Around New England

Amish Families Settle In Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom

October 25, 2018

Vermont Digger reports that 10 Amish families have moved to Vermont’s quaint and pastoral Northeast Kingdom over the last two years. The paper says the families are “loosely related” and have come from Ohio and Pennsylvania.  

The Amish are known to live simple, tradition-rich lives, and use few, if any, modern amenities and conveniences.

In an interview with VTDigger, Steven Nolt, an Amish scholar at the Young Center on Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, said the “Vermont Amish community ‘is loosely affiliated with what is colloquially called the “Troyer Amish” affiliation.'”

He added that the Christian group is “quite conservative and tradition-minded (even by Amish standards).”

VTDigger reports the families have come to Vermont in search of more arable farmland — agriculture is a key aspect of Amish life — and to avoid the urban sprawl that is pressuring Amish communities elsewhere.

VTDigger also reports that Vermont’s Amish “men wear distinctive black flat-brimmed hats and have beards; the women and girls wear long dresses, bonnets and aprons.” 

And, VTDigger reports, in welcoming the state’s new residents, Vermont highway authorities have installed road signs marked with a silhouette of a horse-drawn Amish buggy — a nearly iconic Amish passenger vehicle — in the Northeast Kingdom urging drivers of motorized vehicles to be aware of slow traffic.