The Amish community in the Mechanicsville area consists of eight church districts and approximately 1,000 people. The Amish first came to the area in 1940. There is also an Old Order Mennonite community in the Mechanisville area. In recent years, increasing development has threatened the Amish community.[4]
History
Part of the area was first settled in the 1660s by early Maryland colonists who were tobacco planters. They established some farms not far from the Patuxent river. In 1819, Cremona Farm, a 750-acre estate and plantation was built in the same location. In about 1850, "Mechanicsville Village" was established on the historic Three Notch Trail. The name "Mechanicsville" is believed to have come from the word "Mechanic" because the area became a center for blacksmiths and other craftsmen.[5] In those days "Mechanic" meant a skilled tradesperson who worked by hands.
There was an old railway that passed through Mechanicsville and local residents joined other St. Mary's County residents in purchasing it and saving it from being scrapped in 1918. Farm goods moved along the railroad on train cars and passenger service continued until about 1928. By that time county roads had improved and the railway began to fall out of use.[5]
The Amish community was established in Mechanicsville in 1940.[6] It is a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, daughter settlement.[5]
The Amish left Lancaster County because of a dispute with the state of Pennsylvania over education practices. The Amish people had their own system of one room schoolhouses there and a school year that better accommodated the farm season. But Pennsylvania tried to force them into the state school system.[6] Maryland provided a place for the Lancaster Amish to escape these pressures and, as historian Karen Johnson-Weiner described, avoid “what they saw as a threat to their religious identity”.[5]
Many Amish left at the time and one large group moved to Mechanicsville, Maryland.[5] Today, the Amish settlement in Mechanicsville is one of the largest Lancaster daughter communities.[6]
Demographics
Traditional local food, crabcake sandwich and garlic mash potatoes at the Foxy Fish restaurant in Mechanicsville 2014Tobacco farm in Mechanicsville in 1942Engine 5, of the Washington, Brandywine and Point Lookout Railroad, picture taken in Mechanicsville in 1934Cremona Farm in Mechanicsville, built in 1819.
2020 US federal census
In 2020, the population of Mechanicsville was 1,673 in 628 households.[7]
Ethnic heritage Irish 33.3%, German 32.4%, French (except Basque) 16.6%, English 13.9%, Polish 9.5%, African-American 5.9%, Italian 5.4%, Scottish 1.5%, Norwegian 0.8%, American Indian 0.5%.[7]
Norton Dodge, owner and longtime resident of Cremona Farm, economist, collector of Soviet era art, smuggled thousands of Soviet dissident paintings, prints and sculptures out of communist Russia, amassing one of the largest collections of Soviet-era art outside of the Soviet Union. He secretly stored them at his farm in Mechanicsville.
Climate
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally cool to cold winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Mechanicsville has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.[9] In the spring and summer the area gets frequent thunderstorms, many severe,[10] and on rare occasion, tornadoes.[11] From June 2021 to June 2022 Mechanicsville had 41 severe thunderstorm warnings.[10]
2022 Tornado
On June 8, 2022, a severe thunderstorm developed a tornado that touched down in Mechanicsville, damaging farm buildings and a residential home, uprooting some trees and snapping other tree trunks.[12]
Monthly weather averages
Climate data for Mechanicsville, Maryland (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1974-present)
United States
Maryland
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