Town House and Country House Inventories from the 8State of William Jfygan, I??6

Town House and Country House Inventories from the 8state of William Jfygan, I??6

HE Philadelphia gentleman of the pre-Revolutionary era, like his counterpart in the other northern colonial cities, divided his life between town and country in conscious T 1 emulation of the British upper class. Since he was typically a merchant, engaged in the Atlantic shipping trade, he built his town house within a few squares of the Delaware waterfront in the section of Philadelphia bounded roughly by Society Hill on the south, the State House on the west, and High (Market) Street on the north. It was not pretentious or showy, this town house: plain, substantial, comfortable, it mirrored the qualities of the Quaker merchants who set the pattern for the local aristocracy and the Quaker artisans who built it. As soon as the Philadelphia merchant had established himself securely in commerce, however, he acquired land on the outskirts of town and built a "plantation," or country house, to which he and his family could withdraw in summertime to escape the city's heat. In the early years of the eighteenth century, a modest cottage, designed for a day's outing, sufficed, but by mid-century, as prosperity in- creased, the typical "plantation" was a villa of some grandeur, sur- rounded by attractive gardens and orchards. Scull and Heap's zJXCap of 'Philadelphia and Parts ^Adjacent, published in 1752, shows a hundred and fifty such country seats scattered over the open coun- tryside within a dozen miles of the city. A Scottish visitor in 1775 set down a succinct description of this dual habitat of the colonial Philadelphia gentleman: the town houses, he wrote, "are mostly all brick, and very neat, three and four stories high, well finished within, and well lighted. . . . The country round this is very pleasant and

l See Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743-1776 (New York, 1955), 141-145, 336-341, for a description of the town-and-country life of the colonial urban aristocracy. 397 398 FREDERICK B. TOLLES October agreeable, finely interspersed with genteel country seats, fields and orchards, for several miles round. . . ."2 A little more than a year after Patrick M'Robert wrote those words, two Philadelphians, paper and pen in hand, were moving from room to room through a town house on Second Street and a country house on the Germantown Road, performing the mournful rite of inventorying the contents of the two houses for the purpose of settling the estate of their late owner, William Logan. The His- torical Society of Pennsylvania has recently purchased a manuscript book containing the will, inventory, and settlement of William Logan's estate. The two inventories are of special interest because they enable us, as it were, to look inside the town house and country house of a Philadelphia Quaker merchant at the end of the colonial period. William Logan (1718-1776) was the son of James Logan, who had come to Pennsylvania in 1699 with William Penn. He was less distinguished than his father, but more representative of the Quaker mercantile aristocracy whose long ascendancy was now coming to an end. After learning the ways of business in the countinghouse of his uncle Israel Pemberton, William Logan had succeeded to many of his father's business interests in the fur trade, the iron industry, and the importing of hardware and dry goods. In 1747 he had been appointed to the seat James Logan had long occupied on the Pro- vincial Council. Five years later, he had fallen heir to Stenton, the handsome country estate between Philadelphia and Germantown where his father had lived for twenty years. Shortly after the old gentleman's death, he had moved there with his young family, intending to give himself to country pursuits. William Logan was a good farmer, one of the pioneers of scientific agriculture in the American colonies.3 But a Logan could not disengage himself from

2 Carl Bridenbaugh, ed., "Patrick M'Robert's Tour through Part of the North Provinces of America," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LIX (1935), 165, 167. 3 See Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1948), 218-219. There is no biography of William Logan, but his surviving correspondence in The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) and elsewhere reveals him as an attractive personality, less voracious intellectually and less domineering politically than his formidable father, less given to impetuous action and demo- cratic enthusiasms than his son Dr. George Logan, but more deeply imbued with Quaker piety than either. 1958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 399 the life of the city, especially a Logan who, unlike the other members of the family, was a concerned and weighty Friend, active in the affairs of Philadelphia Monthly and Yearly Meetings. So William Logan kept up the house he had built on Second Street and divided his life, as the other Quaker merchants did, between town and country.

