After Cincinnati Friends constructed the new Orthodox meetinghouse on Fifth Street in 1830, they continued to make improvements to it, including the installation of gas lights and the construction of a carriageway from John Street. However, as the meeting grew from about 180 members to about 215, the existing facilities no longer met their needs. In addition to meetings for worship on Thursday and Sunday mornings, in 1858 Cincinnati Friends added a meeting for worship on Sunday evenings, and the First-Day School room was “near the capacity of the present unsuitable quarters.”

As early as 1856, the meeting began considering various proposals to alleviate the situation, from enlarging and retrofitting the existing meetinghouse, to constructing a new one on the same lot. Financing the endeavor was also a concern, and Friends discussed such options as borrowing against the Poplar Street burial ground property and selling a portion of the Fifth Street lot.

By 1860, the idea of staying at the current location had been discarded. The committee appointed to consider the matter had “measured the lot on Fifth and John Streets, and examined with much care its adaptation to a new meeting house, and they do not hesitate to express the opinion that it does not present as desirable a site as we could wish. They believe there is not sufficient room on said lot for a new house without placing it into too near proximity to our neighbors who occupy the eastern portion of the lot or so near to Fifth Street as would render it decidedly objectionable on account of the great thoroughfare of said street. Believing it very desirable to obtain the most central and least noisy location, and at the same time to have due regard to economy, they recommend the purchase of a deep lot which would allow the building to be set back from the street a sufficient distance to overcome in a measure the great annoyance hitherto experienced in the present location.”

The members of the committee initially had their eye on several adjacent lots that extended almost 72 feet along Eighth Street, and 202 feet deep to Ninth Street, near Cutter Street. However, they were not able to obtain the site. In May of 1868, Cincinnati Friends finally bought a 90 x 95-foot lot on the northwest corner of Eighth and Mound Streets, which included some frame buildings and a brick dwelling house. The property was purchased from William and Eliza Dodds for $33,000 (about $731,000 in 2024 dollars). An additional $28,320.48 was spent on tearing down the frame buildings and constructing and furnishing the meetinghouse. Another $2,121.73 was spent on fixing up the brick building for use as either a schoolhouse or rental property, as well as for the construction of a shed on the west side of the meetinghouse for horses and carriages.

At about the same time, the meeting began to take action on disposing of the Fifth Street property. According to its notes, the building committee considered selling the entire lot, or even just the former burial ground, to the Hicksites, who had retained the original meetinghouse when the Orthodox and Hicksites split. Joseph Gest recounted that the Hicksites offered $50,000 for the land, but negotiations faltered. The entire property was eventually sold at public auction in 1869 to John Sandman for $49,900.

Unfortunately, the transaction did not go as smoothly as both parties might have hoped. When workers began excavating the foundations for some cottages on John Street, they came across “the coffins and grinning skulls of several pioneer Quakers.” Jason Evans and other members of the adjacent Hicksite meeting filed for a restraining order, asserting that not all of the remains had been removed from the burial ground. The Superior Court judge appointed Joseph Coffin to examine the lot. One hundred and sixty-one graves were opened, and 128 remains (in some cases little more than dust) were disinterred, placed in boxes, and moved to the cemetery in Cumminsville. With that, the Orthodox, both living and dead, left the Fifth Street meetinghouse behind them.