Hopewell Friends Meeting House is an 18th-century

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

meeting house A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a: * chu ...

located the northern

Frederick County, Virginia Frederick County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 91,419. Its county seat is Winchester. The county was formed in 1743 by the splitting of Orange County. It is Virginia's nor ...

one mile west of the community of Clear Brook at 604 Hopewell Road (formerly State Route 672). Clear Brook, VA 22624. This community was the home of Thomas William "Tom" Fox (1951–2006), a

peace activist A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world p ...

, affiliated with

Christian Peacemaker Teams Community Peacemaker Teams or CPT (previously called Christian Peacemaker Teams) is an international organization set up to support teams of peace workers in conflict areas around the world. The organization uses these teams to achieve its aims ...

(CPT) murdered in 2006 in

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

History

Early history

Hopewell Friends Meeting was named "Opeckan", after nearby

Opequon Creek Opequon Creek (historically also Opecken) is an approximately 35 mile U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary stream of the Potomac River. It flows into ...

, when it was set off from the Concord (Pennsylvania) Quarterly Meeting in 1734. It is the oldest Quaker meeting in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Some of the original group of settlers came from the Monocacy valley in Frederick County, Maryland, but most came from Chester County, Pennsylvania. "Alexander Ross hath proposed to this meeting on behalf of (f)friends (a)at Opeckon that a meeting for worship may be settled among'st them which is under y'e consideration & care of this meeting until(l) a suitable time to give them a visit." This excerpt was taken from the Nottingham Monthly Meeting Minutes from the meeting of May 18, 1734. Initially, this meeting was a member of the

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States area, including parts of Pen ...

. At that time, the settlement included about seventy families. Initially, a log meeting house was built on lands originally granted by Lt. Gov. William Gooch of Virginia to two Ulster Scots with roots in Northern Ireland, a Quaker named Alexander Ross (in 1730) and Morgan Bryan (a 1732 grant to this Presbyterian). Prominent London Quaker John Fothergill (1712-1780) visited this meeting in 1736. In 1757, the 1734 meeting house burned.Hopewell Meeting History
. In addition to losing its place of worship, the congregation also almost lost all its early records in a 1759 house fire.

Current Meeting House Built

Thomas McClun acted as builder for the original 33 feet x 44 feet coursed rubble limestone structure. Located at "the gate of the Shenandoah Valley", this meeting prospered and increased. From 1789 until 1794, the western 30 x 30 addition nearly doubled the size of Hopewell Meeting House. The National Register Nomination Form described the interior thus:

The interior of the meeting house consists of a large open space with a tiered gallery on the south and west walls. The balcony retains early benches with scrolled ends. Enclosed stairs, side by side, ascend from the center of the south wall. Large posts, some squared, some turned, support the gallery at various points. The main floor has early benches with open backs and some later, standard church-type benches. A platform with additional benches is against the north wall facing the congregation area. As might be expected the effect of the interior is exceedingly plain; the walls and ceiling are plastered and the openings are devoid of ornamental trim.National Register Nomination Form, p. 2.

The Great Separation and After

Following the Great Separation of 1827, local Hicksite Quakers use one half of the meeting house and their Orthodox brethren the other. Both were buried in the nearby meeting house cemetery. In 1870, W. D. Lee built a limestone wall around the cemetery. Both sides contributed to repairing the structure in 1910 and this led to a healing of the schism. It is thought that the current roof lines date from this renovation.

Subsequent History

In 1934, Hopewell celebrated its bicentennial and in 1936 ''Hopewell Friends History, 1734-1934, Frederick County, Virginia: Records of Hopewell Monthly Meetings and Meetings Reporting to Hopewell; Two Hundred Years of History and Genealogy'' compiled from official records and published by a Joint Committee of Hopewell Friends, assisted by John W. Wayland was published. (It was reprinted in 1975 by Baltimore's Genealogical Publishing Company.) Hopewell Meeting House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 3, 1980. In 1999, Hopewell and Winchester's Centre meeting united to form the Hopewell Centre Monthly Meeting. It is a member of the

Baltimore Yearly Meeting Baltimore Yearly Meeting (officially the Baltimore Yearly Meeting' of the Religious Society of Friends) is a body of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) headquartered in Sandy Spring, Maryland, that includes Friends from Virginia, Maryland ...

. In 2011, the Hopewell Centre Monthly Meeting reported 71 full members, 16 associate members, and 17 attenders for a total of 104 members, a decrease of five from the previous year's report.2012 Baltimore Yearly Meeting Community Statistics
.

References

External links

*

* ttps://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/va0453/ Hopewell Friends Meeting House Historic American Buildings Surveycontaining eight sheets (including measured drawings) and two data pages. *
Hopewell Meeting House National Register of Historic Places Final Nomination Form
(6 pdfs). *
Hopewell Friends Burial Ground Find a Grave listing
(190 graves). *

{{National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Churches in Frederick County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Frederick County, Virginia Religious buildings and structures in Virginia Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Quaker meeting houses in Virginia Quakerism in Virginia Stone churches in Virginia Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia Limestone churches in the United States