Daily AncestorMeetinghouse
A meetinghouse was a plain building for worship and, in New England, for town meetings too; Quakers and some other groups still use the word instead of church.
Early New England towns built one meetinghouse that served both the Congregational church and the town meeting. As church and state separated, towns built separate town houses and town halls.
Quakers call their buildings meeting houses, and a Quaker meeting is the congregation, not the building. In a deed, near the meeting house helps place land within a town or near a Friends meeting.
As seen in a recordNew England deed, 1700s
Bounded north on the highway leading to the meeting house
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Meetinghouse." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/church/meetinghouse. Last checked 2026-10-03.