Throughout the Colonial period, and to a degree during the early years of the American nation, Philadelphia clung to the manners and customs of the mother country as did few other communities in the new world. In architecture, therefore, it is not surprising to find the oldest houses and public buildings of the American metropolis of those days reflecting the tendencies of the times across the water. Wood had already ceased to be a cheap building material in England, and although it was abundantly available in America, brick and stone were thought necessary for the better homes, despite the fact that for some years, until sources of clay and limestone were found, bricks and lime for making mortar had to be brought at great expense from overseas. So we find that in 1683, the year following the founding of the “City of Brotherly Love”, William Penn erected for his daughter Letitia the first brick house in the town, which was for several years occupied by Penn and his family. It was located in Letitia Court, a small street running from Market to Chestnut streets between Front and Second streets. Although of little architectural value, it was of great historic interest, and when in 1883 the encroachments of the wholesale district threatened to destroy it, the house was removed to Fairmount Park by the city and rebuilt on Lansdowne Drive west of the Girard Avenue bridge. It is open to the public and contains numerous Penn relics.

Thus from the very outset brick construction has been favored in preference to wood in Philadelphia. Homes in the city proper were built of it chiefly, and likewise many of the elegant countryseats in the neighboring townships, now part of the greater Philadelphia of to-day. The wealthier residents very early set the fashion of both city and country living, following in this custom the example of William Penn, the founder, who not only had his house in town, but a country place, a veritable mansion, long since gone, on an island in the Delaware River above Bristol.

British builders had forsaken the Jacobean manner of the early Renaissance and come completely under the spell of the English Classic or so-called Georgian style. Correspondingly, American men of means were erecting country houses of brick, with ornamental trim classic in detail, and of marble and white-painted wood. Marked by solidity, spaciousness and quiet dignity, they are thoroughly Georgian in conception, and as such reminiscent of the manorial seats of Virginia, yet less stately and in various respects peculiar to this section of the colonies. Like the bricks, the elaborate interior woodwork was at first brought from overseas, but later produced by resident artisans of whom there was an ever increasing number of no mean order.

Almost without exception the Colonial brickwork of Philadelphia was laid up with wide mortar joints in Flemish bond, red stretcher and black header bricks alternating in the same course. The arrangement not only imparts a delightful warmth and pleasing texture, but the headers provide frequent transverse ties, giving great strength to the wall. With this rich background the enlivening contrast of marble lintels and sills and white-painted wood trim, in which paneled shutters play a prominent part, form a picture of rare charm, rendered all the more satisfying by an appearance of obvious comfort, permanence and intrinsic worth which wood construction, however good, cannot convey.

Many of the splendid old pre-Revolutionary country houses of brick no longer remain to us. Some are gone altogether; others are remodeled almost beyond recognition; a few, hedged around by the growing city, have been allowed to fall into a state of hopeless decay. Woodford, however, located in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, at York and Thirty-third streets, is fairly representative of the type of Georgian countryseat of brick, so many of which were erected in the suburbs of Philadelphia about the middle of the eighteenth century.

It is a large square structure, two and a half stories in height, with a hipped roof rising above a handsome cornice with prominent modillions and surmounted by a balustraded belvedere. Two large chimneys, much nearer together than is ordinarily the case, emerge within the inclosed area of the belvedere deck. A heavy pediment springs from the cornice above the pedimental doorway, and this repetition of the motive imparts a pleasing interest and emphasis to the façade. The subordinate cornice at the second-floor level is most unusual and may perhaps reflect the influence of the penthouse roof which became such a characteristic feature of the ledge stone work of the neighborhood. Few houses have the brick pilaster treatment at the corners with corresponding cornice projections which enrich the ornamental trim. Six broad soapstone steps with a simple wrought-iron handrail at either side lead up to a fine doorway, Tuscan in spirit, with high narrow doors. Above, a beautiful Palladian window is one of the best features of the façade. An interesting fenestration scheme, with paneled shutters at the lower windows only, is enhanced by the pleasing scale of twelve-paned upper and lower window sashes having broad white muntins throughout.

