Museum celebrates 10th season

Exhibits recall the prominence of Quakers in Waynesville’s past.

Dolly McKeehan shows the Museum at the Friends Home in Waynesville on March 31. The museum, which chronicles the history of Waynesville and nearby areas, is marking its 10th anniversary. Staff photo by Apryl Pilolli

Apryl Pilolli/Staff photographer Dolly McKeehan shows the Museum at the Friends Home in Waynesville on March 31. The museum, which chronicles the history of Waynesville and nearby areas, is marking its 10th anniversary. Staff photo by Apryl Pilolli

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By Justin McClelland, Staff Writer 11:23 AM Thursday, April 8, 2010

WAYNESVILLE — From Quaker wedding dresses and prayer books to local bank notes and a retired barber chair, the Museum at the Friends Home has amassed an array of artifacts chronicling the 213-year history of Waynesville.

To celebrate the museum’s 10th anniversary, it’s organizers are welcoming home a pair of exhibits with special connections to Waynesville’s long history.

The O’Neall Family Homecoming exhibit will have artifacts belonging to Abijah O’Neall, one of the first Quakers who migrated to Waynesville from South Carolina in 1799. The exhibit includes several hand-made Quaker dresses, elaborate quilts, and historical documents that chronicle the Quaker culture.

The Harris Pearls Come Home exhibit will showcase some of the freshwater pearls and fossils collected by Israel Hopkins Harris in the late 1800s. Harris donated much of the collection to the Smithsonian.

The museum, which occupies a former Quaker retirement home, was first opened in 2001 by a group of volunteers who wanted to memorialize the rapidly vanishing small-town atmosphere of Waynesville and neighboring communities.

The museum includes many Quaker artifacts, including more than 700 books from the Quaker’s library, the first lending library in Warren County. But the museum also features pieces of several different eras in Waynesville, including mementos from local banks, barbershops and doctors’ offices.

“Many people think we are a Quaker museum, but our focus is wider than that,” said museum leader Dolly McKeehan.

The building itself is part of Waynesville’s history. Quaker’s were some of the area’s first settlers and the neighboring Quaker Meeting Hall is the oldest religious meeting building west of the Allegheny River, according to McKeehan. The museum building itself was constructed in 1905 and was considered a “modern marvel,” according to McKeehan, because it had electricity and indoor plumbing.

The museum, at 115 S. Fourth St. in Waynesville, is open 1-4 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and by appointment. Admission is $2. Phone: (513) 897-1607.

View more photos from the museum online.

Western-Star.com

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