The Amish in Maryland maintain a small but well-established population. There have been four

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...

communities in the history of Maryland, three of which currently exist. The three Amish communities of Maryland are located in

Western Maryland upright=1.2, An enlargeable map of Maryland's 23 counties and one independent city Western Maryland, also known as the Maryland Panhandle, is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that typically consists of Washington, Allegany, and Garret ...

Southern Maryland Southern Maryland is a geographical, cultural and historic region in Maryland composed of the state's southernmost counties on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the state of Maryland, the region includes all of Calvert, Cha ...

, and on the Eastern Shore. Historically, an Amish community also existed in rural Baltimore County, but had disappeared by the 1950s. The Amish communities of Maryland are all inhabited by the descendants of Amish migrants from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. In 2018, Maryland had an Amish population of around 1,575 people.

Amish communities

Eastern Shore

The town of Cecilton on Maryland's Eastern Shore is home to a small Amish community that was founded in 1999. Amish families moved to the area from

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Lengeschder Kaundi), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the south central part of Pennsylvania. ...

because of increasing costs and the declining amount of farmland there.

Southern Maryland Dutch Country

The communities of Mechanicsville and Charlotte Hall in

are home to the largest Amish population in Maryland. The community is well known for its agriculture and its large

farmers' market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

flea market A flea market (or swap meet) is a type of street market that provides space for vendors to sell previously-owned (second-hand) goods. This type of market is often seasonal. However, in recent years there has been the development of 'formal' ...

. The Amish community in the Mechanicsville/Charlotte Hall area consists of 8 church districts and about 1,000 people. The Amish first came to the area in 1939-1940 after some members left the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania over a conflict with schooling. The Amish in St. Mary's County maintain dairy and produce farms along with small Amish businesses. There is also an

Old Order Mennonite Old Order Mennonites (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania German: ) form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order Movement, Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss people, Swiss German and south Germans, German heritage who pract ...

community in the Mechanicsville area. In recent years, increasing development has threatened the Amish community.

Western Maryland

The town of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

in Western Maryland is home to an Amish community that consists of a church district of about 70 homes. The Amish community dates back to 1850 and is Maryland's oldest Amish community. The community has become associated with the

New Order Amish The New Order Amish are a subgroup of Amish that split away from the Old Order Amish in the 1960s for a variety of reasons, which included a desire for "clean" youth courting standards, meaning they do not condone the practice of bundling, or non ...

, with electricity permitted inside of homes. The Amish community in Oakland has a small number of

converts Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...

to the Amish faith, known as "Seekers", a rarity in the Amish world. There are only between 150 and 200 Amish converts in the United States out of a population around 200,000. The Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish have not had a successful convert in over 100 years.

Historic community in Long Green

The

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

of Long Green in

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...

was once home to a small Amish community. The Amish community in Long Green was founded in 1833 and lasted for 120 years, before disappearing in the 1950s. The community was founded by Amish from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, but few settlers moved to the area because Maryland was a

slave state In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...

at the time. Few Amish people crossed the

Mason–Dixon line The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia ...

, due to the Amish opposition to slavery. An Amish meetinghouse was constructed in 1899, but the community never grew large. The community dwindled in size over time, with the last Amish person dying in 1953.

References

External links

{{Amish
Amish Country Farmers Market of Easton, MarylandSchrock's Country StoreAmish & Mennonite Community
Visit St. Mary's County