The Kishacoquillas Valley, known locally as both Kish Valley and Big Valley, is an enclosed anticlinal valley in the

Ridge-and-valley Appalachians The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending ...

of Central

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, ...

, and is located in Mifflin and

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

counties.

Geography

The valley lies between

Stone Mountain Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome Inselberg, monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park, east of Atlanta, Georgia. Outside the park is the small city of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The park is the most visited tourist site in the state o ...

ridge to the north and

Jacks Mountain Jacks Mountain is a stratigraphic ridge in central Pennsylvania, United States, trending southeast of the Stone Mountain ridge and Jacks Mountain Anticline. The ridge line separates Kishacoquillas Valley from the Ferguson and Dry Valleys. Jacks ...

ridge to the south. It drains via the

Kishacoquillas Creek Kishacoquillas Creek (pronounced Kish-e-kō-kwil´-lis) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Juniata River in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania ...

through the Mann Narrows

water gap A water gap is a gap that flowing water has carved through a mountain range or mountain ridge and that still carries water today. Such gaps that no longer carry water currents are called wind gaps. Water gaps and wind gaps often offer a prac ...

in Jacks Mountain to the Juniata River.

U.S. Route 322 U.S. Route 322 (US 322) is a long, east–west United States Highway, traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The road is a spur of U.S. Route 22 and one of the original highways from 1926. A portion of it at one time was concurrent with ...

follows the creek through the gap, and is the main travel route across the valley, running east and west between

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the List of c ...

and State College. The Mifflin County Airport is located in the valley.

Amish and Mennonites

The

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 ...

settlement in the Kishacoquillas Valley was founded in 1791. It is the third-oldest Amish settlement still in existence. In 2013 there were 26 Amish church districts, indicating an estimated Amish population of more than 3,000 people. Twelve Amish and

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...

groups live in the valley, "one of the most diverse expressions of Anabaptist-Mennonite culture anywhere in North America," according to John A. Hostetler, a renowned scholar of the Amish. The Kishacoquillas Valley is home to the

Nebraska Amish The Nebraska Amish, also called Old Schoolers, are a relatively small affiliation of the Amish. They are the most conservative subgroup of Amish, indicated not only by their use of technology but also by their particular style of dress. They emer ...

, the most conservative Amish group, the

Byler Amish The Byler Amish, also called Alt Gemee (Old Church), are a small conservative subgroup of the Amish. They are known for the yellow color of their buggies, which earned them the nickname "yellow-toppers" and for wearing only one suspender. They ar ...

and the

Renno Amish The Renno Amish, also called Beachy Amish or "black toppers" are a subgroup of Amish that was formed in 1863 in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. They are the moderately conservative Old Order Amish group in Kishacoquillas Valley, locally called Big ...

. Kishacoquillas Valley has many similarities to the Lancaster region in the state. Accents identical to those heard in the Lancaster region are frequently heard in the valley, and some of the population continue to speak a dialect of the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...

known as

Pennsylvania Dutch The Pennsylvania Dutch ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ), also known as Pennsylvania Germans, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They emigrated primarily from German-spe ...

(from Deutsch, meaning German).

Principal towns

* Belleville * Milroy * Reedsville * Barrville * Allensville * Airydale

History

John Armstrong named the Valley in 1759 after a friendly

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

chief. This Shawnee name translates to "The snakes are already in their dens." Joseph Yoder portrays the late nineteenth-century Valley in his semi-autobiographical novel, ''Rosanna of the Amish'' (1940).

References

External links

Kishacoquillas Valley Historical SocietyKishacoquillas Valley R.R.
historical site Regions of Pennsylvania Valleys of Pennsylvania Landforms of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania {{MifflinCountyPA-geo-stub