Summer Meeting: Friends' Historical Association

Volume 28, No. 2 Autumn Number, 1939 Bulletin of Friends* Historical Association SUMMER MEETING FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION THE SUMMER MEETING of the Friends' Historical Association was held on the afternoon and evening of Saturday, May 20, 1939, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The meeting assembled in the High Street Meeting House, built in 1813 and enlarged in 1868, and now under the care of Friends in membership with the Yearly Meeting at Fifteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia; but the Meeting House on Chestnut Street, only a few blocks away, opened in 1846 and now under the care of Arch Street Friends, invited inspection, and its members welcomed the Association jointly with the High Street Friends. Between the meeting and supper, served in the High Street Meeting House or on its spacious porch or lawn, members of the Association were invited to visit the headquarters of the Chester County Historical Society, and inspect the collections housed there. The Bulletin published a brief note of the opening of this building, with a reproduction of the architect's drawing, in the Spring Number for 1938 (Vol. 27, No. 1, p. 50) ; and it was a pleasure to see the completed building and the rich exhibitions of historical relics. The meeting was opened with introductory remarks by the President, William Wistar Comfort, who paid graceful tribute to the historic role of West Chester as a center of local culture ; and listened then to the welcome extended to the Association on behalf of the High Street Friends by Herbert P. Worth, a member of the Hospitality Committee. He spoke as follows: IT IS AN unusual privilege to have the opportunity of extending a welcome to a group like this and we are anxious that the members of the Friends' Historical Association shall know how sincere and how cordial is this greeting. You have come to a Friendly community. From its earliest settlement until now it has borne the impress of Quaker thought and Quaker life and yet it is not the oldest of the Friends' meetings hereabouts. A little more than a century and a quarter ago 59 60 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION the West Chester Friends, feeling the inconvenience of traveling four miles west to Bradford or four miles south to Birmingham or four miles east to Goshen in order to attend First-day and midweek meetings, sought for the establishment of a meeting here. Within five years they had secured in succession an indulged meeting, an established meeting, a preparative meeting, and a monthly meeting and had procured the land and erected a substantial stone meeting house, a portion of which still remains as a part of the building in which we now are. Naturally the early settlers here were mostly Friends or those associated with Friends, but with the passing of the years those of various faiths and differing customs moved in until the time came, long ago indeed, that Friends no longer preponderated as to numbers but the essential Quaker characteristics continue in large degree. Now this is not only a Friendly community but it is as well a center of much interest in the local historical field, a fresh evidence of which is found in the fact that the Chester County Historical Society has recently procured a new and commodious home to which those here assembled have been invited at the close of this session. And so we trust that this place, Friendly in character and historically minded, may prove a congenial setting for the deliberations of the Friends' Historical Association, and that your visit here may be to you one of pleasure and satisfaction. A second welcome was extended to the Association on behalf of the Chestnut Street Friends by Matilda W. Evans, who spoke as follows: ALITTLE way west and south from here—perhaps a quarter of a mile—is another old green stone Meeting House. It bears a date stone marked 1846. From the little group of Friends who meet there I bring you a welcome as hearty as has been expressed. And since this is an historical occasion I have thought it might be well to introduce to you some of the persons who have sat...