Holmes County Amish Country

At a glance

Overview

The Holmes County Amish settlement, which spills into Tuscarawas, Wayne, Coshocton, Ashland and Stark counties, is the second-largest Amish community in the world and the most concentrated: the Amish make up about half of Holmes County's people. It began in 1809, when Jonas Stutzman of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, cleared land and built a log home on Walnut Creek, followed within a few years by Miller, Yoder, Troyer, Hochstetler, Weaver, Mast and Schrock families. Berlin, laid out in 1816 by John Swigert, is the county's oldest surviving village; Walnut Creek was laid out in 1826 as New Carlisle and renamed in 1841; Charm is a crossroads in Clark Township whose name is of obscure origin. Through the 20th century the settlement split repeatedly, into more than thirty groups, from the Swartzentruber groups that formed after 1917 to the New Order Amish of the 1960s. Tourism, promoted from the 1950s, now sits alongside farms, woodshops and a settlement that numbered about 37,770 people in 2021.

The name

Holmes County is named for Major Andrew Holmes, killed at the Battle of Mackinac Island in 1814. Berlin took the shared name of the home towns of John Swigert (Berlin, Germany) and Joseph Troyer (Berlin, Pennsylvania). Walnut Creek was laid out as New Carlisle and took the creek's name when its post office opened in 1841. The origin of the name Charm is recorded as obscure. (source)

Native American history

No Native village is recorded at Berlin, Walnut Creek or Charm themselves. G. F. Newton's 1876 centennial history of Holmes County, citing a map of 1764, places three Delaware (Lenape) towns along the Killbuck on the county's western side: White Woman's Town at the Killbuck's mouth on the Walhonding, Killbuck's Town near the northern edge of the county, and a town at the forks near Wooster. The valley was the hunting ground of the Delaware leader Gelelemend (Captain Killbuck), and the creek carries his father's name. The 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh drew an Indian boundary line diagonally across the future county; land south of it became part of the U.S. Military District, and the Native title to land north of it was ended by the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805, with survey beginning in 1807. Newton and later Berlin tradition name a Delaware man, Tom Lion, as the last Native resident, living on Lion's Run just north of Berlin after the first settlers arrived.

• Killbuck's Town: village, on Killbuck Creek near the northern boundary of Holmes County, mapped 1764
• White Woman's Town: village, mouth of Killbuck Creek on the Walhonding River (now Coshocton County), after 1740 to the 1760s
• Indian boundary line (Treaty of Fort McIntosh): treaty, diagonally through Holmes County, 1785
• Treaty of Fort Industry cession: treaty, Holmes County land north of the Indian boundary line, 1805
• Tom Lion's camp, Lion's Run: camp, a ravine just north of Berlin, between Berlin and Bunker Hill, c. 1810s

Stories

Jonas Stutzman and the Walnut Creek pioneers

The Amish settlement in Holmes County began on Walnut Creek. Jonas Stutzman and his wife Magdalena Gerber Stutzman came from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1809 to clear land and build a log home, and the state marker at the site calls him the first permanent settler in the eastern part of what became Holmes County in 1825. In the spring of 1810 Jacob Miller, Christian Yoder and John Troyer were raising corn in the neighborhood, and by 1812 the Weavers, Hochstetlers and Schrocks had joined them. The sources differ on when Stutzman actually lived on his claim: the marker says he came in 1809 to build a home, while G. F. Newton's 1876 county history says he built his cabin that year but did not move to it until 1814. Either way, by 1815 the settlers had built the first schoolhouse in the county. (source)

How Berlin got its name and its hilltop

John Swigert, a native of Berlin, Germany, laid out Berlin on July 2, 1816, with 108 lots along one east-west and one north-south street. Another early settler, Joseph Troyer, came from Berlin, Pennsylvania, and the two named the town for both of their home towns. Newton's 1876 history calls it the first town laid out in the county, and it is the oldest one still standing. Berlin sits on the highest ground in Holmes County, and according to local legend Swigert chose the spot because it could be defended more easily against an Indian attack. By 1833 the Ohio Gazetteer listed 21 houses, two stores, two taverns and a physician, and the village later held machine shops, a foundry, hat factories and a tannery. (source)

