Third Haven Meeting House (wikipedia.com)
Tucked away among the many denominations that make up the tapestry of Christianity in America is a relatively small and unassuming group called the Religious Society of Friends. Better known as the Quakers, the Religious Society of Friends became known for their unusual religious meetings without leadership rather than traditional Protestant worship services with ministers or pastors as well as their odd practice of dancing and ‘quaking’ to express their joy to God. The Quakers are a relatively small denomination now, but during the Colonial era were much more prominent and influential, counting such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin among its members. Some of the oldest surviving religious structures (in this case, meeting houses) in America are the legacy of the Quakers in this period.
Great Friends Meeting House
Newport, Rhode Island
Web: www.newporthistory.org/properties/great-friends-meeting-house
The Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers, began to establish communities in New England as early as the mid-17th century. Not particularly welcome in the less tolerant Congregationalist-Puritan colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, many Quakers settled in Rhode Island. One of the largest Quaker communities became established in Newport in 1657. They constructed the Great Friends Meeting House in 1699.
This meetinghouse was one of the largest in the colonies at the time, and only grew bigger with several expansions over the next two centuries. It was here that the Religious Society of Friends had their national meeting every year until 1905, when it was moved to Massachusetts. The Quaker community of Newport has since dwindled, and its Meetinghouse turned over to the Newport Historic Society as part of that city’s National Historic District and is run as a museum.
Old Quaker Meeting House
Flushing, New York
Web: http://flushingfriends.org
Quakers from the Netherlands began settling on Long Island in the 1650s. Because Long Island was part of the Dutch territory of New Netherland, the Quakers there were often hassled and fined by the colonial government, which was tied to the Dutch Reform Church. However, persecutions died down by the 1660s, just in time for the British takeover of New Netherland. Under the British colonial government, the Quakers generally fared much better, and the community was able to build its first meeting house in 1694.
This church has been in continual use by the Quakers ever since, save only a brief interlude when the meetinghouse was seized by the British Army during the American Revolution. The Old Quaker Meetinghouse in Flushing is the oldest Quaker meetinghouse still in use as well as the oldest religious structure still standing within the five boroughs of New York City.
Merion Friends Meeting House
Merion Station, Pennsylvania
Web: http://merionfriends.org
In 1682, the first immigrants from Wales began arriving in the American colonies. The earliest group included Quakers who were fleeing religious persecution in England, and these settled in what is now Merion, Pennsylvania. There they established what may be the oldest meeting of the Religious Society of Friends outside of New England and New York.
The Quakers at Merion built the initial meetinghouse sometime around 1695, though the larger expanded meeting house was not completed until over a decade later. It has hosted the Merion Friends Meeting ever since. The Merion Friends Meetinghouse is the oldest place of worship in the state of Pennsylvania and the third oldest Quaker meeting house in the United States.
Third Haven Meeting House
Easton, Maryland
Web: www.thirdhaven.org
Small groups of immigrants belonging to the Religious Society of Friends began to arrive in what is now Talbot County in Maryland in the 1650s. While a few very small meetinghouses were established at this time, larger waves of Quakers did not begin to arrive for another few decades. In 1681, Johan Edmondson, a local merchant and devout Quaker, donated the land for a new meeting house which was the largest yet constructed south of Pennsylvania. In 1684 the Third Haven Meetinghouse was completed and the first meeting was held here.
Throughout the colonial era, the Third Haven Meetinghouse, also known as the Great Meetinghouse, hosted one of the two annual Quaker meetings every year in the state of Maryland. It later became the site of all such meetings. It is the oldest church in Maryland, and one of the oldest churches in continuous use in the United States.
Honorable Mention – Arch Street Friends Meeting House
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Web: http://archstreetmeetinghouse.org
William Penn, founder of what would later become the state of Pennsylvania, was a prominent Quaker when he moved to the American colonies in the late 17th century. Part of his reason for founding the new colony of Pennsylvania was to provide a place of refuge for Quakers fleeing persecution in Europe. In 1701 her personally donated land in Philadelphia to the local Society of Friends group.
It would be another century before the Arch Street Friends Meeting House was completed in 1805, but due to its association with William Penn is sometimes mistakenly considered to be much older. It is however one of the oldest surviving brick-built meeting houses in America, as well as the one of the largest Quaker houses of worship in the world. The Arch Street Friends Meeting House is still in use.
I am very grateful for Leslie G. Shah’s measured and informative response. As a convinced Friend and rather experienced historical geographer with academic experience, I find that very few people (especially Americans) are even acquainted with the nature of, the history of – nor impact of – Quakers throughout America’s history and development from the 1650s to the present. Quakers hold to the most diverse of religious beliefs, from traditional cristocentric to nontheistic, in traditional unprogrammed meetings for worship to fully programmed ministerial churches, from the most conservative to most progressive attitudes regarding social structure and economic practice. No two Quakers have identical beliefs nor even have the same religious origins; convinced Friends come to us from every religion in the world, from the most open and intellectual to the most reactionary, fundamentalist or Pentecostal. But what truly defines Quakers is our common belief in a Divine spirit that exists within each and every one of us, in the equality of all persons of every possible description, in the continuing revelation that comes from seeking enlightenment not only from the past but from within ourselves today, and our commitment to Truth through seeking leadings that we give Witness to and commit to action upon. It is no small accident that Quakers are the only religious body ever to have been recognized by the Nobel Peace Committee for our peaceful, non-violent actions to help humanity.
Very well said. I did not know that about the Nobel Peace prize, but I am not surprised.
I believe the Meeting House in Sandwich MA, which you have not mentioned is the oldest ‘continuous ‘ meeting house in U.S.
I’ve never come across this one in all of my research. I will check it out. Thanks for the tip!
Thank you, Howard Kramer, for the information you provide. Just a note, Benjamin Franklin was never a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and is buried in the burial ground at Christ Church in Philadelphia, a location very near the Arch Street Meetinghouse you reference. Christ Church was Church of England (Anglican), now Episcopalian. Had Franklin been a Quaker he would have been buried in a Quaker burial site. I have been a Quaker all my life and familiar with the history of Friends in America.
I am looking for information about a Quaker Meeting House. May have been listed as in Westmoreland, NY, or Dix, NY. I researched this Meeting House when I first moved to my current home in Westmoreland, NY. I was told that the Meeting House on Bartlett Road (at my home) was taken down in 1925. Aside from the Quaker Cemetery adjacent I have never been able to find any additional information about this. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might proceed.
Sorry. Probably try your local county records office. Google might help.
Great article. Great website.
Thanks for your work.
Thanks you for the encouraging feedback!
Great article. Thanks for your work.
Thank you!
You are misinformed. Quakers do not dance or quake’to express their joy to God (except on the dance floor, to the radio, a live band, to singing, or when no one is looking). We stood before the judge many a time for not doffing our hats to “lord and ladies”, for our practice of meditative prayer, for refusing to take an oath, for “transgressions” that made us and make us leaders. One judge who had seen too many Friends in his court that day spoke with a kind of for heaven’s sakes frustration that Friends quake with righteousness and the term Quaker was born. During times of worship, Meeting for Worship, we sit still and in silence until if we are so moved to speak we rise and speak truth and testament as we understand it. There is that of God in each of us. To speak of our truth and of testament is to create a shared understanding of the ways in which we are in relationship to the “Whole of our Being” (a term I use).
I always do my best to be as thorough as possible in my research, but sometimes I definitely miss things. Constructive criticism is always welcome here, and I hope readers of this article will check out your comment!
Ben Franklin was not a Quaker
My apologies. Which, if any, faith did he follow?