READING FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE

108 N. 6th Street
Reading, PA
610.372.5345

History:

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The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, established themselves in Berks County as early as 1718, long before the City of Reading was mapped out. The Society of Friends was Reading’s first religious organization. In 1759, they purchased land on N. 6th Street to erect a log structure to have their meetings for worship. During the Revolutionary War, the Friends turned their Meetinghouse into a hospital for wounded Hessian soldiers who were captured at the Battle of Trenton by George Washington’s Army.

In 1868 the Friends needed a larger space, so they built a stone structure on the 6th Street site that remains today. The new meetinghouse became Reading’s main house of worship for Friends. It also became a Red Cross headquarters during World War I. In 1920 the Red Cross added an annex to the meetinghouse. Throughout history this building continued its multiple roles. Currently, the meetinghouse has 49 members and hosts an average of 8-12 Friends on primary worship days.

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Congregation/Space:

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The Reading Friends Meetinghouse is a stone structure on N. 6th Street, located directly behind Trinity Lutheran Church. The meetinghouse is a one-story, two-bay, front-gabled building featuring a large semi-circular window and a date stone in the gable. A large cantilevered porch shades the entry door, which leads into a vestibule and a small foyer space, before entering the main meeting room.

The main part of the meetinghouse built in the 19th century is made up of traditional elements of Quaker architecture. A traditional style meetinghouse usually had two meeting rooms: one for men and one for  women with a movable partition in between the spaces. However, today the meetinghouse has one shared space for worship. The interior detail is very minimal with pews or benches that are fashioned in rows facing each other. This meetinghouse also has an elders bench immediately in front which faces all the other benches. The elders bench is not used for its original purpose, as everyone in the meetinghouse now is “seen as equals.”

The addition of the annex on the west side of the meetinghouse, funded by the Red Cross, has a completely different setting then the rest of the original 19th century space. The annex now consists of a large, modern kitchen, a children’s playroom/classroom, and a meeting room for the Friends. There is also a parking lot on the west side of the meetinghouse.

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Although the meetinghouse is built in a minimalist, traditional style having few to no decorations, it is rich with history containing valuable documents, and art pieces. One of the pieces is an etching of an 18th century ship carved into the meetinghouse’s woodwork. The etching was done by an injured Hessian soldier captured in New Jersey who received medical care at the log meetinghouse. The Friends also have a wooden chair made from the walls of the original log meetinghouse, as well as an old English document from the Penn family. Today, these pieces are on display in the Friends meetinghouse.

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Programs:

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For more than 50 years, the Berks Peace Community (BPC) has been Berks County, Pennsylvania's premier peace organization, with meetings held once a month at the Friends meetinghouse. They frequently vocalize and act on social issues. These issues include sexual diversity, gender equality and opposing violent actions in favor of non-violent and peaceful means of resolving conflicts.

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The Friends support families by holding First-day School which is an equivalent to a Sunday School program for their youth. They also volunteer at Berks Family Promise, an organization that helps families stay together during times of serious trouble. Family Promise has a program called U-Turn that is designed to help individuals achieve educational, employment and housing stabilization goals. In addition, several Friends have helped on the issue of immigration. The Friends not only protested peacefully for the release of families at the Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, but one member also provided legal services to the families in the residential center.