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.{{efn|Charles II of England granted a charter to William Penn for the Pennsylvania Colony in 1681, in repayment of a large debt to Penn's late father. Penn, a Quaker, quickly drew up plans to divide the land within the colony, but in a way that encouraged settlement rather than real estate speculation. Initially, Pennsylvania was a predominantly, but not exclusively, Quaker colony, with Huguenots, Jews, and other persecuted religious minorities among the settlers. Penn was one of about sixty passengers who arrived at Philadelphia aboard The Welcome, in October 1682.[https://www.welcomesociety.org/ancestors-approved-memberships.html List of passengers aboard The Welcome], from The Welcome Society of Pennsylvania. It is estimated that more than 2,000 European settlers arrived by ship in the first two years of the colony.Cary Hutto, "What ship carried William Penn and some of the first settlers to Pennsylvania across the Atlantic?" Historical Society of Pennsylvania.[https://hsp.org/blogs/question-of-the-week/what-ship-carried-william-penn-and-some-of-the-first-settlers-to-pennsylvania-across-the-atlantic-oc]}} The Merion Friends Meeting House is the only surviving meeting house constructed before 1700.{{cite web|last1=Tyson|first1=Rae|title=Our First Friends, The Early Quakers|url=http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-heritage/our-first-friends-early-quakers.html|website=www.phmc.state.pa.us|accessdate=12 January 2018}} 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.Friend Meeting House Survey, Historic American Buildings Survey, 2002, notes used for Silent Witness, available at Friends Historic Library at Swarthmore College. 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).{{cite book|last1=Historic American Buildings Survey|author-link=Historic American Buildings Survey|title=Silent Witness: Quaker Meeting Houses in the Delaware Valley, 1695 to the Present|date=2002|pages=56|url=http://www.pym.org/publications/pym-books-brochures/silent-witness/}} 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.

Meeting houses

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Friends meeting houses in Pennsylvania

Meeting houses

Demolished meeting houses

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