Oblong Friends Meetinghouse | |
Location | Meetinghouse Rd. on Quaker Hill, Pawling, NY |
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Nearest city | Danbury, CT |
Coordinates | 41°34′46″N73°32′32″W / 41.57944°N 73.54222°W Coordinates: 41°34′46″N73°32′32″W / 41.57944°N 73.54222°W |
Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
Built | 1763 |
MPS | Dutchess County Quaker Meeting Houses TR |
NRHP reference No. | 73001182 [1] |
Added to NRHP | January 12, 1973 |
The Oblong Friends Meeting House is a mid-18th century Friends Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends in the hamlet of Quaker Hill, in the town of Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, United States listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.
Members of the Religious Society of Friends settled on Quaker Hill in the 1730s and sought permission to establish a meeting and build a meeting house in 1740. The first meeting house was constructed across from the present building in 1742, but as membership grew, this building became too small and in 1763, the Yearly Meeting decided to erect "a framed house of timber, the dimensions to be 45 feet (14 m) long, 40 feet (12 m) wide and 15 feet (4.6 m) stud to admit of galleries." This new house was built in 1764 and is the structure that has remained on the site since. Benjamin Sherman, carpenter of Quaker Hill, is credited with building the new Hicksite Meeting House in 1764. [2] [3]
In 1767, the question was raised in the meeting house whether it was "consistent with the Christian spirit to hold a person in slavery". After years of discussion, the question was answered in 1776 by the resolution that meetings were not to accept financial contributions or services from members owning slaves.
During the American Revolutionary War a portion of the Continental Army camped in the nearby hills, both during the fall of 1778 and the winter of 1779. The meeting house was commandeered by General Washington's officers to be used as a military hospital. [4]
In 1828, the New York Meeting of the Society of Friends split into the Orthodox and Hicksite Societies of Friends. From then on, the Hicksites used the Meeting House, and the Orthodox Society, which had fewer members, built its own meeting house in 1831, just 200 feet (61 m) to the northwest. The latter building was later converted into a private residence.
Membership in the area's Society of Friends declined in the course of the 19th century and the meetings were "laid down" in 1885. The property was acquired by the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Pawling in 1936 which has preserved the building since then.
The building is a two-story building, five bays wide and two bays deep. Inside the shingled structure, there are sliding panels which divide the men's and women's portions of the building. As with most meeting houses, there are two front doors, one for each gender. [5]
The Meeting House is located on the north side of Meeting House Road, about 100 meters from where it branches off from Quaker Hill Road, in the Hamlet of Quaker Hill, Town of Pawling, NY 12564.
Pawling is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. Its population was 8,463 at the 2010 census. The town is named after Catherine Pauling, the daughter of Henry Beekman, who held the second largest land patent in the county. A misprint caused the U to change to a W and the name stuck.
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held. Typically Friends meeting houses do not have steeples.
The Akin Free Library on Quaker Hill is a historic eclectic late Victorian stone building in the hamlet of Quaker Hill, town of Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, USA, listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic place of local significance since 1991.
The Cornwall Friends Meeting House is a historic meeting house located on a 5.4-acre (2.2 ha) parcel of land at the junction of Quaker Avenue and US 9W in Cornwall, New York, United States, near Cornwall-St. Luke's Hospital. It is both the oldest religious building in the town, and the first one built. In 1988 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a well-preserved, minimally-altered example of a late 18th-century Quaker meeting house.
The John Kane House, also one of several places known as Washington's Headquarters, is located on East Main Street in Pawling, New York, United States. Built in the mid-18th century, it was home during that time to two men who confronted the authorities and were punished for it. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington used the house as his headquarters when the Continental Army was garrisoned in the area.
Quaker Hill is a hamlet in the town of Pawling in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The community shares its name with the twelve-mile-long ridge on which it is located; the ridge is located near the Connecticut state line. Quaker Hill is in the southern portion of the area known as the "Oblong" that was designated by the Treaty of Dover in 1731, and "known from pre-Revolutionary times as Quaker Hill". In colonial times Quaker Hill separated "the English [settlers] of New England and the Hudson Valley Dutch population."
