Ohio Amish Country, also known simply as the Amish Country, is the second-largest community of Amish (a Pennsylvania Dutch group), with in 2023 an estimated 84,065 members according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.
Ohio's largest Amish settlement is centered around Holmes County and in 2023 included an estimated 39,525 children and adults, the second largest in the world and the highest concentration of Amish in any US county; the Amish make up half the population of Holmes County, with members of other closely related Anabaptist Christian denominations, such as the Mennonites, residing there as well. The second largest community in Ohio is centered around Geauga County.
Ohio's Amish Country in and around Holmes County is one of the state's primary tourist attractions and a major driver of the area's economy.
History
The Holmes County community was founded in 1808 and the Geauga County community in 1886.
At the time of the Holmes County settlement's founding there was at least one sizable village of Native Americans on the northern edge of what would become Holmes County, near the Killbuck river. Jacob Miller and his sons, Henry and Jacob, travelled in 1808 from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and built a cabin northeast of the current village of Sugarcreek in Tuscarawas County. Henry overwintered on the claim, and the other two returned to Pennsylvania for the winter. The rest of the family, including Miller's nephew Jonas Stutzman, returned the next year in a Conestoga wagon pulled by a team of six, a trip that took a month. The Millers settled in Tuscarawas, and Stutzman continued on to the area of the current village of Walnut Creek, about five miles west, and built a cabin on the creek. In 1810 six families and in 1811 two more families from Somerset County joined the Walnut Creek settlement. In 1818 the government decreased the land prices from $2 per acre to $1.25 and by 1835, the Holmes County settlement included two hundred and fifty families.
Beginning in the 1860s, a schism between conservative Amish, centered in Holmes County but occurring throughout North American Amish communities, separated the Amish into the Old Order Amish and the Amish Mennonites, most of whom merged into Mennonite communities. During the 1900s, the Holmes County community experienced multiple schisms into over thirty different groups, birthing several new orders and some that eventually became non-Amish. The Schwartzentruber Amish, considered the most conservative of Amish orders, split off in the 1910s. The Andy Weaver order split off in the 1950s. The New Order Amish, considered the most technologically liberal, split off in the 1960s.
As of 2010 there were over fifty Amish settlements in Ohio and 418 congregations, more than any other state. Ohio's rural counties are attractive to Old Order Amish because travel by horse-drawn vehicle requires essential services such as shopping, banks and medical care to be within a distance manageable by that method of transportation, which limits travel to about 10 to 35 miles per day depending on various factors. Ohio State University researcher Joseph Donnermeyer called Ohio "the perfect mix", saying, "You can't be too rural. You have to be close enough to a town with the basic necessities."
Population
Holmes County has the highest concentration in the world, with the Amish in 2020 making up approximately half the population, and the largest population of Amish of all orders. Including all communities, Ohio has the second-largest population of Old Order Amish in the world, with in 2023 an estimated 84,065 members, second to Pennsylvania with 88,850, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.
Holmes County
Ohio's largest settlement is centered around Holmes County and in 2021 included an estimated 37,770 children and adults, the second largest in the world after the population of 41,000 centered around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Holmes County community includes multiple affiliations or orders and is the most highly-concentrated, diverse and complex of Amish settlements worldwide. The settlement includes eleven separate Amish affiliations. Four affiliations, the New Order Amish, Old Order Amish, Andy Weaver, and Swartzentruber, as of 2010 made up about 97% of church districts in the settlement, with the Old Order Amish the largest portion. The Swartzentruber Amish include three separate groups, the Swartzentruber-Andy Weaver (which is unrelated to the Andy Weaver group), Swartzentruber-Mose Miller, and Swartzentruber-Joe Troyer, each of which considers itself the true Swartzentruber. Other Amish groups include Stutzman-Troyer, Roman, Old Order Tobe, New Order Tobe, and New Order Christian Fellowship. There are multiple other populations of Anabaptists in the area, including Beachy Amish, Brethren, and Mennonite.
The settlement stretches into the adjacent Ashland, Coshocton, Stark, Tuscarawas, and Wayne Counties. Holmes County itself has the highest concentration of Amish in any US county; the Amish make up half the county's population. In contrast, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the Amish represent about 7% of the county's population.The 12 Largest Amish Communities (2017). at Amish America
Holmes County has been projected to become the first in the US with a majority-Amish population. Amish in general have high birth rates; as of 2012 in Holmes County, the most conservative groups had both the highest birth rates and the highest retention rates of young adults deciding to be baptized into the order.
Geauga County
Ohio's second largest settlement is centered around Geauga County with in 2021 an estimated 19,420 members, the fourth-largest in the world.
Counties by percentage Data from 2010 according to "Association of Religion Data Archives" (ARDA) and from 2020 according to the "US Religion Census" report. Data are only shown for Old Order Amish and exclude related groups such as Beachy Amish-Mennonite Churches, Maranatha Amish-Mennonite, Amish-Mennonites and Mennonites in general.
