00:00 - Today PCN is here at the Amish Farm and House, and although they started doing

00:03 - tours of the property back in 1955, the history of the Amish community

00:07 - that lives here and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania goes back further than that.

00:11 - So today we're going to talk about it.

00:12 - Let's head inside.

00:17 - And. They.

00:25 - Ow ow

00:26 - ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow! Hey!

00:35 - I'm joined today by Devin Feit.

00:37 - She's a tour guide here at the Amish Farm and House.

00:39 - Could you tell us what's the history of this property?

00:41 - So originally, this was a land grant from William Penn to the Evans

00:45 - family, handed down through the years, ultimately to an Amish family.

00:49 - That was, in 1955.

00:52 - We purchased it and took it over as the first Amish tourist attraction.

00:56 - And since then, we've maintained its authenticity and we've maintained,

01:00 - trying to give it, a good view and glimpse into Amish lifestyle.

01:04 - And, and that's exactly what we're going to do today to show you guys

01:07 - what it sounds like. There's a lot of rich history here.

01:09 - Let's take a look at some of the rooms in this house. All right. Sounds good.

01:18 - Hey! So

01:30 - a big part of the Amish community is their religion.

01:33 - Could you tell us, how do they practice that?

01:35 - What is their religion?

01:36 - So actually, the Amish originated over in Europe

01:40 - in the, they're kind of from the Protestant Reformation.

01:43 - They were persecuted over there.

01:45 - And so they came over here by invitation of William Penn about the mid 1700s.

01:51 - So they didn't have any actual church buildings to meet in

01:54 - when they were in Europe.

01:55 - And when they came here,

01:56 - they continue that tradition of not having an actual church building.

02:01 - So what you're seeing here in, in this house is actually,

02:05 - what an Amish church building would look like,

02:08 - because it's an Amish home set up for church on a Sunday morning.

02:11 - So they're actually,

02:13 - of a Christian religion from that Protestant Reformation.

02:17 - So they would have a regular Christian church service

02:20 - every other Sunday, actually.

02:22 - So they would rest every Sunday, but church will be held every other Sunday

02:26 - in someone's home.

02:27 - You can see here that the benches are set up,

02:30 - for men to sit on one side

02:33 - and women to sit on the other side.

02:36 - They would start off a three hour service in the morning,

02:41 - followed by a cold meal at noon.

02:44 - And church service, basically is a time of prayer.

02:47 - They would have a time of singing.

02:49 - They would start off the morning with a hymn.

02:52 - And they would,

02:55 - do that for about about three hours.

02:59 - One of the common misconceptions about the Amish

03:01 - community is that they don't use any electricity.

03:04 - How much does technology play a role in their community?

03:07 - Yeah. Great question.

03:08 - One that we get a lot here is, you know, the Amish don't use electricity.

03:12 - And I always like to tell everyone the Amish don't use electricity

03:16 - like we do.

03:17 - It's not that they're against electricity in and of itself.

03:19 - It's more the concept

03:20 - of being connected to the world and just doing whatever the world does.

03:24 - So their mantra is, we'd like to be in the world, but not the of the world.

03:28 - And so you will see

03:29 - just about every other form of electricity other than electricity off the grid.

03:34 - So you'll see solar panels, windmills, all different types of batteries,

03:39 - gas, propane, diesel, kerosene, just about everything.

03:43 - They just don't connect to the grid like we do.

03:45 - So, for example,

03:46 - if you're looking here, you can see this is just a regular sewing machine.

03:50 - But instead of plugging into the wall

03:52 - with electricity, they would use an inverter and a battery.

03:55 - Just like over here, we can see that this would be a sewing machine, but

03:58 - it's actually a treadle sewing machine.

04:00 - So you can see the treadle underneath.

04:02 - And they would still use this even today.

04:04 - So there's a lot of different, technologies

04:08 - that they would use, even variations in their own community.

04:11 - If you look over here, we can see that this is a wood burning stove.

04:15 - Now, this would be more used in the wintertime to double

04:18 - as a heat source as well as a cook top.

04:22 - But they can use propane stoves just like we would.

04:26 - And then as you move around here, you can see this is a propane

04:29 - powered refrigerator.

04:31 - This is usually pretty surprising to see in an Amish kitchen.

04:34 - After I tell everyone

04:35 - they don't use electricity, but again, it's that they don't use it like we do.

04:39 - So here we've got this propane powered refrigerator that they can use.

04:43 - There's still some points of contention as far as what

04:47 - how much electricity, how much technology should we be able to use?

04:51 - So you can see here that we have for example, this is called a black box phone.

04:56 - And the Amish, have

04:58 - never used telephones in their homes.

05:02 - The idea is they want to keep the world at bay, keep that technology at bay.

05:05 - It should be used for, business use only, not for in the home.

