The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia Part 4

Wyck has never been sold, but has pa.s.sed from one owner to another by inheritance through the Jansen and Wistar families to the Haines family, in which it has since remained. One of its owners, Caspar Wistar, in 1740 established the first gla.s.sworks in America at Salem, New Jersey.

The most notable house of plastered stone masonry, and one of the n.o.blest countryseats in the vicinity of Philadelphia, is Clunie, later and better known as Mount Pleasant, located in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, on the east bank of the Schuylkill River only a little north of the Girard Avenue bridge. To see it is to appreciate more fully the princely mode of country living in which some of the most distinguished citizens of the early metropolis of the colonies indulged.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xII.--Doorway, Solitude, Fairmount Park; Doorway Perot-Morris House, 5442 Germantown Avenue.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xIII.--Entrance Porch and Doorway, Upsala, Germantown; Elliptical Porch and Doorway, 39 Fisher's Lane, Wayne Junction.]

Standing on high ground and commanding broad views both up and down the stream, the house is of truly baronial mien and Georgian character. Two flanking outbuildings, two and a half stories high, hip-roofed and dormered, some forty feet from each end of the main house and corresponding with it in character and construction, provide the servants' quarters and various domestic offices. Beyond the circle formed by the drive on the east or entrance front of the house and at some distance to either side are two barns. Thus the house becomes the central feature in a strikingly picturesque group of buildings having all the manorial impressiveness of the old Virginia mansions along the James River.

The main house rises two and a half stories above a high foundation of hewn stone with iron-barred bas.e.m.e.nt windows set in stone frames. It is of ma.s.sive rubble-stone masonry, coated with yellowish-gray rough-cast and having heavy quoined corners of red brick, also a horizontal belt of the same material at the second-floor level, the keyed lintels of the large ranging windows, however, being of faced stone.

Above a heavy cornice with prominent modillions springs the hipped roof, pierced on both sides by two handsome dormers and surmounted by a long, beautifully bal.u.s.traded belvedere. Two great brick chimney stacks, one at each end of the building, with four arched openings near the top, lend an aspect of added dignity and solidity. The princ.i.p.al feature of the facade on both the east and west or river front is the slightly projecting central portion with its quoined corners, surmounting corniced pediment springing from the eaves, ornate Palladian windows in the second story and superb pedimental doorway in harmony with the pedimental motive above. Although the detail is heavy, and free use has been made of the orders, the work is American Georgian at its best and altogether admirable. The doorways of the two sides are similar but not the same, and a comparison, as found in another chapter, is most interesting.

Within, a broad hall extends entirely through the house from one front to the other, as likewise does a s.p.a.cious drawing-room on the north side with an elaborate chimney piece in the middle of the outside wall. The dining room occupies the west front, and back of it, in an L extension from the hall, a handsome staircase with gracefully turned bal.u.s.trade leads to the bedrooms on the second floor. Throughout the interior the wood finish is worthy of the exterior trim. Beautifully tooled cornices, graceful pilasters, nicely molded door and window casings, heavy pedimental doorheads,--all are of excellent design and more carefully wrought than in average Colonial work. Finest of all, perhaps, is a chamber on the second floor overlooking the river that must, according to the very nature of things, have been the boudoir of the mistress of Mount Pleasant. The architectural treatment of the fireplace end of this room, with exquisite carving above the overmantel panel and above the closet doors at each side, is greatly admired by all who see it.

The erection of Mount Pleasant was begun late in 1761 by John Macpherson, a sea captain of Clunie, Scotland, who ama.s.sed a fortune and lost an arm in the adventurous practice of privateering. Here he lived in manorial splendor, entertaining the most eminent personages of the day with munificent hospitality and employing himself with numerous ingenious inventions, notably a practical device for moving brick and stone houses intact. He wrote on moral philosophy, lectured on astronomy and published the first city directory in 1785, a unique volume giving the names in direct house-to-house sequence and having such notations as, "I won't tell you", "What you please", and "Cross woman" against street numbers where he found the occupants suspicious or unresponsive to his queries.

Meeting reverses in some of his financial affairs and longing for further adventures at sea, Macpherson sought the chief command of the American Navy at the outbreak of the Revolution. This being denied him he leased Mount Pleasant to Don Juan de Merailles, the Spanish amba.s.sador. But to be near General Washington, Merailles had to remove to Morristown and there he soon died.

