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:
“An arch never sleeps.”
—East Indian saying.
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“Certain faults are necessary for the existence of the individual. We would resent it if old friends were to get rid of certain peculiarities.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“I’ve met a lot of murderers in my day, but Dr. Garth, whatever he is, is the first man I’ve ever met who was polite to me and still made the chills run up and down my back.”
—Robert D. Andrews. Nick Grindé. Police detective, Before I Hang, describing his meeting with Dr. Garth (1940)
“Somewhere between the overly intrusive parent and the parent who forgets about us after we’re out of the house is the ideally empathetic parent who recognizes the relativity of choice, the errors of his or her own way, and our need to find our own way and who can stay with us at a respectful distance while we do it.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)