Center Meeting ~ Clinton County, Ohio

Center Monthly & Quarterly Meetinghouse
Center Road at Anderson Road., V.M.S. 1558
Clinton County, Ohio

The following is taken from an article published in the Wilmington Journal News in 1946:

The grounds upon which Center meetinghouse, shown above, was built were first owned by Gen. Horatio Gates, of Revolutionary fame, in 1793. He sold the country around Center to James Murray, who sent his son there in 1803 to sell the lands. Murray, Jr. went to Waynesville, where he found numerous dissatisfied Friends sojourning and land hunting, as the Maimi lands had no perfect title. Murray donated 15 acres to them for a meetinghouse and sold hundreds of acres adjacent. Center meetinghouse and burying ground trustees were Nathan Linton, James Moon and Isaac Perkins. The first religious meeting in Clinton County was held at the home of Robert Eachus, east of Center, in 1804. A log meetinghouse was erected the same year. The monthly meeting was established in 1807 and a better house was built. It belonged to Miami Quarterly Meeting, Waynesville, and the quarterly meeting was established in 1816 (Center Quarterly Meeting). The building pictured above was erected in 1826 and some of the largest quarterly meetings in the west were held there. Below are the names of some of the noted pioneers who are buried there: Spencer Ballard, Nathan Linton, Rachel Linton, Israel Taylor, Robert Eachus, Isabella Rich, Hannah Taylor, William Doan, Joseph Doan, Eliza Doan. First adult burial was John Vestal, who died in 1804. Some years after the last service was held there, which is believed to have been a centennial celebration in 1926, the building was sold and used as a a place for storage until it was destroyed by fire in 1936.

Subordinate Meetings of Center Monthly Meeting were:

Caesar's Creek Preparataive Meeting 1806/12/01-1810/05/12
Springfield Preparative Meeting 1812/08/08-1818/11/14
Dover Preparative Meeting 1815/11/11-1824/08/14
New Hope Preparative Meeting 1817/08/14-1921/02/05
Lytle's Creek Preparative Meeting 1817-1818
Seneca Preparative Meeting 1822-1824 (later Jamestown Monthly Meeting)
Chester Preparative Meeting 1824-30 & 1886/05/01-1921/02/05
Wilmington Preparative Meeting 1827/06/11-1828/06/09

For more information see, quakermeetings.com: http://www.quakermeetings.com/viewRecord_display?anID=TST436L

Also, see map: Map of Quaker Meetinghouses

Center Meeting Graveyard