Background on South Starksboro Monthly Meeting of Friends
Abbie Loring in Cape Cod Quaker attire, ca.1930.
Photo by Alton H. Blackington
The Friends Monthly Meeting at South Starksboro, Vermont, began as Creek Allowed Meeting, and has had a complex organizational history. Formed under the aegis of Monkton Monthly Meeting in 1803, at a time when Vermont meetings were under the care of New York Yearly Meeting, the meeting became Creek Preparative Meeting in 1825. Starksboro was laid down in 1850, with Creek continuing under the care of Ferrisburgh Monthly Meeting, changing its name to South Starksboro Preparative Meeting in 1881. The meeting was under pastoral care for a number of years until 1923.
When Ferrisburgh Monthly became inactive in 1952, South Starksboro was granted monthly status under Ferrisburgh Quarterly Meeting, and when that Quarter was laid down in 1975, South Starksboro transferred to New England Yearly Meeting. Becoming a preparative meeting again in 1982, under the care of Middlebury Monthly Meeting, South Starksboro regained monthly status in 1996. It remains active as part of Northwest Quarter, still using the historic meetinghouse constructed in 1828, the oldest Quaker meetinghouse in Vermont.
