I used to live in Southern Maryland where there was a significant Amish community. We used to frequent the “Amish” Farmers Market. It wasn’t officially Amish-only, but there were no non-Amish vendors then (~20 years ago).
Now in New England the only Amish people we see are on foot in Boston. I assume they are coming in by bus from Pennsylvania. Apparently there are bus companies that cater to Amish travelers. In Central PA, we saw Amish folks on public buses, but the long distance buses seem to be Amish only (but the drivers are “English”).
NE Minnesota - I see them once in awhile. I’m not sure if they’re Amish or Mennonite or of some other sect. When I’ve seen them it’s usually near a medical facility.
I live in PA so see them quite often, especially near Lancaster it seems. Always frustrating when you realize it’s Sunday and you might get stuck behind a buggy or two.
When I was young, we had family friends who moved to Lancaster; my understanding has always been that the city is the hub of the Pennsylvania Dutch region.
I’d heard the same. I even had a co-worker from there who could speak Pennsylvania Dutch, though he himself wasn’t Amish/Mennonite/some similar community. He never did say why he learned the language.
I grew up in a rural village in Ohio that’s majority Mennonite and a substantial Amish minority. (Mine ancestors were variously Methodist, Brethren, Dunkers, and Moravians. It’s hard to know for certain, since there were so many splinter and mixed groups in the 1800s.) Driving on the narrow roads required caution over every hill and around every corner, because you never know what’s hidden. Not just buggies, but farm equipment and escaped livestock.
Many less-restrictive Mennonites went to public school, and even a few Amish went as well. The ones in school dressed modestly and often with homemade clothes, but not really different from the “English” families. (Everyone was on the poor side anyway.) The Amish students stopped schooling after completing their primary education–the 8th-grade commencement was the end of their formal education. Mennonites completed high school and the better students went on to a local community college or Goshen College if they could afford it.
Culturally, the Mennonites and Amish are live-and-let-live, and very much not “in your face” about their religion. Very different from the few Bible-thumping fundamentalists in the area. They are not anti-technology per se, but are instead avoiding connections to the world beyond their own communities. Solar panels and wind mills are popular. Some run biodiesel generators to power their industrial machines. Connecting to the electrical grid or telephone system is not allowed except for the most unrestrictive groups.
There are tourist-facing shops and restaurants that aren’t exactly fake, but aren’t truly authentic either. Locals go to the businesses that serve the locals. They don’t advertise beyond word of mouth and local newspapers. Their customers are almost only Mennonites and Amish, but they welcome whoever stops by. Great deals on cheeses, deli meats, and many dry goods.
There is a very small group of Amish in the town of Springdale, it’s about 40 miles north of Spokane. The closest I have been is Loon Lake, about 5 miles away.
My experience is that the Amish are very good at business, and growing marijuana/hemp/whatever is an agricultural product that they can sell at a profit.
Growing up in California and doing military overseas and in the desert southwest? Never.
Living now in Florida? Never.
My 20 years in between spent in Missouri? Pretty much this:
Bunches of Mennonites. The come into the city mostly for the airport, the train, or, sadly, the hospitals. But if you head out into the right part of the right counties, they’re plentiful at markets & such.
They tend to travel on the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago. My daughter has traveled here and a group of them often gets off the train in the Schenectady Amtrak station.
Another Canadian chiming in. About 90 minutes to an hour outside of Toronto is the town of Listowel. I drove there to see my tattoo artist after she’d moved out of the city, and encountered a fair number of Mennonite buggies on the local roads. Listowel was the inspiration for the TV town of Letterkenny (Jared Keeso’s from there, I think) and the show has a family of Mennonites.
I think the city of Kitchener (about an hour or so west of Toronto, traffic allowing) has a regular Mennonite farmer’s market as well.
Amish, Mennonites, and other Anabaptist types have migrated in small numbers to Middle Tennessee – the largest community is a Swartzentruber Amish group of a couple thousand near Ethridge, about 75 miles from Nashville and Huntsville. I don’t know if they’re the ones I see in Nashville at Vanderbilt’s children’s hospital or not, but they’re typically in groups of roughly 4-6 adults in the public areas, roughly 3-4 times a year.
I was in Bar Harbor (Maine) this summer and there was a largish group of Mennonite (?) women vacationing there. A group of them was riding bicycles in their calico dresses and white caps. It was very nice to see them enjoying themselves.
Actually, I drove around in the countryside quite a bit, especially when I lived in Binghamton. But, of course, they weren’t there then.
I’m more surprised that I didn’t see them after 1983. After all, I’ve been back to upstate New York many times since. Even vacationed there in four years.
I see Amish carpenters doing work on houses in the Greater Cleveland area now and then. They built a row of what appear to be nice small homes in Little Italy a few years back, and were working on a relatively modernist modular home in Cleveland Heights just this summer.
I’ve done a lot of motorcycle riding in the Driftless Zone (SW Wisconsin, where LaFarge is). I often encounter Amish folk there, especially on less-traveled rural roads, where I sometimes see them working their fields. Friendly folks, they can generally be counted on to wave as you pass.
I used to work in the Chicago Board of Trade building in Chicago (seen in many movies like “The Dark Knight” (Batman)) and weirdly (I thought) I’d see Amish groups on a regular basis. CBOT is where farm goods are sold so, I guess, it made sense.
After COVID we closed our office there so I am not in the building anymore.
Back in the '00’s when I was still working in the Chicago Loop there were a group of Amish that would take the South Shore train into the Loop, meet up with a van they hired to haul their stuff, and sell baked goods and things in the lobbies of big business skyscrapers. Sort of a weird contrast, but they did a brisk business. Have no idea if they’re still doing that or not.