In the spring of 1779 Macpherson sold Mount Pleasant to General Benedict Arnold, of unhappy memory, whose remarkable and traitorous career is known to every American. Arnold had been placed in command of Philadelphia by Washington, following its evacuation by the British, and in acquiring the most palatial countryseat in the vicinity he gratified his fondness for display and apparently saw in it a means of retaining or increasing his influence and power. It was his marriage gift to his bride, Peggy Shippen, the daughter of Edward Shippen, a moderate Loyalist, who eventually became reconciled to the new order and was chief justice of the State from 1799 to 1805. At Mount Pleasant Arnold and his wife remained for more than a year, living extravagantly and entertaining lavishly. Arnold's financial embarra.s.sments and bitter contentions with persistent enemies became ever more deeply involved.

Here in bitterness, and not without some provocation, he conceived the dastardly plan of obtaining from Washington command of West Point, the key to the Hudson River Valley, in order that he might betray it to the British.

Following the discovery of the plot and Arnold's flight to the British lines, his property was confiscated, and Mount Pleasant was leased for a short period to Baron von Steuben, after which it pa.s.sed through several hands to General Jonathan Williams, of Boston, in whose family the place remained until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was acquired by the city as a part of Fairmount Park.

At Number 5442 Germantown Avenue, standing directly on the sidewalk as was often the case, and with a beautiful box-bordered garden of old-fashioned flowers about one hundred by four hundred feet along the south end, is one of the most interesting old plastered houses in Philadelphia. Well known in history, it is no less notable architecturally. In general arrangement it differs little from numerous other gable-roof structures of the vicinity, two and a half stories high with chimneys at each end and handsome pedimental dormers with round-topped windows between. It is in the excellent detail and nice proportion of the wood trim, both without and within, that this house excels. Interest focuses upon the deeply recessed doorway with its st.u.r.dy Tuscan columns and pediment, and the great, attractively paneled door. The fenestration is admirable with twenty-four-paned windows set in handsome frames with architrave casings and beautifully molded sills, the lower windows having shutters and the upper ones blinds. A notable feature is the heavy cornice with large modillions, and beneath a relatively fine-scale, double denticulated molding or Grecian fret.

Within, a wide hall extends through the middle of the house, widening at the back where a handsome winding staircase with landings ascends to the floor above. Opposite the staircase is a breakfast room overlooking the garden. The parlor and dining room on opposite sides of the hall, the bedrooms above and also the halls all have beautifully paneled wainscots. There are handsome chimney pieces in each room with dark Pennsylvania marble facings about the fireplaces and ornamental panels so nicely made that no joints are visible. Throughout the house the woodwork is of unusual beauty and unexcelled in workmanship.

The house was built in 1772 by David Deschler, a wealthy West India merchant, the son of an aide-de-camp to the reigning Prince of Baden, and Margaret, a sister of John Wister and Caspar Wistar. After the retreat of the American forces at the conclusion of the Battle of Germantown, Sir William Howe, the British commander, moved his headquarters from Stenton to the Deschler house. While there he is said to have been visited by Prince William Henry, then a midshipman in the Royal Navy, but afterward King William IV of England.

Upon Deschler's death in 1792 the house was bought by Colonel Isaac Franks, a New Yorker who had served his country well in the Continental Army and filled several civil commissions after the conclusion of peace with England. He it was who rented the house to Washington for a short period in the early winter of 1793 and again for six weeks in the following summer because of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.

Here met the President's cabinet--Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox and Randolph--to discuss the President's message to Congress and the difficulties with England, France and Spain. Aside from Mount Vernon, it is the only dwelling now standing in which Washington lived for any considerable time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xIV.--Doorway, 224 South Eighth Street; Doorway, Stenton.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xV.--Doorway and Ironwork, Southeast Corner of Eighth and Spruce Streets]

In 1804 the property was purchased by Elliston and John Perot, two Frenchmen who conducted a prosperous mercantile business in Philadelphia. On the death of the former in 1834, the place was purchased by his son-in-law, Samuel B. Morris, of the shipping firm of Waln and Morris, in whose family it has since remained. The interiors remain as in Washington's time, and much of the furniture, silver and china used by him are still preserved, together with his letter thanking Captain Samuel Morris for the valuable services of the First City Troop during the Revolution.

