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by | Mar 16, 2018 | Hosta

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The Portsmouth Friends Meetinghouse, Parsonage, and Cemetery (also known as Portsmouth Friends Meeting House or Portsmouth Evangelical Friends Church) is a historic Friends Meeting House and cemetery of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), at 11 Middle Road and 2232 E. Main Road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Portsmouth Friends Meeting House in 1919

In 1638, exiled religious dissidents from the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded Portsmouth, the second oldest colonial community in Rhode Island. The Quaker community developed shortly after the community was founded.

The current meetinghouse was built around 1699–1700. The building was used as a Quaker house of worship and school. During the American Revolutionary War, British troops occupied the building. In 1784 the Moses Brown School was founded at the church. The meeting house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.[2]

The meetinghouse was listed for sale after the Friends' Church regional headquarters closed the church in 2017 in response to dwindling membership.[3] In 2020, the local congregation regained legal control of the meetinghouse and re-opened it for services after renovations.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ Laplante, Eve (2010). American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans. ISBN 9780061926952.
  3. ^ History for sale in Portsmouth: Portsmouth Historical Society is pushing to save the iconic Friends Meeting House, which is on the market, Jim McGaw, EastBay RI, 4 Mar 2020 (accessed 22 Mar 2021)
  4. ^ About Us, Portsmouth Friends Church, accessed 30 Dec 2023

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