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Stanfield Quaker Notes

The Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy, 1750-1930

Back to Stanfield Quaker Notes-Table of Contents

Part 1:  Abbreviations of Quaker Terms

Part 9: Philadelphia Monthly Meeting

 

The Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy, Vol. II, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Pages 329 & 441

 

Page 329

PHILADELPHIA MONTHLY MEETING

 

There were a few Quaker settlers on the west bank of the Delaware, notably at Upland (now Chester) and near the falls, several years before William Penn received the grant of Pennsylvania in 1681. They were closely associated with Friends at Salem and Burlington, meeting with them occasionally for worship and business. Under Penn’s direction Pennsylvania was rapidly opened to further settlement, and there was a large influx of Quakers and others. Several monthly meetings were organized in quick succession, of which the first occurred in the newly projected capital of the colony, Philadelphia. The Friends who had been meeting since 1681 at the house of Thomas Fairman, at Shackamaxon, a short distance up the river, joined with the newer settlers in Philadelphia in establish a monthly and quarterly meeting on eleventh month 9, 1682 (January 1682-83). They opened their first meeting with the following minute: "The Friends of God, belonging to the Meeting in Philadelphia, in the province of Pensylvania, being met in the fear and power of the Lord, at the present meeting place in the said City: the 9th day of the 11th month, being the 3rd day of the week, in the year 1682. They did take into their serious Consideration, the Settlement of meeting therein, for the affairs and service of Truth according to that Godly and comely practice and Example, which they had received, and enjoyed with true satisfaction amongst their friends and Brethren, in the Lard of their Nativity; and did then and there agree, that the first third day of the week in every month, shall hereafter be the monthly meeting day for men’s and women’s meetings for the affairs and service of Truth in this City and County, and every third meeting shall be the Quarterly meeting of the same."

 

The exact location of the "present meeting place" in which the first meetings were held is unknown. A ‘boarded meetinghouse", elsewhere alluded to in the minutes was probably on Front street. The Bank meetinghouse on Front street above Arch, was finished in 1685. Another meetinghouse was built of brick in the center square of the city, designed for use in the day-time as the house nearer the river was to be used at night. But the expectation of Penn and the pioneers that the city would grow up around the center square proved to be erroneous, and the Center meetinghouse was little used. It was finally taken down between 1701 and 1703 and its materials used to replace the frame building on the bank of the river. Meanwhile a "Great" meetinghouse was build in 1695-96 at the southwest corner of Market (then High) and Second streets, in order to accommodate the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. Enlarged in 1755, it was only displaced in 1804 with the building of the meetinghouse which now stands on Arch Street at Fourth.

 

Philadelphia Monthly Meeting prospered as the number of Friends in Philadelphia grew. Except for the deflection of George Keith and his followers in the 1690's it suffered no division until 1772, when it voluntarily set up a monthly meeting for the Northern District of Philadelphia. This was made up of members of the old Bank meeting, who had moved to Key’s Alley (New Street) in 1790. A monthly meeting for the Southern District was also established in 1772, meeting at first in a building on Fourth street near Chestnut, but soon going to the "Hill meeting", so-called, on the south side of Pine street, below Second. A monthly meeting for the Western District was set off in 1814. It occupied the present building at 20 South Twelfth Street, which had been erected two years before.

 

The Separation of 1827-28 left the Arch Street meetinghouse in the hands of the Orthodox group. Hicksite Friends met temporarily in Carpenters Hall until they could build a meeting house on Cherry street below Fifth. In 1857 they moved to the present location of Cherry Street above Fifteenth, adjoining the Race Street meetinghouse which the Yearly Meeting had built at the same time. A building was erected in 1882 for an indulged meeting at the Fair Hill Burying Ground, Germantown Avenue at Cambria Street. The land had belonged to Friends since the founding of the city, and had been used as a meeting place in the eighteenth century. The Monthly Meeting now has ‘indulged’ meetings for worship in West Philadelphia (established 1837), and, with Green Street Monthly Meeting, on Girard Avenue. Green Street Monthly Meeting, at Fourth and Green Streets, was established in 1816 by the Monthly Meeting for the Northern District, and was retained by Hicksite Friends at the time of the Separation.

The standard histories of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania describe the establishment of Friends meetings in the city. Philadelphia Friends have been so intimately associated with the history of Pennsylvania Quakerism that few special studies of the local meetings are available. In 1889 The Friend (Philadelphia) published a series of articles on early Philadelphia meetinghouses by Joseph W. Lippincott (vol. 62, pp 283 and continued), and George Vaux (vol. 63, pp 99 and continued). There are some interesting facts in the centennial volume, The Friends’ Meeting House, Fourth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, ca. 1904).

 

The manuscript records of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, covering the period prior to the separation in 1827, consist of two volumes of birth and death records; marriage records 1672-1827 (two volumes and part of a third, started 1814 and continued in use after 1827 by the Orthodox branch); fourteen volumes of certificates received (original certificates mounted) 1686-1772; two supplementary volumes of certificates received, 1755-1822; certificates issued 1756-1827 (three volumes and part of a fourth, started 1823 and continued in use after 1827 by the Orthodox branch); one volume of certificates received, 1823-1827; men’s minutes, 1682-1827; women’s minutes 1686-1827. All these records are at 302 Arch Street, Philadelphia, except the book of certificates received, 1823-1827, which is at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore. The Orthodox records, also at 302 Arch Street, consist of two volumes of birth and death records; marriage records 1827-1934, and certificates issued, 1827-1935 (in the older books referred to above); certificates received, 1827-1930; men’s minutes, 1827-1936; women’s minutes, 1827-1859 and 1890-1930. The women’s minutes for the period from 1859 to 1890 are missing. The Hicksite records, deposited at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore, consist of birth and death records (three volumes); marriage records, 1828-1925, (three volumes of marriages in meeting and one volume of marriages out of meeting); certificates issued, 1828-1901, (two volumes); men’s minutes, 1827-1899 (ten volumes); women’s minutes, 1827-1899, (8 volumes); minutes of meeting of men and women held jointly, 1899-1907, (two volumes). The Primitive Friends records are in the care of Charles Henry Moon, Fallsington, Pa.

 

 

Page 441

DEATHS OF PERSON NOT FRIENDS

 

"An account of the Burialls of such as not Friends within this town of Philadelphia. Taken & recorded by me, Wm. Hudson, for the satisfaction of all people whatever their perswation or profession may be. The records of Friends Burialls being distinctly taken in another place of this book by me apoynted thereto by the Monthly Meeting to which this Book Belongs."

 

Frances Stanfield, s James & Mary, - bur 7-22-1695

James Stanfield - bur 7-3-1698

Mary Stanfield, dt James, - bur 6-13-1698

 

 

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