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Quaker Meeting House (1704), Saylesville
Many of the early Lincoln settlers, including the Arnold
family, were Quakers, otherwise known as the Society of
Friends. Quakers from the Blackstone Valley area met monthly
at various members' homes until 1703 when a small one-story
meeting house was erected only 1/4 mile from Eleazer Arnold's
house on his land. Many people referred to this area as “Arnoldia,”
due to the fact that many of Eleazer’s relatives inhabited
this area.1
A few years later Arnold donated the property that the meeting
house stood on to the local Quaker leaders. The meeting house
served as a Quaker center for miles around until 1719 when Woonsocket
Quakers built their own. In 1745 a two-story addition was
erected.
The entire structure survives today on Great Rd. in
Saylesville, where meetings are still held on a regular basis.
Along with other local structures the meeting house is "a
testimony to the achievements of [the] first settlers…built by
provincials, sturdy farming families who, though not rich, led
comfortable lives on Rhode Island's agrarian frontier."2
1 Savoie, Charles. History of the Town of Lincoln, Rhode
Island, and Its Villages. [Lincoln, RI], 1999.
2 Rhode Island Historical Preservation
Commission. Lincoln, Rhode Island : Statewide Historical
Preservation Report P-L-1. [Providence]: The Commission,
1982. p.9.
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Lincoln, RI