Lawrence-Andover Friends Meeting Records

Background on Lawrence-Andover Friends Meeting

The Quaker meeting in Lawrence, Mass., evolved from Boston Monthly Meeting in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Beginning with Hezekiah Binns, his wife, and a small group of friends, Lawrence Quakers began to gather for worship in members' homes as early as 1884, and asked to hold regular meetings at the Lawrence YMCA by 1886. The group grew steadily, held together by temperance principles and religious bonds, acquiring a meetinghouse on Avon Street in 1895 and setting off as a monthly meeting in 1899.

In 1979, a worship group was established in Andover by Anne Avery and Jane Griswold, which was placed under care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting in 1986. Although Lawrence became inactive in 1985, it was never formally laid down, and after in began meeting again in 1994 it combined with Andover Preparative Meeting to form the present Lawrence-Andover Monthly Meeting, gathering at the Forest Street Union Church in Methuen.

Part of Salem Quarterly meeting since their founding, Lawrence Monthly has overseen preparative meeting in Lawrence (1901-1930) and Manchester, N.H. (1901-1930).