Twelfth Street Meeting House

History

The Philadelphia Great Meeting House was built at the southwest corner of 2nd and Market Streets in 1755. Constructed by carpenter Abraham Carlisle and his apprentice, Isaac Coates, the square brick building – 57-ft (17.4-m) per side – was unusually large for the American Colonies. Its six triangular roof trusses – 58-by-20-foot (17.7 m × 6.1 m) – were made of pine and held together with wooden pegs rather than nails.

As Philadelphia grew as a commercial city, the area near the waterfront became too noisy for the quiet contemplation of Quaker worship and inconvenient for many members of the meeting. The land on which it stood was sold in 1809, with the funds to go toward building a meeting house further west.

12th Street

A plot of land on South 12th Street – 142 ft by 134 ft (43.3 m by 40.8 m) – was purchased in 1810 for $11,000. Carpenter John D. Smith dismantled the old building. Its roof trusses, which dictated the width of the new building, were unpegged and transported in pieces. Other architectural elements such as windows, doors and columns were salvaged and reused. The new building was longer than the old – 91 ft (27.6 m), rather than 57 ft (17.4 m). Smith built two additional roof trusses of tulip poplar, and increased the spacing between all of them. The two-story main meeting room replicated the dimensions of the Great Meeting House's interior, and at least some of the old benches were reused. The building's extension contained a one-story women's meeting room, separated by a movable partition from the main meeting room, and a second floor room. Construction of the Twelfth Street Meeting House was completed in April 1813, at a cost of $21,410.46.

In 1827 a schism occurred in American Quakerism, which divided into Orthodox and Hicksite factions. Twelfth Street Meeting remained a stronghold for Orthodox Friends.

From 1874 to 1925, the meeting house was used for daily meeting by the adjacent William Penn Charter School, a Quaker private school for boys at the southwest corner of 12th and Market Streets. The school moved to a suburban campus in 1925, and its school building was demolished to build the PSFS Building (1930).

The Friends Institute, a one-story social hall, was built southwest of the meeting house in 1892. A second story was added in 1909, to provide offices and lodging rooms for visitors. The building was demolished in 1972.

In April 1917, days after the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I, a group of Quakers met at the Twelfth Street Meeting House to discuss the impending military draft. They formed the American Friends Service Committee to negotiate alternative service – rather than imprisonment – for conscientious objectors to the war. AFSC first had its headquarters in the Friends Institute, but soon expanded into the meeting house. In the 1930s, the main meeting room's balcony was divided into offices for AFSC, which it occupied until 1960. The organization shared in the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize, and continues to work for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world.

The schism in American Quakerism was formally healed in 1955. The following year, the formerly-Orthodox Twelfth Street Meeting and the formerly-Hicksite Race Street Meeting merged to form the Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. The two bodies consolidated at the Race Street Meeting House, making the 12th Street building superfluous. In September 1969, CPMM announced an agreement to sell the property to PSFS for $810,000.

Relocation

The Twelfth Street Meeting House embodied more than 200 years of Philadelphia Quaker history, and there was a strong desire to find a way to save it. In the 1930s a floor joist had been discovered with the initials "AC + IC" and the date "1755" spelled out in nailheads. This was presumed to have been the Great Meeting House's builders, Abraham Carlisle and Isaac Coates, "signing" their work.

CPMM delayed finalizing the sale to PSFS for two years, hoping to find a donor who would relocate the building. Several non-profits expressed interest, but withdrew after examining the cost of reconstruction. To make the deal more attractive, CPMM committed to paying the cost of the building's dismantling and transportation. The sale of the property to PSFS was finalized on October 10, 1971, but the fate of the meeting house remained unresolved. The William Penn Charter School – which had used the building for daily meeting for more than 50 years – worked diligently to raise funds to relocate the meeting house to its campus, but finally was forced to give up its bid at the end of November. In December, The George School announced that an anonymous donor had committed to paying for the building's reconstruction on its campus. Following their deaths, it was revealed that the anonymous donor actually had been two people, Helen Spruance and F. Palin. The cost of dismantling and transportation was $60,000. The cost of reconstruction has never been disclosed, but was estimated at up to half-a-million dollars.

Architect Charles Hough, of the firm Hayes & Hough, supervised the dismantling of the building in Summer 1972. In addition to the structural and architectural elements, between 50% and 75% of its bricks were salvaged and reused. The pieces of the building were numbered, transported to the school's campus, and reconstructed beginning in Spring 1973.

Reconstruction

Hough reconstructed the exterior to look as it had in 1813. He removed a 20th century addition that contained bathrooms and a caretaker's apartment, along with anachronisms such as a Colonial Revival triple window added to the women's meeting room. He used modern materials – cinderblock, concrete, steel – for structure; faced the building with original bricks laid in Flemish bond; and reinstalled the marble steps, exterior woodwork, windows and doors. The 1755 and 1812–13 buildings had been oriented east-west; the reconstructed building was oriented north-south.

He used the interior to evoke both of the ancestor buildings. At the south end, he created a great room, 54-ft (16.5 m) on each side – the interior dimensions of the Great Meeting House – and a soaring 45-ft (13.7 m) tall. Dramatically, he left the 1755 roof trusses exposed, high overhead. At the north end, he represented the length of the 12th Street building's extension with a 1-story "activities room." A continuous line of wainscoting around the interior visually united the two spaces. He turned a side entrance to the women's meeting room into the building's main entrance, and inserted a staircase between it and the northwest corner. This led to a second floor balcony overlooking the great room, and to a basement with bathrooms and utilities. At the northeast corner, he inserted a kitchenette and closets. Benches, railings, waincoting and other interior woodwork were refinished and reused. Hough's attention to detail extended to using replicas of the 1813 nails to attach the reused floorboards. Along the north wall, he installed the minister's gallery and elders bench – a raised platform traditionally reserved for visiting ministers and persons of authority. In a crowning gesture, he mounted the "signed" 1755 floor joist above it.

The Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects recognized Hough with a 1975 award for excellence. He was a life-long Quaker, and a 1944 graduate of The George School. In his 2016 obituary, his family recalled that relocating the meeting house had been the "proudest moment" of his career.

The restored meeting house was re-dedicated September 24, 1974. Shared with the Newtown Friends School, the building is used for daily meeting, lectures, concerts, and special events.