Dover Friends Meeting: History highlighted

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CLINTON COUNTY — Members of Indian Trails, State and National Colonial Dames of the Seventeenth Century, members of Dover Friends Meeting and the Wilmington Yearly Meeting met as Indian Trails Chapter dedicated a historical marker for Dover Friends Monthly Meeting on June 24 as the oldest Quaker building still in use in Clinton County.

Four families came from Tennessee to settle along Todd’s Fork in the early 1800s. They settled near a beehive and a spring, matching a dream that one of the settlers had before they left Tennessee for Ohio. They were welcomed by the Indians.

The family purchased 1,700 acres. A meetinghouse was built as well as a schoolhouse. Behind the meetinghouse is one of the oldest burial grounds in the area.

In 1808 the Quaker group was granted the privilege of holding indulged meetings. In 1824 Dover Monthly Meeting was established. The meeting purchased land on which to build a meetinghouse and burial ground. The cost of this land was $2.25. This is the land where a log meetinghouse was built.

In 1844 the log building was replaced with the brick structure that is still in use today.

There have been several improvements to the meetinghouse. The basic meetinghouse structure built in 1844 has been maintained and used as a house of worship for Friends without interruption since that time.

Education was very important to early Friends. A township school was built in 1883 adjoining the meetinghouse. It was purchased by the meeting in the early 1920s when it was no longer used as a school.

The Dover Women’s Christian Temperance Union held chicken noodle dinners to make the money necessary to purchase the schoolhouse and then used it for their meetings.

Today, Dover Meeting continues to serve the Lord and its members with and worship in that structure that was built in 1844.

Members of Indian Trails and Colonial Dames Kay McIntire, left, and Kim Stackhouse unveils the historical plaque for the Dover Friends Meeting House on Sunday.
http://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/06/web1_DSC_0266.jpgMembers of Indian Trails and Colonial Dames Kay McIntire, left, and Kim Stackhouse unveils the historical plaque for the Dover Friends Meeting House on Sunday. John Hamilton | News Journal

Current members of the Dover Friends Meeting House who were at the plaque ceremony on Sunday.
http://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/06/web1_DSC_0282.jpgCurrent members of the Dover Friends Meeting House who were at the plaque ceremony on Sunday. John Hamilton | News Journal

Indian Trails Chapter members at the Dover Friends plaque ceremony on Sunday included: First row: Phyllis Carey, Mary Ann Vantress, Leslie Holmes; back row: Nancy Bernard, Kay McIntire, Beth Mitchell, Martha Saylor, Joyce Peters, Kim Stackhouse, Frances Sharp, Susan Henry, Karen McKenzie, Pat McKenzie
http://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/06/web1_DSC_0295.jpgIndian Trails Chapter members at the Dover Friends plaque ceremony on Sunday included: First row: Phyllis Carey, Mary Ann Vantress, Leslie Holmes; back row: Nancy Bernard, Kay McIntire, Beth Mitchell, Martha Saylor, Joyce Peters, Kim Stackhouse, Frances Sharp, Susan Henry, Karen McKenzie, Pat McKenzie John Hamilton | News Journal

The original step from the 1844 Dover Friends Meeting House.
http://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/06/web1_DSC_0306.jpgThe original step from the 1844 Dover Friends Meeting House. John Hamilton | News Journal

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