Although not erected until a few years after the treaty of peace following the Revolution, Vernon is so thoroughly Colonial in architecture and of such merit as to warrant mention here. It stands in extensive grounds on the west side of Germantown Avenue, Germantown, above Chelton Avenue. The main house is a hip-roofed structure two and a half stories in height of rubble masonry, the front being plastered and lined off to simulate dressed stone and the other walls being pebble dashed. A wing in the rear connects the main house with a semi-detached gable-roof structure in which were located the kitchen and servants'

rooms. The princ.i.p.al features of the symmetrical facade with its ranging twelve-paned windows, shuttered on the lower story, are the central pediment with exquisite fanlight between flanking chimneys and handsomely detailed dormers, and a splendid doorway alluded to later in these pages. A fine-scale denticulated molding in the cornice, repeated elsewhere in the exterior wood trim, lends an air of exceptional richness and refinement.

Vernon was built in 1803 by James Matthews, a whipmaker of the firm of McAllister and Matthews. In 1812 it was purchased by John Wistar, son of Daniel Wistar, and a member of the countinghouse of his uncle, William Wistar. Upon his uncle's death he conducted the business with his brother Charles and became well known in mercantile circles and prominent in the Society of Friends. A bronze statue of him in Quaker garb has been erected in front of the house. Some years after his death in 1862 the place pa.s.sed under the control of the city for a park and was occupied for a time by the Free Library. Since the erection of a building near by for this latter purpose, it has housed the museum of the Site and Relic Society, and contains much of interest to the student of early Germantown.

Another house in the Colonial spirit erected shortly after the close of the Revolution is Loudoun, at Germantown Avenue and Apsley Street, Germantown, its grounds embracing the summit of Neglee's Hill. The house is two and a half stories high with additions which have somewhat altered its original appearance; it has a gambrel roof, hipped at one end after the Mansard manner with excellent dormers on both the front and end just mentioned. Its plastered rubble masonry walls are clothed with clinging ivy. The architectural interest centers chiefly in the fenestration and the pillared portico reminiscent of plantation mansions farther south. This portico, with its simple pediment and wooden columns surmounted by pleasingly unusual capitals of acanthus-leaf motive, was added some thirty years after the house was erected. The great twenty-four-paned ranging windows have heavy paneled shutters on the first floor and blinds on the second. Tall, slender, engaged columns supporting a nicely detailed entablature frame a typical Philadelphia doorway, the paneled door itself being single with a handsome leaded fanlight above.

Loudoun was built in 1801 by Thomas Armat as a countryseat for his son, Thomas Wright Armat. The elder Armat originally settled in Loudoun County, Virginia, and hence the name of the estate. Coming to Philadelphia about the time of the Revolution, his family moved to Germantown during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 and found it such a pleasing place of residence that the building of Loudoun some years later came as a natural consequence. It stands at the very outskirts of Germantown, now the twenty-second ward of Philadelphia, where Germantown Avenue starts its winding course toward Chestnut Hill. At the original lottery distribution of the land of the Frankford Company in the cave of Francis Daniel Pastorius, there being no permanent houses at that time, the site fell to Thomas Kunders, in whose house at Number 5109 Germantown Avenue the first meeting of Friends was held in Germantown.

After the Battle of Germantown the hill was used as a hospital, and many dead were buried there. From 1820 to 1835 Loudoun was rented to Madam Greland as a summer school for young women, and it was during this period, probably about 1830, that the pillared portico was added.

A successful Philadelphia merchant and well-known philanthropist, Thomas Armat, gave the site for St. Luke's Church in Germantown and a.s.sisted in its erection, also setting aside a chamber at Loudoun which was known as the minister's room. He was among the first to suggest the use of coal for heating, and one of the early patentees of a hay scales. Armat's daughter married Gustavus Logan, great-great-grandson of James Logan and grandson of John d.i.c.kinson, whose "Farmer's Letters", addressed to the people of England, are said to have brought about the repeal of the Stamp Act. Loudoun still remains in the Logan family.

No stranger house can be found in all Philadelphia than Solitude on the west bank of the Schuylkill in Blockley Township, Fairmount Park. It is a boxlike structure of plastered rubble masonry twenty-six feet square and two and a half stories high, with a hip roof having simple pedimental dormers and two oppositely disposed chimneys. The wood trim is severely simple throughout, from the heavy molded cornice under the eaves to the pedimental recessed doorway with its Ionic columns and entablature. Two slightly projecting courses of brick, one some ten inches or so above the other, form an unusual belt at the second-floor level, while a distinctive feature of the fenestration is seen in the fact that most of the windows have nine-paned upper and six-paned lower sashes.

