The second Redstone Meeting House was also known as the Peace Hill Meeting House. It was constructed in 1799 and demolished around 1866.
After the first Redstone Meeting House (at Bull Run) burned in 1798, Rees Cadwalader convinced the MM to rebuild near his house in Brownsville (then Bridgeport), a growing population and economic center. Cadwalader owned a large tract of land on the south side of Brownsville that was called "Peace" because a fort built there during the French and Indian War was never used. He sold a parcel of three acres to the MM in 1799 (Fayette County Deed F-304). The meeting house was constructed along today's Angle Street (at the current address 135 Angle Street), with the burials to the north and west.
The once large meeting of Friends declined into the mid-19th century. An Orthodox-Hicksite division took place here in 1828. The two groups agreed to share the meeting house, with the Hicksites using the west end and the Orthodox using the east end. The Orthodox built a bookcase in their end with a door that could be locked.
After the Hicksite Meeting was laid down in 1852, the Brownsville school directors approached the meeting about selling the northeast end of the property so they could build a new school house. The meeting and the school directors agreed on an amount with five annual payments, and the new school house was built. However, the Wilburite-Gurneyite division took place in these five years. The school directors initially made their payments to the Wilburites, but the Gurneyites initiated a lawsuit to eject the school board for failure to make their payments. A new agreement was reached, and the deed for the school lot was finalized in 1859. In the meantime, the Wilburites held their meetings in the west end of the meeting house (the former Hicksite side), and the Gurneyites met in the east end. The Wilbur meeting was laid down in late 1865, followed by the Gurney meeting in 1866.
As the Gurneyites were laying down their Redstone meeting in 1866, their trustees consolidated all the burials along the southeast boundary of the property to create a large vacant building lot along Prospect Street. The Gurneyites then demolished the Redstone Meeting House to create a second building lot along today's Angle Street. They took these measures without notifying the Wilburites or allowing the Wilbur trustees to participate in the liquidation of the property (although the Wilbur trustees followed up and filed parallel deeds soon thereafter). The remaining burial ground lot was reduced in size in the mid-twentieth century when Cadwalader Street was laid out through the southeast portion of the property. The borough of Brownsville entered into negotiations with the Gurneyites in the mid-twentieth century, relocating all remains to the Brownsville cemetery at the end of Angle Street, purchasing the remaining property (1955), and constructing a borough service building there. These actions were also completed without notifying the Wilburites, who had a 50% interest in the burial ground.
|
