Extinct Amish Settlements: An Overview, 1730s–2024

Abstract

Of the 958 settlements founded in North America since the Amish arrived in the 1730s, 272 are now extinct. This research note provides a summary of those failures to sustain the life of an Amish community, and includes an appendix listing settlement extinctions by state and in chronological order. The article concludes with a discussion about the value of understanding community failures as an important, but often ignored, dimension of the Amish story in North America.