Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

A general meeting for Friends in the Delaware Valley area was first convened at Burlington, New Jersey, in 1681. The first general meeting held in Philadelphia was in 1683, and in 1685, it was agreed that the meetings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania should be combined into one yearly meeting with alternate sessions at Philadelphia and at Burlington. Since 1760, all Philadelphia Yearly Meetings have been held at Philadelphia. At its greatest extent, its territory embraced eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, Delaware, and parts of Maryland and Virginia. In 1790, Warrington Quarterly Meeting and Fairfax Quarterly Meeting were transferred to Baltimore Yearly Meeting in exchange for the old meetings on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1819, several components of Western Quarterly Meeting were similarly transferred. The great Separation, which divided much of the Society of Friends across the country, began at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1827.

Among Quakers, a Yearly Meeting is an annual gathering, open to all members, and held over a period of several days. Each yearly meeting is autonomous. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the business of the meeting included the receipt of answers to a set of queries to the Quarterly Meetings, issuing and reading epistles to and from other yearly meetings, receiving reports, establishing discipline, and seeking God's guidance on larger regional or national issues. Minutes of the Yearly Meeting frequently summarized reports and other testimonies, but the original documents also form part of the records.