New England Fellowship history

In 1827 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting formally divided.

In 1836, Joseph John Gurney, an evangelical Friends’ minister from a wealthy English banking family, traveled widely in the United States.

Sybil and Eli Jones of Maine opened a girls’ school in Ramallah, Palestine, which came under the Yearly Meeting’s care in 1888.

By 1900, however, the Wilburite Yearly Meeting also began to change.

Meetings sent letters to President Wilson supporting the League of Nations proposal, and lauding the 1913 peace declaration of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm.

In 1937 a Second World Conference at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges brought together all who called themselves Friends for fellowship and mutual inspiration, and established an ongoing Friends World Committee for Consultation.

By 1944 the two Yearly Meetings and the independent meetings of New England agreed in principle on a merger.

Since 1945 the number of unprogrammed meetings has grown, most adopting the model of the formerly independent meetings.

In 1953 the Yearly Meeting opened a summer youth camp in China, Maine.

In 1974 a concern for aging Friends took shape as an intentional community in North Easton, Massachusetts, though financial difficulties eventually forced the sale of the homes and the laying down of the meeting there.

The Moses Brown boarding department closed in 1982.

London: Quaker Home Service, 1984.

Many Friends have participated in international Quaker gatherings, including hosting FWCC’s 20th Triennial in New Hampshire in 2000.