Description
Despite being among the community’s most storied buildings, the Bethesda Meeting House was vacant and deteriorating when it (along with the adjacent parsonage) was acquired in 2023 by the Bethesda Meeting House Foundation, an affiliate of the Bethesda Historical Society. Constructed in 1820 — and rebuilt in 1850 after a fire — it features a rare “slave gallery,” was the town’s first Post Office, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the MoCo Master Plan for Historic Preservation. Tradition has it that Abraham Lincoln worshipped there, and it was occupied by Confederate cavalry during Jubal Early’s raid on Washington in July 1864. Bethesda historian Hank Levine will give an illustrated tour of this iconic building’s history, significance, and future.