Tom Lion, the last Delaware on the Killbuck

This is the story as G. F. Newton told it in 1876, having heard it from the early settler Anson Wheaton. Tom Lion, an old Delaware man, kept a camp on Lion's Run north of Berlin long after his people had ceded the land, and he frightened settler women with tales of his fights with whites. Jacob Ammon, a settler northeast of Millersburg, once lent Lion a gun and got it back only after threatening his life. At a house-raising in Salt Creek Township, Lion boasted that he had taken part in killing the Hochstetler family on the Pennsylvania frontier, and a young relative of the family who was present swore to have satisfaction. Lion left, the young man and Ammon were seen going the same way, and Lion was never seen in Holmes County again. Nothing was done about his disappearance. (source)

Behalt: one painter's history of the Anabaptists

Heinz Gaugel was born in 1927 in Eybach, in Germany's Swabian Alps, nearly died in World War II, and emigrated to Canada in 1951. Driving U.S. 62 through Holmes County in 1962, he heard the Amish speaking a German dialect close to his own, and in 1972 he moved to a farm there. In 1978 an Amish blacksmith, tired of tourists' questions, told him he wished there were a place where people could learn why the Amish live as they do, and Gaugel began a cyclorama of Anabaptist history. In 1988 the Mennonite Information Center bought the painting with about 100 feet finished, built a hall for it in 1989, and visitors watched him work until he signed the completed canvas in October 1992. He named it Behalt, from the German behalten, to keep or remember; it is 10 feet tall and 265 feet around. Gaugel kept painting in a studio at the center until his death in 2000. (source)

A settlement of many churches

Holmes County's Amish are not one church. After a ministers' meeting (Diener Versammlung) in 1917, Bishop Sam Yoder divided from the Old Order South Churches over differences in the Ordnung, the rules of daily life; families from Buchanan County, Iowa, and later more from the South Churches joined him, and his people became the Swartzentruber Amish. The Dan Wengerd group split from Yoder's church in 1922 and later went back to the South Churches. Bishops Jacob Stutzman and Eli A. Troyer left the South Churches and joined Yoder in 1928, then withdrew in 1931 to form a church of their own, which divided again in 1940 when Minister Tobe Hochstetler and Deacon Emanuel Hershberger withdrew. In the 1940s and 1950s many members of that Stutzman-Troyer church moved to new settlements, including in Canada and New York. The Andy Weaver and New Order groups later divided from the South Churches as well. (source)

Fort Fizzle, 1863

In 1863 resistance to the Civil War draft broke into open violence in western Holmes County. On June 5, 1863, residents of French Ridge in Richland Township attacked Elias Robinson, a Union enrolling officer, and armed neighbors freed the ringleaders after the provost marshal jailed them. Colonel William Wallace of the 15th Ohio arrived with 420 soldiers from Camp Chase, and on June 17 they approached a fortified camp of nearly a thousand resisters, who fired and then scattered. More than forty people were indicted, but only Lorenzo Blanchard, owner of the farm where the camp stood, was convicted. The stronghold was mocked afterward as Fort Fizzle. (source)

