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JOHN PENN’S THE SOLITUDE

b y

Jude Collin Gleason

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture

Spring 2002

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1408634

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A HOUSE IN A MOST SINGULAR STYLE

JOHN PENN’S THE SOLITUDE

b y

Jude Collin Gleason

A pproved: Brock Jobe, M A Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory C om m ittee £?. A pproved: 7 . Curtis, Ph.D. 'or of the W interthur Program in Early American Culture

A p p ro v ed :. Mark W. Huddleston, Ph.D. Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

A pproved: Conrado'TVfrGempesaw II, Ph.D. Vice-Provost for Academic Programs and Planning

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sincere thanks to Brock Jobe, for his insights and encouragement. This work has benefited greatly from his thoughtful readings and constant interest.

I would also like to thank, in particular, Margaretta Richardi, for so generously sharing with me her time, knowledge, and enthusiasm.

I am much indebted to the many individuals who have kindly aided me in this project. Among them are Susan Buck, Ritchie Garrison, Bea Garvan, Martha Halpem, Amy Henderson, Ed Lawler, Alexandra Kirtley, Roger Moss, Cathryn Myers, Damie Stillman. Donna Thomas, Neville Thompson, and the staffs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I would also like to thank the following institutions for permission to reproduce illustrations: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...... vi

ABSTRACT...... xi

THE CHAPTERS

1. THE DISINHERITED PROPRIETOR...... 1

2. A HOUSE IN A MOST SINGULAR STYLE ...... 19

3. THE VANITY OF ENGLISH T A S T E ...... 56

4. THE PICTURESQUE AND THE POETIC ...... 78

5. THE IDEAL V IL L A ...... 96

CONCLUSION...... 110

APPENDIX A: DRAFTS OF JOFIN PENN, 1784-1786 ...... 115

APPENDIX B: DRAFTS OF JOHN PENN, 1786-1787 ...... 130

APPENDIX C: OCCUPATIONS AND ADDRESSES OF SOME OF THE NAMES LISTED IN JOHN PENN’S DRAFTS...... 135

APPENDIX D: ACCOUNTS WITH EDMUND PHYSICK, 1788-1790 ...... 138

APPENDIX E: CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION...... 141

APPENDIX F: JOHN PENN’S INVENTORY...... 144

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX G: THE DIARY OF NICHOLAS PICKFORD...... 148

ILLUSTRATIONS...... 150

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 207

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 Portrait o f John Penn, Robert Edge Pine, c. 1787. Private collection. Photograph courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 151

2 Solitude, William Birch, c. 1808. Courtesy, Winterthur Museum ...... 152

3 The Solitude, east fa 9ade overlooking the Schuylkill River. Photo by author. .153

4 The Solitude, west facade, facing site of carriage turnaround and kitchen structure. Photo by author ...... 154

5 Plans and Elevations, The Solitude, ground and second level, drawn by John Penn, c. 1784, from John Penn’s Commonplace Book. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ...... 155

6 Plans and Elevations, The Solitude, attic level, drawn by John Penn, c. 1784, from John Penn’s Commonplace Book. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ...... 156

7 The Solitude, drawing room, east wall, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art. .157

8 The Solitude, drawing room, west wall, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art. .158

9 The Solitude, drawing room, southwest comer, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 159

10 The Solitude, drawing room, northwest comer jib door, photo by author 160

11 The Solitude, entrance hall and staircase, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art. .161

12 “Detail of Main Entrance, Solitude,” drawn by R. Millman, 1932. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress ...... 162

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 The Solitude, library, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, June 1930. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art...... 163

14 The Solitude, library, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 164

15 “Book-Cases in Library,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by M. Luther Miller, 1931. Wallace, Colonial Houses: Philadelphia Pre-Revolutionary> Period ...... 165

16 “Library Book-Case Details,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by M. Luther Miller, 1931. Wallace, Colonial Houses: Philadelphia Pre-Revolutionary Period ...... 166

17 “Detail of Door-way in Library,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by M. Luther Miller, 1931. Wallace, Colonial Houses: Philadelphia Pre-Revolutionary Period ...... 167

18 The Solitude, northwest bedroom, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 168

19 The Solitude, northeast bedroom, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985, Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 169

20 The Solitude, bed alcove, attic-level, east wall. Photo by author ...... 170

21 “A little plain building, 30 Feet in Front, 30 Feet in Depth, and 30 Feet high.” Robert Morris, Select Architecture, 1757, plate 1 ...... 171

22 “III. Batiment de 5 Toises de face,” Jean-Francois Neufforge, Recueil Elementaire d'Architecture IV (Paris, 1760-61), plate 223. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection ...... 172

23 “II. Batiment de 5 Toises” Jean-Francois Neufforge, Recueil Elementaire d ' Architecture IV (Paris, 1760-61), plate 222. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection ...... 173

24 Villa at Cadland, unexecuted plan by Robert Adam, 1773. Alistair Rowan, Designs for Castles and Country Villas by Robert and James Adam ...... 174

25 “A Little Building intended for Retirement, or for a Study, to be placed in some agreeable Part of a Park of Garden,” Robert Morris, Select Architecture,

