northernIndiana, thefirstwhiteresidentsanded in the1830s and the Amishwere thereby 1839 or1840.23The earlyAmishpresence n thestatesfrom ennsylvaniao Iowa indicates heyweresearching or ncovetederritoryhere xternalpressures nd influencessuch as theyhad ex-periencednEurope) wouldbe minimal.The WestwardAdvance Ends, 1862-1899.The significancef choosing he 1899 date forthe close ofthissegment fAmishdiffusionssomewhat rbitrary.he end ofthe nineteenthcentury idsignifywo newenvironmentalon-ditions f importance orthe Amish: 1) fron-tier spaces were largelygone-henceforthasnew Amish colonies were establishedtheywould be supplanting ther rural occupants;and 2) non-Amish armerswould soon beginto mechanize,and Amish farmingmethodswould beginto vary greatly romtheir tech-nologicallymore advancedneighbors.This period,particularly p to 1890, wasalso important ecause of religiousconflictsamong theAmish which ed to differentiationof distinct mishgroups.Following seriesofyearlyministerial onferences rom 1862 to1878, duringwhichan attemptwas made tostandardize eligiouspractices, he term "OldOrder Amish" came into use. Previously heword "Amish"was sufficient,ut schismsoc-curredduring he yearlyconferenceshat ledto foundation f splinter roups. t becameap-parentthat all Amishcould not agree on allmajor issues.Duringthe 1880s the morepro-gressive lements oined the General Confer-ence MennoniteChurch, easingto be Amishaltogether.he conservativeemainder ecamethe "Old Order."24 he religious onflicts c-

22 Gingerich,op. cit.,footnote 19, p. 57.23 Landing, op. cit., footnote21, p. 108.24 Hostetler, op. cit., footnote 5, pp. 263-65. TheOld Order Amish should not be confused with yetanotherreligious splinterof the Mennoniteworld,the

curring mong the Amish duringthisperiodare central o a considerationf Amishsettle-menthistoryincemanycoloniesrose and fell,or ceased to be Old Order,as a resultof re-ligious division.The Amishcontinued o followthefrontierduring his period,much as theyhad duringearlier imes Fig. 4). WestwardxpansionntotheGreatPlainsbroughtheAmish ntoNorthDakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, andColorado. One adventurousgroup made itacross the Rockies to Oregon,the only statewestof the GreatPlains to experienceAmishsettlement. hat the Amish maintained heirrecordof being early on the scene of newlyavailable andscan be seenfrom heir xample

in Oklahoma.UnassignedCheyenne-ArapahoeReservation and in western Oklahoma wasopenedforsettlementn 1892; thefirst misharrivedn 1893.25In addition o theirwestward rive heAmishbeganto diffusen otherdirections. rue,theyhad previously ntered he northernimitsofthe South with settlementsn MarylandandMissouri,and one earlyforlorn eeperpene-tration ntothe Carolinas.Butduring hethirdperiod,more frequent nd more distantat-tempts t southern ccupationbegan. Missis-sippiand Arkansas,as well as Tennessee andVirginia,received theirfirstAmish settlers.Most of these oloniesenduredessthan wentyyears, nd all eventually adedfrom he scene.TheArkansasCounty,Arkansas ettlementasthemostsuccessful,asting orforty earsun-til 1920.The Amish were moving n all directionsduring hethirdperiod,even though he totalnumber of settlements stablished (twenty-four) was relatively mall. Along withtheirwestern nd southern orays, heAmishmadetheir irstmove intotheNorth Centralborderstateswith colony nNewaygoCounty,Michi-gan near the close of the nineteenthentury.Theybegan anothernew trendwith omecol-Old Order Mennonites,who represent conservativebranchingfrom the Mennonite General Conference.This was not the end of schismatictendenciesamongstthe Amish. Two major groups have formedfrom theOld Order duringthe twentieth entury, he Conserva-tive Amish Mennonites and the Beachy Amish.25 Velma K. Branson, "The Amish of Thomas,Oklahoma: A Study in Cultural Geography," unpub-lished Masters thesis,Universityof Oklahoma, 1967.


