Springboro Monthly Meeting of Friends

Friends Graveyard ~ Springboro, Ohio
Warren County
(Site of the first Quaker Meetinghouse)

The first Friends Meetinghouse in Springboro, which is no longer extant, was located just south of the village. It stood next to the old Quaker graveyard. It stood in the northeast corner of the graveyard lot (see above). It was a one story white washed brick that faced south away from the village and Factory Road. It must have looked like a small version of the White Brick meetinghouse in Waynesville. It had a plain interior. The walls were roughly plastered and white washed. The wood was also painted white except for the partition screen, the ceiling and the benches, which were all unfinished. The men’s side had an old fashioned fireplace. On the women’s side was a spider-leg stove. There was a raised platform along the north side for the facing benches. The other benches facing north were five deep. After the Hicksite Schism in 1828, this small white brick meetinghouse, which had been built around 1824-1825, was retained by the Hicksites and was used for fifty years. The Orthodox Friends built another meetinghouse on the east side of Springboro (see directly above right). The Orthodox Meetinghouse also has a cemetery.

The Hicksite Quakers of Springboro decided to tear down their old meetinghouse around 1873. In 8th mo. of 1873 they began to raise money for building a new Hicksite Meetinghouse. Shortly before this Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville had also decided to refurbish and remodel part of the interior of the 1811 White Brick. Dr. Aron Wright donated the land for the new Hicksite meetinghouse, which was near the Wright mill and millpond, and also donated a further $600.00 towards the building of a new frame meetinghouse. The new meetinghouse stood where the IGA Store now stands at the corner of Rtes. 741 & 73 (see photograph directly above on left).

The major contributors to the building of the new Hicksite Meetinghouse in Springboro were also all highly involved in the support of Miami Valley College which had opened in 1870: Aron Wright ($600.00), Emily Wright ($200.00), Hannah Wright ($50.00), Lydia Wright ($50.00), Edward J. Heston ($200.00), Mary Davis ($200.00), Jesse Wright ($50.00), Job Mullin ($80.15), David Chandler ($15.00) and Moses. W. Hollingsworth ($25.00). The amounts of their donations for the new meetinghouse are found on microfilm at the Quaker Collection at Wilmington College, the minutes of Springboro Monthly Meeting & Executive Committee. A wonderful description of the first old meetinghouse is also found on the same microfilm.

The Springboro Monthly Meeting, a preparative meeting of Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville and a meeting for worship, was set up in Springboro on 5th mo. 9th 1818. It became a monthly meeting 1824. It had been severely hurt by the infamous Hicksite Schism in 1828 and never fully recovered its stamina from that experience. Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville had not suffered so severely. Springboro Monthly Meeting continued to grow smaller until 1898 when it became an “Execute Meeting” responsible to Miami Monthly Meeting. Springboro Quakers were strongly "Hicksite". The Orthodox meeting closed in 1875. However, the Hicksite Quaker meeting in Springboro was intimately involved in the establishment of Miami Valley Institute ~ A Hicksite Quaker College on the east edge of town.

Also see: See, Thomas Hill's Monthly Meetings in North American: A Quaker Index:
http://www.quakermeetings.com/viewRecord_display?anID=TST1771L (Hicksite), and,

http://www.quakermeetings.com/viewRecord_display?anID=TST1772L (Orthodox)

The Orthodox Friends in Springboro had one subordinate meeting: Sugar Creek Preparative Meeting (Orthodox), which met from December 19th, 1822 ~ November 13th, 1841. It was located just east of Centerville, Ohio near of intersection of Clyo Road and Rte 725 (Montgomery County). The meetinghouse is long gone but the cemetery is still preserved (see historical marker below):

The Sugar Creek Friends Cemetery below