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1757, plate 37 ...... 175

26 The Solitude, jib door, attic-level bedroom, west wall. Photo by author ...... 176

27 The Solitude, jib door, northeast bedroom, west wall, second floor. Photo by author...... 177

28 The Solitude, photograph by Robert Newell, c. 1874. Showing kitchen structure before mid 1870s demolition. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 178

29 Plan of The Solitude, architectural drawing by David Kennedy, 1870. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ...... 179

30 The Solitude, parlor ceiling, 1915. Photo by Beidleman, courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 180

31 The Solitude, detail of drawing room ceiling. Photo by Philip B. Wallace, n. d., courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 181

32 The Solitude, detail of drawing room ceiling. Photo by Philip B. Wallace, n. d., courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 182

33 The Solitude, comice in drawing room. Photo by Philip B. Wallace, n. d., courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of A rt ...... 183

34 Cumberland House, Pall Mall, London. Robert Adam design for the great dining room ceiling, 1780. Stillman, The Decorative Work o f Robert Adam ...... 184

35 Cumberland House, Pall Mall, London. Design for the frieze in the great dining room, 1780. Stillman, The Decorative Work o f Robert Adam ...... 184

36 The Solitude, detail of library ceiling, second level. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art ...... 185

37 “Solitude,” detailed drawings of library and parlor ceilings. Measured and drawn by Charles L. Hillman and John McClintock, 1897. Free Library of Philadelphia...... 186

38 “Design of a Ceiling in the Etruscan taste executed in the Countess of Derby’s Dressing Room.” Robert Adam, The Works in Architecture, 1777 ...... 187

39 Ceiling of the library of Sir W. W. Wynn. Robert Adam, The Works in Architecture...... 188

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 The Solitude, chimney-piece, west wall, first floor drawing room, c. 1785. Attributed to William Stiles. Photo by author ...... 189

41 “Fire Place - East Room - First Floor,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by W. C. Ellsworth, 1932. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress ...... 190

42 The Solitude, chimney-piece, west wall, second floor library, c. 1785. Attributed to William Stiles. Photo by author ...... 191

43 The Solitude, detail of staircase, photo by Beidleman, 1915, courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art...... 192

44 “Detail of Balustrade at Stair Well, Second Floor,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by William Allen Dunn, 1930. Wallace, Colonial Ironwork in Old Philadelphia...... 193

45 “Plan of the Seat of John Penn, jun.r Esq.r in Blockley Township and County of Philadelphia” signed by John Nancarrow, c. 1785. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ...... 194

46 Solitude Jno. Penn Esqr. 28th. October [1816], by Captain Joshua Rowley Watson, Pen and black wash over graphite. Foster, Captain Watson s Travels in America...... 195

47 “Solitude,” Exterior elevations and floor plans measured and drawn by Charles L. Hillman and John McClintock, 1897. Free Library of Philadelphia ...... 196

48 Echo, home of David Beveridge, by James Peller Malcolm, watercolor, c. 1792, east fa

49 Ormiston, c. 1798, east facade. Photo by author ...... 198

50 Ormiston, first level floor plan. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress ...... 199

51 Ormiston, second and attic level floor plans. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library o f Congress ...... 200

52 Rockland, ca. 1810. West facade, facing Schuylkill River. Photo by author. . .201

53 Rockland, ca. 1810. East facade. Photo by author ...... 202

54 Rockland, first level floor plan. Kieran, Timberlake & Harris, “Assessment of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ten Historic Structures in Fairmount Park, November 1987.” Fairmount Park Commission Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...... 203

55 Gentilhommiere, c. 1798. Original wing, southeast comer. Photo by author. . 204

56 Gentilhommiere, first and second level floor plans. 1962 drawing by Edward B. L. Todd, based on 1940 drawing by Frank Chouteau Brown. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress ...... 205

57 Conjectural plans and elevations of Cherry Hill, c.1801-1808. Drawn by Mark A. Bower, 1984. Bower, “Loudoun.” ...... 206

58 Oval Clothes Press, c. 1785-1788, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Attributed to Samuel Claphamson. Collection of the Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, Philadelphia. Photo by author ...... 143

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

The Solitude embodies the efforts of a young aesthete who sought to

construct a late Georgian villa on the periphery of British culture. Returning

from the obligatory grand tour, twenty-four year old John Penn would have likely

preferred carrying out this experiment in architecture at the family estate at

Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, but politics and profit called him to Philadelphia.

The Solitude has long been recognized for its importance in the spread of

neo-classicism to America. Nonetheless, the house has never been the subject of

an in depth study. The craftsmen who labored to produce Penn’s vision have

until this work escaped identification. Using a previously unexplored list of

drafts, recorded on Penn’s behalf by attorney Tench Francis, this thesis identifies

the craftsmen and cabinetmakers patronized by Penn between 1784 and 1785.

This work also draws on the 1774 accounts of the building of Lansdowne, the

country house of Penn’s older cousin, former governor John Penn. The two John

Penns patronized many of the same craftsmen, but the younger Penn deviated in

certain respects to ensure The Solitude’s neo-classical character.

