Amesbury Friends Meeting

Amesbury Friends Meeting is a worship community of the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers first met in our current Amesbury location in 1705. In 1851, the building of our current meetinghouse was completed. Our meeting, with other regional monthly meetings, are part of the Salem Quarterly Meeting, and the New England Yearly Meeting.

In 1705, the first written record of our meeting appeared. We met under the care of the Hampton, New Hampshire, Monthly Meeting. With other New England Meetings, we are members of the New England Yearly Meeting, which gathers annually to conduct business.

Worship

Our community of Friends meets for silent, expectant, waiting worship every Sunday at 10am. This also known as an “unprogrammed” Meeting for Worship.

An Invitation to Meeting for Worship and Suggestions for Newcomers

Our Welcome to Families and Children

We welcome families with children. We don’t currently have a formal young people’s program, but we’ll do our best to accommodate your children. We encourage older children to sit in quiet worship with us.

Business Meetings & Process

Meeting for Worship to Conduct Business: On the Third Sunday of each month we join to discuss Friends’ business, conducted in the Spirit of Meeting for Worship. We reach decisions through careful listening to God’s will and speaking from the heart, believing this process to be as important as the decision itself.

The work of the Meeting is all volunteer, organized by various committees. We don’t have a pastor or minister. We encourage newcomers to attend Meeting for Business and, when ready, to join a committee to enjoy the fuller life of our Quaker Community.

Living Our Vision Through Community Outreach

Amesbury Friends Meeting is committed to community support and outreach. We offer both financial and volunteer support to various Quaker and Community organizations.

History of Amesbury Meeting

The first record of the Friends Society in Hampton, New Hampshire, was in 1701. At that time the decision was made to build a meetinghouse. A total of sixty-six pounds was raised to pay for the structure and in June of 1701 Thomas Chase of Hampton gave a parcel of land to the Quakers of the area to “Seat a Meetinghouse thereon.”

Quakers from the surrounding towns attended monthly or weekly Meeting there until a Meetinghouse was completed in Amesbury by 1710.

Between 1710 and 1768 monthly meeting alternated between the two locations. In 1705 the first written record of the Amesbury Meeting appeared. It met under the care of the Hampton New Hampshire Monthly Meeting with a name change in 1792 to the Seabrook Monthly Meeting. In 1884 we became the Amesbury Monthly Meeting.

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