If you drive the country roads of Yates County long enough, you’ll notice something that feels a little different from many other places in New York.
A horse drawn buggy waiting patiently outside of a local grocery store or place of business.
Laundry dancing on a line in the breeze.
A roadside stand with fresh produce and a small wooden box for payment.
These quiet scenes have become a familiar part of life around Penn Yan, Benton, and Dundee — but the Mennonite community that created them is actually a relatively recent chapter in the story of the Keuka Lake region.
Their arrival here is a story of faith, farmland, and the search for a place where a simpler life could continue.
A Faith that Began in Europe
The Mennonite story begins more than 500 years ago in Europe, during the turbulence of the Protestant Reformation.
In the early 1500s, a group of Christians known as Anabaptists began practicing a form of faith that differed sharply from the established churches of the time. They believed baptism should be a choice made by adults rather than something done in infancy.
One of the movement’s most influential leaders was a former Dutch priest named Menno Simons. His teachings emphasized:
• adult baptism
• peaceful living
• humility and simplicity
• strong family and community life
Over time, his followers became known as Mennonites.
These beliefs often placed them at odds with European governments and state churches, and persecution forced many Mennonites to leave their homelands in search of places where they could live and worship freely.
From Pennsylvania to the Finger Lakes
By the 1700s, many Mennonite families had settled in Pennsylvania, particularly in the countryside around Lancaster County. For generations, that region became the heart of Mennonite life in America.
But by the mid-20th century, something began to change.
Lancaster County farmland had become crowded and expensive. Families were growing, farms needed to be divided, and younger generations were looking for new places where agriculture — and their traditional way of life — could continue.
And quietly, some of them began looking north.
A New Beginning in Yates County
The first Mennonite families began purchasing farms in Yates County in 1974.
What they found here must have felt familiar.
Rolling hills.
Rich farmland.
A strong agricultural tradition.
The landscape around Penn Yan and Benton offered exactly what these families were seeking — room to farm, raise families, and live close to the land.
Not long after those first farms were purchased, a small Mennonite meetinghouse was built in Milo in 1976. It marked the beginning of a new community that would grow steadily across the region.
A Community Takes Root
Over the decades that followed, Mennonite families continued moving into the area.
Congregations soon formed in Benton, Dundee, and Rushville, eventually spreading into nearby parts of Ontario County, as more families arrived and farms across the rolling countryside once again filled with the rhythms of agricultural life.
Today, thousands of Mennonite residents live throughout the countryside surrounding Keuka Lake.
Many belong to the Groffdale Conference, sometimes known as the Wenger Mennonites, a group that continues to practice a traditional way of life.
Horse-drawn buggies still travel the back roads.
Homes remain simple and practical.
Technology is used sparingly.
Farming, family, and faith remain at the center of daily life.
The countryside around Dundee and the Town of Starkey has become one of the strongest centers of this community. Travel the roads south of the lake and you’ll pass well-kept farms, neat gardens, produce stands, and small woodworking shops — quiet signs of a culture built around craftsmanship, land stewardship, and family life.
Preserving the Rural Landscape
In many ways, the Mennonite community has helped preserve something deeply tied to the identity of Yates County.
Their farms continue traditions of small-scale agriculture that once defined much of the Finger Lakes countryside.
Fields are planted and harvested.
Produce stands appear along rural roads.
Craftsmanship — from woodworking to construction — thrives quietly across the region.
The landscape that visitors admire when they come to the Keuka Lake area is shaped in part by these working farms and the families who tend them.
A Quiet Chapter in the Story of Keuka
Yates County has always been a place where different communities have found a home — from the earliest settlers who arrived along the shores of Crooked Lake, to the vineyards, farmers, and small villages that grew up around it.
The Mennonite arrival in the 1970s added another chapter to that long story.
It happened quietly.
No parades.
No grand announcements.
Just families buying farms, building meetinghouses, and beginning new lives in the rolling hills between Penn Yan and Dundee.
Today, their presence is simply part of the rhythm of life here — as natural as the vineyards climbing the hillsides and the morning fog rising off Keuka Lake.
A Keuka Roots Note
The history of the Keuka Lake region is filled with stories of people searching for a place to belong.
Some came for opportunity.
Some came for the beauty of the lake
And some — like the Mennonite families who arrived here in the 1970s — came looking for a quiet corner of the world where their traditions and faith could continue to grow.
And in the gentle landscape of Yates County, they found exactly that. They are our neighbors.
Stay Rooted. Stay Keuka. 🌿
