Hockessin Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house and national historic district located at 1501 Old Wilmington Road in

Hockessin Hockessin () is a census-designated place (CDP) in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The population was 13,527 at the 2010 census. History Hockessin came into existence as a little village in 1688 when several families settled in the a ...

New Castle County New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex). As of the 2020 census, the population was 570,719, making it the most populous county in Delaware, with nearly 60% of the ...

, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

. The district encompasses three contributing buildings and one contributing site. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1973.

History

The first meeting in the area was held at the home of William Cox, in Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle County in about 1730, but not regularly established until 1737. Some of the first members were Cox, John Baldwin and Henry and John Dixon. The name Hockessin was given from an Indian village formerly in the area. While unsupported by documentation it is believed that the meetinghouse operated as the only school in the area from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. The meetinghouse was also the site of a British troop campsite on September 9, 1777 while troops under the command of

Lord Cornwallis Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805), styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as the Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army general and official. In the United S ...

headed towards the

Battle of the Brandywine The Battle of Brandywine, also known as the Battle of Brandywine Creek, was fought between the American Continental Army of General George Washington and the British Army of General Sir William Howe on September 11, 1777, as part of the Ame ...

Structure

The meeting house was built in 1738 and enlarged in 1745. In 1973 it was a one-story, white plastered stone building with a gable roof. Photographs taken in 2014 show the plaster has been removed from the stone. It has a gable roof with projecting cornice and a crown moulding at the roof line. The other contributing buildings are a stable and a frame storehouse and a stone house dated to 1817. The contributing site is the

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

. and

Gallery

File:Hockessin Friends 1738 datestone.JPG, 1738 datestone File:Hockessin Friends from south.JPG, View from the south, 2014

References

External links

The Mill Creek Hundred History Blog: Hockessin Friends Meeting House, July 28, 2010
* {{National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Quaker meeting houses in Delaware Churches completed in 1738 18th-century Quaker meeting houses Churches in New Castle County, Delaware Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware National Register of Historic Places in New Castle County, Delaware Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Cemeteries established in the 18th century 18th-century establishments in Delaware