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:

    “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)

    “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)

    ““We’re all friends here” is a prelude to fraud. “I am sincere” is a prelude to lying.”
    —Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    “It’s a rare parent who can see his or her child clearly and objectively. At a school board meeting I attended . . . the only definition of a gifted child on which everyone in the audience could agree was “mine.””
    —Jane Adams (20th century)

    “Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
    An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,”
    —James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916)