Benjaminville Friends Meeting House and Burial Ground facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Benjaminville Friends Meeting House and Burial Ground
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 Location in Illinois
Location in the United States
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| Location | McLean County, Illinois, USA |
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| Nearest city | Holder |
| Area | 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) |
| Built | 1874 |
| Architectural style | Traditional Quaker, Folk |
| NRHP reference No. | 83003584 |
| Added to NRHP | December 13, 1983 |
The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House and Burial Ground is a special place for the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers. It is located north of the small village of Holder in McLean County, Illinois. This site was once a village called Benjaminville, which started in 1856 when Quakers moved to the area.
More Quakers came, and soon they built a burial ground and then the current meeting house in 1874. Today, this historic site is all that remains of the old Benjaminville village. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The burial ground was created before the meeting house. In fact, an earlier meeting house was built here in 1859. The Benjaminville Meeting House is a great example of Quaker building style. It has many features typical of Quaker meeting houses. What makes it unique is that it allowed both men and women to worship together in the same room. However, the burial ground keeps people separated, not by gender, but by their religious group. It has three sections: one for Quakers, one for non-Quakers, and one for distant relatives of both.
Contents
The Meeting House Building
Where is the Meeting House?
The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House is on a slightly raised piece of land. It is east of Bloomington, Illinois, close to the town of Holder. This land used to be flat and treeless prairie. Today, most of the land is used for farming. The small community of Bentown is also nearby. To the east, a large wind farm is being built. The meeting house is the last building left from the old village of Benjaminville, Illinois.
History of the Building
The first Quaker settlers arrived in the area in 1856. Three years later, in 1859, they built a meeting house on this spot. It cost about US$1,000. More Quakers moved to the area during the 1860s. In 1874, the current Friends meeting house was built. It has stayed mostly the same since then.
Only a few small changes have been made. A concrete porch was added to the entrance. A shed was also added to the back of the building around 1910. This shed was used for storage and as an outdoor toilet. The building became a central place for Quakers in the area. Friends from other meeting houses across the state would visit. Today, the building is not owned by a religious group, but services are still held there sometimes.
What Does it Look Like?
The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House sits on a 2.5-acre plot of land. This area is covered with grass and native deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves). The site is surrounded by farm fields and is quite isolated from other buildings.
The building is shaped like a rectangle. It is built using a method called balloon frame construction. The front of the building faces west. Its long side is 42 feet (13 meters) long, and the shorter ends are 32 feet (10 meters) wide. The main entrance is on the south side and has two doors.
The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House is a good example of a traditional Quaker meeting house. Many features found in older Quaker meeting houses are here. These include:
- Simple, plain insides with no decorations.
- No stained glass windows.
- A rectangular shape, often made of wood.
- Some kind of divider inside the main room.
- A burial ground next to it.
- Simple outside appearance.
- Separate entrances for men and women (though Benjaminville is a bit different here).
- The entrance is usually on the long side of the building.
The main room inside also faces east-west. The most noticeable decoration is the special hand graining on the wood surfaces. An elevated gallery runs along the north wall, facing the pews. The pews are divided by a low partition, about 3.5 feet (1.1 meters) tall. The pews, partition, doors, and window frames all have this hand-grained finish. The inside walls are covered with 6-inch (15 cm) pine wainscotting (wood panels). The original iron stoves have been replaced with oil-burning stoves, but they use the same chimneys.
This building is a great example of traditional Quaker architecture. It has almost all the typical features. However, there is one big difference inside compared to most meeting houses. Traditionally, Quaker meeting houses had two rooms. These were separated by a movable partition called "shutters." These shutters were used to keep men and women separate during meetings. But at Benjaminville, these shutters are missing.
The Quakers who met at Benjaminville were "pioneers" among the Society of Friends. They were one of the first seven groups to allow men and women to meet together. The room inside the Benjaminville building was simply divided by a waist-high partition instead of a movable wall.
Most Friends meeting houses were very plain. But individual craftspeople were encouraged to follow their "inner light" when building. So, the main decoration at Benjaminville is the beautiful hand graining on the wood inside. This decoration does not go against the simple Quaker style. Instead, it shows that the Society of Friends encouraged craftspeople to create as "the spirit moved them."
The Burial Ground
The cemetery was started soon after the first meeting house was built in 1859. Having a burial ground next to a Friends meeting house was very common. While Quaker rules encouraged burial grounds, they usually did not allow non-Quakers to be buried in them. To follow this rule, burials at Benjaminville were divided into two separate sections. This allowed a space for non-Quakers. A newer section now holds a mix of Quaker and non-Quaker family members.
Non-Quaker burials were originally in the northern part of the cemetery. This is the area directly behind the meeting house. Members of the Society of Friends were buried in the middle section. This part is now surrounded by a gravel road that goes through the site. The most recent burials are in the southernmost section, furthest from the meeting house. The entire burial ground is about 160 feet by 200 feet, covering an area of 32,000 square feet.
The graves are placed facing east-west. The burial ground covers most of the site and has grass and trees. The land around it is mostly used for farming, but there are some homes nearby. To the east, a wind farm is being built.
Why This Site is Important
The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House is a very well-preserved example of a Quaker meeting house. For several years after 1874, this building was the center of the Benjaminville settlement. In 1879, one writer called Benjaminville "one of the strongest settlements of Friends that is to be found anywhere in the state."
The building is important for its history and its architecture. It shows the meeting house style used by the Society of Friends. This style stayed almost the same from the early American colonial period through the 1800s. The Benjaminville Friends Meeting House and its burial ground were added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 13, 1983.
