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Free Quaker's Meeting House, S.W. corner of 5th and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, PA,  1859.
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Image of the Meeting house.

Credit: Library of Congress

During the American Revolution some Pennsylvania's Quakers felt the cause of freedom so keenly that they felt compelled to fight. After the Yearly Meeting disowned them, a group of close to 200 Free or "Fighting" Quakers in 1783 opened their own Free Meeting House at 5th and Arch streets in Philadelphia. In 1834, Betsy Ross and John Price Wetherill, the last attendees, closed the building and the Free Quakers existed no more. Today the building is part of the Independence National Historical Park, and descendents of the Free Quakers still meet there annually to disperse funds generated by the rental of the hall.

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