New Castle Friends Meeting (Historic)

As the early records for what would become the Newark Monthly Meeting, indicate that the earliest meetings took place in New Castle, this long-gone meeting was the first forerunner of what would eventually become the Kennett Monthly Meeting. 

The first meeting house was built in 1705 and by 1720, a lot had been purchased at Beaver and Otter streets and a burial ground laid out. By 1758, the meeting's members had been transferred to the Wilmington meeting and in 1760, Newark Monthly Meeting was renamed Kennett Monthly Meeting, meeting in Pennsylvania rather than Delaware. 

A meeting house for the New Castle meeting had existed on what had been the corner of Pine and Railroad streets, but that building was demolished in1885. The burial ground that had existed nearby has been built over, though Quaker historian,  T. C. Matlack, writng in the 30's, stated that the Bethany African Methodist Church had a burial ground next to the location of the former Friends burial ground.

Though there is a burial ground next to the Bethany Church, those graves are too recent (late 1800's) and a very old survey done by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1804-1805 shows that the Quaker burial ground was actually to the west of Williams street. The burial ground is now actually under the backyards of the two homes on the corner of West 5th street at Williams and the meetinghouse plot itself lies beneath the Good will Firehouse.1

• 1. Latrobe Survey overlay work by New Castle Commmunity History and Archealogy Progam