While Dover Friends (Quakers) proclaim that we worship in our third meetinghouse, erected in 1768, our history of the previous two structures becomes a bit foggy. Even so, ours is the oldest house of worship in use in the city.
In his authoritative New England Quaker Meetinghouses (Friends United Press, 2001), Silas Weeks mentions that our first house of worship was built about 1680 on Dover Neck, just south of the present St. Thomas Aquinas High School. Correcting an earlier version of the relocation of the structure to Maine, he writes that in 1769 “the 1680 house from Dover Neck was taken apart and re-erected in Eliot at the corner of what are now State and River Roads. There is a bronze plaque marking the site …” (Alas, there goes the tale of its being skidded by oxen across a frozen Piscataqua River. Taken apart and put on a boat now seems more likely.)
Apparently, when our current house was built, we had no need for the smaller structure. I suspect that until our current meetinghouse was available, Dover Friends met for worship in the two smaller structures and gathered together for business sessions.
The disposition of the second house, though, had eluded his investigation. It had stood at what Silas “believed to be the present corner of Locust and Silver Streets,” but there was no indication it had been incorporated in later buildings on the site.
A publication from the Dover Chamber of Commerce, however, may have the answer. Dover’s Heritage Trails, a guide to historic walking tours through the city, notes this at 3-5 Spring Street: “This old dwelling was Dover’s second Quaker Meeting House, built originally at the corner of Silver and Locust Streets and moved to this location in 1728, before Spring Street existed.”
Silas reported “The second was erected in 1712 on land belonging to Ebenezer Varney. The deed, transferred to Friends in 1735, described the site …” in ways that support the Silver and Locust location. My guess is that the structure was moved in 1828, since the Chamber pamphlet mentions that neighboring houses were built in 1810 and 1811.
As they say, the plot thickens. And to think, the answer to our search may wind up just a bit more than a block up the street from where we gather.
Jnana's Red Barn 