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1862-1899 H dSu vi ing n ,aEx tinct o 4SFIG. 4. The Westward Advance Ends, 1862-1899. The thirdperiod of Amish expansion intheUnited States.

onists goingfromwest to east to start newcolony, as with the case of Amish movingfromKansas to start settlementn MadisonCounty,Ohio in 1896.New settlementsontinued o be establishedin their entralarea of occupation.Ohio, In-diana, and Illinoiseachhad threenewcolonies,while no other state had more than two.Strangely,ennsylvania ecordedno new con-gregations uring hethird eriod.26 he mainsourcesof settlers orthe new colonieswereOhio and ndiana. The ultimate ailure atedur-ing thisfinal ra ofpioneer xpansion emainedconsistentwith the rate established n priortime segments.Three-quarters f the thirdperiod colonies are no longer xtant.The areaof greatest uccessremained n thecore states(Pennsylvania,Ohio, and Indiana), while allattempts ut one in more peripheral nd farflung reas weredestined o extinction.The Early Modern Era, 1900-1944. Therateoffoundationf new settlementsontinuedto be about the same during hefourth eriodas it had been duringthe previousperiod.

26 This is possibly the resultof a flaw in the litera-turerather hana real circumstance.

The distributionf new settlements,owever,changed markedly.One distributional iffer-ence was the virtual bsence of colonizationnthe core area, exceptfornorthwesternennsyl-vania, and the ncreasednumber f settlementsmade in peripheral states-those states sur-rounding he core (Fig. 5). The Great Plainsand the North Centralborder tates each hadsix new settlements hile he Southbecamethemost mportantone ofAmish activity. levenAmishcommunitiesppeared n the South,fiveofthem n the Deep South. Delaware, Florida,Wisconsin, nd New Mexico represented irginareas of Amish exploration.Toward the end of this period the AmishenteredLatin America for the first ime,withan attempt o set up a colonyin Chihuahua,Mexico in 1943. This site soon provedunsatis-factory, nd two locations n the state of SanLuis Potosi were tried efore he Mexican Am-ishreturnedo theUnited tates n 1946.27TheAmish first ry n a new culturalmilieu wasshort-lived.

27 Harry L. Sawatzky, They Sought a Country,Men-nonite Colonization in Mexico (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1971), pp. 84-86.


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 257

FIG. 5. The Early Modern Era, 1900-1944. The fourthperiod of Amish expansion in theUnitedStates.

Why the new Amish communitieswerelargelyfounded n peripheralocations s notreadilyexplained.Undoubtedlyand was stillmore available in such locations,despitetheclosingof thefrontier,han n the statesfromPennsylvania o Iowa, which"filled-up" t anearlierdate.No other actor ffers very atis-factoryxplanation f theobserved attern.A perceptiblemovement rom orth o southis evidentwith he arge number f newsouth-ern colonies. In the case of Sarasota County,Florida, the Amish movementcontinuedtoreflectcurrentspresent among the generalUnited Statespopulace. As atypicaland "un-Amish" as itseems, hepurpose n Floridawasto set up a winterhaven forAmishretirees.Sarasota was not a farm-orientedolony.Once again an identifiable est to east cur-rentwas in evidence.Kansas Amishmoved toWisconsinand Missouri, owa Amish eftforIndiana,and Ohio Old Orderfolkwere argelyresponsible or the clusterof new settlementsinnorthwesternennsylvania.Most extreme fall (and about as extreme s one can get intheUnitedStates) was a jauntby a groupofOregonAmishto Delawarewhere new (and

still thriving)colony was founded in KentCounty.In sum,the variouspathsfollowedby theOld Orderduring hisperiodpresent confus-ingspatialarraywhenconsideredn toto. Themixedpattern ecomesmoreperplexingwhenone notesthatwidely eparatedplaces such asReno County,Kansas and variousOhio settle-mentsed theway n providingmembers o thelargestnumber fnewcommunities.Amish ettlementsontinued ofailatnearlythe same rate as in the first hreeperiods-twenty-one ut of thirty-two-and ne mustrememberhatas we approachthepresent heprobability f a colonystillbeing around n-creases, .e., the morerecentlytwas foundedthe greaterthe likelihoodthat it still exists.The rate of success was muchhigher n thecore area thanoutside t, a condition eminis-centof thepreviousperiod.During hefourth eriodtheAmishbegantostandoutmoremarkedly rom heirneighborsthanwas previously he case. Their clothing,generalplainness, nd religious eliefshad pre-viouslymadethemdistinctive. ow their arm-ing echniquesnd theirmeansoftransportation


