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:
“Dark accurate plunger down the successive knell
Of arch on arch, where ogives burst a red
Reverberance of hail upon the dead
Thunder like an exploding crucible!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Outside America I should hardly be believed if I told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back Bay.”
—Mary Antin (1881–1949)
“Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.””
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)
“I think it is better to show love by meeting needs than to keep telling my son that I love him. Right now he is learning to tie his shoes. He is old enough, so even though it’s hard for him, sometimes I insist. But once in a while when I see he’s tired I still do it for him, and I have noticed that while I am tying his shoe, he says, “I love you, Mommy.” When he says, “I love you,” I know that he knows that he is loved.”
—Anonymous Parent (20th century)
“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then that the world exists for you.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)