CountyAdherents(2010)Adherents(2020)Change2010-20%2010%2020Holmes 17,65419,79312.1%41.67%44.76%Geauga 8,5379,54911.8%9.14%10.01%Wayne 9,2839,1301.6%8.10%7.81%Coshocton 1,7602,53343.9%4.77%6.92%Knox 2,1112,84334.7%3.46%4.53%Ashtabula 2,2033,72569.1%2.17%3.82%Ashland 1,6611,87713.0%3.13%3.58%Monroe 54247512.3%3.70%3.55%Carroll 61493752.6%2.13%3.51%Hardin 9391,05111.9%2.93%3.42%Morrow 5901,17599.2%1.69%3.36%Tuscarawas 2,3703,12832.0%2.56%3.35%Noble 0434 0.00%3.07%Gallia 73387519.4%2.37%3.00%Harrison 30542940.7%1.92%2.96%Jackson 339875158.1%1.02%2.68%Trumbull 3,8645,04430.5%1.84%2.50%Guernsey 55280646.0%1.38%2.10%Adams 4715016.4%1.65%1.82%Logan 64073815.3%1.39%1.60%Vinton 12019461.7%0.89%1.52%Highland 269570111.9%0.62%1.32%Morgan 95914.2%0.63%0.66%Meigs 9213647.8%0.39%0.61%Pike 9715054.6%0.34%0.55%Muskingum 29344953.2%0.34%0.52%Perry 50169238.0%0.17%0.48%Columbiana 0435 0.00%0.43%Portage 38761959.9%0.24%0.38%Mercer 9515361.0%0.23%0.36%Defiance 12413710.5%0.32%0.36%Medina 6165717.3%0.36%0.31%Richland 3133439.6%0.25%0.27%Van Wert 0700.00%0.24%Belmont 9512228.4%0.13%0.18%Huron 1031084.9%0.17%0.18%Pickaway 539783.0%0.09%0.17%Stark 44760234.7%0.12%0.16%Williams 63613.2%0.16%0.16%Marion 609660.0%0.09%0.15%Preble 0620.00%0.15%Washington 0850.00%0.14%Athens 080 0.00%0.13%Licking 38210452.6%0.02%0.12%Hocking 172547.0%0.06%0.09%Scioto 062 0.00%0.08%Fairfield 12711013.3%0.09%0.07%Ross 1033169.9%0.13%0.04%Total58,82571,75622.0%0.48%0.61%
Congregations
In Ohio in 1998 the typical congregation consisted of 25 families and met every other week at a different family's home. A meal is served following the service, which lasts approximately 4 hours. Hymns are sung from the Ausbund, the oldest hymnal in continuous use.
Economy A traditional source of income for most Ohio Amish is farming, and traditional farm life is central to the lives of most Amish. In the southeastern areas of the Holmes County community, logging had been a traditional source of income. As of 2010 approximately 17 percent of Amish heads of household in Holmes County and 7 percent in Geauga County reported their primary occupation as farming. In 2003 a group of Holmes County Amish leaders established Green Field Farms, a cooperative wholesaler of organic agricultural products whose membership is limited to those who use horse-drawn vehicles.
From the early 2010s, sheep farming has become increasingly common as the land in much of the Holmes County area is better for foraging than for farming, and sheep are good foragers that do not need as much expensive feed as cows. Sheep can also be more profitable on smaller acreage than larger livestock. As early as the 1990s Amish farmers adopted organic farming methods; there were no certified organic dairies in Ohio in 1997, but within a few years there were more than one hundred, 90% of which were either Old Order Mennonite- or Amish-owned.
Many Amish supplement farming income with sales of hand-made goods such as brooms, baskets, quilts, leather goods, woodworking, and other artisan products sold from homes or in local shops. Some own or work in area businesses surrounding the use of wood, such as carpentry, woodworking, furniture production, pallet production, or lumber wholesale or retail businesses. As of 2010 three of the largest non-Amish employers of Amish were garage-door manufacturer Wayne-Dalton, Keim Lumber, and Weaver Leather.
On April 1, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic protective gear shortages, members of the Holmes County settlement were asked by the Cleveland Clinic to sew masks for its employees and visitors. Local businessmen John Miller and Abe Troyer organized a sewing "frolic", a term used by the Amish to mean put together a group effort. Many Amish seamstresses had been idled by the pandemic's shutdowns, and Amish do not apply for social benefits, so the work helped sustain their families.
Other local businesses pivoted to creating face shields, dividers for field hospitals, fluid-resistant gowns, shoe coverings, and other items. By April 9 the Cleveland Clinic was receiving 10,000 masks a day and one local business was producing 100,000 face shields per day.
Tourism
Efforts to promote the Holmes County community as a tourist destination began in the 1950s. Approximately four million tourists visit Holmes County each year as of 2012; the direct economic impact at the time was estimated at $154 million annually. Amish tourism is a major part of the economy of Holmes County.
Interest in the Amish was increased by the 1955 Broadway musical Plain and Fancy. By the 1960s, bus tours of Holmes County were available. The towns of Millersburg (the county seat), Berlin, Walnut Creek, and Charm in Holmes County, and Sugarcreek just across the county line in Tuscarawas County, have a large tourism industry. In 2017, Holmes County was the second-most popular tourist destination in Ohio.
Tourism centers
Ohio's Amish tourism centers around the towns of Berlin and Walnut Creek in Holmes County, and in Sugarcreek, just across the border in Tuscarawas County, all of which are situated along U.S. Route 30.