Mercer Street Friends Center | |
Location | 151 Mercer Street Trenton, New Jersey |
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Coordinates | 40°13′2″N74°45′40″W / 40.21722°N 74.76111°W |
Built | 1858 |
Part of | Mill Hill Historic District (ID77000880) |
NRHP reference No. | 71000505 [1] |
NJRHP No. | 1780 [2] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | August 12, 1971 |
Designated CP | December 12, 1977 |
Designated NJRHP | May 6, 1971 |
The Mercer Street Friends Center is located at 151 Mercer Street in the Mill Hill neighborhood of the city Trenton in Mercer County, New Jersey. Built in 1858, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 12, 1971, for its significance in architecture, religion, and social history. [3] It was added as a contributing property to the Mill Hill Historic District in 1977. [4] It now houses the main offices of Mercer Street Friends, [5] a Trenton-based Quaker-affiliated social service agency founded in 1958.
When Mahlon Stacy and other Quakers arrived in the area in 1679, Trenton was known as "The Falls." Stacy was instrumental in establishing the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting in 1684, which included friends from Crosswicks and Trenton. In 1686, Quakers in what became Trenton organized the first local charity, which assisted friends who had met with misfortune. Stacy contributed corn from his mill, which gave the Mill Hill area its name. After William Trent purchased land from the Stacy family in 1714, the town was called Trent's-town, sometimes Trent-town, and finally Trenton. [6]
In 1827, the Society of Friends in the United States divided into two major branches, one known as Orthodox or conservative, the other known as Liberal or Hicksite, after Elias Hicks. The meeting house at Hanover and Montgomery Streets in Trenton, finished in 1739, was retained by the Hicksites. The Orthodox Friends, who had been meeting in homes, started building the brick meeting house at 151 Mercer Street in 1857 and completed it in 1858.
The graveyard was always an attraction for energetic young people, and in 1917, The Sunday Times Advertiser printed the reminiscences of Howell Quigley, who remembered being one of a gang of Third Ward boys, the "turn-cap-follow-me clique," who, "on their run through the neighborhood, across the fences and yards" would disturb the sanctity of the Quaker Church lot...even climbing onto the roof of the building, in and out of the barns, over the sheds, into cellars, anywhere, everywhere, and, oh, the dare of the leaders." Another commentator from 1917 grumbled, "I wouldn’t give a two-year-old bull for the best boy ever raised on Mill Hill," a view disputed by Mr. Quigley who became one of the proprietors of the printing firm of MacCrellish & Quigley and maintained his home on Jackson Street in the Mill Hill area, where he had lived from boyhood. [7]
In 1955, the Philadelphia Orthodox and Hicksite Friends reunited and in 1957, the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting authorized the renovation and use of the meeting house on Mercer Street for activities that would express "Friends social concerns. [8]
Conservative Friends are members of a certain branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the United States of America, Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa. English Friends affiliated with the Conservative branch tend to use the term Primitive, or Plain. There is no single unifying association of Conservative Friends, unlike three of the other branches of Quakerism in America, represented by Friends United Meeting, Evangelical Friends International, and Friends General Conference.
Concordville is an unincorporated community in Concord Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located 20 miles west-southwest of Philadelphia, at the junction of U.S. Routes 1 and 322. This intersection can be traced back to two of the earliest roads in Pennsylvania, Baltimore Pike which became U.S. 1, and Concord Pike, which connected Pennsylvania with Delaware.
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
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Mill Hill is a historic neighborhood located within the city of Trenton in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is considered to be part of Downtown Trenton. The Mill Hill Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
The William Trent House is a historic building located at 15 Market Street in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey. It was built in 1719 for William Trent and is the oldest building in Trenton. He founded the eponymous town, which became the capital of New Jersey. It has served as the residence for three Governors. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places and listed as a National Historic Landmark on April 15, 1970, for its significance as an example of Early Georgian Colonial architecture.
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The Douglass House is a historic house currently located at the corner of Front and Montgomery Streets in the Mill Hill neighborhood of the city Trenton in Mercer County, New Jersey. It served as George Washington's headquarters prior to the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. Listed as the Bright–Douglass House, it was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1936, when the house was located in Mahlon Stacy Park near the Delaware River. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1970, for its significance in architecture, military and social history. It was added as a contributing property to the Mill Hill Historic District on December 12, 1977.
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