The first meeting for worship at the meetinghouse on Eighth and Mound Streets was held in June1869. The new facility was considerably more spacious and well-appointed than either of the meetinghouses on Fifth Street. A reporter from the Cincinnati Daily Gazette described it in exquisite detail:

The building is a plain brick structure, 45 by 70 feet, relieved with heavy free stone cornices, pediments and water tables, with trimmings of the same material entering largely into the general outside finish.

 

The main entrance is on Eighth street, where large double doors of black walnut, handsomely finished, open into a lobby 15 by 23 feet. On either side are cloak rooms about ten feet square, with grates, wash stands, water closets, etc., to be completely supplied with carpets, chairs, and other required furniture.

 

Immediately north of the lobby is the Sabbath school room, 42 by 43 feet, with ceiling 13 feet from the floor. The walls are plain white, with wainscoting from floor to windows of white pine, with which this room is finished throughout. Along the south end of the room is a broad platform 20 inches from the floor, with a blackboard in the rear, 14 feet long and 4 feet wide. The upper floor is sustained by four iron columns. The furniture consists of varnished oak cane seated chairs of sizes adapted to both children and adults. The room which is approached mainly from the west entrance is light and airy, and a paragon of neatness and comfort.

 

From the lobby on each side, a broad stairway with paneled newel post and handrail of heavy mahogany ascends by a flight of 18 steps to the principal floor. Thence you are conducted through double doors into the main audience room, which, with the gallery on the south, is the full size of the building. This room is twenty-six feet high, and has plain stuccoed walls that terminate in a graceful cornice. Four large, square windows on either side, each 17 by 7 feet, constructed of plain English plate glass, and three similar windows on Eighth street, furnish the room with amplest light. The window casings, inside shutters, and general wood work is of beautiful white walnut.

 

The seats are of black walnut, finished with oil polish, with arched backs, and paneled ends that are surmounted with scroll work. They are beside elegantly upholstered with green terry. The aisles are broad, and the entire floor is covered with a neat carpet of black and green.

 

In the north part of the room is the minister’s gallery, which consists of four slightly elevated seats, to be occupied by the ministers and elders of the congregation, who will sit facing the people.

 

On the south side of the room is a gallery about twenty feet in width, elevated eleven feet above the main floor. This will be finished to correspond with the remainder of the room, and will be used when the latter will not accommodate the congregation.

 

The room is supplied with forty-two gas burners, in groups of three, all proceeding from the wall and supplied with ground glass globes. This room accommodates five hundred persons, is light and in all respects eminently neat. Everywhere there is that elegant simplicity peculiar to this influential if not large body of Christians.

 

On this floor, separated from the main room by the vestibule, is the Bible class room, 11 by 10 feet, neatly carpeted to be supplied with furniture that will fit it for a parlor, prayer meeting, and many other purposes of the congregation.

As at the former meetinghouses, there was no pulpit. However, there was a table behind which a speaker might stand. At one point, someone suggested putting a Bible on this table, which upset Hezekiah Baily, who served the meeting as both an overseer and Elder. Baily’s concern was that a Bible was “an outward symbol, and had the semblance of being ‘creaturely’”—a term used by Quakers for an object or practice with human rather than divine origin. However, Robert Townsend replied, “God’s word is in the Bible and we ought to have it out where anyone may seek and find it.” Traditionally, Quakers had considered Jesus himself rather than the Bible as “God’s word,” in keeping with the passage in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” However, there was a growing emphasis on Scripture during this period, and the Bible remained on the table throughout the years at the Eighth and Mound meetinghouse and beyond.

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