PREFACE
Charles Wetherill
Wetherill, Charles. History of The Religious Society of Friends Called
by Some The Free Quakers, in the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia:
Printed for the Society, 1894, Number 3 of an edition limited to 800 copies,
signed by Charles Wetherill.
This Document is on The
Quaker Writings Home Page.
On the Southwest corner of Fifth and Arch Streets in the City of Philadelphia,
there stands a small substantially brick Meeting House, which has for many
years been occupied by the Apprentices' Library Company. The gable end
of the building fronts on Arch Street, and has built into it a marble tablet
bearing this inscription :
"By General Subscription,
For the Free Quakers, erected,
In the year of our Lord, 1753,
Of the Empire 8."
Nearly every building of the old City has, since this date, been torn down
and replaced by edifices suited to the changing needs of commerce; but
this house stands, the memorial of a past age, and is the only monument
now left of the heroism of certain members of the Religious Society of
Friends, in the stormy time of the Revolutionary War.
The story is now nearly forgotten, and if not recorded may perhaps
soon be lost entirely, and it is for the purpose of preventing this; and
to answer questions which the author of these notes has often been asked
as to the origin of the Free Quakers, that he now attempts to revive from
the torn and faded records of the old times, the history of that Society.
C. WETHERILL.
March 8, 1894.