Was crokinole originally a Mennonite or Amish game?
No. While some reference works (including my own 1988 first edition of The Crokinole Book.) may have intimated such, there exist no factual data that would prove such a notion. Yes, crokinole has been very popular among many Mennonite and Amish sects throughout Canada and the United States by reason of the fact that the game was viewed as a rather innocuous pastime-unlike the perception that diversions such as card playing or dancing were ‘works of the Devil’as held by many 19th century Protestant groups. But it would not appear that crokinole actually developed within any of the Mennonite or Amish communities. As noted above, the oldest known crokinole board in the world was manufactured in 1876 by Perth County, Ontario, craftsman, Eckhardt Wettlaufer. Eckhardt and his ancestors were Lutherans, not Mennonites. A significant difference. Further, the oldest roots of crokinole from the 1860s suggest the British and South Asian games are the most likely antecedents of what became crokinol