Opening the front door, one finds himself in a wide hall with doorways giving entrance to large front rooms on each side. Beyond, a beautifully detailed arch supported by pilasters spans the hall. The stairway is located near the center of the house in a hall to one side of the main hall and reached from it through a side door. Interior woodwork of good design and workmanship everywhere greets the eye, especially noticeable features being the rounding cornices, heavy wainscots and the floors an inch and a half in thickness and doweled together. Each room has a fireplace with ornamental iron back, a hearth of square bricks and a well-designed wood mantel. In the south front room blue tiles depicting Elizabethan knights and their ladies surround the fireplace opening. Brass handles instead of door knobs lend distinction to the hardware.

Woodford was erected in 1766 by William Coleman, a successful merchant, eminent jurist and a friend of Franklin. He was a member of the Common Council in 1739, justice of the peace and judge of the county courts in 1751 and judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1759 until his death ten years later.

Coleman’s executors sold the place to Alexander Barclay, comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs at Philadelphia, and the grandson of Robert Barclay of Ury, the noted Quaker theologian and “Apologist.”

On Barclay’s death in 1771, Woodford became the home of David Franks, a wealthy Jewish merchant and one of the signers of the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765 by which a large body of leading American merchants agreed “not to have any goods shipped from Great Britain until after the repeal of the Stamp Act.” He was prominent both socially and politically, a member of the Provincial Assembly in 1748 and the register of wills. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, he was the agent of the Crown in Philadelphia and was then made commissary of the British prisoners in the American lines. In 1778, however, he was arrested by General Benedict Arnold for attempting to transmit a letter harmful to the American cause, deprived of his commission and property, and obliged to remove to New York two years later.

One of Franks’ daughters, Abigail, married Andrew Hamilton of The Woodlands, afterwards attorney-general of Pennsylvania. Another daughter, Rebecca, married General Sir Henry Johnson, who was defeated and captured by General Anthony Wayne at Stony Point. Rebecca Franks was one of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her day. Well educated, a gifted writer and fascinating conversationalist, witty and winsome, she was popular in society and one of the belles of the celebrated “Mischianza”, which was given May 18, 1778, by the British officers in honor of General Lord Howe upon his departure for England. This was a feast of gayety with a tournament somewhat like those common in the age of chivalry, and was planned largely by Major John Andre, who was later hanged by order of an American military commission for his connection with the treason of General Benedict Arnold.

Following the confiscation of Franks’ property in 1780, Woodford was sold to Thomas Paschall, a friend of Franklin. Later it was occupied for a time by William Lewis, a noted advocate, and in 1793 was bought by Isaac Wharton, son of Joseph Wharton, owner of Walnut Grove in Southwark at about Fifth Street and Walnut Avenue, where the “Mischianza” was held. A son, Francis Rawle Wharton, inherited the place on his father’s death in 1798 and was the last private owner. In 1868 the estate was made part of Fairmount Park, and since 1887 it has been used as a guardhouse.

A country house typical of the time, though unlike most other contemporary buildings in the details of its construction, is Hope Lodge in Whitemarsh Valley on the Bethlehem Pike just north of its junction with the Skippack Pike. It is thoroughly Georgian in conception, and most of the materials, including all of the wood finish, were brought from England. The place reached a deplorable state of decay several years ago, yet the accompanying photograph shows enough remaining to be of considerable architectural interest.

