Great Friends Meeting House

Infobox_nrhp | name =Friends Meetinghouse
nrhp_type = cp


caption = Meetinghouse in 2008
location=30 Farewell St.
Newport, Rhode Island
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locmapin = Rhode Island
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built =1699
architect= Unknown
architecture= No Style Listed
added =
governing_body = Newport Historical Society
refnum=cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]

Great Friends Meeting House is a Quaker house of worship built in 1699 in Newport, Rhode Island. The meeting house 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 boards, plain benches, a balcony, and 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.

References

External links

* [http://www.newporthistorical.org/sites_gfmh.htm Newport Historical Society meeting house website]
* [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rinewpor/quaker.html Mrs. William P. Buffum, "The Story of the Old Friends' Meeting House," "Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society," Number 40, April, 1922]
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.ri0051 Listing with photographs, floor plans, and historical data] at the Historic American Buildings Survey