SECOND STREET HOUSE

There is no need to describe Stenton. It still stands, at Eighteenth and Courtland streets, a few blocks away from the hurrying traffic of North Broad Street, hemmed in now by the slovenliness and squalor of an alien industrial civilization, but still preserving the simple dignity and quiet elegance of a vanished age. If some of the furnishings at Stenton were described as "old" or "broken" and were 4OO FREDERICK B. TOLLES October valued at relatively low figures, one may remember that in 1776 the mansion had been lived in for nearly half a century.4 William Logan's town house stood at the northwest corner of Second Street and a passage lying between Chestnut and Walnut streets called Lodge Alley (later Gothic Street). Directly across the alley to the south was the town house which his father had once occupied; to the north, with a garden between, stood the residence of his cousin James Pemberton. William Logan's house was a rather imposing three-story brick structure with a pent roof between the first and second stories and a gabled door hood enclosing an interest- ing carved shell-shaped ornament over the entrance.5 The inventories printed here are not complete in all details: they do not include Logan's library or his silver, which, valued at eleven shillings per ounce, came to £365 14.J. nd. The household goods enumerated came to a value of £694 8s. for the Second Street house, and £362 for Stenton.

Swarthmore College FREDERICK B. TOLLES

4 An inventory of the contents of Stenton, taken twenty-five years earlier, after James Logan's death in 1751, shows many of the same pieces in the same rooms, but the total appraised value then had been £440 instead of £362. Inventory taken at Stenton of Goods and Chattels belonging to the Estate of James Logan Deceased, Maria Dickinson Logan Collection, HSP. 5 The house, which was still standing in 1886, had a series of distinguished occupants after William Logan's death and a later history typical of many of the houses in the older part of Philadelphia. During the American Revolution David Franks and his beautiful daughter Rebecca lived there. The wealthy merchant William Bingham occupied it as a tenant in 1785 while his own mansion on Third Street was building. Dr. James Rush, son of Dr. Benjamin Rush, is said to have been born in the house in 1786. In 1805 James Logan, Jr., sold it to Joshua Fisher, whose executors later conveyed it to Lehman & Smith, wholesale druggists; their successors, A. S. & E. Roberts erected a warehouse where William Logan's garden had been. Philadelphia Public Ledger, Apr. 28, 1886; Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia (extra-illustrated by David McNeely Stauffer), XX, 1522-1523, HSP. 1958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 4OI Inventory of the Goods and Chattels of William Logan deceas'd taken at Philadelphia and Stenton

[Philadelphia House] Front Parlour £ s. d. A Mahogany Desk & Bookcase wth Looking Glass Doors 16 12 Walnut Chairs 12/ 7 4 2 Arm do 24/ 2 8 A Walnut Settee 2 A Mahogany Tea Table 40/. A Japann'd Tea Waiter 15/ 2 15 A do China Table 1 A Pier Looking Glass 8 2 pair Damask Window Curtains 2 2 Canvas Blinds and a Hearth Brush 10 A Wilton Carpet and a Small Side Carpet 6 7 China Dishes EnamelPd 7/ £2.-9 23 do Plates 2/6 2.. 17.. 6 20 do do Blue and White 1/ 1 3 Small Enamell'd Bowls 10/ a Tea Pot 5/ 15 12 Coffee and Chocolate Cups Enamell'd 15 27 Tea Cups and saucers 1. . 16 3 China Mugs 7. . 6 4 Butter Plates 5/ Sundry odd China 5/ 10 A pair of sauce Boats 7/6 a Fish Strainer 1/ 8. .6 10 18 6 58 15 6 Back Parlour An Eight Day Clock & Case 13 2 Mahogany Dining Tables £5 Table Cov- ers & Cloth 40/ 7 4O2 FREDERICK B. TOLLES October

£ S. d. A Walnut Writing Table i 5 6 old Walnut Leather Bottom Chairs 5/ 1 10 2 Windsor Chairs 5/ 10 A Pier Looking Glass 7 2 Canvas Blinds 5 A pair Brass BalPd And Irons, shovel, Tongs & Hearth Brush 1 5 A Scotch Carpet and Painted Floor Cloth 7 A Mahogany Tea Chest & a View of Philadelphia £1.. 5. A Folding Tin Fender 7/6 1 12 6 40 7 6

Nursery A Looking Glass 5 A Painted Floor Cloth 7/6. A Walnut Stand 7/6 15 5 Chairs 12/ a Joint Stool. Curtains and Rods 8/ 1 A pr. And Irons, shovel and Tongs 15/ Sundry China Ware £3 3 15 10 10

In the Entry Several Painted Cloths 1 10 2 Windsor Chairs 15/ Walnut Tea Table 15/ Themometer etca 10/ 2

