North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records
Responding to a concern expressed in the New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1971, Quakers in eastern Massachusetts set out to create an intentional Quakerly community for the care of elder Friends. The first meeting for worship took place in 1977, with the first residents moving in to Friends Crossing in 1979, leading to recognition of North Easton as a monthly meeting under Rhode Island-Smithfield Quarter in 1980. In the following years, however, the reduction in numbers of older members and decline in attenders, led to the decision in 1994 to lay down the meeting.
The records of North Easton Monthly Meeting document the short career of a meeting built around a planned Quaker intentional community. The relatively complete set of minutes is accompanied by a mixed, but useful body of financial records documenting the meeting’s dissolution.
Background on North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends
Responding to a concern expressed in the New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1971, Quakers in eastern Massachusetts set out to create an intentional Quakerly community for the care of elder Friends. In 1976, an 86 acre site in North Easton, Mass., was purchased, with a small cottage that became the first site for an independent worship group the following year.
Ground breaking for the planned community, Friends Crossing, took place in November 1978, with the first residents moving in a year later. Renting space for their meeting in town, in expectation that a meetinghouse would eventually be built, the community grew sufficiently that Rhode Island-Smithfield Quarter authorized them as a new monthly meeting in August 1980. By the early 1990s, however, the aging out of members sapped the meeting, and in the face of a sharp decline in attenders, the decision was made in 1994 to lay down North Easton Monthly.
Scope of collection
The records of North Easton Monthly Meeting document the short career of a meeting built around a planned Quaker intentional community. The relatively complete set of minutes is accompanied by a mixed, but useful body of financial records documenting the meeting’s dissolution.
Inventory
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Provenance
Gift of the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends Records, March 2016.
Related Material
This collection is part of the New England Yearly Meeting Records.
Processing Information
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, November 2018.
Language:
English
Copyright and Use (More information )
Cite as: North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records (MS 902 N437). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Search terms
Subjects
- North Easton (Mass.)–Religious life and customs
- Quakers–Massachusetts
- Society of Friends–Massachusetts
Names
- New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
Genre terms
- Minutes (Administrative records)
- Newsletters
- Vital records (Document genre)