It is a large, square house two and a half stories high, its hipped roof broken by handsome pedimental dormers with round-topped windows. The front is of brick laid up in characteristic Flemish bond, while the other walls are of plastered rubble stone masonry, the brickwork and stonework being quoined together at the front corners. A broad plaster coving is the principal feature of the simple molded cornice, and one notes the much used double belt formed by two projecting courses of brick at the second-floor level. The fenestration differs in several respects from that of similar houses erected a quarter century later. The arrangement of the ranging windows is quite conventional, but instead of marble lintels above them there are nicely gauged flat brick arches, while the basement windows are set in openings beneath segmental relieving arches with brick cores. The latter are reflected in effect by the recessed elliptical arches above all the windows in the walls of plastered rubble masonry. The windows themselves, with nine-paned upper and lower sashes having unusually heavy muntins, likewise the shutters on the lower story and the heavy paneled doors, are higher and narrower than was the rule a few years later. The entrance, with its characteristic double doors, is reached by a porch and four stone steps, its low hip roof with molded cornice being supported by two curious, square, tapering columns. Porches were an unusual circumstance in the neighborhood, and this one is so unlike any others of Colonial times which are worthy of note as to suggest its having been a subsequent addition. Above, a round-arched recess with projecting brick sill replaces the conventional Palladian window.

Indoors, an exceptionally wide hall extends entirely through the house from front to back, opening into spacious rooms on both sides through round-topped doorways with narrow double doors heavily paneled. An elliptical arch supported by fluted pilasters spans the hall about midway of its length, and a handsome staircase ascends laterally from the rear part after the common English manner of that day. Throughout the house the woodwork is of good design and execution, the paneled wainscots, molded cornices, door and window casings all being very heavy, and the broad fireplaces and massive chimney pieces in complete accord. Deep paneled window seats, very common in contemporary houses, are a feature of the first-floor rooms. The kitchens and the servants’ quarters are located in a separate building to the rear, a brick-paved porch connecting the two. This custom, as in the South, was characteristic of the locality and period.

Hope Lodge was erected in 1723 by Samuel Morris, a Quaker of Welsh descent, who was a justice of the peace in Whitemarsh and an overseer of Plymouth Meeting. Morris built it expecting to marry a young Englishwoman to whom he had become affianced while on a visit to England with his mother, Susanna Heath, who was a prominent minister among the Friends. The wedding did not occur, however, and Samuel Morris died a bachelor in 1772, leaving his estate to his brother Joshua, who sold Hope Lodge in 1776 to William West. In 1784 West’s executors conveyed it to the life interest of Colonel James Horatio Watmough with a reversion to his guardian, Henry Hope, a banker. It was Colonel Watmough who named the place Hope Lodge as a compliment to his guardian. One of his daughters married Joseph Reed, son of General Joseph Reed, and another married John Sargent, the famous lawyer. Both the Reeds and Sargents occupied Hope Lodge at various times, and it eventually passed into the Wentz family.

No other Colonial country house of brick that now remains holds an interest, either architectural or historic, quite equal to that of Stenton, which stands among fine old oaks, pines and hemlocks in a six-acre park, all that now remains of an estate of five hundred acres located on Germantown Avenue on the outskirts of Germantown near the Wayne Junction railroad station. One of the earliest and most pretentious countryseats of the neighborhood, it combines heavy construction and substantial appearance with a picturesque charm that is rare in buildings of such early origin. This is due in part to the brightening effect of the fenestration, with many small-paned windows set in white-painted molded frames, and quite as much to the slender trellises between the lower-story windows supporting vines which have spread over the brickwork above in the most fascinating manner. Both features impart a lighter sense of scale, while the profusion of white wood trim emphasizes more noticeably the delightful color and texture of the brickwork.

The house is a great, square, hip-roofed structure two and a half stories high with two large square chimneys and severely plain pedimental dormers. Servants’ quarters, kitchens and greenhouses are located in a separate gable-roof structure a story and a half high, extending back more than a hundred feet from the main house, and connected with it by a covered porch along the back. In the kitchen the brick oven, the copper boiler and the fireplace with its crane still remain.

