Finding Our Foundation

Finding Our Foundation is a comprehensive and well researched history of a rural Quaker Meeting in the Philadelphia area, set in the context both of U.S. history and the history of American Quakerism. Extending over a period of more than 350 years, it is well illustrated and contains both sweeping narrative and short anecdotes about the lives of individual Friends. An appendix contains selected original documents. This is the first comprehensive history written about Plumstead Friends Meeting in a large part because its records have not survived, and may have been intentionally destroyed. The missing information slowly emerged from researching other contemporaneous documents. The title refers both to the historical foundation of the congregation, and the colonial foundation of the building which was exposed during construction in 2019, becoming the impetus for this book.