History Spotlight: Early Churches in Newtown

By Doug Humes

The early settlement of Pennsylvania, like Massachusetts, was primarily driven by religion. People with views different from the mainstream in England, the Puritans and Quakers, were attacked, beaten, jailed and even martyred for their religious beliefs.

The Puritans fled to New England, the Quakers to Pennsylvania. Newtown was settled in the late 17th century by these Quakers, seeking freedom from persecution, and William Penn’s promise of religious tolerance in his Holy Experiment.

While no early diaries have yet been found from that period, the Quakers who arrived were great recordkeepers. Those early records, preserved in the archives at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, shed light on the early churches, which the Quakers refer to as “meeting houses."

From the first arrivals in 1682, the Newtown Quakers worshipped in each other’s homes, until the Goshen road was laid out to give access to neighboring communities that built the first meeting houses, in Haverford (1688) and Radnor (1693).

Original 1711 Newtown Meeting House (painting by Carol Schoeller)

Photo coutesy of Newtown Square Friends Meeting

The first known church structure in Newtown was the stone Meeting House built in 1711. Quakers flourished in Newtown, and in 1791 they greatly enlarged that first Meeting House. If you go there today, you can see the architectural ghosts of the first building in the north and west walls of the later version.

In the far corner of the township, close to what was intended as a separate Welsh colony, the early Welsh settlers with Church of England roots erected a beautiful stone church in 1715.

Old St. David's Church

Photo courtesy of Newtown Square Historical Society

The Welsh settlers named their church for the patron saint of Wales, St. David. The church's cemetery is the final resting place for those early settlers, including many Revolutionary War soldiers, most prominently General Anthony Wayne.

Marker of where General Anthony Wayne, Revolutionary War veteran, is buried in St. David's Church cemetary

Photo courtesy of Doug Humes

Both early churches have been around for over 300 years. If you peek inside either one on a given Sunday today, you will still find descendants of those early settlers, continuing the traditions handed down through generations.

For more history of Newtown Square, Delaware County, and membership information...

Please visit the Newtown Square Historical Society website: www.HistoricNewtownSquare.org.