The Northkill Amish Settlement was established in 1740 in Berks County, Pennsylvania. As the first identifiable Amish community in the new world, [1] it was the foundation of Amish settlement in the Americas. By the 1780s it had become the largest Amish settlement, but declined as families moved elsewhere.
The first Amish began migrating to the United States in the 18th century, largely to avoid religious persecution and compulsory military service. The Northkill Creek watershed, in eastern Province of Pennsylvania, was opened for settlement in 1736 and that year Melchior Detweiler and Hans Seiber settled near Northkill. [1] Shortly thereafter many Amish began to move to Northkill with large groups settling in 1742 and 1749.
In 1742, the group was large enough to petition the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania for naturalization rights, allowing them to purchase land. [2] The group was strengthened in 1749 when bishop Jacob Hertzler [3] settled in Northkill and the settlement grew to nearly 200 families at its height. [4]
The Northkill settlement was on the edge of the Blue Mountain, the legal boundary of European settlement according to agreements with Native Americans. During the French and Indian War, Lenape warriors under the command of three French scouts attacked the Northkill settlement on September 19, 1757. [5] The Indians attacked the Jacob Hochstetler homestead and set the house on fire. The Indians stood guard around the house, so the family could not escape without risking their lives. The Hochstetlers possessed firearms in their home (which they used for hunting), but due to the Anabaptist Christian doctrine of nonresistance, Jacob Hochstetler refused to allow the weapons to be used against the belligerent Indians. [6] As the fire worsened, the family escaped out the cellar window, but the wounded Jacob Jr. (he had been shot during the initial attack) and Jacob Sr.'s wife, Anna (Lorentz) Hochstetler, slowed them down. She became stuck in the window during her escape and was later stabbed in the back and scalped. [7] Another daughter (name unknown) and Jacob Jr. were killed. Jacob Sr. and Joseph and Christian (aged 11 and 13 years) were taken captive.
Jacob escaped after about 8 months, but the boys were held for several years, and released in 1764 after a peace treaty between the natives and the British colonial authorities was agreed upon. Christian and Joseph Hochstetler became members of Christian churches that taught the doctrine of nonresistance. Christian converted to the Schwarzenau Brethren and became a minister. [6] Altogether, more than one hundred and fifty Berks County residents were killed and about 150 were kidnapped by Native Americans during the French and Indian War. [8] [9] : 109–110 The number of Indians killed during this time is not known.
Northkill remained the largest Amish settlement into the 1780s and then declined as families moved on to areas of better farmland, mainly to Lancaster County and Somerset County in Pennsylvania, where they formed the Lancaster Amish Settlement around 1760 and the Somerset Amish Settlement in 1772. [10]
Although it existed for only a brief period, the Northkill settlement was fundamental in establishing the Amish in North America. The Northkill settlers included the progenitors of many widespread Amish families, such as the Yoders, Burkeys, Troyers, [11] Hostetlers, [12] and Hershbergers. [13]
Jacob Hochstetler is the subject of Harvey Hostetler's book The Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler. In addition to listing the hundreds upon hundreds of Americans who share Jacob as a common ancestor, this book provides a detailed history of the Amish religious persecution in Europe, American immigration at the time, the massacre of Hochstetler's family members, and the kidnapping and subsequent escape of Jacob and his sons. The Hochstetler Massacre is also covered briefly in Paul Stutzman's account of his Appalachian Trail hike, which runs near the site. Stutzman claims to be a descendant of Jacob's daughter, Barbara Hochstetler Stutzman, already married and living nearby at the time of the attack, and continues with the following information about the site;
Beside old Rt. 22 and behind the tourist attraction housing Roadside America ... a historical marker tells of the Northkill Amish, the first Amish Mennonite settlement in America, and the Hochstetler massacre. The Northkill settlement dissolved after this attack." [14]
The Rosedale Network of Churches is a Christian body of Mennonite churches in the Anabaptist tradition. Rosedale Network of Churches was originally formed in 1910 by a group of Amish Mennonites to promote unity while preserving autonomy of the local congregation.
Nonresistance is "the practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised". At its core is discouragement of, even opposition to, physical resistance to an enemy. It is considered as a form of principled nonviolence or pacifism which rejects all physical violence, whether exercised on individual, group, state or international levels. Practitioners of nonresistance may refuse to retaliate against an opponent or offer any form of self-defense. Nonresistance is often associated with particular religious groups, such as Anabaptist Christianity.
Donald B. Kraybill is an American author, lecturer, and educator on Anabaptist faiths and culture. Kraybill is widely recognized for his studies on Anabaptist groups and in particular the Amish. He has researched and written extensively on Anabaptist culture. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Elizabethtown College and Senior Fellow Emeritus at Elizabethtown's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.
