Bands of Quaker meeting houses line northern York and Adams counties
The Redlands Meeting House, a Quaker house of worship stands in the Newberrytown-Lewisberry area in northern York County, Pa. The meeting house will be one of four Society of Friends buildings open to the public in an upcoming tour. The reddish stones are examples of the geological features that gave the northern angle of the triangular shaped county its name. (See photograph of the building’s interior below.) Also of interest: Lewisberry, the Quaker town that the Lewises (who else?) built and Big Conewago serves as physical, symbolic divider of York County culture and York County artist/historian Jim Rudisill: “History is really ‘His Story,’ the story of people… “.
Quakers in northern York and Adams counties are opening four of the region’s oldest meetinghouses for a rare public tour April 30.
They are, at least, to those who have signed up. The first bus is sold out, and organizers are contemplating whether to add a second bus.
According to a news release:
How the Redlands meeting house looks from the inside.
The four-hour bus tour, departing at 8:30 a.m. from the Historic Tour Co. in Gettysburg, will include meetinghouses in Adams and York counties led by Debra McCauslin, a local historian and member of Menallen Friends Meeting.
The meetinghouses and cemeteries on the tour include Redlands (dating to 1811), Warrington (1745), Menallen (1748) and Huntington (1750). Menallen and Warrington are still used for worship.
Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, first settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th century near Philadelphia, but families soon began a westward migration.
The tour costs $20 for adults and $10 for children younger than 18. For reservations by March 18, visit redlandsreunion.com. The website also includes photographs of the meeting houses and other information on this band of buildings running across the northern tier of York and Adams counties.
Also of interest:
People of varying religious groups founded York County and Northern York area strawberry part of Neapolitan county. and Quaker horticulturalist Jonathan Jessop was 19th-century York County Renaissance man.
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