The walls of the house consist of characteristic brickwork of red stretchers and black headers laid up in Flemish bond, with square piers at the front corners and on each side of the entrance, and there is the more or less customary projecting belt at the second-floor level. On the second story the windows are set close up under the heavy overhanging cornice, with its prominent modillions, while on the lower story there are relieving arches with cores of brick instead of stone lintels so common on houses a few decades later. There are similar arches over the barred basement windows set in brick-lined areaways. Interesting indeed is the scheme of fenestration. Although formal and symmetrical on the front, the windows piercing the other walls frankly correspond to the interior floor plan, although ranging for the most part. Unlike the usual arrangement, there are two widely spaced windows above the entrance, while the narrow flanking windows either side of the doorway may be regarded as one of the earliest instances of side lights in American architecture. The severely simple entrance with its high narrow paneled doors without either knob or latch is reached from a brick-paved walk about the house by three semicircular stone steps such as were common in England at the time, the various nicely hewn pieces fastened securely together with iron bands.

The front door opens into a large square hall with a brick-paved floor and walls wainscoted to the ceiling with white-painted wood paneling. There is a fireplace on the right, and beyond an archway in the rear a staircase ascends to the second floor. To the right of the hall is the parlor, also with paneled walls, and a fireplace surrounded by pink tiles. In the wainscoted room back of this the sliding top of a closet offers opportunity for a person to conceal himself and listen through a small hole to the conversation in the adjoining hall. To the left of the hall is the dining room, beautifully wainscoted and having a built-in cupboard for china and a fireplace faced with blue tiles. The iron fireback bears the inscription “J. .” Back of this through a passageway is a small breakfast room, whence an underground passage for use during storms or sieges leads from a trap door in the floor to the barns.

The second-story floor plan is most unusual. The library, a great long room, extends entirely across the front of the house, with its range of six windows and two fireplaces on the opposite wall, one faced with blue tiles and the other with white. Here, with the finest private collection of books in America at that time, the scholarly owner spent his declining years, the library going to the city of Philadelphia on his death. Two small bedrooms, each with a fireplace, were occupied by his daughters. A little back staircase leads to the third floor, where the woodwork of the chambers was unpainted.

Stenton was erected in 1728 by James Logan, a scholar, philosopher, man of affairs, the secretary and later the personal representative of William Penn, the founder, and afterwards chief justice of the colony. Descended from a noble Scottish family, his father a clergyman and teacher who joined the Society of Friends in 1761, James Logan himself was for a time a teacher in London, but soon engaged in the shipping trade. In 1699 he came to America with William Penn as his secretary, and on Penn’s return to England he was left in charge of the province. Thereafter Logan became a very important personage, much liked and fully trusted by all who knew him, including the Indians, with whom he maintained friendly relations. For half a century he was a mighty factor in provincial affairs, and to read his life is to read the history of Pennsylvania for that period, for he was chief justice, provincial secretary, commissioner of property, surveyor-general and president of the council. His ample fortune, amassed in commerce with Edward Shippen, in trade with the Indians, and by the purchase and sale of lands, enabled him to live and entertain at Stenton in a princely manner many distinguished American and European personages of that day.

When Logan died in 1751, he was succeeded by his son William, who continued faithful to the proprietary interests and carried on the Indian work. His son, Doctor George Logan, was the next proprietor during the Revolutionary period. Educated in England and Scotland, he traveled extensively in Europe; after his return to America he became a member of the Agricultural and Philosophical Societies and was elected a senator from Pennsylvania from 1801 to 1807.

During Doctor Logan’s occupancy Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and many other distinguished American and European personages were entertained at Stenton. It was Washington’s headquarters on August 23, 1777, while he was on his way to the Brandywine from Hartsville. Ten years later, on July 8, 1787, he came again as President of the Constitutional Convention, then sitting in Philadelphia, to see a demonstration of land plaster on grass land that had been made by Doctor Logan.

