Darby Meeting


The Darby Meeting or Darby Friends Meeting House is located in Darby, Pennsylvania. The first recorded minutes of the meeting are dated July 2, 1684, not long after William Penn landed in nearby Chester to establish the colony of Pennsylvania. The first Friends meeting house in Darby was a log cabin built in 1687. The third and present building was built in 1805. It was used during the Revolutionary War by Continental soldiers. During the War of 1812, it was used by the U. S. Army as a hospital.
The -story building follows the Quaker tradition of simple and solid buildings. Its design is similar to that of the Horsham Friends Meeting House with separate entrances for men and women. Its walls are coursed fieldstone with stuccoed gables at each end. Brick fireplaces are also on each end of the interior. A covered porch extends along three sides of the ground floor, with the porch roof supported by simple wooden posts. Wooden posts also support the interior balcony. Most of the benches and other furniture are built of pine, but the floor is oak. Electric lighting and the usual utilities have been added, but otherwise the building retains its original form.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 13, 1978.

Notable burials

John Blunston: Founder of Darby, PA; 3x Speaker of the Colonial Assembly
Martha Schofield: Educator