From as early as 1660 the Society of Friends exerted a strong influence socially, politically, and economically in the state of Maryland. No other religious property in Baltimore City can trace its history to 1713, sixteen years before the creation of Baltimore Town. In 1713, John Ensor, a planter in Baltimore, sold one acre of land to Richard Taylor. In 1714, a Quaker petition was presented to the superior court of Baltimore County in Joppa. From 1714 to 1781 the Patapsco Meeting was held at Friendship [2515 Harford Road], part of the Darley Hall tract, until the meeting was moved to Aisquith Street.
The congregation became known as the Baltimore Meeting or the Aisquith Street Meeting, and by 1793 had attained the status of a Monthly Meeting (an independent congregation). The Old Town Friends’ Meeting House is one of Baltimore’s few remaining 18th century structures. It is the oldest religious building in the city, having been built in 1781 by contractor George Mathews for $4,500. The members of Aisquith meeting were young. In 1781, Joseph Townsend (humanitarian who helped Baltimore grow) was 25 years old, Elisha Tyson (underground railroad) was 32 years told, Moses Sheppard (Sheppard Pratt Hospital) was ten. The Old Town Friends’ Meeting House typifies the refined simplicity and dignity of the Quaker Meeting House. It is a 2-story brick building which has undergone several alterations over the years. The George Matthews design welcomed men and women through separate entrances into a spacious but plain room with a high vaulted ceiling. Sliding wooden panels, still intact, could be raised for Meeting for Worship and other large gatherings or lowered to divide the men's and women's Business Meetings. The architect of the 1967 restoration, Francis H. Jencks, has attempted to restore the building as it appears in a photograph taken circa 1845-1850. The exterior fabric of the meeting house is original. Three of the exterior walls are set in Flemish bond, while the fourth wall, on the east, is of common bond. Apparently the building always had a chimney with stove in the east gable, but the chimney in the west gable was an early 19th century addition. The building at one time apparently had six entrances, two in the north and two in the south walls, and one at each end; however, the two doorways in the north side (Fayette Street) were bricked over and remain thus. Some of the window sashes are original, but most are of the mid-19th century, at which time the pediments over the first-floor windows were applied. The outside shutters were changed from the louvered to the solid type during the 1967 restoration. At that time, also, evidence was found that the balcony may have extended along the west end wall, although it is now along only the south wall. In 1794, Friends School of Baltimore opened in a small brick building on the east corner of the burial ground behind the meeting house. This was the first school in Baltimore, opening over forty years before Baltimore city would open its first public school. The Friends School would eventually move to Lombard Street and migrate with that congregation. In 1805, Friends who lived west of Calvert Street began a worship group, called an Indulged Meeting (Aisquith meeting indulged Friends who lived on the growing west side of Baltimore by giving permission to have their own worship group). By 1807, Baltimore Monthly Meeting was divided into two meetings. Quakers who met at Aisquith became the Baltimore Monthly Meeting for the Eastern District. The new monthly meeting, composed of nearly half of the 750 members of Aisquith) was called Baltimore Monthly Meeting for the Western District, and met at Lombard Street, (between Howard and Eutaw, where now sits a Holiday Inn). In 1812, 17 year-old Johns Hopkins, founder of the known Baltimore institution would move to Baltimore City to work with his uncle, a wholesale grocer, and would begin worshiping at Aisquith Street. He died as a regular attendee of the Eutaw Street (Orthodox) meeting before his death Christmas Eve, 1873. Johns Hopkins was also a manager of the B&O Railroad along with fellow Quaker Philip E Thomas (first president of B&O Railroad).
Tensions arose between the Lombard Friends and Aisquith Street Friends over use of the burial ground (now a field west of Aisquith Street Meeting House). These disagreements resulted in the Quarterly Meeting (a body of several monthly meetings within relative proximity to one another) laying down (taking away independence of) Eastern District in 1819; Aisquith Street became a preparative meeting under [the care of] the Western District. In 1825, Quakers at Aisquith tried to become a monthly meeting again, but Lombard would not allow it. Attendance afterwards declined. In 1881, Baltimore Monthly Meeting (Lombard Street Meeting) held a special meeting to commemorate the centennial of Aisquith Meeting House. Included among the guests was the only surviving daughter of founder Joseph Townsend. There was a meeting for worship, where traditional vocal ministry was offered as well as readings of poems and letters and remembrances of times past.
In 1889, the Lombard Meeting moved to the Park Avenue Meeting House (now Old Friends Condominiums in Bolton Hill). They changed their corporate name to Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Stony Run in 1944 when they began to meet at the Friends School on North Charles Street. The Orthodox branch took the name Baltimore Monthly Meeting for the Eastern and Western Districts (Orthodox), and was informally known as Courtland after the location of its meeting house (Courtland Street is now the lower loop of St Paul Street, and the meeting house sat where Mercy Hospital sits today). Courtland was sold in 1867, and the Orthodox meeting moved to Eutaw Street @ Monument Street (now a parking lot). In 1922, this meeting moved again to the Homewood Meeting House on North Charles St and took the name Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Homewood. By 1926, when most Friends had moved away from East Baltimore, the building was abandoned and in much need of repair. Park Avenue Friends (formerly Lombard) decided to close the meeting at Aisquith although there were around 50 members there. It was sold to the city to become part of the Public Park System. Through the joint efforts of the city of Baltimore and the McKim Community Association, the historic building was restored and released to McKim Community Center in 1967. In 1996 another much needed restoration took place. Speculations center on a trap door, crawlspace, and hidden room discovered during those renovations that the meeting house may have been used in the Underground Railroad since Quakers were so involved and Elijah Tyson was a member there. With several substantial grants from foundations, McKim Community Center partnered with Baltimore City and the Maryland Historical Trust to modernize and restore the space for community programs, taking great care to respect what was by then a Maryland Historical Site. Members of Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Stony Run sit on the Board of Trustees of the McKim Center. In January of 2008, a group of life-long Quakers and those new to our religious society began worshiping monthly and later twice monthly in the Seton Hill neighborhood. Some of these Friends were members and attendees at Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Homewood, but others came from Takoma Park Friends, Sandy Spring Friends (both in Montgomery Counties), Langley Hill (Va.) Friends, and Patapsco Friends (Ellicott City). Initially they worshipped in a Friend's home on Druid Hill Avenue. They outgrew that small house, and the worship group was subsequently hosted by the Metropolitan Community Church of Baltimore (caddy corner to the site of the old Eutaw Street meeting house). The group felt increasingly blessed by the fellowship and deeply spiritual meetings for worship, and desired to meet weekly for worship and to share their faith and their meetings for worship with any who wished to attend and learn. In the summer of 2009 they approached the McKim Center about rental of the Aisquith Street meeting house in order to build a weekly Christian fellowship there. Old Town Fellowship existed as an independent worship group until January, 2012 when low attendance and damage to the meeting house forced a change in venue and direction. Currently the meeting house is closed due to damage from Hurricane Irene. It is listed on Preservation Maryland's Endangered Buildings list. This page is compiled from the following sites:
Minute by Minute A history of the Baltimore Monthly Meetings Homewood and Stony Run, Mallonee, Bonny and Fessenden ISBN 0-9635053-1-9 Contact us! oldtownfriends@gmail.com |
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