303 North US 27 North
Fountain City, Indiana
coffin@richmondquakers.org
765-962-4485
About
The Coffin Meetinghouse dates to 1832, when Quakers in the village of Newport (later renamed Fountain City) began to hold meetings for worship. Among them were the merchant Levi Coffin (1798–1877) and his wife Catharine (1801–1881), whose home was a major center of anti-slavery and Underground Railroad activities. In 1838 Newport Friends built a meetinghouse, which forms the nucleus of the current building. Much expanded and remodeled, it was used for Quaker worship until 2011. In 2013, the New Association of Friends assumed ownership of the building. Under the leadership of Richmond Friend Ed Nicholson, the meeting room was restored to the appearance that Levi and Catharine Coffin would have known in the 1840s, when Quakers gathered to sit in silence, confident that if God had a message for the group, God would move someone to speak. With an adjacent wing, the Meetinghouse is available for meetings, programs, events and tours by appointment.
