Background on New London Friends Meeting
Abbie Loring in Cape Cod Quaker attire, ca.1930.
Photo by Alton H. Blackington
New London Friends Meeting began in about 1964, when Hobart Mitchell moved to the area to join the faculty at Mitchell College and discovered there was no active meeting in the immediate area. Through the Friends World Committee and Friends General Conference, Mitchell came up with the names of two "isolated" Friends nearby, and convinced two each from Westerly and Guilford Monthly Meetings to gather in an independent worship group.
In the early years, this small circle met in Mitchell's living room, but after growing and securing status as a monthly meeting under care of Connecticut Valley Quarter in 1966, they found themselves without a home, gathering in various places in town and at Connecticut College as opportunity presented. When the Community Chapel on Oswegatchie Road closed down in 1985, however, the requirement that the building be used only for religious purposes resulted in New London Friends having a meetinghouse of their own.
