By Adam Tremper

Maryland and Virginia are home to twenty-one Amish communities. By far the largest is in Southern Maryland.

Many of us in Southern Maryland are familiar with the Amish families who live in St. Mary’s and Charles Counties. Several new construction projects on my own street in Calvert County are Amish-built, and the gorgeous black walnut dining room table in my home was made by the Amish in St. Mary’s County.

But who are the Amish, and why are they here?

The story begins centuries before they arrived in Southern Maryland. Both the Amish and Mennonites grew from the Anabaptist movement of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe. Anabaptists rejected infant baptism, believing baptism should follow an individual’s profession of faith. The Mennonite tradition emerged from this movement and took its name from the influential Anabaptist leader Menno Simons.

In 1693, disagreements among Anabaptists over church discipline and separation from the surrounding world resulted in a group following the teachings of Jakob Ammann. His followers became known as the Amish.

While the Amish and Mennonites share the same religious roots, they are distinct groups. Mennonites came first, and the Amish developed as a more rigorous branch of that tradition. Both the Mennonites and Amish came to Pennsylvania after William Penn made offers of land to these groups to escape religious persecution in Europe.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Amish is that they believe electricity, automobiles and other modern inventions are evil. It is considerably more complicated than that.

Amish communities follow an Ordnung, a German word meaning “order.” It is a set of rules and expectations governing everyday life, and the Ordnung can differ from one Amish community to another. Technology is considered partly in terms of what effect it will have on the family, church and community. Something that encourages excessive independence, brings too much of the outside world into the home, or reduces people’s dependence upon family/community may be restricted. That is why an Amish craftsman may use certain powered tools, batteries or other modern equipment while still not connecting his home to the public electrical grid or owning an automobile. The technology itself isn’t necessarily considered sinful; what matters is how it affects their way of life.

So how did this community end up in St. Mary’s County?

One reason they came was simple: Pennsylvania was getting too crowded.

The first Amish family arrived in 1939, with six additional families following in early 1940. Those first seven families purchased 1,950 acres for less than $30,000. Comparable land back in Lancaster County was reportedly selling for around $500 an acre.

Stephen F. Stoltzfus, a 74-year-old clergyman and one of the leaders of the migration, specifically cited the crowded conditions around Lancaster. One of the early settlers later recalled hiring a truck to move the family’s possessions south. Traveling Route 5 from Waldorf toward Mechanicsville, they encountered no other traffic.Imagine that journey in 1940. You have left increasingly crowded Lancaster County looking for open land, and as you travel deeper into Southern Maryland, the highway seems deserted. They apparently took it as a very good sign.

The newcomers were experienced farmers, and Southern Maryland had plenty of farmland that had been neglected or exhausted. Contemporary accounts credited the Amish with transforming thousands of acres of rundown land into productive farms. They quickly developed a reputation as excellent farmers.

Schooling was another major factor for their move to Southern Maryland. The Amish believed formal education beyond the elementary grades was unnecessary for the life their children would lead. According to the local history, when the families moved to Maryland, they said they had received a written assurance from Maryland Governor Herbert R. O’Conor that their children could discontinue formal schooling after the seventh grade. That document was apparently lost.

In 1947, Maryland changed its compulsory school-attendance laws, requiring children between seven and sixteen to attend school. The Amish maintained that the governor’s earlier promise exempted their community. The St. Mary’s County Board of Education disagreed.

What followed was a long standoff. Local education officials repeatedly tried to persuade the Amish to comply with Maryland law. The Amish continuing to remove their children from school after completing the seventh grade.

Both sides believed they were acting in the children’s best interests, and despite their fundamental disagreement, mutual respect apparently prevented the dispute from becoming an open confrontation.

The issue was finally addressed locally in 1967, when State Senator Paul J. Bailey of the Charlotte Hall area introduced legislation recognizing Amish schools as bona fide parochial schools. The larger constitutional question surrounding compulsory education and the Amish would eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court; in Wisconsin v. Yoder in 1972, the Court held that Wisconsin could not compel Amish children to attend formal high school in violation of their religious beliefs.

On August 2, 1941, Stephen F. Stoltzfus died at St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown from “tick fever.” Shortly afterward, Mrs. Sam R. Stoltzfus and her two-year-old son were hospitalized at Johns Hopkins with the same illness. The three cases reportedly caused considerable concern, and county health officials administered inoculations.

Despite that early loss, the settlement survived and grew. By the mid-1950s, the original Amish church district had already grown large enough to divide into two districts. Farming remained central to the community, but over the decades Amish families also became well known in Southern Maryland for construction, woodworking, furniture making, produce, baked goods and other businesses.

The Amish didn’t come to Southern Maryland intending to become Southern Marylanders in exactly the same way as everyone else. Their faith places enormous importance on maintaining their religious community and way of life. Yet, more than 85 years after those first families arrived from Pennsylvania, they have unquestionably become part of the history and culture of St. Mary’s County.

They are, in a sense, part of our community while intentionally remaining somewhat separate from it.

Today, I love visiting their markets. I admire the work of Amish builders throughout Southern Maryland. And, as the beautiful black walnut dining room table sitting in my house attests, I certainly appreciate their furniture makers.

About the Author: Adam Tremper is the owner and tour guide at Spooky Solomons, a year-round historical ghost tour in Solomons Island Maryland. Sharing Southern Maryland history, legends, and lore is a passion of his.