The Hovenden House, Barn and Abolition Hall is a group of historic buildings which are located in Plymouth Meeting, Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

[a] The purchase did not include the 8.25-acre plot at the northeast corner of Germantown and Butler Pikes, which the 1767 deed described as "Elizabeth and Catherine Ellis's Land".

[12] Maulsby's recollections were recorded by John Fanning Watson in his Annals of Philadelphia (1830), including his description of Redcoats looting his widowed mother's house.

[15] Maulsby later purchased adjacent plots at the north end of the farm, which expanded it to 128 acres (51.8 hectares) and extended it to Flourtown Road.

[12] At 3-5 Germantown Pike, just east of his house, Maulsby built the Plymouth Meeting General Store and Post Office (c.1826–27).

[21] Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved man and abolitionist, was the keynote speaker at an August 1847 anti-slavery convention held at the First Baptist Church of Norristown.

[14] But it was the couple's close friendship with Benjamin Lundy – publisher of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society's weekly newspaper, The National Enquirer (1836–1838) – that inspired them to fully engage in the cause.

— The Abolitionists of Montgomery County (1900)[20]On the morning of July 18, 1855, Jane Johnson (c.1822–1872) and her two young sons, Daniel and Isaiah, arrived in Philadelphia by train with North Carolina slaveholder John H. Wheeler, and his wife and three children.

[30] The porter contacted abolitionist William Still, whose parents had been enslaved, and Still and lawyer Passmore Williamson rushed to the docks as the 5:00 pm ferry was about to depart for Camden, New Jersey.

Remember, if you lose this chance you may never get such another ..." During the few moments in which the above remarks were made, the slaveholder frequently interrupted—said she understood all about the laws making her free, and her right to leave if she wanted to; but contended that she did not want to leave— ... [B]ut the woman's desire to be free was altogether too strong to allow her to make a single acknowledgment favorable to his wishes in the matter.

[h] At the end of her stay, Corson's thirteen-year-old son, Ellwood, drove Johnson in a carriage by night to Mahlon Linton's house in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

[37] George Corson's reaction was to build a lecture hall above his carriage shed to provide a space for abolitionist meetings.

As time wore on more and more neighbors and friends were attracted to the meetings to hear the eloquent and earnest men and women who pictured the atrocities of slavery.

His home was always open to entertain the anti-slavery advocates, and being warmly supported in the cause by his excellent wife, everything which they could do to make their guests comfortable was done.

[40]The Corsons' daughter, Helen (1846–1935), trained as an artist at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

[41] She met Irish-born painter Thomas Hovenden (1840–1895) in France; they were married at the Plymouth Friends Meeting House on June 9, 1881.

William Henry Furness gave the eulogy at Thomas Hovenden's funeral, and Eakins and sculptor Samuel Murray were among the pall bearers.

[46] The couple's daughter, Martha Maulsby Hovenden (1884–1941), a sculptor who trained at PAFA under Charles Grafly and at the Art Students League of New York under Hermon Atkins MacNeil,[47] later used Abolition Hall as her studio.

In October 2016, the Friends of the Library donated the original etched copper printing plate to the Woodmere Art Museum in nearby Chestnut Hill.

Nancy Corson authored a separate NRHP nomination specifically for the Hovenden House, Barn and Abolition Hall as a unit, which was also approved in 1971.

Nancy Corson and Charles L. Blockson, an authority on the history of the Underground Railroad, co-wrote the nomination for a Pennsylvania state historical marker to commemorate Abolition Hall.

The marker was approved, and dedicated at 4006 Butler Pike (in front of the barn) on November 18, 2000:[49] An offer by Whitemarsh Township to purchase the eight acres of fields for open space was declined by its owners in 2014.

In late 2015, K. Hovnanian Builders submitted a sketch plan to the township's planning/zoning office that proposed the construction of 48 townhouses on the eight acres of open space behind the buildings.

[52] This re-routing would require the demolition or relocation of the Plymouth Meeting General Store and Post Office (also listed on the National Register).

On December 21, 2016, seven concerned Whitemarsh Township residents, represented by counsel, filed an appeal, challenging the Zoning Officer's Preliminary Opinion.

"[55] In September 2016, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission issued a letter to Plymouth and Whitemarsh Townships clarifying and reiterating the significance of the Maulsby/Corson/Hovenden homestead.

[4] The organization also agreed to serve as the fiscal agent for Friends of Abolition Hall and raise funds to support the zoning challenge and protect the legacy of the homestead.

The grassroots battle to save the legacy of the Corson homestead continues as the Friends of Abolition Hall challenges the developer's application for conditional use approval.

The objections to the proposed townhouse plan are based upon the assertion that it fails to meet the requirements of the Zoning Code, which is a prerequisite to conditional use approval.

The Art Center will relocate from another Township-owned building into the Hovenden House; the use of the Stone Barn and Abolition Hall remain unresolved.