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258 WILLIAM K. CROWLEY June-the orseand buggy-began to be regardedas "old-fashioned." n earlier times Amishfarmers ad oftenbeen knownfor advancedmethodsand agriculturalnnovations.28 owAmish ommunitieseganto representockets

of retention f methodsabandonedby moreprogressivegriculturalists.he Amish armer'srole in the countryside ad undergone twocenturydevolution, nd he had come to beconsideredbackward.This refusalto changewayscarried verto other renassuchas edu-cation, and new problemsbegan to confrontAmish existence.Amish distinctiveness admarkedlyncreasedduring he first our-and-one-half ecadesofthetwentiethentury.The ModernEra, 1945-Present.One mightassume that as the technological hanges ofthe twentiethentury ontinueto invade oureverydayxistence, heproblem f an Amish-man remaining n Amishmanwould increase.Put anotherway, one would thinkthat thegreater heattractionf theoutsideworld, ndthemore ntense he desire o quitdoingthingsthe"hardway"among he rest fthepopulace,the greaterwould be the number of Amishthatwould leave the church.Exactlythe re-verse s true. n the astthree ecadesforty-twopercentof all recordedAmishsettlementst-temptedn theUnited tateshavebeenfounded.The last 30 years have producednearlyasmany settlementss did the first 25 years.29This largenumber f new communitiess di-rectlyrelated to rapid population increasesamongtheAmish, nd suggests hatan appar-entparadox is at play.The moredifferentheAmish become, the greater s their survivalrate.In thefiftheriod heAmishmoved nmanydirections,s might e surmisedwith o manynew colonies being founded Fig. 6). Largenumbers f new settlementsppeared in sev-eral statesoutsidetheAmishcore of occupa-tion but, generally, he Amish settledwithinstateswhereAmish communities lready ex-

28 Victor Stoltzfus, "Amish Agriculture: AdoptiveStrategiesforEconomic Survival of CommunityLife,"Rural Sociology, Vol. 38 (1973), p. 197.29 It is more likelythatthe record on Amish settle-mentattempts s also muchfuller forthismore recentperiod. There are undoubtedly several attemptsfromearlier periods that I have not recorded.Nonetheless,the modern era has certainly had a minimum ofthirty-fiveo fortypercent of all New World Amishsettlements.

isted. The exceptionsto this were moves toTennessee,Missouri,Kentucky,ndMinnesota.Tennesseeand Missouri,of course,previouslyhad Amishcommunities.A decidedlynew trendbegan in the 1960sas theAmishbegan a more ntensive enetra-tionof Latin America. n the last halfof the1960s Amish fromPennsylvania, hio, Indi-ana, Arkansas,Ontario, ndperhaps lsewherestartednew colonies in Belize (1965), Para-guay (1967), and Honduras (1968). Howtheseparticular ountrieswere chosen is notclear,thoughn thecase ofBelize, it is knownthatMennoniteswere also involvedn thenewcolony.30An obvious assumption n interpret-ingthesemoves s that he Amishwere ookingfor areas wherethe pervasiveness f moderntechnology as less apparent.Within he United States the Amish termi-natedtheir arwestern lings, hewesternmostsettlementseingmade in Minnesota.PerhapsLatin America became a surrogatefor theAmericanWestforthoseAmishwho insistedon thefrontierndtrulyonghaul transfers.The Amishmade morefrequent oraysbe-yond the core as evidencedby thelarge num-berofnew colonies n states uchas Michigan,Wisconsin, nd Missouri.This trendmayleadto expansionof thecore area itself y severalstates n the nearfuture.Manyofthecoloniesin the peripheral tatesare quite small,how-ever,and may not survivefor long. At leasttwo settlements n Missouri are apparentlywithoutministers,ndthat s a signofpossibleimminentecay.The state withthe greatestnumber f newcommunitiess Pennsylvania. his is a strongcontrast otheprevious woperiodswhich,withtheexception fthenorthwesternorner fthestate during the fourthperiod, saw no newPennsylvania olonies. Twenty-threeew col-onies have been founded n Pennsylvania nthe astthirty ears.The central ortion f thestate and the northwesternornerhave largeclusters f new settlements,ut severalothercommunities ave been established n areasmore isolated fromother Amish. The dataavailable indicatethat the originof the occu-pantsof thenewPennsylvania olonies s pri-marily ennsylvaniatself. ata are still ackingformanyof thesettlements,owever.

