Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Background on Dartmouth Monthly Meeting

Located in South Dartmouth, Mass., the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting is one of the oldest Friends meetings in the United States, having been founded by Quakers seeking a haven from religious persecution in nearby Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies. Private worship may have begun in area homes as early as the 1660s, with the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting formally established in 1699.

Dartmouth has been associated with only two quarterly meetings throughout its long existence, Rhode Island Quarterly (1699-1788) and Sandwich Quarterly (1788-present). As an early and important center for Friends, however, it served as a starting point for other monthlies in the region. During the eighteenth century, two monthly meetings were set off from Dartmouth: Acoaxet (later known as Westport) in 1766 and New Bedford in 1792. Allen’s Neck Monthly Meeting was set off in 1956, since which time, the Dartmouth Monthly has generally been referred to as Smith Neck (or Smith’s Neck) Friends Meeting. The Wilburite separation in 1845 resulted in the formation of a parallel Wilburite Dartmouth Monthly Meeting in North Dartmouth, which retained its separate identity after the split was healed in 1945, taking the name of North Dartmouth Monthly Meeting.

Even more notably, Dartmouth has been the parent of a long list of worship groups and preparative meetings, including:

The first meetings for worship at Smith Neck were held in members’ homes in 1768 under the care of the Monthly Meeting at Apponegansett. In 1822, Caleb Anthony donated land for a meetinghouse, which has served as home for the Smith Neck Friends Meeting since. Although Smith Neck began as a traditional unprogrammed meeting, in 1890, an Elder, Eldridge Faunce, stood up to read a chapter of the Bible, offering commentary, and he was followed by a similar talk by Elizabeth Smith. Their actions fed into the evangelical currents already operating on the meeting, thanks in part to the influence of Joseph John Gurney, leading Smith Neck to seek a regular minister and establish themselves as a programmed or pastoral meeting.

Dartmouth Monthly Meeting currently has two distinct meetings and two meetinghouses: Smith Neck (594 Smith Neck Rd) and Apponegansett (Russells Mills Rd.).