Amish Acres - History

History

A separate Amish settlement on the eastern side of the county began holding church services in 1841. The land granted to the Stahly brothers was nearly contiguous farms. Because of the tamarack swamp to the south of the Continental Divide and the heavily forested land to the north, it was the last part of the county settled by immigrants. The county was created in 1830 in Indiana out of the Indiana Territory following the creation of the State of Ohio. Colonel John Jackson was sent into the area to eradicate the Potawatomi Indians living in a village on the Elkhart River near present day Baintertown. U.S. Government forces destroyed the abandoned village twice in the decade. Chief Five Medals had made two trips to Washington, D.C., to acquire federal grant money to help transition his village from hunter-gatherers into farmers, so as to live peacefully beside the arriving white settlers. The last of the Potawatomis were removed from Indiana by decree of the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830.

In 1873 the Baltimore, Ohio & Chicago Railroad surveyed a route from Sandusky, Ohio, to Chicago. In spite of intense lobbying from Goshen, Indiana, the county seat, the railroad chose a bee line route through the swamp and hardwoods hugging the north-south Continental Divide. The swamp was the headwaters of the Kankakee River basin, one of the largest fresh-water swamps left in the country at that time. Government drainage programs financed ditches and clay field tile that created some of the most fertile farmland in the Midwest. The timber to the north provided the natural resources for a sawmill industry that by 1885 had 20,000 logs in its yard. A planing mill began building wooden boxes that were shipped to Elkhart, Indiana, to package Dr. Miles' patent medicine, Nervine.

In 1893 the Moses Stahly family moved to Reno County, Kansas, as a result of the Windmill Controversy. It revolved around the introduction of windmills to pump water and manure spreaders and other mechanized horse-drawn farming implements. The more conservative Amish removed themselves from the area rather than adopt the modern machines. The Stahly farm was purchased by Noah Nissley, Stahly’s father-in-law. The Nissley family came from Ohio where their house had recently burned. They built a near replica of their Ohio house on the farm, connecting it to the original two-room clapboard house. The Nissleys moved into the gross-daadi house upon retirement from active farming and son-in-law Manasses Kuhns took over the operation. The Stahly-Nissley-Kuhns farm is now listed in The National Register of Historic Places.

Through years of neglect due to Kuhns' debilitating illnesses, the farm fell into disrepair by the time of his death. Because of this neglect numerous original buildings long past their usefulness were spared destruction. These outbuildings include a food-drying house, outdoor brick bake oven, smoke house, root cellar, and apple cider mill. The orchard had been abandoned but left intact.