Arch Street Friends Meeting House

Arch Street Friends Meeting House, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a Friends Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It is the oldest meetinghouse of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) still in use in the United States.

Pennsylvania founder and Quaker William Penn donated the land to the Society in 1693 as a burial ground for members. The meetinghouse was built between 1803 and 1805 atop the graveyard and then enlarged in 1811, when the west wing was added to accommodate the Women's Monthly Meeting. The original east wing now houses exhibits on the life of Penn, and the west wing is used for meetings for worship.

Notable members have included abolitionist Lucretia Mott. Edward Hicks, the noted painter and cousin of Elias Hicks, attended the yearly meeting.

The meeting house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2011.

Read more about Arch Street Friends Meeting House:  Notable Interments

Famous quotes containing the words arch, street, friends, meeting and/or house:

    Men themselves have wondered
    What they see in me.
    They try so much
    But they can’t touch
    My inner mystery.
    When I try to show them,
    They say they still can’t see.
    I say,
    It’s in the arch of my back,
    The sun of my smile,
    The ride of my breasts,
    The grace of my style.
    I’m a woman
    Phenomenally.
    Phenomenal woman,
    That’s me.
    Maya Angelou (b. 1928)

    Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,
    Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.”
    Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

    I would that there was nothing in the world
    But my beloved that night and day had perished,
    And all that is and all that is to be,
    All that is not the meeting of our lips.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    When cups went round at close of day
    Is not that how good stories run?
    The gods were sitting at the board
    In their great house at Slievenamon.
    They sang a drowsy song, or snored,
    For all were full of wine and meat.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)