FUN FACTS
Quakers began moving into the Bald Eagle Valley around 1800, about the same time as the Halfmoon Valley Friends, and many also purchased deeds from Philadelphia Quaker Henry Drinker.
Early Friends worshipped in the home of William and Hannah Fisher, whose stone home is one of the oldest surviving in the valley and is near the meeting’s cemetery.
Bald Eagle Friends Cemetery sits alongside the Bald Eagle Creek, where indigenous people had lived for many centuries.
The cemetery had been neglected from the time the meeting ceased to be active in the early twentieth century until about five years ago.
Thanks to a small volunteer group and an acknowledgment of oversight responsibility by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting, this cemetery is today restored and well cared for. (Contact Doug Miller if you’d like to visit the cemetery. Access is through a private farm.)
At mid-century (around 1850) important Friends, Zephaniah Underwood and his son William, established the village of Unionville, which thrived as a lumbering center.
Friends decided to build a new meetinghouse in Unionville, which still exists today, though it is now a private residence.
Bald Eagle/Unionville Friends Meeting was a “Preparative” meeting, as was the Halfmoon Friends Meeting. Together they existed as the Centre Monthly Meeting, with business meetings held alternately at the two sites.
Like Halfmoon, as the meeting became inactive, Bald Eagle/Unionville Friends donated their benches to the newly-formed State College Friends Meeting in 1927. (Theirs are the ones with solid backs.)
To read more about both the Bald Eagle/Unionville Friends Meeting (Chapter Four) and the Halfmoon Friends Cemetery (Chapter Five) click on this link to
D. Douglas Miller: Quakers in Centre County, Pennsylvania.