The Lapps, who hold dearly to an uncompromising set of moral guidelines rooted in their strong Mennonite beliefs, have become perhaps Western New York's most visible critics of government intrusion.

In the 1990s, they staged two public battles, with child-protection officials over a runaway juvenile foster child and with Internal Revenue Service officials over filing tax returns.

Their commitment to leave was cemented Saturday, with a public auction of their 215-acre dairy and produce farm, along with a neighboring 41-acre farm, just outside this village in rural Chautauqua County, about 60 miles from downtown Buffalo.

"It's all about principles," patriarch Jacob Lapp said by phone from Costa Rica late last week. "We're firm in our Bible-based beliefs on how to bring up children, and the government didn't allow us to live by our principles."

Jacob and Barbara Lapp, who moved from Pennsylvania to their Cassadaga Road farmland in 1971, have relocated to Costa Rica, along with five of their 12 children, to farm and engage in other small businesses. Two others are expected to move there soon.

"We have done our share of battles," said Barbara Lyn Lapp, one of the 12 siblings. "We want to move somewhere where we feel safer and where we can live our life in peace.

"It really was a very hard decision because we have strong roots here, and we were somewhat successful in our runs-in with the government," she added. "Every time we took a stand, we felt it made a mark in the freedom of others. But we really wanted to live more peacefully. We didn't like the conflict."

Spend any time in the Lapp farmhouse, and you come away with the impression that the Lapps, while not enjoying the conflicts, savored their ability to walk out of the battles with their principles intact, their honor preserved.

Jacob Lapp, 76, never has wavered from his principles. He spent his 67th birthday in Chautauqua County Jail, refusing to be bailed out, for harboring the teen runaway. He routinely mailed back income tax refunds, saying he hadn't earned the money. He also rejected farm subsidies and his monthly Social Security checks, not believing in either system.

For the family patriarch, it has always been about principles - and about standing up for what he believes is right.

"I learned earlier in life that if you don't stand up for what you believe, you'll fall for anything," he said.

Lapp family members, though, have paid for that privilege.

Four family members spent eight months in the Chautauqua County Jail for their role in harboring the runaway juvenile. The family claims it lost about $65,000 to the federal government in a settlement over unfiled tax returns and workers' compensation payments. And the battle with the IRS didn't end until the Lapps agreed to dissolve their successful Cassalea Farms business two years ago.

The Lapps also found no way to be assured that their government battles wouldn't continue. They still refused to file tax returns, saying they never could be sure how much money they grossed in their barter-heavy business. They also refused to give up hiring underage children not living on the farm.

While their decision to move preceded the recent Iraqi war, the conflict also helped cement their view that they were doing the right thing.

"You could say it makes us feel more resolute," Barbara Lyn Lapp said. "We don't approve of bullying at a local, national or international level."

The Lapps proved worthy opponents for local and federal government officials in two widely publicized cases:

In April 1993, Donald Stefan took his son, Billy, then 15, from a diner near a Bradford, Pa., children's home where Cattaraugus County had placed the boy after Stefan lost custody of him. This curious case was complicated by charges and countercharges about abuse and maltreatment of the boy by his father and in the children's home.

The Lapps then harbored Billy from authorities, until he was reunited with his father on the youth's 16th birthday.

The authorities said the Lapps defied the law, engaged in illegal acts and made a public spectacle out of their stance. The family countered that government officials had overstepped their authority.

Jacob, his daughters Barbara Lyn and Rachel and one son-in-law all walked out of the Chautauqua County Jail - defiant and unrepentant - in April 1994, after serving eight months on misdemeanor charges. The Lapps refused plea deals that they say could have gotten them out of jail, because they claimed they never did anything wrong.

"We've been in here for eight months and haven't submitted to a system that we maintain is immoral," Barbara Lyn Lapp said two days before her release.

Nine years later, she said she thinks both sides developed a mutual respect for each other.

"There wasn't anything they could do to make us back down," she said. "And they proved the punishment could be pretty harsh."

Starting in 1991, the Lapps stopped filing federal income tax returns, claiming that providing accurate wage and earnings figures for their dairy farm was impossible. The IRS, seeking $51,000 in wage deductions, penalties and interest, later seized the family's milk checks from a processor, after the family wouldn't answer the charges in court.

In 2001, the family says, the two sides settled, with the Lapps closing their dairy business but refusing to sign the IRS forms.

The cost was steep, but again, the Lapps wouldn't budge.

"They knew we wouldn't back down on principles," Barbara Lyn said. "They never made us sign those forms."

The Lapps have inspired protests and public meetings about civil disobedience, and they have carved out a small following, but they never quite captured the public's widespread support.

"A lot of good people came forward to support us when the law was bothering us," Barbara Lyn said. "But they took it too lightly. People in general take it too lightly when the government does unfair things, like putting us in jail for standing up for a young man that didn't have any voice in where he was going to live."

Her sister Rachel finds the whole situation sad.

"We still have our principles, even with the losses we've taken," Rachel Lapp said. "But there is something sad about it. I have lost a certain confidence in those around me. It's sad when you have to leave the country of your birth."

Five Lapp siblings plan to stay in the United States, at least for a while. But the core of the family is leaving, after eight generations on these shores.

"We don't like the direction that this country is taking politically," Barbara Lyn Lapp said. "We have a lot of appreciation for this country and for what it offered our ancestors eight generations ago. But we think the freedoms and the right to direct your life and business the way you want to have been slipping for the last couple hundred years."