“Historic Fair Hill” to be Zoom Program at Newtown Quakers

Philadelphia’s “Historic Fair Hill” to be Zoom Program at Newtown Quaker Meeting

Philadelphia’s “Historic Fair Hill” will be presented by Jean Warrington, Executive Director of Fair Hill via Zoom for the adult class of Newtown Quaker Meeting at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, September 26 on Zoom. http://www.newtownfriendsmeeting.org) Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends will follow at 11 a.m.

The five-acre burial ground of Fair Hill was given by William Penn to George Fox who left it in his will in 1691 for “a meeting-house and a burying place and for a playground for the children in the town to play on, and for a garden to plant with physical plants, for lads and lasses to make simples and learn to make oils and ointments.”

Jean Warrington, Executive Director of Historic Fair Hill, will tell us how Quakers and the community have restored, revitalized, and reimagined this resting place of great human rights activists like Lucrecia Mott. Neglected for decades, in 1993 volunteers from Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting formed a non-profit to purchase the property.

This space now consists of a peace-making green space, a neighborhood revitalization organization, a historic graveyard, a literacy and tutoring program, a community garden, and a farmer’s market.

Warrington will be accompanied by Aaron Freeman, a young urban farmer of the Fair Hill community.

Jean Warrington said, “It has all been accomplished by loving hands and hearts.”

Newtown Friends Meeting, co-founded in 1815 by Quaker minister and artist, Edward Hicks, is open to the public via Zoom these days, with Sunday School classes for children and adults at 9:45 a.m. and worship based on expectant silence “after the manner of Friends” at 11 a.m.