 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2018) |
Springfield Friends Meeting is an historic Quaker meeting located in High Point, North Carolina.
| This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2018) |
Springfield Friends Meeting is an historic Quaker meeting located in High Point, North Carolina.
The first meeting for worship was held in 1773, when a group of families purchased 12 acres of land for the price of 5 shillings and built a log structure (no longer standing) which was the original meetinghouse. In 1780, at the request of Deep River Meeting, Springfield was set up as a preparative meeting. It was established as a monthly meeting in New Garden Quarter in 1790.
A second building (no longer standing) was built in 1805, and in 1858 a more substantial meetinghouse was built of bricks made on the site. It has separate entrances for men and women, which were the tradition at the time, and the old stone “uppenblocks” for mounting horses are still in front of the building. The 1858 meetinghouse is now the home for the Museum of Old Domestic Life, a hands-on museum of common household and farm implements from the 1800s.
The “new” meetinghouse was built in 1926 with guidance from member and architect John Jay Blair (1860-1937). This fourth building is the one used by Springfield Friends today. A large brick entry to the meeting grounds was added in 1931. A chapel was added in the early 1950s and a large new wing at the back with a fellowship hall and Sunday School rooms was built in 1964.
After the Civil War, Springfield Friends Meeting was the headquarters for eight years for the Baltimore Association of Friends to Advise and Assist Friends in the Southern States (usually known simply as the Baltimore Association), a group of Quaker business people and interested Friends from around the country. [1] This group rebuilt schools, trained teachers and religious leaders, and established a Model Farm to demonstrate modern agricultural techniques and distribute seed and tools to farmers in war-ravaged North Carolina. The director chosen to lead this work was Allen Jay (1831-1910), a Quaker from Indiana, who together with his wife Martha had a great influence on Quakers throughout the South.
The house where the Jays lived is still standing and was used for many years as a regional office of the American Friends Service Committee. It is currently used by the Friends Emergency Material Assistance Program (FEMAP), which distributes health and personal care kits to infants, prisoners and migrant workers. Two local schools, a gymnasium built by the Works Progress Administration, and a subdivision are also named after Allen Jay.
Springfield Friends was a traditional “unprogrammed” congregation until the 1870s, when many Quaker meetings were swept up in the revival movement. Members of Springfield were active in the founding of High Point Friends Meeting, Archale Friends Meeting and various other Quaker congregations in the area. The first full-time pastor, George Welker, was called to serve in 1914.
Springfield Friends were active for more than 200 years in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, and were instrumental in the founding of Quaker Lake Camp in Climax, NC. Following the breakup of the yearly meeting in 2017, Springfield Friends are now a part of the new North Carolina Fellowship of Friends.
| Pastor | Years |
|---|---|
| George Welker | 1914-1918 |
| Clara Cox | 1918-1939 |
| Tom Sykes, Don Conrad, Reuben Payne, Daryl Kent | 1939-1941 |
| Harold Hadley | 1941-1944 |
| Milton Hadley | 1945-1951 |
| Millard Jones | 1951-1954 |
| David Stanfield | 1954-1961 |
| Max Rees | 1961-1996 |
| Terry Venable | 1997-2001 |
| Ray Luther | 2001-2014 |
| Joshua Brown | 2015-present |
The Hunts, Tomlinsons, Englishes, Blairs, Picketts, Hocketts, Wrights, Mendenhalls and Coffins were among the early members of the meeting who contributed much to the work of Friends in the state. Nathan Hunt was one of the founders of the New Garden Boarding School (now Guilford College). Allen U. Tomlinson ran a small leather business before the Civil War and later started a small furniture shop. His descendants, Sidney and Charles Tomlinson, started the Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company, which helped to start High Point as one of the major center of furniture making in the U.S.
Myron “Red” Hayworth (1916-2006) was a professional baseball player, manager and scout. Byron Haworth, local attorney and Family Court judge, served as clerk of North Carolina Yearly Meeting from 1961-65 and later as clerk of Friends United Meeting. Racing driver Jimmie Lewallen (1919-1995) was one of the founders of NASCAR. Joseph Terrell is the lead singer for MIPSO, one of the top country/bluegrass bands in the country.
The cemetery is to the west of the 1858 meetinghouse and has some of the oldest Quaker graves in the area. The first recorded burial was that of Mary Hoggatt in 1780. [2] The cemetery is visited frequently by people doing genealogical research. The cemetery is under the care of the Springfield Memorial Association, founded in 1906, [2] which also has care of the 1858 meetinghouse (The Museum of Old Domestic Life) and the Allen Jay house. A guidebook (revised in 2017) helps visitors locate graves and provides additional information where known.
Guilford County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. At the 2020 census, the population was 541,299. In 2022, the population was estimated to be 546,101, making it the third-most populous county in North Carolina. The county seat, and largest community, is Greensboro. Since 1938, an additional county court has been located in High Point. The county was formed in 1771. Guilford County is included in the Greensboro-High Point, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Greensboro–Winston-Salem–High Point, NC Combined Statistical Area.
High Point is a city in the Piedmont Triad region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. Most of the city is in Guilford County, with parts extending into Randolph, Davidson, and Forsyth counties. High Point is North Carolina's only city that extends into four counties. As of the 2020 census the city had a total population of 114,059. High Point is the ninth-most populous in North Carolina, the third-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad, and the 259th-most populous city in the U.S.
Stephen Wray Wood is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly representing the state's sixty-first House district, including constituents in Guilford county. Wood served eight terms in the State House from 1984–2005.
Yearly Meeting is an organization composed of constituent meetings or churches of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, within a geographical area. The constituent meetings are called Monthly Meetings in most of the world; in England, local congregations are now called Area Meetings, in Australia Monthly Meetings are called Regional Meetings. "Monthly" and "Yearly" refer to how often the body meets to make decisions. Monthly Meetings may be local congregations that hold regular Meetings for Worship, or may comprise a number of Worship Groups. Depending on the Yearly Meeting organization, there may also be Quarterly Meetings, Half-Yearly Meetings, or Regional Meetings, where a number of local Monthly Meetings come together within a Yearly Meeting.
The World Gathering of Young Friends is the name of several gatherings of members of the Religious Society of Friends between the ages of 18 and 35. There have been two gatherings by this name; the first in 1985 in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and the second in 2005 in Lancaster, England and Mombasa, Kenya. Though these gatherings are the first that were truly worldwide in scope, they followed many gatherings of a similar sort of Friends from North America and Europe.
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members of these movements are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.
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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