Within, the entrance doorway leads into a hall some nine feet wide and extending entirely across the house from side to side. The remainder of the first floor consists of a large parlor with windows opening on a portico overlooking the river. A beautiful stucco cornice and ceiling and a carved wood surbase are its best features. In one corner a staircase with wrought-iron railing rises to the second floor, where there is a library about fifteen feet square with built-in bookcases, two connecting bedrooms, one with an alcove and secret door where the owner might shut himself away from intrusive visitors, and a staircase leading to more bedrooms on the third floor. The cellar is deep and roomy, with provision for wine storage, and an underground pa.s.sage communicates with the kitchen located in a separate building about twenty-five feet distant.

Solitude was built in 1785 by John Penn, a grandson of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia, and a son of Thomas Penn, whose wife was a daughter of the Earl of Pomfret. A much traveled, scholarly man, poet, idealist and art patron, he came to Philadelphia in 1783 to look after proprietary interests in Pennsylvania and intending to become an American. But his claims were made under hereditary rights, and as the State was not disposed to honor them he concluded to remain an Englishman. Vexed with the perversity of human nature, he built Solitude and named it for a lodge belonging to the Duke of Wurttemburg. There he lived somewhat the life of a recluse with his books and trees for three years. He was on friendly terms with his neighbors, however, who included his cousin, Governor John Penn, and Judge Richard Peters. Gay week-end parties also came in boats to enjoy his hospitality, and Washington once spent a day with him during the sitting of the Const.i.tutional Convention in Philadelphia.

In 1788 Penn suddenly returned to England, built a handsome residence at Stoke and embarked on a notable career in public life, becoming sheriff of Bucks in 1798, a member of Parliament in 1802, and royal governor of the island of Portland in Dorset for many years after 1805. The University of Cambridge made him an LL.D. in 1811, and he won promotion to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Royal Bucks Yeomanry. Later in his declining years he formed the Outinian Society to encourage young men and women to marry, although he inconsistently died a bachelor in 1834.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVI.--Doorway and Ironwork, Northeast Corner of Third and Pine Streets; Stoop with Curved Stairs and Iron Handrail, 316 South Third Street.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVII.--Stoop and Bal.u.s.trade, Wistar House; Stoop and Bal.u.s.trade, 130 Race Street.]

Solitude then pa.s.sed by inheritance to Penn's youngest brother, Granville, and on his death ten years later to a nephew, Granville John Penn, great-grandson of William Penn, and the last Penn at Solitude.

Coming to Philadelphia in middle life about 1851 he was lionized by society and in acknowledgment gave a grand "Fete Champetre" and collation. Following his death in 1867, Solitude and its grounds were made part of Fairmount Park, and after several years without tenancy the house in its original condition was made the administration building of the Zoological Society.

The fine old plastered stone houses of Philadelphia comprise one of the distinctive and most admired types of its Colonial architecture. Those with pebble-dashed walls which seek to simulate no other building material or form of construction possess the added charm of frank sincerity. Fire-proof in character, pleasing in appearance, and readily adaptable to varied home requirements, they point the way wherever rubble stone incapable of forming an attractive wall is cheaply available. Many modern dwellings in the Colonial spirit are being built in this manner.

CHAPTER VI

HEWN STONE COUNTRY HOUSES

Cost was not an object in building many of the larger old countryseats about Philadelphia, for their owners were men of wealth and station, prominent in the affairs of the province and sharing its prosperity.

Influenced by the builders of the Georgian period in England, and often under their personal supervision, the buildings on numerous great estates about the early metropolis of the American colonies were constructed of quarried stone, whether sawed in the form of "brick"

stone or hammered to a relatively smooth surface.

Surfaced stone, however, especially when cut into rectangular blocks, is to be recommended only for public work or for very large and pretentious residences of formal character and arrangement. In small buildings, and unless handled with skill and discretion in larger work, its psychological effect upon the mind is that of uncompromising and somewhat repellent austerity; it suggests the prison-like palace rather than the domestic atmosphere of a true home,--an atmosphere to be had in stone only by preserving the greater spontaneity of irregular shapes and rock faces characteristic of Germantown ledge stone.