Sir William Howe occupied Stenton as his headquarters during the battle of Germantown, October 4, 1777, and on November 22 ordered it destroyed, along with the homes of other “obnoxious persons.” The story of its narrow escape is interesting. Two dragoons came to fire it. Meeting a negro woman on their way to the barn for straw, they told her she might remove the bedding and clothing. Meanwhile a British officer and several men happened along, inquiring for deserters, whereupon the negro servant with ready wit said that two were hiding in the barn. Despite their protests, the men were carried away and the house was saved, as the order to fire it was not repeated.

After Doctor Logan’s death in 1821, Stenton was occupied by his widow, Deborah Logan, until her death in 1839, when it passed to her son Albanus, an agriculturalist and sportsman. His son Gustavus was the last private owner, as the house was acquired by the city and occupied as their headquarters by the Colonial Dames, the descendants of the Logan family removing to Loudoun near by.

No account of the Colonial houses of Philadelphia would be reasonably complete which failed to include the home of Stephen Girard. Although of scant architectural distinction, it is of interest through its association with one of the chief outstanding figures of a city noted for its celebrated residents. It is a two-story hip-roofed structure, rather narrow but of exceptional length, taking the form of two plaster-walled wings on opposite sides of a central portion of brick having a pediment springing from the main cornice and a circular, ornamental window. As at Hope Lodge a broad plaster coving is the principal feature of the simple cornice. The windows and chimneys differ in various parts of the house, and the doors are strangely located, all suggesting alterations and additions. The central part of the house has casement sashes with blinds as contrasted with Georgian sashes with paneled shutters elsewhere, and all second-story windows are foreshortened.

Stephen Girard, a wealthy and eccentric Philadelphia merchant, financier, philanthropist and the founder of Girard College, was born near Bordeaux, France, in 1750, the son of a sea captain. He lost the sight of his right eye when eight years old and had only a meager education. Beginning a seafaring life as a cabin boy, he in time became master and part owner of a small vessel trading between New York, New Orleans and Port au Prince. In May, 1776, he was driven into the port of Philadelphia by a British fleet and settled there as a merchant. Gradually he built up a fleet of vessels trading with New Orleans and the West Indies, and by the close of the Revolution, Girard was one of the richest men of his time, and he used his wealth in numerous ways to benefit the nation and humanity. In 1810 he utilized about a million dollars deposited with the Barings of London to purchase shares of the much depreciated stock of the Bank of the United States, which materially assisted the government in bolstering European confidence in its securities. When the bank was not rechartered, Girard bought the building and cashier’s house for a third of their original cost, and in May, 1812, established the Bank of Stephen Girard. In 1814, when the government needed money to bring the second conflict with England to a successful conclusion, he subscribed for about ninety-five per cent of the war loan of five million dollars, of which only twenty thousand dollars besides had been taken, and he generously offered to the public at par shares which, following his purchase, had gone to a premium.

Girard showed his public spirit personally as well as financially. During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 and in 1797-1798 he took the lead in relieving the poor and caring for the sick. He volunteered to act as manager of the hospital at Bush Hill and with the assistance of Peter Helm he cleansed the place and systemized the work.

On his death in 1831, Girard’s estate, the greatest private fortune in America, was valued at about seven and a half million dollars, and his philanthropy was again shown in his disposition of it. Being without heirs, as his child had died soon after its birth and his beautiful wife had died after many years in an insane asylum, his heart went out to poor and orphan children. In his will he bequeathed $116,000 to various Philadelphia charities; $500,000 to the city for improvement of the Delaware River front, streets and buildings; $300,000 to Pennsylvania for internal improvements, especially canals, and the bulk of the estate to Philadelphia, chiefly for founding and maintaining a non-sectarian school or college, but also for providing a better police system, making municipal improvements and lessening taxation. The college was given for the support and education of poor white male orphans, of legitimate birth and character, between the ages of six and ten; and it was specified that no boy was to be permitted to stay after his eighteenth year, and that as regards admission, preference was to be shown, first to orphans born in Philadelphia, second to orphans born in any other part of Pennsylvania, third to orphans born in New York City, and fourth to orphans born in New Orleans.

