Concord Hicksite Friends Meeting House

Set beside a former road intersection about six miles northwest of Wheeling, this one-story brick meeting house served Quakers of the Concord community in Belmont County, Ohio. It was built in 1815 as a six-bay structure with separate men's and women's rooms, then reduced in 1898 to a smaller three-bay Cottage Plan that was easier to heat and let families sit together. Original benches of butternut wood, a raised gallery and a clerk's table remain inside, and a burial ground occupies the southern half of the one-acre property. Concord Friends were active in the 1828 division of the Society of Friends, and after 1831 only the Hicksite branch worshipped here until meetings ended in 1919. The property is recognized as one of nine surviving Hicksite meeting houses in Ohio and for its architecture. Josiah Fox, a naval ship designer, is buried in the grounds. Today descendants of early settlers maintain the site, which is open to visitors.