Friends Meetinghouse

Pennsdale's Friends Meetinghouse and burial ground sit on land given by Joseph and Sarah Lundy Carpenter in 1797. Two years later, stone mason Benjamin McCarty, one of the Quaker founders of Muncy, began construction of the meetinghouse. Built of sandstone ashlar, the simple one-story gable-roofed rectangular building resembles those of Chester County rather than the two-story meetinghouses of McCarty's native Bucks County. A veranda sweeps across the six-bay front, which has two entrances, one for men and the other for women. The interior retains its sliding panels to separate men's and women's gatherings and allow them to come together for a joint meeting. A small shed-roof sandstone building is attached to the meetinghouse's rear corner, and the partially walled burial ground is laid out to the rear. Quakers first settled in the area in the late 1780s and used a log schoolhouse for worship. During the Hicksite controversy in 1827, the Pennsdale meeting sided with the Orthodox faction. Differences were resolved in 1955 and this meeting joined with Millville (Columbia County) Friends, who more than a century earlier had sided with the Hicksites.

Pennsdale was first known as Pennsville, but changed its name to avoid confusion with another Pennsylvania community of that name. The village contains several notable buildings, including the Warner House (1852) at 499 Village Road, the Shady Bank School (1859), and the stone Bull's Head Tavern (1790), known locally as the “House of Many Stairs.” The two-story frame country store at the village's northern edge has conducted business for over a century.