Not many people know this, but I’m a birthright Quaker. I haven’t regularly attended meeting since I was about twelve, but I recently got the opportunity to reconnect with my heritage. My mom has an 1866 diary from an ancestor, Mary Jane Edwards, and we dove into the faces, spaces, and places she wrote about a few years ago. One was Walnut Ridge Friends Meetinghouse near Carthage, Indiana.
Walnut Ridge was the site of the first Friends meeting in Rush County. Originally, it served Quakers who arrived from North Carolina and Virginia around 1822. The meeting was formally established about five years later and, for a time, was the only Friends Meeting in the area1.
The first Walnut Ridge meetinghouse was a log structure built shortly after the meeting was established. The congregation rapidly outgrew it, though, since its members encouraged African-Americans to settle nearby and attend the school they’d established. Eventually, Quakers became the area’s dominate religious group.
A larger, frame replacement building was erected in 18402. Unfortunately, the second meetinghouse burned down in 1864. Local legend attributes the fire to the Knights of the Golden Circle, which is said to have set the building ablaze in retaliation against Walnut Ridge’s involvement with the Underground Railroad3.
The present brick meeting house was built two years later. Originally a rectangular building with separate doors for male and female congregants, the interior was one room that could be divided in half. That changed in 1890, when the church underwent an extensive modification.
That year, the interior was permanently divided into two rooms, one for use by the Quarterly Friends meeting and another for the congregation itself4. The footprint of the meetinghouse changed as well, when an octagonal vestibule and entrance bay was added to the south side of the building.
Today, the architecture of the Walnut Ridge Meeting House could best be described as Italianate Vernacular. That means it features references to Italianate architecture -a low-pitched roof, projecting eaves, and round-arched windows- simply designed by local tradesman based on the availability of building materials.
Unfortunately, the interior changed again in a 1972 remodeling project. Its octagonal vestibule was divided, the local meeting room was converted into a nursery and pastor’s study5, and cosmetic changes were made to the Quarterly meeting room, which is now the primary sanctuary.
That’s what the building looked like when I traipsed around five years ago, Aside from an unobtrusive fellowship hall that was added to the rear in 1976, the meeting house retains the overwhelming majority of its original character! A keener eye than mine would have been necessary to note the changes when I got the chance to visit for a meeting five years ago.
With lots of lively singing, acoustic guitar, blessings for kids heading off to camp, and people speaking praises out of the silence, my trip to Walnut Ridge couldn’t have been more different from the austere Quaker meetings of my childhood. It was an unexpected contrast to the traditional services I remembered, and it showed me just how varied and vibrant the Quaker tradition can be.
What made the visit even more meaningful was the chance to connect with a piece of my family’s history that I often overlook. Nearly 160 years ago, Mom’s great-great-great-aunt Mary Jane actually attended meeting at the same Walnut Ridge Meetinghouse we visited!
Stepping into a scene from my family’s distant past and feeling the echoes of her presence in a place that still holds its spirit both humbled and grounded me. It reminded me that my Quaker roots aren’t just a distant legacy. They’re something alive and evolving, and I hope to visit more meetings soon.
Sources Cited
1 Ballenger, N.H. (1890). The Early Quakers of Henry County, Indiana. Henry County Genealogical Services [New Castle]. Web. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
2 National Register of Historic Places, Steuben County Courthouse, Angola, Steuben County, Indiana, National Register # 84001616.
3 Walnut Ridge Friends Meetinghouse (n.d.) archINFORM [Berlin]. Web. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
4 (See footnote 2).
5 (See footnote 2).
Indiana has a lot of diversity in the many pockets where one particular brand of Christianity dominated over the others. I had forgotten how numerous the Quakers were in parts of the state.