Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia

A monthly meeting at Philadelphia was established along with Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting in 10mo 1682/3. Quakers first met in homes, but the first Bank Meeting House – the “meeting on the Delaware side” – was built late in 1683 or early in 1684, located on the west side of Front Street, north of Mulberry (Arch). A second meeting house was erected in Centre Square by 1687, but this was infrequently used due to its distance from the rapidly developing area along the Delaware. Construction began on the Great Meeting House on the southwest corner of 2nd and Market in 1696. In 1772, this meeting was divided, resulting in two additional monthly meetings in Philadelphia: Philadelphia Monthly Meeting for the Northern District and Philadelphia Monthly Meeting for the Southern District. The original meeting was then sometimes referred to as the "Middle District."