Camden Friends Meetinghouse

{{short description|Historic church in Delaware, United States}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}

{{Infobox NRHP

| name = Camden Friends Meetinghouse

| nrhp_type =

| image = Camden Friends Meetinghouse, East Camden-Wyoming Avenue, Camden (Kent County, Delaware).jpg

| caption = Camden Friends Meetinghouse, HABS Photo, 1936

| location = Camden Wyoming Avenue, Camden, Delaware

| coordinates = {{coord|39.11444|-75.54793|source:Doncram|display=inline,title}}

| locmapin = Delaware#USA

| built = 1805

| builder = Hunn, Jonathan; Hunn, Patience

| architecture =

| added = April 03, 1973

| area = {{convert|0.1|acre|ha}}

| refnum = 73000485{{NRISref|2009a}}

}}

Camden Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house located on Delaware Route 10 (Camden Wyoming Avenue) in Camden, Kent County, Delaware. It was built in 1805, and was still in operation as a Quaker meeting house when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. A modern Camden Friends Meeting and Social Hall has been built behind the historic building, which now serves the meeting, and was designed to be energy-efficient and architecturally respectful of the historic building.{{cite web|url=https://nesea.org/project-case-study/camden-friends-meeting-house/general |title=Camden Friends Meeting House |publisher=Northeast Sustainable Energy Association |access-date=May 29, 2021}}

Camden was a center of Quaker population; the town itself was laid out by Daniel Mifflin, a member of the Society of Friends, in 1783. The Camden Monthly Meeting, or Camden Meeting, was established in 1830, as a merger of the 1828-founded Motherkill Monthly Meeting and the Duck Creek Meeting, and met alternately at this building and at a Little Creek Meetinghouse until 1865, after which it met just here. In 1973, it was the only active Quaker meeting in southern Delaware, and was "under the jurisdiction of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting."

The meetinghouse is a two-story, gambrel-roofed, brick building. The roof is punctuated by two shed roofed dormers. The second floor housed a school that operated from 1805 to 1882.{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=73000485}} |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Camden Friends Meetinghouse |author=Vincent Rogers|date=July 1972|publisher=National Park Service}} and {{NRHP url|id=73000485|title=accompanying four photos from 1972|photos=y}}

Numerous members participated in the Underground Railroad, including John Hunn who was a conductor and in fact "Chief Engineer" of Delaware operations.{{cite web|url=https://www.visitdelaware.com/listings/camden-friends-meeting/1602/ |title=Camden Friends Meetinghouse|publisher=VisitDelaware.Com |access-date=May 29, 2021}}

The Meetinghouse's cemetery, which has notably tall gravestones, contains the remains of John Hunn and his son, Delaware Governor John Hunn.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

The {{convert|2,864|sqft|m2}} new meetinghouse won the 2011 Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA)'a "Zero Net Energy Building Award, was one of the 2010 Real Estate and Construction Review's "Best New Green Projects in the Northeast Region", and won the "2010 Preservation Award of the Year" of the Friends of Old Dover.

File:Camden DE Friends.JPG

File:Camden DE Friends 2.JPG