A mournful silence hung over Nickel Mines in Pennsylvania yesterday as four of the five victims of Monday's horrific Amish school shooting were laid to rest.

The silence was broken only by the rattling of the horse-drawn buggies that streamed through the township bringing relatives and friends to the homes of the victims where the simple and private funerals took place.

Naomi Rose Ebersol, seven, Marian Fisher, 13, sisters Mary Liz Miller, eight, and Lena Miller, seven, were all laid to rest Thursday at a hilltop cemetery in Nickel Mines after they died in Monday's shooting rampage by milk lorry driver Charles Carl Roberts IV.

Each girl was buried in a plain pine coffin, using no metal in accordance with the Amish belief that all human remains should return to dust.

Each was dressed by female relatives in plain white dresses and laid out at home in open caskets as mourners arrived to pay respects, said Rita Rhodes, a local midwife who delivered two of the victims.

The funeral of the final victim, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, will take place today as doctors switched off a sixth girl's life support machine so she could be taken home to die her family by her side.