30 Sawatzky,op. cit.,footnote27, p. 363.


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 259

* 0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.0 ~~~~~~0.

l t ) I , -~~~~~ri tish Hondu ras

1945 -1976SurvivingE x t nc t 0

FIG. 6. The Modern Era, 1945-1976. The most recent period of Amish expansion in theUnited States. Many settlements ave no arrows drawn to them because the sources of settlersare unknown.

For the whole of "Amishdom"the primesourcesof settlersor he myriad fsettlementsof the fifth eriod is logicallythe core area.Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, nd also Iowahave been the main reservoirs f expansion.

The Ohio and Indiana Amishhave spread n alldirections,willing to go wherever onditionsappear promisingFigs. 7 and 8). In contrast,the PennsylvaniaAmishhave remained argelyinside the state,with some spilling cross the


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OHIO

Honduras

FIG. 7. Known Old Order Amish emigrationsfromOhio settlements,1945-1976, for the purpose of es-tablishingnew colonies.state line into westernmost ew York, andothersmoving s far away as Ohio (Fig. 9).The Iowa Amishhave beenmost activefartherwest, withinIowa, and into adjacent Missouri,Wisconsin, and Minnesota, but some Iowa

INDIANA

Paraguay

FIG. 8. Known Old OrderAmish emigrationsfromIndiana settlements,1945-1976, for the purpose ofestablishingnew colonies.

PENNSYLVANIA

Honduras

FIG. 9. Known Old Order Amish emigrationsfrom Pennsylvania settlements,1945-1976, for thepurpose of establishing new colonies. Many othersettlementsn Pennsylvaniawere undoubtedlyfoundedby Pennsylvania Amish, so that this map is muchsparser than it should be. Unfortunately, have beenunable to corroborate my suspicions.Amish have helped create new communities inOhio (Fig 10).

FIG. 10. Known Old OrderAmishemigrations romIowa settlements,1945-1976, for the purpose of es-tablishingnew communities.


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 261TABLE I -SURVIVING OLD ORDER AMISH SETTLE-MENTS IN THE UNITED STATES BY PERIOD OFFOUNDATION

Surviving ettlementsPeriod in 1976First Wave, 1717-1816 4Second Wave, 1817-1861 8WestwardAdvance Ends, 1862-1899 6Early Modern, 1900-1944 11Modern, 1945-1976 69

Total 98

To myknowledge, nly welve ercent fthefifth eriod settlements ave failed.Since theinformationlowon such occurrencess slow,it s possible hefiguremaybe as high s twentypercent.Even thisfigurewouldbe a very owpercentage ompared otheaverageofseventy-one percentforthe four earliereras. Becauseof therecency f the fiftherioda much owerfailure ateshouldbe expected.The smallsizeofmanyof thenewer settlements ay, n theend,mean a short ifespan forthem, nd thefailure atemay eventually qual that of pre-vioustimes.THE PRESENT PATTERN OF

AMISH SETTLEMENTAs of 1976 therewere a totalofninety-eightOld OrderAmishcolonies n the UnitedStates(Fig. 11).31 Pennsylvania twenty-nine),ndi-ana (eleven),Missouri ten), Ohio (nine), andWisconsinnine) werethe stateswith he arg-est number f Amish settlements.n all, eigh-teen statespossessedat least one Amishcon-gregation.These states are largelyrestrictedto the northeasternuadrantof the country,thepresent ayAmish homeland."Among hesurviving olonies,all periodsofUnited StatesAmish settlementistoryre representedT'a-ble 1).The sizes of Amish ommunitiesarywidely.The colonycenteredn Holmes County,Ohiois the argest, ossessing pproximately 4,000residents nd eighty-six hurch districts. hesmallest Amish settlements ave fewer than100 persons nd only one churchdistrict. he31No attempt s made to follow the expansion ofsettlement n Canada. To my knowledge it has beenlimitedto the southwestern eninsula of Ontario be-tweenLakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. There are alsoAmish communities in British Honduras, Honduras,and Paraguay.

variationn settlementize meansthatdespitetherelatively idedispersion fcolonies n the"homeland" area, the individualAmish arequite concentrated.Wisconsinand Missouri,despite heirnumerous ettlements,ave smallAmishpopulation otals.The three ore states(in descending rderof total Amishpopula-tion) ofOhio, Pennsylvania,nd Indiana con-tainan estimatedhree-fourthsf all the"plainpeople."

