Back in October 2023, I wrote a blog post titled “Exploring my Irish Quaker Roots: From England to Ireland to Pennsylvania.” That post was inspired by my trip that summer to Ireland. This follow up post was inspired by my much more recent trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in early August 2025.
In that 2023 post, I wrote about how, when my husband Mike and I visited the EPIC Immigration Museum in Dublin, I chose among my various ancestors from Ireland to plug in Katherine Lightfoot’s name in the immigration database, as seen in the photo below:
Without repeating too much here (I encourage you to read the previous post), I explained that Katherine Lightfoot was my 8th great grandmother, born on September 12, 1682 in County Antrim in Northern Ireland to Rev. Thomas Lightfoot (b. 1645 in Cambridge, England) and his wife Mary. In 1700 Katherine married James Robert Miller, who was born in Timahoe, Kildare, Leinster, Ireland. They had one son and six daughters (I descend through their daughter Mary, b. 1713).
Katherine at some point became a Quaker minister, with her family being members of the Timahoe Meeting in County Kildare, then later the Quaker Meeting in Dublin. In September of 1729, after various other family members had already done so, she and her husband James immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with five of their children on the Sizargh of Whitehaven, captained by Jeremiah Cowman. There, sadly, just a few weeks after their arrival, she died on October 17. She is buried at the Friends Arch Street Meeting House Burial Grounds in Philadelphia.
Now, back to the present. Imagine my surprise when I realized the hotel I had booked for my husband and me on our recent trip was directly across the street from the Arch Street Meeting House! Of course I was anxious to learn more, so on our first full day in Philadelphia, we headed across the street to check things out.
A large brick wall surrounds the meeting house grounds, but we noticed several possible entrances. We entered from the side, where we saw a large plot of grass with several tall trees but no graves markers. Then I saw a sign that posed the question: “What Happened to the Headstones?” As the sign explained: “In the 1700s, Philadelphia Quakers declared grave markers were ‘Marks of Superfluity and excess.’ Grave markers and stones were deemed ‘inconsistent with the plainness of [Quaker] Principles and Practice,’ and many were removed or buried in a pit on the property.”
It was in 1701 that William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, formally deeded this land to the Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, to be used as a burial ground. Some burials had already taken place on the site before this, with the earliest recorded in 1697. As explained on another sign, “Arch Street’s burial grounds were initially organized by family and community. As the grounds grew fuller, the Quakers began burying the deceased in chronological rows. The final recorded burial was in 1872."
The exact number of people buried on the site is unknown, but estimates range from 13,000 to 20,000. While the burial grounds were primarily reserved for Quakers, exceptions were sometimes made. During the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, approximately 5,000 Philadelphians – 10 percent of the city’s population – died over a four month period. Records show that, during that period, “Arch Street’s burial grounds were opened to everyone … and that people of diverse races, religions, and nationalities were buried here.”
Construction of the Arch Street Meeting House – the largest Quaker meetinghouse in the United States at 28,000 square feet – did not begin until 1801 and was not completed until 1811, so neither Katherine nor her husband ever set foot inside the building. Her husband James actually moved with their children to New Garden, a township about 40 miles southwest of Philadelphia, where Katherine’s father, Thomas, and brother, Michael, both also Quaker ministers, had already moved. Thomas Lightfoot, my 9th great grandfather, is buried near there in the Darby Friends Cemetery in Darby, PA.
The building is still used as a Quaker meeting house, but it also houses a museum with exhibits about Quaker history and beliefs and some of the “heroes” of the faith. We spoke with a docent whom we found in the West Room, who talked a bit about her own experience as a Quaker. There are currently about 76,000 Quakers in the United States; 377,000 worldwide. The West Room also contains various signs explaining some of the Quakers’ core beliefs. The following descriptions are taken from those signs:
- Simplicity - Quakers believe in living simply so they can focus on their spiritual life and helping others; as a result, their meeting house is very plain, with no distractions from worship like adornments, statues, stained glass windows, or icons.
Equality & Racism - Many "Friends," as Quakers are often called, were among the first abolitionists, speaking out strongly against slavery and aiding in the Underground Railroad. Others, however, participated in and benefited from enslavement, and first-hand accounts also report that seating was sometimes racially segregated into the 1800s, so they were not consistent in this belief. Many of the suffragists who fought hard for women’s right to vote were Quakers, and others helped pioneer school and prison reform.
The Light Within - Quakers believe everyone has a direct relationship with God. They call it the “Light Within” or the “Inner Light.” While some Friends view the “Light Within” as the Christian God, others view it as spiritual energy or the truth.
Community - Quakers do not typically have one minister who heads the congregation. However, historically, they did have leaders and elders who were more likely to share their reflections during meeting, who sat on what they called “facing benches” that faced the congregation. Others sat in the general seating area.
Activism - Quakers are activists. They are guided by their faith's core beliefs - "testimonies" - of peace, equality, integrity, and simplicity. They agitate for social, political, economic, and environmental change both locally and around the world.
There are also displays at the Meeting House, as I mentioned, about some of the "heroes" of the faith. Several were highlighted in a series of dioramas; others, in large exhibits. The first photo below shows a diorama depicting William Penn's meeting in Philadelphia in 1682 with Lenape chiefs. Under an elm tree, they signed a treaty focused on establishing peaceful coexistence and fair trade between the settlers and the native inhabitants. Penn aimed to build a colony based on principles of religious freedom and mutual respect. He wanted to avoid the conflicts common in other settlements - and, as the sign states, "colonists and Native people did peacefully coexist - until the mid-1700s, when the European push to seize Native lands erupted into decades of racial violence."
Other Quaker heroes depicted or mentioned in the dioramas included abolitionists Benjamin Lay and Anthony Benezet; suffragists Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul; Native American rights advocate William Sawry; educators Sarah Mapps Douglass Cyrus Bustill, who both helped start schools for black children; and doctor Ann Preston, the first woman dean of the Woman's College of Pennsylvania (founded by Quakers).
Quaker influence can be seen and felt throughout Philadelphia. It was Quaker Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, who chose the inscription for the State House Bell, now known as the Liberty Bell, back when the bell was cast in 1751. That inscription reads: "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof," as can be seen (at least partially) in the photo below:
William Penn also stands prominently atop Philadelphia's City Hall - a landmark visible from throughout the city. The statue, completed in 1892 by Alexander Milne Calder, stands 37 feet tall and weighs over 53,000 pounds. It was installed on the tower in 1894 - which must have been quite an undertaking!
The Arch Street Meeting House, however, is not the only famous meeting house in Philadelphia. Just one block away, on the corner of 5th and Arch Streets, one can find the "Free Quaker" Meeting House, which is part of Independence National Historic Park. Unfortunately, due to its limited hours of being open, we were not able to go inside during our recent visit. However, in my next post, I will explain a bit more about how Quakers, who in general believe in peace and do not support war, were impacted - and for a time divided - by the American Revolution. I'll also talk a bit about how the TV series Outlander has addressed some of these issues in its most recent season through the Quaker characters of Denzell and Rachel Hunter.
There is also a question I posed in my previous October 2023 post but never addressed, and which I hope to get to soon: Why did Quaker laws and practices sometimes clash with the Ulster Presbyterians who also settled in Pennsylvania, especially along the western frontier? You can read this previous post I wrote for more details on my Ulster Presbyterian connections. I plan to continue to explore the varied paths both my Quaker and Presbyterian ancestors took that eventually led them out of Pennsylvania.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll check back for future posts. You can easily find all of my blog posts listed on my website (tonyagrahammcquade.com), where you can also sign up to subscribe to my newsletter and/or to receive notifications about future blog posts.
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