By the 1882 county history's account, the Amish had taken up almost the whole of Newbury Township by 1881. There were three districts of the old church: the southern with 161 members, the western with 100, and the northern about 120, counting the part that reached into Van Buren Township. Each district had a bishop and two ministers, and only a bishop could baptize or marry.
The peculiar characteristic of the church is a literal observance of every injunction of the Scriptures, as they understand them.
There were no meeting houses. Services were held in members' homes; the 1920 account adds that they came every two weeks, in a different house each time, with dinner served where they met. There was no written creed, and feet washing was observed at meetings.
The 1882 historian recorded two things beyond the customs: the children were taught to read and write well, and the community let none of its members depend on the county for support.
It was not one church even then. The New Amish, about twenty-five years old in 1881, had roughly two hundred members and a frame meeting house at the Forks, built in 1863 for about six hundred dollars and seating five hundred. The Mennonites built on the Lake Shore road in the fall of 1874, and the German Baptists dedicated their own church on Christmas of 1874.