Amawalk Meeting House Celebrates Sacred Sites 25th Anniversary

This weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the New York Landmark Conservancy’s Sacred Sites program, a statewide grant that is used to help preserve religious landmark properties.  

Amongst these sites is Yorktown’s Amawalk Friends Meeting House – a historic meeting site of Quakers located on Quaker Church Road. The Amawalk Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends participated in the Sacred Sites open house this weekend and to celebrate the anniversary of the program, the Amawalk Friends invited the public to come see the property and peruse their tag sale for treasures.

In addition to tag sale, Sunday consisted of the group’s weekly worship before they had their Sunday cleanup. 

The Meeting House itself is an entity rarely seen by most locals. The Meeting House was built in 1831 after the two previous Meeting Houses had burned down. It is still used for worship every Sunday morning by the Quakers. For worship, the Quakers congregate in the center of Meeting House facing each other, as to show a general equality and modesty amongst its members, then begins an hour of silent worship, celebrating the God that is within all of us.  

The Meeting Houses in Westchester hold a significant value to the Quakers and the funding from the New York Landmark Conservancy allows them to continue their traditions. With the help of the Sacred Sites program, the property has been maintained and restored throughout the years in order to keep it as authentic as the day it was built. This means the meeting house is completely without plumbing and electricity. It's heated only by two wood burning stoves in the winter and illuminated only by oil lamps and natural sunlight leaving the members to schedule meetings in the day time.

The money raised from the tag sale will go toward maintenance on the property, as well as developing a walkway that will lead to the property’s burial grounds located behind the building. The cemetery accommodates the grave of brilliant war photographer Robert Capa, a true pioneer of photojournalism, as well as several Quaker families from the area.

Proceeds from the tag sale will pay for the completion of the design for the Quakers' peace and memorial garden by Quaker landscape architect Harriet Wentz.

“We’ll use the money to create a garden for the headstones,” Quaker member Karli Wheeler said. “A place where people can come and meditate for their loved ones. The burial grounds aren’t active, but it would be nice for people to have a place to come and bring flowers for their loved ones.”

The possibility of a "garden of 'delight'" was discussed with Wentz about five years ago, Wheeler said. They walked the grounds and used the Quaker process to come to consensus regarding the design priorities, such as erosion control from the rain, use of appropriate plants, areas for meditation, creation of a pathway from the meetinghouse to the Capa gravesite, and more.

The funding to build this garden will take place over time from contributions and other fundraisers like the one held this weekend. Although it will take some time for the finished product to come around, with the contributions of the local people of Yorktown and surrounding areas, the Quakers are one step closer to having a beautiful garden.

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