The Historic Forty Fort Meeting House

A historic meeting house at River Street and Wyoming Avenue in the Old Forty Fort Cemetery in Forty Fort, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. It was built between 1806–08 in a New England meeting house style with white clapboard siding.

The first European settler in the area came from Connecticut in the late 18th century. In 1768 public lands were set aside in the area for churches by the Susquehanna Company. As a result of the Yankee-Pennamite Wars and the American Revolution, actual building of the churches was delayed by over 30 years. An unfinished meeting house nearby was destroyed after the Battle of Wyoming in 1778.

Joseph Hitchcock of New Haven, Connecticut, who also designed the Old Ship Zion Church in Wilkes-Barre, designed the meetinghouse. It was the first completed church used for religious services in the area. It was a Union Church with both Congregationalist (now Presbyterians) and Methodists worshipping in the same church. By 1837, both groups had built their own churches, and the meetinghouse has not been used for its original purpose since. In 1869, the Forty Fort Cemetery Association was created by the Pennsylvania state legislature and the Association still owns the church and cemetery.

Among the artifacts on display at the Meeting House are the original key and a receipt for payment of the final work completed by Master Carpenter Gideon Underwood. The receipt is dated June 27, 1808 in the amount of $35.

Master Carpenter Gideon Underwood and the members of the Meeting House's original building committee — Lazarus Dennison, Luke Swetland, Elijah Shoemaker Jr., Daniel Hoyt and Benjamin Dorrance — are buried in the Forty Fort Cemetery.

From 1837 to 1860, when the Forty Fort Cemetery Association was chartered maintenance was not kept up. William Swetland, the first president of the Association, put a new roof on the building, painted it and repaired the fence.

Sixty years later in June, 1922, the Colonial Dames Society restored the interior of the Forty Fort Meeting House under the supervision of Col. Thomas H. Atherton, Architect. Later, Mrs. Franck Darte had the exterior painted.

Following the Meeting House's addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 the realization of the necessity to preserve this historic structure was at the forefront of the communities minds. 

Out of this need, Forty Fort Meeting House Preservation Committee was formed in 1991. Monies were secured through a Legislative Initiative Grant. Between 1992-1993 a new roof was installed, the sills replaced, and a fresh coat of paint was applied. In 1997 and 1998 additional repairs were made through a grant provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

In recent years, the entire building has been maintained by a group of dedicated volunteers who believe in the importance this unique space provides.