Friends meeting houses in Pennsylvania

Friends meeting houses are places of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. A "meeting" is the equivalent of a church congregation, and a "meeting house" is the equivalent of a church building.

Several Friends meetings were founded in Pennsylvania in the early 1680s.[a] The Merion Friends Meeting House is the only surviving meeting house constructed before 1700.[3] Thirty-two surviving Pennsylvania meeting houses were constructed before 1800, and are listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) or as contributing properties in historic districts.[4] More than one hundred meeting houses constructed before 1900 were documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey, and published in Silent Witness: Quaker Meeting Houses in the Delaware Valley, 1695 to the Present (2002).[5] Those that were involved in the Underground Railroad have been identified by the Federal NETWORK TO FREEDOM program (NTF).

One of the key tenets of the Religious Society of Friends is pacifism, adherence to the Peace Testimony. The "Free Quakers" were supporters of the American Revolutionary War, separated from the Society, and built their own meeting house in Philadelphia, at 5th & Arch Streets (1783).

In 1827, the Great Separation divided Pennsylvania Quakers into two branches, Orthodox and Hicksite. Many individual meetings also separated, but one branch generally kept possession of the meeting house. The two branches reunited in the 1950s.

  1. ^ List of passengers aboard The Welcome, from The Welcome Society of Pennsylvania.
  2. ^ Cary Hutto, "What ship carried William Penn and some of the first settlers to Pennsylvania across the Atlantic?" Historical Society of Pennsylvania.[1]
  3. ^ Tyson, Rae. "Our First Friends, The Early Quakers". www.phmc.state.pa.us. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  4. ^ Friend Meeting House Survey, Historic American Buildings Survey, 2002, notes used for Silent Witness, available at Friends Historic Library at Swarthmore College.
  5. ^ Historic American Buildings Survey (2002). Silent Witness: Quaker Meeting Houses in the Delaware Valley, 1695 to the Present. p. 56.


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