AMISH GROWTH AND THE FUTUREAlmosteverythinge read and hear tellsusthatculturaldeviants, uch as theAmish,aredwindlingn numbers ecause of thepressuresofassimilation rom he"progressive"wentiethcentury.A concernforthe modernization fnonmodern eoples,whether heyare Indiansin theAmazonorMasai cattle-herdersn EastAfrica,has beenexpressed ymany ocial sci-entists.Yet the Amishcase illustrates hatac-culturation,ndeventuallyssimilation,re notunavoidable consequences of livingwithin amodernization-orientedociety.Theirhighrate of natural ncreasehas madetheOld OrderAmishone ofthefastest-growing(percentagewise) religiousdenominations nthe UnitedStates.Exact population otalsforthe Amish are difficulto obtain since manycommunitiesefuse o partake n anykindofdatagathering.n addition, nlybaptizedmem-bers of the community re considered hurchmembers,nd onlyadultsare baptized.An in-dicationof theproblem n determiningmishnumberss evident rom woestimates ftheirtotalpopulationmade in 1966. Hostetler sti-matedtherewere 49,371 Amish n thatyear,and derivedhis total by multiplyingnownbaptizedmembers y an estimate ftheir atioto nonbaptizedmembers.32 his ratiowas ob-tainedfrom study fa sampleofchurchdis-tricts. anding'sestimate or1966 was 63,900and themanner nwhichhe derivedhisfiguresis notprecisely xplained.33n twolaterpubli-cations, owever, andingoffers970 estimateswhich are somewhatsmaller than his 1966estimate.34

32 Hostetler,op. cit.,footnote5, pp. 80-81.33 Landing,op. cit.,footnote21, p. 27.34 James E. Landing, "Old Order Amish Popula-tion," Mennonite Historical Bulletin, Vol. 31 (Oct.,1970), p. 3; and idem, "The Amish, the Automobile,and Social Interaction,"Journal of Geography, Vol.71(1972), p. 55.