Located in Smithville, Ohio, Oak Grove Mennonite Church is an historical church that has made a significant contribution to the larger Mennonite denomination, currently pastored by Seth Miller. Oak Grove started as an Amish church in 1818, as many Amish started settling in Wayne County, Ohio. From humble beginnings the church grew and built a meetinghouse in 1862, one of the earliest of such meetinghouses the Amish have built.
Steven M. Nolt is an American scholar who serves as Senior Scholar and Professor of History and Anabaptist Studies at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. The author of fifteen books, most of which focus on Amish and Mennonite history and culture, Nolt is a frequent source for journalists and other researching Anabaptist groups. He was often quoted in the aftermath of the 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
The Amish, formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss and Alsatian origins. As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination. The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites, denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit.
Northkill Creek is a stream primarily located in Berks County, Pennsylvania. It feeds into Tulpehocken Creek and covers part of the Schuylkill River and Delaware River watersheds. Northkill Creek and its tributaries are high quality trout streams.
Guy F. Hershberger was an American Mennonite theologian, educator, historian, and prolific author particularly in the field of Mennonite ethics.
Conservative Mennonites include numerous Conservative Anabaptist groups that identify with the theologically conservative element among Mennonite Anabaptist Christian fellowships, but who are not Old Order groups or mainline denominations.
Troyer is a last name of German origin which is widespread among the Amish, Brethren and the Mennonites. It is the Pennsylvania German form of the German last name "Dreier", "Dreyer", "Treyer" or "Dreher". A Dreher in German is a traditional operator of a rotating cutting machine.
Over the years, as Amish churches have divided many times over doctrinal disputes, subgroups have developed. The "Old Order Amish", a conservative faction that withdrew in the 1860s from fellowship with the wider body of Amish, are those that have most emphasized traditional practices and beliefs. There are many different subgroups of Amish with most belonging, in ascending order of conservatism, to the Beachy Amish, New Order, Old Order, or Swartzentruber Amish groups.
The Hochstetler massacre was an attack on a farmstead at the Northkill Amish Settlement in September or October 1757, in which three Amish settlers were killed and three others taken into captivity. The attack was one of many assaults by French-allied Native American warriors on Pennsylvania settlements during the French and Indian War. For religious reasons, the Amish settlers refused to defend themselves, and everyone in the homestead was either killed or captured. One of the captives, 45-year-old Jacob Hochstetler, escaped captivity after about eight months, and his two sons were later returned through a peace agreement brokered in 1763.
The Buchanan Amish affiliation is a subgroup of Amish that was formed in 1914 in Buchanan County, Iowa. It is among the most conservative in the entire Amish world. It is the fourth largest of all Amish affiliations, having almost as many church districts as the Holmes Old Order Amish affiliation. Geographically it is more dispersed than any other Amish affiliation.
Old Order Anabaptism is a collection of communities that have preserved the old ways of Anabaptist Christian religion and lifestyle.
The Kauffman Amish Mennonites, also called Sleeping Preacher Churches or Tampico Amish Mennonite Churches, are a plain, car-driving branch of the Amish Mennonites whose tradition goes back to John D. Kauffman (1847–1913) and Noah Troyer (1831–1886) who preached while being in a state of trance and who were seen as "sleeping preachers".
John D. Kauffman was an Amish Mennonite minister and later bishop who preached while being in a state of trance and who was seen as a "sleeping preacher". The Kauffman Amish Mennonites, a group with about 3,500 members, still adhere to his teachings.
The Bloody Springs massacre was an attack by Lenape warriors on homesteads in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania, on October 1, 1757, during the French and Indian War. The Spatz family and other settlers were killed at a spring near modern-day Strausstown, Pennsylvania, causing the water to run red with the blood of the family. The story of the massacre has been passed down through the Degler family, whose farm was adjacent to the Spatz homestead.
The Ohio Amish Country, also known simply as the Amish Country, is the second-largest community of Amish, with in 2023 an estimated 84,065 members according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.
Fort Lebanon was a Pennsylvania stockade fort built in December 1755 and designed to provide protection for settlers' families during the French and Indian War. However, Native American war parties often attacked nearby farms and killed settlers, disappearing before the fort's troops could respond. The garrison was sometimes fewer than 25 men as troops were transferred for temporary duty elsewhere, meaning that the fort had little manpower for patrols or to pursue attackers. The fort was renamed Fort William in mid-1757. In May 1758, the garrison was transferred and the fort was never re-occupied.