Work upon the buildings was begun in 1833, and the college was opened with five buildings in 1848. The central one, an imposing structure in the Corinthian style of architecture designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, has been called “the most perfect Greek temple in existence.” To it in 1851 were removed the remains of Stephen Girard and placed in a sarcophagus in the south vestibule. The college fund, originally $5,260,000, has grown to more than thirty-five million dollars; likewise the college has become virtually a village in itself. Some twenty handsome buildings and residences, valued at about three and a half million dollars, and more than forty acres of land accommodate about two thousand students, teachers and employes.

Under the provisions of the Girard trust fund nearly five hundred dwelling houses have been erected by the city in South Philadelphia, all heated and lighted by a central plant operated by the trustees, and more than seventy million tons of coal have been mined on property belonging to his estate. Few philanthropists have left their money so wisely or with such thoughtful provisions to meet changing conditions.

Perhaps the brick mansion most thoroughly representative of the type of Georgian country house, of which so many sprang up about Philadelphia from 1760 to 1770, is Port Royal House on Tacony Street between Church and Duncan streets in Frankford. This great square, hip-roofed structure with its quoined corners and projecting stone belt at the second-floor level; its surmounting belvedere, ornamental dormers and great chimney stacks; its central pediment springing from a heavy cornice above a projecting central portion of the façade in which are located a handsome Palladian window and characteristic Doric doorway; its large, ranging, twenty-four-paned windows with keyed stone lintels and blinds on the lower story, is in brick substantially what Mount Pleasant is in plastered stone, as will be seen in Chapter V. As in the latter, a broad central hall extends entirely through the house, and the staircase is located in a small side hall. The rooms throughout are large and contain excellent woodwork and chimney pieces.

Port Royal House was erected in 1762 by Edward Stiles, a wealthy merchant and shipowner, who like many others emigrated from Bermuda to the Bahama island of New Providence and thence to Philadelphia about the middle of the eighteenth century, to engage in American commerce. He was the great-grandson of John Stiles, one of the first settlers of Bermuda in 1635, and the son of Daniel Stiles, of Port Royal Parish, a vestryman and warden of Port Royal Church and a member of the Assembly of Bermuda in 1723. Commerce between the American colonies and Bermuda and the West Indies was extensive, and Stiles’ business prospered. He had a store in Front Street between Market and Arch streets, and a town house in Walnut Street between Third and Fourth streets. In summer, like other men of his station and affluence, he lived at his countryseat, surrounded by many slaves, on an extensive plantation in Oxford township, near Frankford, that he had purchased from the Waln family. To it he gave the name Port Royal after his birthplace in Bermuda.

To Edward Stiles in 1775 befell the opportunity to carry relief to the people of Bermuda, then in dire distress because their supplies from America had been cut off by the Non-Importation Agreement among the American colonies. In response to their petition to the Continental Congress, permission was granted to send Stiles’ ship, the Sea Nymph (Samuel Stobel, master), laden with provisions to be paid for by the people of Bermuda either in gold or arms, ammunition, saltpeter, sulphur and fieldpieces.

During the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1777 and 1778, Frankford became the middle ground between the opposing armies and subject to the depredations of both. Port Royal House, like many other estates of the vicinity, was robbed of its fine furniture, horses, slaves and provisions.

Under the will of Edward Stiles his slaves were freed and educated at the expense of his estate. In 1853 the Lukens family bought Port Royal House and for several years a boarding school was conducted there. As the manufacturing about Frankford grew, the locality lost its desirability as a place of residence. The house was abandoned to chance tenants and allowed to fall into an exceedingly delapidated condition. The accompanying photograph, however, depicts enough of its former state to indicate that in its day it was among the best brick country residences of the vicinity.