BURKE’S GARDEN, Va. – This remote Appalachia community was in mourning at the news that a van had crashed in Wisconsin and killed seven local Amish and their hired driver. The chief Tazewell County deputy, Harold Heatley, described the outpouring of sympathy as huge. His understanding, Heatley said, was that three generations of one family had been taken out by the accident. Tazwell Fire Chief John Thomas expected 1,000 people at a vigil. Amish themselves are from an area called Burke’s Garden, which has 300 people including 14 Amish families Thomas said several locals have volunteered to drive surviving family members to Wisconsin and bring the bodies home. Amish don’t drive motorized vehicles. Locally they use horse-drawn buggies. Around town they have foot scooters. For longer tris they have a roster of non-Amish drivers available to hire. Such was James McCoy, 45. of Pounding Mill, 26 miles away. He was driving the Burke’s Garden group to Minnesota when the accident occurred Friday near Merrillan, Wisconsin. Both McCoy and the driver of a ttuck in the accident also erpshisd. One Amish boy survived.
Earlier: Nine die in truck-van crash on Wisconsin Highway 95
Burke’s Garden. An isolated fertile bowl-shaped valley of abut 35 square miles. It’s carved out of the top of a mountain. Sometimes called “God’s Thumbprint.” From satellites the valley looks like large asteroid impact or a volcanic crater. Actually it’s a dome-shaped geologic up-warp that exposed erodible limestone millions of years ago. Three-thousand feet above sea level, the valley is the second-highest in Virginia.