Results tagged “Amish” from York Town Square

Ammon Stolzfus, 37, of Quarryville, Pa., picks up the latest issue of Cruise Letter, a newsletter made 'By Cruisers For Cruisers,' outside the Markets at Shrewsbury in southern York County. In this 2007 York (Pa.) Daily Record/Sunday News file photo, Stolzfus was working at the outside booth for Penn Dutch Kitchen during Friday Cruise Nights. When asked if he ever checks out the cars himself, he told the newspaper there's never any time. Background posts: Who was Norman Wood (of bridge fame)?, Horse, buggy, one-room school make county comeback, Amish: 'We are making a commitment to forgive'

The Amish, commonly associated with the east bank of the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, are seen more and more in southeastern York County. They also can be seen at the Markets at Shrewsbury, a house of vendors along the Susquehanna Trail in Hametown, Shrewsbury Township.

The so-called Pennsylvania Dutch church people - German Reformed and Lutherans - mostly pioneered in York County. The Amish, different from the church people in their practice of baptizing adults among other doctrinal distinctions, settled among similar believers in Lancaster County.

So, many York countians, even Pennsylvania Dutchmen, are not that familiar with the Amish... .

An Amish farmer works in his Lower Chanceford Township field in June 2008. In recent years, Amish from Lancaster and elsewhere have moved to this remote part of York County. Background posts: Who was Norman Wood (of bridge fame)?, Horse, buggy, one-room school make county comeback, Amish: 'We are making a commitment to forgive'

With Amish moving to less crowded quarters west of the Susquehanna in recent decades, it raises the question about how many of these newcomers now call York County home.

York Daily Record/Sunday News religion writer Melissa Nann Burke has come as close as can be determined without actually counting heads... .

Codorus Church of the Brethren in Dunkard Valley is the mother church for members of that denomination in York County. Background posts: Potosi, Pa., linked to mining, Northern York strawberry part of Neapolitan county, People of varying religious groups founded York County.

The stats say that the Church of the Brethren has grown from one congregation - Springfield Township's Codorus church - planted in the fields of a quiet valley 250 years ago to 15 churches in York County today

The figures also show that the number of churches of that Protestant denomination in the county is down by three between 1990 and 2000.

That is probably the reason Codorus and other Brethren groups are trying new things - like this past weekend's Dunkard Valley Live, a Christian music festival with rap groups and such. Surely, this was the loudest moment in this agricultural valley since the introduction of the gasoline-fired combine.

But here's the question that is often asked about the Brethren and their Amish and Mennonite cousins: Why aren't there as many of those groups west of the Susquehanna as there are in Lancaster County? ...

A worker takes time out from preparing the Norman Wood Bridge, connecting southern Lancaster and York counties, to lead a horse pulling an Amish buggy. The horse, spooked by a generator, stopped in the middle of the bridge. Background posts: Amish: 'We are making a commitment to forgive,' and Holtwood Dam thrust into the news again.

Eagles nesting on the Norman Wood bridge, slowing painting work on the one-third-long structure spanning the Susquehanna River, have captured the interest of readers.

But all this has raised a question in the mind of this reader.

Who was Norman Wood?

Dorothy Kaspar listens as Butch Reigart of Columbia reads from 'Der Haahne Greht,' a book of Pennsylvania Dutch poems, during a Pennsylvania Dutch language class at Dover Township's Providence Place in 2006. Reigart will be teaching a similar class at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society. Dutch vs. English? York County debate still perking in 1920s and German or English? Churches disputed language

"Recapture a piece of your Pennsylvania German family history. Learn to speak with your Amish and Mennonite neighbors."

So says a release from the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society about an upcoming class on the Pennsylvania German language.

"Learning the 'Dutch' language you will better understand and appreciate the warm and colorful Pennsylvania German culture that is a hallmark of Lancaster County, in general, and of its Plain People, in particular."

The release could have said York County, too... .

Donald Kraybill told Rotarians recently that though Amish forgiveness linked to Nickel Mines shocked the outside world, this is a "standard forgiveness" explained in the Lord's Prayer that is silently said often during the day in English and German by the Amish.

Amish expert Don Kraybill addressed York Rotary recently about forgiveness and the Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting.

Kraybill spoke about an Amish man:

"It is not that we do not want justice." The Amish believe in punishment but also in "giving up feelings of retaliation. We are making a commitment to forgive, but it is a long process," the man said.

"Forgiveness is not forgetting, and this will be part of Amish history for a long time," Kraybill said.

Kraybill wasn't talking about a group - the Amish - that is unknown to York County. In fact, a considerable Amish population has settled in York County's southeastern corner, on this side of the Norman Wood Bridge... .