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.0 Ogf

~~~~~~~~2-5-0 U S 0 0 -10

0~~~~~~~~~~

'< ~S U RV I V I N G i]~ ~ET TL E ME NT S

FIG. 11. Known Old Order Amish settlements n the United States, 1976. The number ofchurchdistrictswithina settlements a good indicatorof its size.Hostetler lso found, s a resultof a largesample of churchdistrictsn fivestates,thatbymultiplyinghetotalnumber f churchdis-tricts y 168 (the averagenumber fbaptizedand nonbaptizedpersons per district n thesample study) one could closelyapproximatethe total Amish population. Hostetlerthen

usedthismethod o estimate mishpopulationsat specific imesduring he twentiethentury,35 Hostetler,op. cit., footnote5, pp. 80-81.

sincethenumber f churchdistrictshatwerepresents known Table 2).Near thebeginningfthetwentiethenturytherewere43 Old Orderchurchdistricts,ndan estimated9100 adherents.By 1976 thetotals had increasedto 462 churchdistricts(446 in theUnitedStates) and 70,000 wor-shippers. his is a spiritedncreaseto say theleast (nearly 700 percent ) and immediatelycauses one to pause and reflectn whatmusthave transpiredmongthe Amish during heeighteenth nd nineteenth enturiesin the


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1978 AMISH SETTLEMENT 263TABLE 2.-ESTIMATES OF AMISH POPULATIONa

Year Population Percentage Increase1905 9,100 2.81920 13,900 2.91930 18,500 3.41940 25,900 2.51950 33,100 2.71960 43,300 2.61966 50,700 2.81976 67,100

a This table is based on Hostetler, op. cit., footnote 5, p. 80and calculations of my own. The number of church districtsfor each year shown is multiplied by 168 to obtain the popu-lation estimates. For 1976, however, a lower multiplier wasused because of the many new small districts that have ap-peared, and for 1905 a larger multiplier is used because of theunrealistically low total that would otherwise result. Using the168 multiplier would give a 1976 estimate of 77,600 which isunlikely since the growth rate from 1966 to 1976 would had tohave averaged 4.3 percent per annum. The 1976 and 1905 fig-ures are based on using the same growth rate of 2.8 percent peryear that the Amish averaged from 1920 to 1966. Some of thefigures in the table differ from those shown by Hostetler be-cause of apparent arithmetic errors in Hostetler's tabulation.

United tates.Theirgrowing umbersreproofcertain hattheOld Orderhas somehowbeenmore successfuln the twentiethentury hanit was in earlierdays. This success is beingachieved venthoughn estimatedne-tenthoone-thirdf each generationeaves thechurchand despite the fact that the Amishdo notproselytize.Even with hisapparentvictory verAmer-ica's inclusiveness,t is notclearhow longtheAmishwillbe able to maintain heir onserva-tismand stillgrowrapidly n an alien society.One ominous ignhas already ppeared.Landshortages xist around several colonies and,

36 The Schwiedersestimateone-tenthElmer Schwie-der and DorothySchwieder,A Peculiar People: Iowa'sOld OrderAmish [Ames: Iowa State UniversityPress,1975], p. 176), while Hostetler and Landing both citea figureof one-third Hostetler, op. cit., footnote 5,p. 81; and Landing, op. cit., footnote 34, p. 3).Hostetler, n a different ork,has even suggestedthat"sixty to seventypercent of the children born intoAmish families in the New World have mergedwithMennonite (non-Amish) groups"; Hostetler, "OldWorld Extinction and New World Survival of theAmish . . . " op. cit., footnote6, p. 217. While thismay have been the case in the nineteenthcentury,twentieth enturygrowth rates clearly make such afigure mpossible.

withmany ndividuals nwillingo leave home-base, Amishmenhave begun to accept non-traditional i.e., nonrural) employmentppor-tunities.This is largely post-WorldWar IItrend, ut one whichhas had a major impactin some colonies. By 1966 only forty-sevenpercent of the employedAmish in the large(thirty-threehurchdistricts)Geauga County,Ohio settlement erefarmers; wenty-nineer-cent were employedn jobs related o farming,but a fulltwenty-sevenercentwere not farm-oriented, nd the majority f these were fac-tory workers.37n two districts ampled inMarshallCounty,ndiana in 1966, only thirty-two percent f theeconomically ctivewere nfarming,while forty-fiveercenthad factoryjobs.38Two possible threats o Amishgrowth aisethemselves s a result fnonfarm mployment:1) withgreater ailycontactswithnon-Amish,and withmoretime pent n an urban environ-ment, how can Amish values-ensconced inrurality-survive? ) Lackinga need forfarmhelp, will nonfarm-employedmish begin tolimit he sizes oftheir amilies, practice hat,historically,as beenfollowed y virtuallyveryethnic nd religious roup n theUnitedStatesonce an urbanizedemploymentituationpre-vailed? s there nascent, emiurban ld OrderAmish egment n thehorizon?

ENVOIThe futurepromises o be provocative ortheAmish.They maintain heir ovel character(with many local variations o be sure) al-though hey ack a geographical ocus and adirective-issuinghurchhierarchy. hey haveareas of concentration here their andscape

impact s obvious (southeastern ennsylvania,east-central hio, and northeasternndiana),butthere lso are manyareas ofweak disper-sion wheretheyhave a minor nfluence. heyhave translocatedrom uropean origins, ene-trated nd retreated rom reas fartherouthand farther est thantheirpresent rea ofoc-cupancewithinheUnited tates, ndthey avedemonstrated currentproclivity o expandclose to home (e.g., Pennsylvania). If onewishesto plot likelyfuture ites of Amish dif-fusion withinthe United States, one should

37 Landing, op. cit., footnote21, p. 117.38 Landing, op. cit., footnote21, p. 118.


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Old Order Amish Settlement

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