Bethesda Meeting House
Shade, Lemonade and History
at the Bethesda Meeting House this Sunday!
Please join us this Sunday, July 14th from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm to beat the heat at the historic Bethesda Meeting House (9400 Rockville Pike, accessible only when driving south towards NIH.)
Relax beneath old shade trees and sip some lemonade with other Bethesda history lovers. You’ll have the opportunity to tour the site and learn more about it. You are also welcome to bring your gloves, tools and your energy if you’d like to help us garden. We are looking forward to seeing you. No need to RSVP. Ample parking is available.
You’ve probably driven by the small white church on a knoll overlooking Rockville Pike on your way to downtown Bethesda and may have wondered how it came to be and who occupies it now.
This is the Bethesda Meeting House, built in 1850, where Abraham Lincoln is said to have spoken or worshiped, where Confederate soldiers briefly camped before a skirmish with Union soldiers, and which became the “church that named Bethesda” 153 years ago.
Over the years, the site was occupied by a Presbyterian congregation, a wealthy DC socialite who gained some renown as an artist, a Catholic missionary order, and finally a small Baptist group that died out a few years ago and left the church and its adjacent parsonage abandoned and in sad decay. The site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was one of the original sites on the 1979 Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Preservation.
Last December, the Bethesda Historical Society purchased the three-acre site, thanks to a generous donation from a Bethesda couple who prefer to remain anonymous. Since then, the Society has worked, with extraordinary help from the community, to clean up the property, secure the premises, make urgent repairs, and arrange for the surveys necessary before restoration can begin and the eventual use of the property decided.
The Bethesda Meeting House site is a unique historical treasure that deserves to be preserved for future generations. Offers to help us are welcome.
Contact us at bethesdahistory@gmail.com
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Past, Present and Future of Bethesda Meeting House
Watch Hank Levine, president of the Bethesda Meeting House Foundation, present an illustrated tour of this iconic building’s history, architecture and significance.
Click here to watch the one-hour video on Youtube.
Hank’s presentation begins at the 3:10 mark.
Support the Bethesda Meeting House Foundation!
The Bethesda Meeting House Foundation is raising funds through Garden for Wildlife native plant sales. This is a “feel good, do good” fundraiser that helps our organization not only earn much needed financial resources but it also helps our community!
The Bethesda Meeting House will earn 15 percent of all plant sales when you use our unique sales link:
