Worcester Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

Background on Worcester Monthly Meeting

The intertwined history of the Society of Friends in Worcester and Uxbridge, Mass., began with the first meetings for worship in Uxbridge in 1767, under the care of Smithfield Monthly Meeting. Set off as a monthly meeting in 1783, Uxbridge reached its peak during the first half of the nineteenth century, but following years of decline, it changed its name and center to Worcester Monthly Meeting in 1907, with no meetings for worship held in Uxbridge for nearly a century.

A pastoral meeting associated with Smithfield Quarter, Worcester Monthly experienced a separation in 1952, when a portion of the membership broke away to establish the unprogrammed Pleasant Street Monthly Meeting, also in Worcester. Pleasant Street remained independent until affiliating with Connecticut Valley Quarterly Meeting in 1963.

In 1973, the members of Pleasant Street began holding joint meetings with Worcester, which led to a formal reunion in 1979, taking the name Worcester-Pleasant Street Monthly Meeting. Unusually, because of the merger the meeting held dual Quarterly membership until 1988 when they surrendered Connecticut Valley in favor of Rhode Island-Smithfield. Sometime before 2009, Worcester-Pleasant Street dropped Pleasant Street from their name.