Louisiana Amish

Southern Amish

Southern Amish

photo:  Scroonch From Lancaster, Pennsylvania, through Ohio and Indiana and on out to other long-established settlements in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, we tend to associate the Amish with the nation’s middle latitudes.  Since their earliest years in America, the Amish have gravitated to the cooler climes of these corn and dairy regions.  However, the Amish have also had a long history of attempting to settle…

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Settlements That Failed: “Urban Amish” in New Orleans?

A small, accidental settlement of Amish apparently once existed in New Orleans. David Luthy explains that in the 1800s, many migrant Amish came to America from Europe by way of the Mississippi River port. Sometimes it happened that an Amish family lacked the funds to continue upstream and onward to established settlements, often in Illinois.  Previous to 1850, stranded families formed a small and short-lived…