Great Friends Meeting House

Historic meetinghouse in Rhode Island, United States

United States historic place


Friends Meetinghouse
U.S. Historic district Contributing property

Meetinghouse in 2021
41°29′31.23″N 71°18′46.98″W / 41.4920083°N 71.3130500°W / 41.4920083; -71.3130500
Built	1699^[1]
Part of	Newport Historic District (Rhode Island) (ID68000001)
Added to NRHP	November 24, 1968^[2]

Great Friends Meeting House is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) built in 1699 in Newport, Rhode Island. The meeting house, which is part of the Newport Historic District, is currently open as a museum owned by the Newport Historical Society.

Description

The meeting house is the oldest surviving house of worship in Rhode Island. In keeping with Quaker notions of "plain style" living, the building lacks adornments like pulpits, statuary, steeples, or stained glass. It features wide-plank floors, plain benches, a balcony, a beam ceiling, and a shingle exterior.^[3]

The original building measured two stories tall and about forty-five feet square, with a steeply pitched hip roof with a turret at the junction of the four roof slopes. Inside, massive framing timbers measure twelve inches square by forty-five feet long, supporting an open worship space with a second-floor gallery on three sides.^[1]

History

The Quaker community in Newport largely controlled the culture and politics of the town in the 17th and 18th centuries, and many Quakers lived nearby in the historic "Easton's Point" section of Newport, where their houses have survived. The meeting house was built on land owned by Nicholas Easton who donated his land in the 1670s. It is likely Easton's house nearby on Farewell Street was used for the first Quaker meeting house before the current meeting house was built in 1699.^[3]

Upon its completion in 1699, the meeting house was the largest structure of any kind between Boston and New York.^[3]

Significant additions were made in 1730, 1807, 1857, and 1867 to accommodate the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends.^[3] The turret was removed in 1806.^[1]

The meeting house was used as a house of worship until the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends departed in 1905. The local African American community used the building as a community center until the 1970s when architect Orin M. Bullock restored the building, and in 1971 its owner Mrs. Sydney L. Wright donated the structure to the Newport Historical Society.^[3]

In 2005 a dendrochronology survey of the building's tree rings confirmed a 1699 construction date.^[1]

Interior of the meeting house
The Great Friends Meetinghouse pictured in 1852

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Newport Friends Meetinghouse". Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory. Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory. Archived from the original on October 27, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Rhode Island's Oldest Surviving House of Worship". Newport Historical Society. Newport Historical Society. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.

External links

Newport Historical Society meeting house website
Mrs. William P. Buffum, "The Story of the Old Friends' Meeting House," Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society, Number 40, April, 1922
Listing with photographs, floor plans, and historical data at the Historic American Buildings Survey

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

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