That the early builders of this vicinity were skilled stone masons and employed this form of building construction with sympathy and intelligence is indicated by the splendid old mansions that still remain as monuments to their genius,--stately, elegant, enduring, yet withal pleasing, comfortable and eminently livable. The use of "brick" stone for several of them has given a lighter scale, and by repet.i.tion of many closely related and prominent horizontals has simulated a greater breadth of facade and a lesser total height, both beneficial to the general appearance. As in ordinary brickwork, the vertical pointing is as wide as the horizontal, but the joints break, whereas the course lines are continuous, thus emphasizing the horizontals of light mortar.

Unquestionably the most notable mansion of hewn stone in Greater Philadelphia is Cliveden, the countryseat of the Chew family, located in extensive grounds at Germantown Avenue and Johnson streets, Germantown.

One of the most substantial and elaborate residences of that day, it is two and a half stories in height and built of heavy masonry, the front ill.u.s.trating well the pleasing use of surfaced Germantown stone, flush pointed, the other walls being of rubble masonry, plastered and marked off to simulate dressed stone. Two wings, one semi-detached and the other entirely so, extend back from the main house and contain the kitchen, servants' quarters and laundry. The cla.s.sic front entrance opens into a large hall with small rooms on each side which were originally used as offices. Beyond and above are many s.p.a.cious rooms with excellent woodwork and handsome chimney pieces.

No handsomer Colonial facade is to be found in America. Cla.s.sic in feeling and symmetrical in arrangement, it is excellently detailed in every particular. Above a slightly projecting water table the repeated horizontals of the limestone belt at the second-floor level, the heavy cornice with prominent modillions and the roof line impart a feeling of repose and stability quite apart from the character of the building material itself. The ranging windows, shuttered on the lower floor, are distinguished by their keyed limestone lintels and twelve-paned upper and lower sashes, while the roof is elaborated by two great chimney stacks, a like number of well-designed dormers with round-topped windows, and five handsome stone urns mounted on brick piers at the corners and over the entrance. The central portion of the facade projects slightly under a pediment in harmony with the splendid Doric doorway beneath, of which more elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVIII.--Detail of Iron Bal.u.s.trade, 216 South Ninth Street; Stoop with Wing Flights, 207 La Grange Alley.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xIX.--Iron Newel, Fourth and Liberty Streets; Iron Newel, 1107 Walnut Street.]

Cliveden was erected in 1761 by Benjamin Chew, a friend of Washington and a descendant of one of the oldest and most distinguished Virginia families, his great-grandfather, John Chew, having settled at James Citie about 1621, and, like Benjamin Chew's grandfather and father, who resided in Maryland, having been prominent in the courts and public affairs generally. Benjamin Chew studied law with Andrew Hamilton, and at the age of nineteen entered the Middle Temple, London, the same year as Sir William Blackstone. Removing to Philadelphia in 1754, he was provincial counselor in 1755, attorney general from 1755 to 1764, recorder of the city from 1755 to 1774, a member of the Pennsylvania-Maryland Boundary Commission in 1761, register general of the province in 1765, and in 1774 succeeded William Allen as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Following the Revolution he served as a judge and president of the High Court of Errours and Appeals until it was abolished in 1808.

Justice Chew was brought up a Quaker and his att.i.tude coincided with that of many others who manifested sympathy for the American cause, yet hesitated at complete independence. In defining high treason to the April Grand Jury of 1776, the last held under the Crown, he stated that "an opposition by force of arms to the lawful authority of the King or his Ministry is high treason, but in the moment when the King, or his Ministers, shall exceed the authority vested in them by the Const.i.tution, submission to their mandate becomes treason." It is not surprising, therefore, that in August, 1777, Judge Chew and John Penn, the late proprietary, were arrested by the City Troop and on refusing parole were imprisoned at the Union Iron Works until sometime in 1778.

With fourteen attractive and accomplished children, two sons and twelve daughters, things were always lively at Cliveden, and it was the scene of lavish entertainment of Washington, Adams and other members of the first Continental Congress. Around its cla.s.sic doorway the Battle of Germantown raged most fiercely. The house had been occupied by the British under Colonel Musgrave, the Chew family being away at the time; and so effective a fortress did it prove that the center of Washington's advance was checked and the day lost to the American arms. Great damage was done inside and out by cannon b.a.l.l.s, some of it being still visible, although several workmen spent the entire following winter putting the house in order. During his triumphal farewell tour of the twenty-four American States in 1825, a breakfast was tendered to La Fayette at Cliveden on the day of his reception at Wyck.