Old Quaker Meeting House (Queens)
The Flushing Friends Quaker Meeting House, also the Old Quaker Meeting House, is a historic Quaker house of worship located at 137-16 Northern Boulevard, in Flushing, Queens, New York. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967 and a New York City designated landmark in 1970. Today, it still serves as a Quaker Meeting, with meetings for worship taking place every Sunday.
History
Colonial times
The Flushing Friends Quaker Meeting House was built in 1694 as a small frame structure on land acquired in 1692 by John Bowne and John Rodman in Flushing, New York. The first recorded meeting held there was on November 24, 1694. This original structure is now the easterly third of the current structure, which was expanded 1716-1719. According to one source, the original structure was renovated in 1704 and then demolished in 1716. The Flushing meeting house was the second meeting house to be built on Long Island, the first one being built in Oyster Bay in 1672, which no longer stands.The Quakers, coming from the Netherlands, settled in the area in 1657 and meetings were held in people's homes until the Meeting House was built. Henry Townsend offered his home for meetings, but was fined for harboring “pestilents,” which was how the Quakers were regarded. The Quakers continued to meet in secret in the woods until John Bowne offered his home for meetings. Bowne was banished to Holland for refusing to pay the fine, but returned two years later to combat the persecution that the Quakers faced. The group drafted the Flushing Remonstrance and in Holland, Bowne pleaded before the Dutch West India Company to honor the cause of religious freedom, and a letter was written in 1663 to Governor Stuyvesant to end the persecution of Quakers.
The building contains a partition which can be lowered and raised, and separates the men's from the women's side. Typically business meetings would be conducted by each group independently, then the partition would be raised for the religious meeting.
Occupation by the British Army
During the American Revolutionary War, the Meeting House was seized by the British Army and in 1776 converted to a barracks, prison, and hospital for soldiers. After the war, in 1783, the Quakers returned the building to its original use.Renovations and repairs
In 1976, repairs were recommended to the building that totaled an estimated $70,000. After two and half centuries, the wooden building suffered from “dry not rot and beetle teeth”. A volunteer archeological crew from New York University and the New York State Division for Historic Preservation was formed to survey the site for stabilization work funded by the Society of Friends and a grant from the National Park Service. The crew conducted tests to determine the nature of the surface below the Meeting House floor. Since no evidence of significant cultural or archaeological artifacts were found, it was determined that excavation for the stabilization work could continue.In 2005, the city allocated $600,000 to complete required repairs to the roof, gutters chimney, window frames, and porch deck, but as of 2006, no repairs were started because the amount of paperwork required. New architectural designs need to be approved by the Landmark Preservation Committee before any work can be done. Although the building requires repairs, it is still open for meetings and Sunday School.