Front South Room or Book Room A Walnut Chest 50/ a do Desk and Pine Book Case 70/ 6 A Small Pine Desk 25/ a Set of Pine Drawers 25/ 2 10 A Walnut Writing Desk with Pidgeon Holes 2 A Iron Chest _i4 24 10 1958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 4O3 Best Front Room one Pair of Stairs £ s. d. A Bed, Bedding, Matrass, green worsted Dam- ask Curtains 2 pr Window Curtains 16 A Mohogony Chest of Drawers 18 A do Chamber Table with Drawers 5 A do Tea Table 3 10 A Mohogony Easy Chair cover'd with Worsted Damask 6 6 Mohogany Chairs with Damask Bottoms 40/ 12 A do do and Back do 1 A Walnut Stand 5 A Scotch Carpet and 2 Side Carpets 4 A pr Brass Endirons 1 A Looking Glass 4 10 7i 5

Front Chamber next Lodge Alley A Bed & Bedding with Blue Stuff Curtains and Window do 14 A Chest of Drawers £6. A Chamber Table 35/ 7 15 A Tea Table 25/. A Sconce Looking Glass 90/ 5 15 8 Walnut Chairs & a Corner Chair with Silk Damask Bottoms 10/ 4 10 A Scotch Carpet 40/. A Walnut Stand 5/ 2 5 4 China Bowls, 6 Cups and Saucers and a small Mug 2 A Pair of Brass Endirons 7/6. Mahogony Tea Tray 25/ 1 12 6 37 17 6

Back Chamber Northward A Bed, Bedding, blue Stuff Curtains & Window Curtains 14 A Walnut Chest of Drawers 6 A Chamber Table wth Drawers 1 4O4 FREDERICK B. TOLLES October £ J. d. 2 Walnut Stands 7/6 15 6 Walnut Chairs Damask Bottoms 7/6 2 5 A Walnut Easy Chair 2 A Mahogany Arm Chair 50/, a do Fire Skreen 10/ 3 4 China Bowls and 3 half pint Cups 1 A Sconce Looking Glass with Brass Branches 3 10 A Turkey Carpet and two Side Scotch Carpets 6 A Pair of Brass Andirons, Shovel and Tongs 2 10

Back Chamber next Lodge Alley A Bed, Bedding, printed Curtains & 1 pr Win- dow Curtains 8 A Bed & Bedding 6 A Walnut Chamber Table 25/ A Chest of Drawers 20/ 2 5 A Looking Glass 40/ sundry Pieces of Carpeting 20/ 3 "^9 5 Carpeting on the Stairs and in the Entry up Stairs 3 10 A Mahogany Dining Table 3 10 A Corner Chair 1 10 ~~8 10

Back Chamber Northward 2 pr Stairs A Bed, Bedding and Calicoe Curtains 8 A Maple Chest of Drawers 6 A do Chamber Table 1 5 A Mahogony Corner sideboard Table 2 5 6 Walnut Chairs and a stool 10/ 3 10 A Walnut Stand 7 6 A sconce Looking Glass 1 16 23 3 6 1958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 4O5 A Small Room adjoining southward £ s. d. A Servants Bed, Bedding and a Chair 4

A Small Room next Lodge Alley A Bedstead, sacking Bottom and Matrass 2 5 A Mahogany Dining Table 3 ~~5 5

Front Chamber 2 pr of Stairs Northward A Bedstead, Sacking Bottom, 2 Beds, Bolsters, Pillows, etca 10 A low Chest of Drawers Walnut 2 4 Walnut Chairs Leather Bottoms 7/6 1 10 7 do of different sorts 7/6 2 12 6 A Small Looking Glass 10 A pr of Blankets, 2 Quilts and one green Rug 6 3 Hair Trunks 1 10 24 2 6

In the Garret A Pewter Still, Cradle, Copper Pan, 2 Matrasses, a Bedstead, Plate Warmer, Stone Jars and sundry other Articles estimated at 12 A Canvas Awning 6 "18 Sundry Lumber in the Cellar 1

Store Room over the Kitchin 15 hard Metal Dishes abt 88 30 Plates 30 6 Water Plates 12 130 W 1/9 11 7 6 2 Tea Kettles 1 406 FREDERICK B. TOLLES October £ s. d. A Copper Plate Warmer 2 5 A do Boiler 2 5 A do Mug 7 6 A do large sauce Pan 1 3 do Pudding Pans 15 A Pair of Copper Scales & Weights 2 A Pewter Cullender and other Pewter, Tin and Earthen Ware 2 10 A Box of long Pipes 15/. Another do 15/ 1 10 Damask Table Linen & Napkins Diaper & plain do Sheets, Pillow Cases etc 30 A Pair Brass Andirons. A Warming Pan 1 10 "56 10

