Merion Friends Meeting House
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The Merion Friends Meeting House is an active and historic Quaker meeting house at 615 Montgomery Avenue in Merion Station,
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, ...
. Completed about 1715, it is the second oldest Friends meeting house in the United States (after the
Third Haven Meeting House The Third Haven Meeting House is generally considered the oldest-surviving Friends meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends, and it is a cornerstone of Quaker history in Talbot County, Maryland. History The history of Quakerism in Tal ...
in
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
), with distinctively Welsh architectural features that distinguish it from later meeting houses. It is home to the Merion
monthly meeting In the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a monthly meeting or area meeting is the basic governing body, a congregation which holds regular meetings for business for Quakers in a given area. The monthly meeting is responsible for the administr ...
. The meeting house was declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1999. and  


Description and history

The Merion Friends Meeting House is located in the village of Merion Station, a neighborhood in
Lower Merion Township Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merioneth in north Wales. Merioneth is an English-language transcription of the ...
, on the north side of Montgomery Avenue and Haverford Avenue. It is a 1-1/2 story structure, built out of locally quarried stone covered in plaster. It is laid out in a T shape, and is covered by a cross-gabled roof. Its main facade is three bays wide, with a center entrance sheltered by a gabled porch. The flanking windows, as well as that in the gable above are topped by segmented-arch lintels. The front gable and both side gables have pent roof sections. The principal rafters supporting the roof are bent, a unique adaptation of a medieval Welsh construction technique to the building. The property also includes a burial ground, estimated to have more than 2,000 burials (many of which are unmarked in accordance with early Quaker custom). The meeting was founded by the first known group of Welsh settlers in the Americas, who arrived in 1682. Construction of the meeting house was begun in about 1695, and was completed around 1715. The building does not follow what are now considered standard norms for Quaker meeting houses. Prior to the English
Toleration Act 1688 The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689. The Act allowed for f ...
, which allowed Quakers to worship openly and freely in England and its colonies, Quakers traditionally met either in the open, or in houses or barns, and had no settled architecture to satisfy the organizational needs of their congregations, which call for sex-segregated business meetings. The Welsh-infused architecture of this building stands as a memorial to the early experimental period of meeting house design.
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 ...
preached in the meeting house.


See also

*
List of the oldest buildings in Pennsylvania This article lists the oldest buildings in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States, including the oldest houses in the state and certain other extant structures. Some dates are approximate, based upon dendrochronology, architectural stu ...
* Friends meeting houses in Pennsylvania *
List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania This is a List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania. There are 169 in the state. Listed in the tables below are the 102 NHLs outside Philadelphia. For the 67 within Philadelphia, see List of National Historic Landmarks in Philadelphia ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery Count ...


References


External links


Official Website
{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Churches completed in 1714 18th-century Quaker meeting houses Quaker meeting houses in Pennsylvania Churches in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania state historical marker significations National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania 1682 establishments in Pennsylvania