The Nine Partners Meeting House and Cemetery is located at the junction of NY state highway 343 and Church Street, in the village of Millbrook, New York, United States. The meeting house, the third one on the site, was built by a group of Friends ("Quakers") from the Cape Cod region, Nantucket and Rhode Island in 1780.
Amawalk Friends Meeting House is located on Quaker Church Road in Yorktown Heights, New York, United States. It is a timber frame structure built in the 1830s. In 1989 it and its adjoining cemetery were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Beekman Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery is located on Emans Road in LaGrangeville, New York, United States. The meeting house is a wooden building from the early 19th century that has been unused and vacant for decades. As a result, it is in an advanced state of decay, and mostly collapsed. The cemetery, better preserved, is located a short distance away.
Clinton Corners Friends Church is a historic Society of Friends meeting house on Salt Point Turnpike/Main Street in Clinton Corners, Dutchess County, New York. It is located directly across the street from the Creek Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery. The congregation originated during the Quaker schism of 1828 when Creek Friends Meeting split into Hicksite and Orthodox meetings.
Creek Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery is a historic Society of Friends meeting house and cemetery on Salt Point Turnpike/Main Street in Clinton Corners, Dutchess County, New York. It was built between 1777 and 1782. The meeting house is a two-story, squarish building constructed of fieldstone. Land for the building was given by Able Peters whose substantial brick house is the next building on the same side of the road north of the meeting house. In 1828 the Friends Creek Meeting split into Hicksite and Orthodox meetings. The Orthodox meeting moved about a mile north of Clinton Corners to the Shingle Meeting House located on the grounds of the current Friends Upton Lake Cemetery. The Creek Meeting sold the building to the Upton Lake Grange in 1927 and joined the Bulls Head Meeting in 1936.
Evesham Friends Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house at Moorestown-Mt. Laurel and Hainesport-Mt. Laurel Roads in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, United States.
Chichester Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house at 611 Meetinghouse Road near Boothwyn, in Upper Chichester Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. This area, near Chester, was one of the earliest areas settled by Quakers in Pennsylvania. The meetinghouse, first built in 1688, then rebuilt after a fire in 1769, reflects this early Quaker heritage. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Appoquinimink Friends Meetinghouse, also known as the Odessa Friends Meetinghouse, is a very small but historic Quaker meetinghouse on Main Street in Odessa, Delaware. It was built in 1785 by David Wilson and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Members of the meeting, including John Hunn and his cousin John Alston, were active in the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman may have hid in the meetinghouse. Measuring about 20 feet (6.1 m) by 22 feet (6.7 m), it may be the smallest brick house of worship in the United States.
Mercer Street Friends Center is located in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The building was built in 1858 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 12, 1971. It now houses the main offices of Mercer Street Friends, a Trenton-based Quaker-affiliated social service agency founded in 1958.
Hopewell Friends Meeting House is an 18th-century Quaker meeting house located the northern Frederick County, Virginia one mile west of the community of Clear Brook at 604 Hopewell Road. Clear Brook, VA 22624. This community was the home of Thomas William "Tom" Fox (1951–2006), a Quaker peace activist, affiliated with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) murdered in 2006 in Iraq.
The Quakers immigrated from New York, the New England States and Pennsylvania. They are a pacifist religion, and during this period were also a "plain folk" rejecting all ornamentation in clothing, speech and meeting houses (churches). The Children of Peace were founded during the War of 1812 after a schism in York County. A further schism occurred in 1828, leaving two branches, "Orthodox" Quakers and "Hicksite" Quakers.
Fair Hill Burial Ground is a historic cemetery in the Fairhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by the Religious Society of Friends in 1703, it fell into disuse until the 1840s when it was revived by the Hicksite Quaker community of Philadelphia, which played an important role in the abolition and early women's rights movements. The cemetery is currently operated by the Fair Hill Burial Corporation, which is owned by Quakers and neighborhood community members.
Friends meeting houses are places of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. A "meeting" is the equivalent of a church congregation, and a "meeting house" is the equivalent of a church building.