The Holy Experiment

Quaker Information Center

William Penn received a charter for land that would become Pennsylvania from King Charles II in payment for his father’s support during the Restoration. Penn created the colony espousing religious freedom and tolerance, known as the “Holy Experiment.”  The “Holy Experiment” was to establish a community for themselves and other persecuted religious minorities in what would become the modern state of Pennsylvania.

Kennett Meeting was established by English and Irish Quakers who fled from religious persecution in their homelands in the 1670s and bought land from William Penn.

Pioneers purchased 5,000 acres for 100 pounds. Initially they gathered in one another’s homes for customary Meetings for Worship. As their numbers grew, their small farmhouses could not contain the members. It was too difficult and dangerous to travel to meetinghouses further away in bad weather or when rivers were in flood. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Quakers sought a new location for a meetinghouse closer by.