Fire damages historic Stony Brook Meeting House (updated Tuesday afternoon with photos of damage)

The exterior wooden awning and wooden porch of the historic Stony Brook Meeting House were damaged in a fire early Monday morning, April 3.

Just before 3:30 a.m., police in Princeton responded to a commercial fire alarm at 470 Quaker Road, the location of the Princeton Friends School and the Stony Brook Meeting House, which is the home of the Quaker Princeton Friends Meeting.

Police arrived and discovered that the building was on fire. Officers observed that both the exterior wooden awning and wooden porch on the west side of the structure were on fire. The interior was filled with smoke.

The fire did not spread to the interior of the building and no injuries were reported. The cause and origin of the fire are under investigation by the Princeton Police Department and the
Mercer County Prosecutors Office.

Several fire departments and emergency personnel responded to the scene: The Princeton Fire Department, the Princeton Office of Emergency Management, the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad, the Hopewell Borough Fire Department, the Montgomery Fire Department, and the Plainsboro Fire Department.

The original meeting house was built in 1726. The small building of fieldstone stood until a 1756 fire. The building, which was the center of the Stony Brook Village, was rebuilt in 1760.