Book Recounts 74-Year-History : Shy Delaware Amish Tell Their Story

Delaware’s Amish community of 2,000 people thrives in semi-obscurity, only 55 miles from their well-known counterparts in Lancaster, Pa.

Because of their religious beliefs, the Amish eschew modern conveniences such as radio, TV, store-bought clothes and cars. As pacifists, they take almost no interest in government activities unless it involves them directly.

So, 74 years after their arrival in the rural area west of Dover, the gentle people and their slow-moving horse-and-buggies remain out of the public eye--just the way they like it.

But they like to keep track of their history, which explains the appearance of a new book that charts the progress of the Amish of Delaware and demolishes a few misconceptions along the way.

Local historian Allen Clark first wrote “This Is Good Country: A History of the Amish of Delaware” as a master’s thesis in 1963. The new updated edition is a hard-cover book ($7.95) with pictures, but none of the Amish who avoid being photographed.

“When I’d interview the Amish, they’d say they didn’t want to be publicized and tour-ized like the Lancaster Amish,” said Clark, a resident of Bowers Beach and a professor of history at Wesley College in Dover. “But later, they said, ‘You know more about us than we do about ourselves.’ ”

One of the things Clark learned was that the Delaware Amish have no connection with the Amish of southeastern Pennsylvania. In fact, their ties are with the Amish and Mennonites of western Maryland and Oregon.

“People don’t realize it, but the Amish moved around a great deal,” Clark said. “People just assumed they came by horse and buggy from Lancaster. Nothing could be further from the truth. They came by train, first-class in a sleeper, from Oregon to Chicago, and from there to Norfolk.”

When Clark started writing the history of the Delaware Amish in 1963, he interviewed the Amish farmers who live in rural Kent County, west of Dover, but he found it hard going.

He asked one elderly Amish farmer when the first of his people moved to Dover.

“Oh, quite a while ago,” was the reply.

“Well, then,” said Clark, “was it around World War I or World War II?”

“About that time,” the Amish farmer said matter-of-factly.

“I said something about the Depression, but he didn’t even remember the Depression,” Clark said. “They didn’t buy gasoline because they had corn to feed the horse, and they didn’t buy electricity and had no telephone bills to pay. They raised their own food, so he truly didn’t know when the Depression was.”

He found a treasure trove of information, however, in The Budget, a Sugarcreek, Ohio, newspaper that is relied on by the Amish nationwide as a national clearinghouse for news of relatives and friends.

Clark went to Sugarcreek and delved into old issues, tied up in bundles in an unheated barn loft. There he found the February, 1915, letter that marked the first announcement that the Amish had arrived in Delaware.

He was helped by Effie Troyer, a Delaware Amish woman who for more than 50 years has had the unofficial job of “Budget scribe,” writing a letter to the paper every week listing the births, deaths, sicknesses, weather and other happenings in the community.

In his book, Clark traces the history of the Amish from 16th-Century Switzerland, where the followers of the stern faith were persecuted, to Pennsylvania. The first Delaware Amish resident was Jacob Miller, who had moved from a colony in Oregon to start one in California, but was unsuccessful.

Ironically, Clark’s book appears at a time when Dover’s urban growth is putting pressure on the once idyllic Amish life style. In the past few years, about 20 families have relocated to Kentucky where land is cheaper.