Doylestown Friends Meeting hosts Open House on September 10

The Quakers of the Doylestown Friends Meetinghouse at 95 East Oakland Avenue are hosting an Open House on Saturday, Sept. 10, from 10am-4pm during the Doylestown Arts Festival. If you’ve ever been curious about Quakers, the Doylestown Friends community or that little brick building set back from the street on Oakland near Pine, now’s your chance to drop by and get some answers to your questions.

The 1836 meetinghouse is the oldest building in the borough occupied by the same faith community to the present day. Its origins in the borough go back to 1806. That was the year that records show local Quakers from Buckingham Friends Meeting began worshipping closer to home when bad weather made travel to Lahaska difficult.

After gathering in various locations in the borough for several years, in 1834 this group of Doylestown Friends was accepted as "an indulged Meeting" under the care of Buckingham Meeting. The Friends almost immediately undertook a search for a permanent home and in 1836 completed the purchase of a plot of land and construction of the meetinghouse. Not until over 100 years later, in 1950, was the Doylestown Quaker community released to establish itself as Doylestown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends with its own business meeting and responsibilities for members’ care and support.

The meetinghouse interior looks much as it did in 1836—minus the potbelly stove that was its sole source of heat till the mid-20th century. Doylestown Friends continue to use it regularly for worship, weddings, memorial services, religious education, business meetings and other events and programs.