Although Quakers first worshipped in Boston in 1661,
they were late in the game in organizing a formal meeting. A preparative meeting
operated in the city for just over a hundred years (1707-1808) under the auspices of
the Salem Monthly Meeting, and a second attempt at building a community began in
1870 with authorization of an indulged meeting in Roxbury. Set off formally as the
Boston Monthly Meeting Friend in 1883, this meeting continued until 1944, when it
merged with an independent meeting in neighboring Cambridge to create the current
Friends Meeting at Cambridge.
The records in this collection offer thorough
documentation of the Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends from its establishment as an
indulged meeting in 1870 through to its merger in 1944 and change of name to the
Friends Meeting at Cambridge. In addition to the meeting minutes, the collection
includes substantial records of the monthly's Friends Guild and Women's Foreign
Missionary Society.
Abbie Loring in Cape Cod Quaker attire, ca.1930. Photo by Alton H.
Blackington
Although Quakers arrived in Boston at a remarkably early date, 1656, and held their
first meeting there in 1661, they were late in the game in organizing a formal
meeting. Small meetings for worship gathered in the city for several decades under
the care of Salem Monthly Meeting, and despite the best attempts of colonial
officials to hamper spread of the faith, they coalesced into a Preparative Meeting
in 1707. The capitol of Congregationalism, however, never became a Quaker hotbed,
and after a century of survival, the Boston Preparative meeting was officially laid
down in 1808.
Quakerism returned to Boston in 1870, when a group of Friends based primarily in
Roxbury petitioned Salem Monthly to authorize a new indulged meeting which became
the core of the Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends when it was set off officially in
1883. A success, relatively speaking, this Meeting stewarded a preparative meeting
in Lawrence in 1886, which was formally set off as a monthly of its own thirteen
years later. In 1926, Boston Friends began meeting jointly with an independent
meeting in Cambridge and the two merged in 1944 to create the current Friends
Meeting at Cambridge: technically, the Cambridge independent meeting was laid down
and its members accepted into Boston.
Since that time, two additional monthly meetings have been formed in the area: Beacon
Hill (set off in 1958) and Fresh Pond (1991).
Scope of collection
The records in this collection offer thorough documentation of the Boston Monthly
Meeting of Friends from its establishment as an indulged meeting in 1870 through to
its merger in 1944 and change of name to the Friends Meeting at Cambridge. In
addition to the meeting minutes, the collection includes substantial records of the
monthly's Friends Guild and Women's Foreign Missionary Society, and less thorough,
but interesting materials for the Young Peoples Society for Christian Endeavor and
the Quaker Broad-Brim, a self-produced journal from a young people's literary
society.
Records for the meeting after merger with the Cambridge Independent meeting are
housed with the records of the Friends Meeting at Cambridge.
Selleck, George, Quakers in Boston, 1656-1964: Three
Centuries of Friends in Boston and Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass.: Friends
Meeting at Cambridge, 1976
Cite as: Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends Records (MS
902 b678). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts
Amherst Libraries.
