Great Friends Meeting House
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Friends Meetinghouse
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Meetinghouse in 2008
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| Location: | 30 Farewell St Newport, Rhode Island |
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| Coordinates: | 41°29′31.23″N 71°18′46.98″W / 41.4920083°N 71.31305°WCoordinates: 41°29′31.23″N 71°18′46.98″W / 41.4920083°N 71.31305°W |
| Built: | 1699 |
| Governing body: | Newport Historical Society |
| Part of: | Newport Historic District (Rhode Island) (#68000001) |
| Added to NRHP: | November 24, 1968[1] |
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 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.
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Interior of the meeting house
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The Great Friends Meetinghouse pictured in 1852
[edit] See also
- List of the oldest buildings in Rhode Island
- Oldest churches in the United States
- Portsmouth Friends Meetinghouse Parsonage and Cemetery
[edit] References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html.
[edit] 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
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| This article about a property in Rhode Island on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- Historic district contributing properties
- Religious buildings completed in 1699
- Museums in Newport, Rhode Island
- Religious museums in Rhode Island
- History museums in Rhode Island
- Historical society museums in Rhode Island
- Quaker meeting houses in Rhode Island
- Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island
- Rhode Island Registered Historic Place stubs
