Fair Hill Burial Ground is a historic cemetery in the Fairhill neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Founded by the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

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.

History

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

gave 1250 acres in Pennsylvania to

George Fox George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and ...

in 1681. Fox dedicated six acres in 1686 for a meeting house and burial ground near the current site of the burial ground. Burials began about 1707, but the site did not develop into an active burial ground. The Green Street Monthly Meeting took control of the site in 1818. Following the Orthodox-Hicksite split, the three Hicksite meetings in Philadelphia in 1840 – Philadelphia Meeting, Spruce Street Meeting, Green Street Meeting – agreed to use the land for a burial ground. Starting in 1843, a Joint Committee on Interments oversaw the burial ground. The Fair Hill Meeting House was built nearby, on Cambria Street in the 1880s. Both the meetinghouse and the burial ground were sold to Ephesians Baptist Church in 1985, but in 1993 the burial ground was purchased by the Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, which continues to own and maintain it.

Notable interments

Rudolph Blankenburg Rudolph Blankenburg (February 16, 1843 – April 12, 1918) was an American businessman and manufacturer, who became a politician and elected mayor of Philadelphia, leading a reform administration from 1911 to 1916. Biography Blankenburg was bor ...

, reformist

mayor of Philadelphia The mayor of Philadelphia is the chief executive of the government of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as stipulated by the Charter of the City of Philadelphia. The current mayor of Philadelphia is Jim Kenney. History The first mayor of Philadelphia, ...

* Lucretia Longshore Blankenburg, American second-generation

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

, social activist, civic reformer, writer, and first lady of Philadelphia *

William Morris Davis William Morris Davis (February 12, 1850 – February 5, 1934) was an American geographer, geologist, geomorphologist, and meteorologist, often called the "father of American geography". He was born into a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia, ...

, US Congressman * Mary J. Scarlett Dixon (1822-1900), physician * Anna Jeanes,

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

philanthropist *

Mary Ann M'Clintock Mary Ann M'Clintock or ''Mary Ann McClintock'' (1800-1884) is best known for her role in the formation of the women's suffrage movement, as well as abolitionism. Life M'Clintock was born on February 20, 1800 in Burlington, New Jersey. She was mar ...

Thomas M'Clintock Thomas M'Clintock (March 28, 1792 – March 19, 1876) was an American pharmacist and a leading Quaker organizer for many reforms, including abolishing slavery, achieving women's rights, and modernizing Quakerism. Life He was born on Marc ...

Lucretia Mott Lucretia Mott (''née'' Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongs ...

, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer * Edward Parrish, pharmacist and the first president of

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

Ann Preston Ann Preston (December 1, 1813April 18, 1872) was an American physician, activist, and educator. Early life Ann Preston was the first woman dean of a medical school, the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), which was the first medical ...

, first woman dean of a US medical school * Harriet Forten Purvis *

Robert Purvis Robert Purvis (August 4, 1810 – April 15, 1898) was an American abolitionist in the United States. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and was likely educated at Amherst Academy, a secondary school in Amherst, Massachusetts. He ...

Deborah Fisher Wharton Deborah Fisher Wharton (1795–1888) was an American Quaker minister, suffragist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights. She was one of a small group of dedicated Quakers who founded Swarthmore College along with her industrialist ...

References

External links

*
Fair Hill Burial Ground
at

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{{Authority control Cemeteries in Philadelphia Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Quakerism in Pennsylvania 1703 establishments in Pennsylvania History of Philadelphia Lower North Philadelphia