New Bedford Meeting House

New Bedford Meeting House
New Bedford Friends Meeting
New Bedford Meeting House New Bedford Meeting House
41°38′0.6″N 70°55′41.3″W
Location	83 Spring Street, New Bedford, Massachusetts
Country	United States
Denomination	Quaker Religious Society of Friends
History
Founded	New Bedford Meeting was founded in 1789, but this building, its second meeting house was built in 1822
Administration
Division	Friends General Conference
Subdivision	New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
District	Sandwich Quarter

New Bedford Friends Meeting House, also known as New Bedford Friends Meeting is a Quaker house of worship in New Bedford, Massachusetts.. This meeting house has since 1822 been the home to New Bedford Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a Quaker congregation that, despite its name, holds Quaker meetings for worship weekly at 10 a.m. on Sundays.

Background

Quakers settled in Dartmouth near Buzzards Bay in 1652. They were among the first colonial settlers in the area. In the 17th century was a large area that now encompasses Acushnet, Fairhaven, New Bedford, and Westport. Because there were a number of Quakers in Dartmouth, it became a place of religious acceptance, according to Ann Gidley Lowry, an author of Quaker history in 1940.

The Apponegansett Meeting House in Dartmouth was established in 1699 and expanded three times by 1743. As the membership grew, additional meeting houses were established in Westport, at Allen's Neck and in New Bedford.

History

New Bedford Monthly Meeting was established in 1792, with its first monthly business meeting held in December 1792. The current meeting house is not the congregations's original meeting house;the first meeting house was moved around the corner when the current meeting house was completed in 1822.

Some Quakers in the Dartmouth and Nantucket area engaged in the whaling industry. Residents, like Charles W. Morgan, owned and captained whaling ships. Other industries that relied upon or supported the whaling industry were established, such as a candleworks that made candles out of whale oil. Some of the Quakers from New Bedford were businessmen.

The town of New Bedford became a sanctuary for fugitive slaves, aided by the Quakers. The town became a major Underground Railroad station, due to the Quakers' belief in equality. In 1834, a branch of the Anti-Slavery Society was found in New Bedford.

In his 1845 autobiography "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Frederick Douglass thanks two men who were members of New Bedford Monthly Meeting -- William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson -- for their assistance in helping Douglass and his wife get to New Bedford from Newport, Rhode Island when he was escaping enslavement. "They seemed at once to understand our circumstances, and gave us such assurance of their friendliness as put us fully at ease in their presence. It was good indeed to meet with such friends, at such a time," Douglass wrote of Taber and Ricketson. William C. Taber was clerk (i.e., the person who leads a Quaker congregation's business meetings) of New Bedford Monthly Meeting from 1835 until early 1852. He was also the meeting's treasurer from 1831 through 1848.

The meeting house

The first Friends Meeting House was built on land that was donated by Joseph Rotch in 1785. A simple and sober building, it has separate entrances for men and women. Both it and the current meeting house are an external reflection of Quaker beliefs in simplicity. Interesting architectural features of the current meeting house include a sounding board, a nineteenth-century technology for amplifying sound, as well as a retractable divider in the middle of the worship space that allowed both men and women to worship together (when the divider was pulled up, creating one space) yet hold separate business meetings (when the divider was rolled down, creating two spaces). Although contemporary Quaker meetings no longer have separate business meetings for men and women, the historical practice is credited with having helped Quaker women develop leadership skills that helped them become early leaders in the movement for women's rights in the U.S in the nineteenth century. Quakers have since their founding in the seventeenth century recognized the spiritual equality of women, and there have been Quaker women ministers since the religion's founding in the 17th century.

Members

New Bedford Meeting's members have included Captain John Howland Jr., who partnered with his brother James, in the firm J. and J. Howland. George Howland Jr., who also lived on Sixth Street, was a businessman and the fifth major of New Bedford. He was the son of Ann Howland Dunbar, the daughter of John Howland Jr., and Elisha Dunbar, a successful whaling merchant. George Howland Sr., married to Susan (Howland) Howland, was one of the very wealthy whaling merchants. Of his ships, one of them was named the George and Susan, which was launched on their wedding day in 1811. Frederick Douglass said of his former employers, George Howland Sr. was "a hard driver, but a good paymaster, and I got on well with him."

Susan (Howland) Howland and Rachel Howland were well-known Quaker ministers in New Bedford Monthly Meeting.

The Grinnell family, which includes bankers Cornelius Grinnell and his son Joseph Grinnell, were early settlers in New Bedford.