In the Kitchin 22 hard Metal Dishes abt 60 2 Water do and 6 Plates 20 26 Plates 26 3 Basons, a Porringer & Tea Pot 12 118 1/9 10 6 6 Sundry Tin Ware 1 10 Sundry Copper, Brass, Bell Metal, Steel & Iron Ware, Jack and Spits, Iron Pots, Kettles etca, being the remainder of the Kitchin Furniture 35 4.6 16 6

In the Stable A Riding Horse 30 A Cow 6 A Chariot and Harness 90 A light 4 WheePd Chaise and Harness 3$ An old 4 WheePd Chaise 17 10 A Two Wheel'd Chaise and Harness 17 10 A Cart and Geers 3 199 I958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 407 At Stenton Best Parlour £ s. d. A Walnut Desk 2 10 8 Maple Chairs 4 A Set of Tea China & an old Tea Table 3 12 China Plates, 6 Cups [not legible] 3 A Mahogany Tea Chest 7 6 A Looking Glass 6 A Pair of Globes 5 A Hearth Andirons, Tea Kettle, etca _3 26 17 6

Hall A Large Walnut Table 3 An old Tea Table 5 8 Windsor Chairs 4 A small Walnut Dining Table 1 5 A Couch with a Bed and an Arm Chair 126 9 12 6

Nursery A Bed, Bedstead Curtains etca 14 A Walnut Chest of Drawers 3 A do Chamber Table 1 5 4 Maple Chairs & 1 low Chair 10/ 2 10 A Walnut Stand 5 A Looking Glass 6 3 China Bowls and 3 smaller, 2 of them broken 1 5 A pr And Irons, shovel and Tongs 10 A Carpet and a side carpet 2

Back Parlour A large Mahogany Dining Table 3 A Walnut do 1 A small do 10 408 FREDERICK B. TOLLES October

£ S. d. A Walnut Tea Table 10 12 Leather Bottom Chairs 3 1 Rush Bottom do 5 A Looking Glass 2 A Pr of And Irons, shovel and Tongs 2 A Silver Watch 5 Sundry China, Queens, Delph and Glass Ware in two Closets 8 ~S 5

Yellow Chamber A Bed, Bedding with Yellow Damask Curtains, A Silk Quilt and 3 pr of Window Curtains 15 A Walnut low Chest of Drawers & Chamber Table 3 6 Old Fashioned Chairs and a Stool 1 10 2 Looking Glasses __5 24 10

Blue Room A Bedstead and Matrass 3 10 A Suit of Curtains 1 10

Room adjoining

A Bed, Bedstead & Bedding 5 A Swinging Looking Glass 10 4 Rush Bottom'd Chairs 10 6

In the Garrets A Bed and Bedding 3 10 2 do and do 5 A Bed _i 9 10 1958 TOWN HOUSE AND COUNTRY HOUSE 4O9

£ S. d. Table Cloths, Sheets, Napkins, etca 10 Sundry Casks and other Lumber in the Cellar 7 10 17 10

Kitchin and Wash House All the Pewter, Pots, Kettles, Tables, Chairs, Tubs etca 17

[In the Barn] A Waggon and Gears 15 A Cart 4 A do 4 A light Cart 1 2 6 3 Ploughs 2 10 4 Harrows 2 ^28 12 6

Stock 21 Sheep 7/6 7 17 6 2 Spring Calves 35/ 25/ 3 8 Cows 75/ 30 A Bull 4 A Dun Mare abt 14 Years old 10 A Black Horse, 15 do 6 A Grey Horse, flea Bitten 12 A Grey do 7 20 A Sorrel do 7 20 A Black do 15 5 A Mare Colt 3 18 A Horse Colt _8 143 17 6 6 Sows having Pigs and pregnant, two of them at 25/ & 4 at 20/. 6 10 4IO FREDERICK B. TOLLES October £ S. d. 10 Pigs & 8 Shoats, 2 Cows and 2 Steers were killed at Stenton and mostly used by the Family there; some of the Hogs only were divided between the Heirs by Agreement A Servant Man named Roger Rouce io o o A Servant Boy named Thomas ran away & has not since been heard of A Servant Man named Robert Southam with a wooden Leg whom ye Appraisors consider as of no Value to the Estate and his Free- dom has been since given him that he might learn a Trade A Woolen Wheel io/, a Linnen do io/ i o o

The foregoing Goods and Chattels were appraised by us ... 12 Mo. 1776 Owen Jones James Reynolds

STENTON