Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse

Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse. . The Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse was built from 1851 – 1853 by members of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) who in 1846 purchased the 2,000 acre Woodlawn tract as the means to “establish a free-labor colony in a slave state” (Journal of Chalkley Gillingham founding member of Woodlawn Quaker Settlement). , , They left homes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, where nearby Underground Railroad routes made clear the human cost of slavery and its violation of Friends’ principles of equality and non-violence. , , Seeking to uphold Quaker belief there is “that of God” in everyone, the settlement’s spiritual leaders envisioned a community of small farms operating without slave labor as an alternative to Virginia’s plantation culture. , , The Quakers’ agricultural practices and employment of free labor succeeded. Their farms, mills, schools, and this meetinghouse established a thriving community, shared with free black landowners and like-minded Abolitionists such as the Woodlawn Baptists. , , Throughout the Civil War, Friends continued to worship in this meeting house, even when Union Troops occupied it. , , The community remained into the 20th century, guided by Friends’ principles of peace and community service. However, with World War I, the United States Army began to absorb Woodlawn’s farmland, eventually creating Fort Belvoir. This “Quaker Plain Style” meetinghouse today continues as an active place of worship, home of the Alexandria Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.