The Merion Friends Meeting House is an active and historic
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
meeting house at 615 Montgomery Avenue in
Merion Station,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
. Completed about 1715, it is the second oldest Friends meeting house in the United States (after the
Third Haven Meeting House
The Third Haven Meeting House is generally considered the oldest-surviving Friends meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends in America, and it is a cornerstone of Quaker history in Talbot County, Maryland.
History
The history of Quak ...
in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
), with distinctively Welsh architectural features that distinguish it from later meeting houses. It is home to the Merion
monthly meeting In the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a monthly meeting, area meeting (UK),British or regional meeting (AU)Australian is the basic governing body, a congregation which holds regular meetings for business for Quakers in a given area. The ...
. The meeting house was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 1999.
[ and ]
Description and history
The Merion Friends Meeting House is located in the village of Merion Station, a neighborhood in
Lower Merion Township
Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merioneth in north Wales. Merioneth is an English-language transc ...
, on the north side of Montgomery Avenue and Haverford Avenue. It is a 1-1/2-story structure, built out of locally quarried stone covered in plaster. It is laid out in a T shape, and is covered by a cross-gabled roof. Its main facade is three bays wide, with a center entrance sheltered by a gabled porch. The flanking windows, as well as that in the gable above are topped by segmented-arch lintels. The front gable and both side gables have pent roof sections. The principal rafters supporting the roof are bent, a unique adaptation of a medieval Welsh construction technique to the building. The property also includes a burial ground, estimated to have more than 2,000 burials (many of which are unmarked in accordance with early Quaker custom).
The meeting was founded by the first known group of Welsh settlers in the Americas, who arrived in 1682. Construction of the meeting house was begun in about 1695, and was completed around 1715. The building does not follow what are now considered standard norms for Quaker meeting houses. Prior to the English
Toleration Act 1688
The Toleration Act 1688 ( 1 Will. & Mar. c. 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration or the Toleration Act 1689, was an act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 ...
, which allowed Quakers to worship openly and freely in England and its colonies, Quakers traditionally met either in the open, or in houses or barns, and had no settled architecture to satisfy the organizational needs of their congregations, which call for sex-segregated business meetings. The Welsh-infused architecture of this building stands as a memorial to the early experimental period of meeting house design.
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...
preached in the meeting house.
See also
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List of the oldest buildings in Pennsylvania
This article lists the oldest buildings in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States, including the oldest houses in the state and certain other extant structures. Some dates are approximate, based upon dendrochronology, architectural stud ...
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Friends meeting houses in Pennsylvania
Friends meeting houses are places of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. A "meeting" is the equivalent of a Church (congregation), church congregation, and a "meeting house" is the equivalent of a church building.
Several Fri ...
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania
This is a List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania. There are 169 in the state. Listed in the tables below are the 102 NHLs outside Philadelphia. For the 67 within Philadelphia, see List of National Historic Landmarks in Philadelphi ...
*
References
External links
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Historic American Buildings Survey
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star.
Computer scientists and Mathematici ...
(HABS) documentation:
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{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Churches completed in 1714
Churches in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Historic American Buildings Survey in Pennsylvania
National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Quaker meeting houses in Pennsylvania
1682 establishments in Pennsylvania
18th-century Quaker meeting houses