{"nrhp_refnum":"97000291","name":"Buckingham Friends Meeting House","other_names":["Buckingham Meeting of Friends","Buckingham Monthly Meeting Hou"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"5684 Lower York Rd., Buckingham Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lahaska","county":"Bucks County","state":"PA","lat":40.34906939600006,"lon":-75.04035559908476,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1997-03-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Quaker meeting house with associated outbuildings, cemetery and school buildings on the southwestern edge of Lahaska in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The stone meeting house was erected in 1768 on a ridge above the Lahaska Valley.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the complex is a locally outstanding example of mid-eighteenth century Quaker meeting house architecture with excellent integrity, its details closely following English Quaker residential design. It also argues the meeting was a focal point of community religious, social and political life in the region, particularly through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.","narrative":"Built in 1768 on the highest point of a ridge above the Lahaska Valley in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, the Buckingham Friends Meeting House is a two-and-a-half story stone building of local buff sandstone, laid in rough courses with large quoins and a full return cornice across the gable ends. Its symmetrical Georgian-type exterior has segmental relieving arches above the first-floor windows and pedimented hoods over the doors. Inside, movable panels allowed the men's and women's meetings to be separated or combined into one room. Under supervision of Robert Smith and Joseph Ellicott, local mason Matthias Hutchinson and carpenter Edward Good erected the building. The property is valued for its architecture, which is considered a strong example of a Quaker meeting house of its period, and for its long role in the community. Members of the meeting once comprised almost the entire townships of Buckingham and Solebury, and its discipline, dispute settlement and school shaped local life through the nineteenth century. The cemetery has been in continuous use since 1705.","period_of_significance":"1768-1900","architect_builder":"Robert Smith and Joseph Ellicott (supervision); Matthias Hutchinson (mason); Edward Good (carpenter)","architectural_style":"Georgian","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:37.757368-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/97000291.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000291/6ce9e2c91e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000291/6ce9e2c91e-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buckingham_Friends_BucksCo_PA_from_SE.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buckingham_Friends_BucksCo_PA_from_SE.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994829","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Friends_Meeting_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4983211"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/bucks-county/buckingham-friends-meeting-house-97000291/"}