Providence Quaker Cemetery and Chapel, also known as Providence Meeting House, is a historic

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

and

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 ...

located on Quaker Church Road about 2 miles southwest of Perryopolis, Fayette County,

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, ...

. The cemetery was used by Quakers, but the chapel is not a Quaker structure. Quakers generally refer to a structure built for worship as a meeting house, rather than as a chapel or church.

History

A meeting of the

Religious Society of Friends 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 ...

was founded at the site in 1789, and served by a log meeting house until 1793 when a stone building was constructed. John Cope bought 15 acres for the use of the meeting in 1793. There were many early Quaker settlers in this area of southwestern Pennsylvania with nine Quaker meetings founded within 15 miles of Brownsville, which is about 9 miles southwest of this site. Few of these early Quaker structures survive, but several cemeteries are intact. The Quaker population in the area began to decline about 1830, caused by western migration, the "Great Separation" between

Hicksite Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted unorthodox doctrines that led to controversy, which caused the second major schism within the Religious ...

and Orthodox Quakers, and controversy surrounding Quakers during the abolition movement and the Civil War. Between 1850 and 1870 most Quaker meetings in the area were closed, with the Providence Meeting closed in 1870. By 1895 the meeting house was a ruin standing in the middle of an active cemetery. Elma Cope Binns organized the rebuilding of the meeting house into a smaller chapel constructed from the stone of the original building. Fourteen acres of the meeting's land was sold, leaving one acre for the cemetery.

Architecture

The chapel measures 20 feet by 30 feet. It is built in a simple vernacular style and the stone is roughly coursed. There is no steeple, but a fireplace and chimney were built at the east and west ends. The two windows on both the north and south sides are not glazed, but blocked by iron bars. No door is present in the doorway on the south side. The cemetery contains approximately 500 burials. In the early Quaker tradition, most graves were unmarked. About 50 tombstones are currently standing. The graves generally date from approximately 1790 to 1870, when the meeting house closed, though modern tombstones date as late as 2003. An iron fence surrounds the cemetery, except for a 125-foot section of modern chain link fencing. ''Note:'' This includes It was listed on 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 1997. File:Quaker Perryopolis.JPG, View from the south File:Quaker Perryopolis 2.JPG, View from the east File:Quaker Perryopolis 4.JPG, One of two fireplaces

References

External links

* * * {{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Buildings and structures in Fayette County, Pennsylvania Religious buildings and structures completed in 1895 Cemeteries in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Fayette County, Pennsylvania