Early Meeting Houses in Philadelphia

This post will be a mish-mash of information that I don't want to loose, but probably won't get organized.  It is dibs and dabs from different people about the early Meeting houses.

From Steve Moore:

The subject of the first meeting houses in Philly is really interesting.  I am no expert and have not done the research, but have been looking at it in passing as I look into our Moore family.   For example, I’ve just finished reading through the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting minutes from 1684 through 1742 as abstracted in the Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania volumes I through 8.

The minutes are filled with references to the various meeting buildings but my time is so limited I was not able to jot down more than a couple of lines.  

31 11m 1695/6 - "The deed for the Lot of Ground in the second street, that was purchased of Governor Markham was read at this meeting and delivered by Samuel Carpenter…""

26 1m 1697 - "At our Monthly Meeting held at the Meeting house in the High Street…"

26 6m 1698 – “Whereas the Old Bank Meeting house is much decayed and in great danger of falling down, this meeting hath taken the same into consideration, and it is agreed that William Southeby, Anthony Morris, Samuel Richardson & James Fox do Endeavor to get it sold at publick outcry sometime between this and the next monthly meeting, and to give Robert Turner notice thereof.”

And of course they built the center meeting house which was to be THE meeting house.  According to the minutes they spared no expense in so doing.  It took several years to build and our James was one of many.  But as we know, the center of Philly did not play out as Penn had hoped and the epicenter of activity remained closer to the river.  The center house was eventually abandoned, but since they had so much money tied up in it, they made plans to dismantle it and sell the building materials.  Unfortunately, with my limited time I did not notate any of this, just bookmarked in my mind so I can go back to it down the road, so I can’t point you to the pages wherein this was all written.  Though no mention was made of the windows during their discussions of dismantling, it does stand to reason that they would also be salvaged and sold, or even reused in one of the other meeting houses.  I get the feeling that James’ windows lived on.

Next is a land transaction in which land owned originally by James Moore is being sold to be used for building a meeting house:

JAMES MOORE’S LOT ON THE WEST SIDE OF SECOND STREET IN PHILADELPHIA, PURCHASED 12 OCTOBER 1691 AND CONVEYED BY DEED FROM JOHN MOORE, HIS SON & HEIR, TO NICHOLAS PEARCE ON 2 JANUARY 1694, for use of the Quakers to build a meeting house (James Moore having prior to his death agreed to the sale to Pearce and Pearce having paid him the seven pounds price for it, the same being acknowledged in the following deed by John Moore, son of James, in order to convey title from Moore to Pearce and the Society of Friends.)