05:10 - And so telephones are always kept outside and then we had

05:15 - cell phones come on the scene.

05:16 - How do we how do we use those.

05:18 - And so these are called black box phones.

05:20 - These are essentially, just a way to be able

05:23 - to not have an actual cell phone, but it does the same trick.

05:27 - However, you are starting to see

05:29 - a lot of the Amish with cell phones nowadays, but again,

05:31 - they try to keep it for business purposes only, and it's usually just a flip phone.

05:35 - We're in the second floor of the real family's home now.

05:38 - What would a typical Amish bedroom look like?

05:41 - So, for sure, we've got here the Amish quintessential quilt.

05:45 - The Amish women are known for making quilts, and so that's displayed

05:48 - here.

05:49 - We also have a lot of Amish clothing here that you can see.

05:53 - This is where history meets modernity.

05:56 - Because in the past, the Amish would have not done any, makeup.

06:01 - They still, to this day, do not do any makeup, no jewelry whatsoever.

06:05 - At one point in history, buttons were considered like jewelry.

06:09 - And so they didn't allow for those back then.

06:12 - And they still don't allow for those even today. It's become a tradition.

06:15 - So you can see here very, very simple dresses.

06:18 - You can see that, they would have, pins,

06:22 - straight pins instead of buttons to keep their dresses on.

06:26 - So a style like this, very solid colors, very simple apron,

06:30 - and very simple clothing.

06:32 - How does the Amish community make money?

06:33 - What kind of work do they do? What trades?

06:36 - Well, in the past, a lot of them were farmers.

06:39 - And here we are in our 1803 bank barn.

06:44 - The original barn that was built onto this property.

06:48 - And still today, a lot of Amish are farmers corn,

06:51 - alfalfa and tobacco, where there are three main crops that they grow and,

06:56 - so many of them do still grow tobacco, corn and alfalfa.

07:01 - However, since the 1940s and 50s, when 90% were farmers,

07:05 - we now have about less than 25% of Amish that are farmers.

07:09 - So they're doing such things as woodworking, metalworking,

07:12 - a lot of blacksmiths, a lot of cabinetmaking,

07:15 - auctioneers, a lot of them in small engine repair.

07:19 - A lot of them do diesel repair.

07:21 - So all of these Amish are not just farming anymore.

07:25 - They're they're doing all different types of occupations.

07:28 - Also on our farm, included in our barns are all of our animals.

07:33 - So we have everything from peacocks to chickens to horses.

07:38 - Pigs.

07:38 - We've got goats, baby goats as well to do the goat yoga.

07:43 - We've got all different types of,

07:46 - we've got steers and, cows.

07:49 - So, lots of things to see here at Amish Farm and House.

07:52 - During my time in college, I saw a bunch of horse and buggies

07:55 - along the side of the road.

07:56 - Is that the only way of transportation?

07:59 - So it might be the most familiar way that the Amish travel, but they can also,

08:04 - actually travel by car if they have someone outside

08:08 - of the Amish community driving them, almost like their own Uber system.

08:12 - But they would use their horse and buggies to go from place to place,

08:15 - which they actually have horse and buggy shops.

08:17 - A lot of them would, be in India making them,

08:22 - they can also use, busses

08:25 - and trains and private drivers and vans.

08:29 - They would not use bicycles.

08:30 - However, bicycles go a little too far, a little too fast.

08:33 - They would do scooters instead.

08:35 - So you'll see an Amish person on a scooter. No pedal, no seat.

08:38 - But it looks a lot like a bicycle.

08:40 - So, Devin, we were talking off camera earlier, and I asked you,

08:43 - what is something on the Amish farmhouse property that your visitors love to see?

08:47 - And you said it was this covered bridge.

08:48 - Could you tell us why so, so many people love covered bridges?

08:53 - There's just something very nostalgic and old fashioned about a covered bridge.

08:57 - And so we have a lot of guests that come here, looking to see this bridge.

09:00 - This is called the Willows.

09:01 - It's actually a bridge that was not original to the farm.

09:04 - It was brought here piece by piece and reconstructed.

09:07 - And so you can see every, piece is original to this bridge.

09:11 - Some very old wood in here, but very much coveted by everyone that comes to see it.

09:16 - Before we close out, could you tell us how does the Amish farm and house

09:19 - preserve the Amish community's history here in Lancaster County?

09:23 - Well, the great thing is, is the Amish actually do that themselves?

09:26 - They are a link from the past to the present.

09:28 - And so all we need to do is represent them authentically.

09:31 - And that's exactly what we try to do here is, show you authentic.

09:35 - Amish history, authentic Amish life nowadays.

09:38 - Well, thank you so much for talking to us about the history of the Amish community

09:41 - here in Lancaster County.

09:43 - I really appreciate your time today.

09:44 - Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. Awesome.

09:46 - And thank you guys very much for watching this tour on PCN.