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 seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time; but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The last time I saw Paris
Her heart was warm and gay,
I heard the laughter of her heart in every street cafĂ©.”
—Oscar Hammerstein II (18951960)
“No expectation fails there,
No pleasing habit ends,
No man grows old, no girl grows cold,
But friends walk by friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians ... how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)