Quaker Meeting House Partition photographs   Save
Ohio History Connection Properties File
Description: Four images representing two postcards depict the interior of the Quaker Meeting House, also known as the Friends Yearly Meeting House, in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. The meeting house holds 2,000 worshippers and contains a mechanism that allowed a partition to be raised and lowered. The partition was used to separate men and women during some special meetings. The first postcard shows the partition partly raised. The second postcard shows the Spanish windlass and wheel that was used to raise and lower the partition. These postcards measure 3" by 5" (7.6 by 12.7 cm). The Quaker Meeting House in Mount Pleasant, Ohio was built in 1814 for the Ohio Yearly Meeting. This was the first yearly meeting house built west of the Alleghenies. This meeting was composed of quarterly meetings from Ohio as well as Pennsylvania and the Indiana Territory. The final yearly meeting was held at the meeting house in 1909. The Quakers of Mount Pleasant were well-known for their abolitionist activities. As early as the 1810s, there are reports that the Quakers were assisting escaped slaves. In 1817, Charles Osborn began publishing the Philanthropist, which is regarded as the first anti-slavery newspaper in the nation. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om3242_3832061_001
Subjects: Civil Liberties; Religion in Ohio; Architecture; Quakers; Society of Friends; Religious facilities; National Register of Historic Places
Places: Mount Pleasant (Ohio); Jefferson County (Ohio)