Great Friends Meeting House

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. It is the oldest surviving house of worship in Rhode Island and features wide-plank floors, plain benches, a balcony, a beam ceiling, and a shingle exterior. Significant additions were made in 1730, 1807, 1857, and 1867. The meeting house was built on land owned by Nicholas Easton who donated his land in the 1670s and likely his house for the first Quaker meeting house which was located nearby on Farewell Street before the current meeting house was built in 1699.

Friends Meetinghouse
Meetinghouse in 2008
Location30 Farewell St
Newport, Rhode Island
Coordinates41°29′31.23″N 71°18′46.98″W
Built1699
Part ofNewport Historic District (Rhode Island) (ID68000001)
Added to NRHPNovember 24, 1968[1]

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 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. In 2005 a dendrochronology survey of the building's tree rings confirmed a 1699 construction date.[2]

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

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. https://www.dendrochronology.com/nfm-1.html


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