Timeline

• 1785: The Treaty of Fort McIntosh set an Indian boundary line that ran diagonally through what became Holmes County. (source)
• 1800: On March 13 the U.S. Military District opened for entry, and Hodijah Baylis located 400 acres on Doughty Creek, the first tract taken up in the future county. (source)
• 1805: The Treaty of Fort Industry ended Native title to Holmes County land north of the boundary line; its survey began in 1807. (source)
• 1808: Jacob Miller and his sons Henry and Jacob came from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and built a cabin northeast of present Sugarcreek. (source)
• 1809: Jonas Stutzman of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, cleared land and built a log home on Walnut Creek, the first permanent settler in eastern Holmes County. (source)
• 1810: In spring Jacob Miller, Christian Yoder and John Troyer settled in Stutzman's neighborhood and raised a corn crop; by 1812 the Weavers, Hochstetlers and Schrocks had joined them. (source)
• 1815: The Walnut Creek settlers built a schoolhouse and held school, the first schoolhouse in the county. (source)
• 1816: On July 2 John Swigert laid out Berlin with 108 lots on two crossing streets; it is the oldest surviving village in the county. (source)
• 1818: Berlin opened a school; its post office followed in 1822. (source)
• c. 1820: Amish settlers arrived in Berlin Township in numbers and established their first church there. (source)
• 1824: Holmes County was formed on January 20 from parts of Coshocton, Tuscarawas and Wayne counties and organized in January 1825. (source)
• 1826: Walnut Creek was laid out under the name New Carlisle. (source)
• 1833: The Ohio Gazetteer listed Berlin with 21 dwellings, two stores, two taverns and a physician, and Carlisle in Walnut Creek Township with one tavern and six houses. (source)
• 1835: The Holmes County Amish settlement had grown to about 250 families. (source)
• 1841: New Carlisle was renamed Walnut Creek when its post office was established. (source)
• 1863: On June 17 Union troops faced nearly a thousand armed draft resisters at the so-called Fort Fizzle on French Ridge in Richland Township, western Holmes County. (source)
• 1860s: A division beginning in the 1860s separated the Old Order Amish from the Amish Mennonites, most of whom later merged with Mennonite churches. (source)
• 1890: The Budget, a weekly that became the main letter paper of Amish communities, began publishing in Sugarcreek. (source)
• 1917: After a ministers' meeting (Diener Versammlung), Bishop Sam Yoder divided from the Old Order South Churches, the start of the group later called Swartzentruber. (source)
• 1922: The Dan Wengerd group split from Sam Yoder's church and later rejoined the South Churches. (source)
• 1931: Bishops Jacob Stutzman and Eli A. Troyer, who had joined Yoder in 1928, withdrew and formed the separate Stutzman-Troyer church. (source)
• 1950s: Local promoters began marketing the Holmes County community as a tourist destination; bus tours were running by the 1960s. (source)
• 1962: German-born artist Heinz Gaugel first passed through Holmes County on U.S. 62 and met Amish speakers of a dialect close to his own. (source)
• mid-1960s: Baby Swiss cheese was developed outside Charm by Alfred Guggisberg's Guggisberg Cheese Company. (source)
• 1966: A dispute over the greeting kiss in the Troyer Valley district led to the Ohio New Order Amish; about a dozen Holmes County districts joined them from 1969 to 1971. (source)
• 1981: The Mennonite Information Center opened near Berlin; it moved into a purpose-built hall on County Road 77 in 1989 and was renamed the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in 2002. (source)
• 1992: In October Heinz Gaugel signed the finished Behalt cyclorama, a 10-by-265-foot painting of Anabaptist history. (source)
• 2020: In April Amish seamstresses organized by John Miller and Abe Troyer sewed face masks for the Cleveland Clinic during the COVID-19 shortage. (source)
• 2026: The Young Center at Elizabethtown College counted 87,760 Amish in Ohio in 78 settlements and 719 church districts. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Ohio Amish Country
• en.wikipedia.org: Holmes County, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Walnut Creek, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Charm, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: New Order Amish
• en.wikipedia.org: Swartzentruber Amish
• en.wikipedia.org: The Budget (Ohio newspaper)
• remarkableohio.org: 1 38 jonas stutzman
• remarkableohio.org: 3 38 holmes county draft riots
• archive.org: holmescountyohio00egge djvu.txt
• archive.org: Rebellion Garber djvu.txt
• archive.org: bub gb dt48AAAAYAAJ djvu.txt
• berlinohioinfo.com: index
• behalt.com: meet heinz gaugel
• behalt.com: about amish mennonite heritage center
• behalt.com: behalt cyclorama
• groups.etown.edu: amish population 2026
• groups.etown.edu: twelve largest settlements 2021
• ideaexchange.uakron.edu: viewcontent.cgi