Jonas Stutzman and the first Amish settlement at Walnut Creek

Jonas Stutzman came to the Walnut Creek Valley in 1809 and is remembered by the exhibit as the first white settler of eastern Holmes County. He operated an early sawmill and taught school for a number of years. His work belonged to the practical beginnings of an Amish community that needed homes, timber, and education as well as congregational life.

In the late 1840s Stutzman studied premillennial teaching and wrote three pamphlets calling readers to repentance in expectation of Christ’s imminent return. He settled on June 1853 as the expected time. He also began dressing in white and made a special wooden chair associated with his expectation of Christ’s reign. These were Stutzman’s recorded convictions and actions, not a date the site presents as fulfilled prophecy or a belief assigned to all Amish people.

His long life, from 1787 to 1871, spans the opening of the Ohio settlements and their development into established communities. The panel preserves both the contribution of a pioneer and the distinctive religious expectations for which he was remembered.