The house and garden created along the Schuylkill River outside

Philadelphia was Penn’s attempt to exert some control over his physical

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. surroundings in the midst of an unfriendly political climate. Though built with

the self-serving motive of providing him solace, The Solitude wielded an

enormous influence on the spread of neo-classicism to America. Penn provided

an initial demand for the talents of several English immigrant craftsmen,

allowing them to work in the newest style and alerting other Philadelphians of

this shift in fashion. He also forced an older generation of provincial craftsmen

to step up to his demands, in effect helping them to keep competitive in the years

to follow. Finally, The Solitude directly influenced an important group of

Federal-era neo-classical villas built outside Philadelphia. But for Penn, who

departed for England in 1788, never to return to America, The Solitude served as

an early experiment for a patron who went on to collaborate with some of

England’s most significant architects and landscapers.

xii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C hapter 1

THE DISINHERITED PROPRIETOR

Young John Penn (eldest son o f the late Thomas) is to Phila ... I am told he is sensible & learned, but so bookish & reserv’d, that it takes some time to know his sentiments & value, having had a very liberal education under the auspices of his excellent Mother, who is one o f the first women in the w orld.1 Robert Barclay to Thomas Parke 31 May 1783

In anticipation of the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Englishman

John Penn (1760-1834) hastened to America under the encouragement of his

mother, Lady Juliana Penn (1729-1801). At stake were the confiscated Penn

family lands, a loss estimated at nearly one million pounds sterling. Though the

Penn family had taken a neutral course throughout the conflict, the Pennsylvania

assembly seized the proprietary tracts under the 1779 Divestment Act,

considering them the confiscated property of loyalists. Lady Juliana and her son

John had waited on American commissioners Benjamin Franklin and John Jay in

Paris and at Versailles throughout the winter and spring of 1783. Amidst the

frivolities of the Queen’s ball at Versailles, and dinner parties with guests

1 Robert Barclay, London, to Thomas Parke, Philadelphia, 31 May 1783, Pemberton Papers, vol. 39, p. 2, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. including the Duke d’ Aranda and Count Rochambeau, young John Penn pressed

Franklin on the fate of the proprietary lands. The commissioner advised the

disinherited proprietor to embark for Philadelphia, as each state would settle its

own affairs following peace. The source of the family’s income depended on

convincing the Pennsylvania assembly to fully compensate the Penns for the

seizure of nearly twenty-four million acres. 2

Born in 1760, John Penn (fig. 1) became chief proprietor of the family’s

American lands following the death of his father, Thomas Penn (1701-1775).

Thomas, son of William Penn (1644—1718), the founder of Philadelphia, had

advanced to chief proprietor upon the death of his older brother, John (1700-

1746). Entitled to three-fourths of the income generated from the sale of and

rents from the Pennsylvania properties, Thomas directed the Penn family

organization from his home in England. He engineered the rise of his nephew,

Jo h n P enn (1729-1795) to governor of th e colony from 1763 to 1771, and 1773 to

1776. Often referred to as John Penn, Sr., once his cousin, the younger John

Penn (son of Thomas), arrived in Philadelphia in 1783, Governor John Penn was

entitled to one-fourth of the income generated from the family’s American

lands. 3

2 John Penn, Commonplace Book, Penn Family Papers, 785A, 33, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereafter cited as CP Book). Lorett Treese, The Storm Gathering: The Penn Family and the American Revolution (University Park, Pa: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 189,195, 199.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The decades prior to the American Revolution brought unprecedented

profits to the chief proprietor in England and his nephew in America, who

monitored the family’s interests from his position as governor. In 1751, the chief

proprietor married Lady Juliana Fermor, the twenty-two year old daughter of the

1st Earl of Pomfret, of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. Lady Juliana counted

among her friends the writer, politician, and connoisseur Horace Walpole (1717-

1797). Lady Juliana’s mother, whom Horace Walpole called “the absurd old

Countess,” was also a great patron of the arts.4 Thomas’s marriage to Lady

Juliana and entrance into her world transformed the bachelor-Quaker. Thomas

directed his attention less toward business as the couple patronized the country’s

most talented artists, purchased a country estate at Stoke Poges in

Buckinghamshire, and enjoyed the social season in London at their townhouse on

New Street, Charing Cross. Though the full extent of Thomas Penn’s income

3 Hereafter John Penn (1760-1834), subject of this study and builder of The Solitude, will be referred to as John Penn. His cousin (1729-1795) will be referred to as Governor John Penn; Treese, The S to rm G athering, 205.

4 Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys (1700-1761), later Lady Pomfret, married, in 1720, Thomas Fermor (1698-1735), 2d Baron Leominster and afterwards (1721) first Earl of Pomfret. According to Horace Walpole, Lady Pomfret, upon the death of Lord Pomfret in 1735, had an income of “two thousand a year rent charge for jointure, five hundred as lady of the Bedchamber to the late Queen, and £14,000 in money, in her own pow er. .. what a fund for follies!” Both Lord and Lady Pomfret could individually trace family descent from King Edward I. After the death of Lord Pomfret, Lady Pomret purchased from her late husband’s estate his collection of ancient marble statues (part of the Arundel collection), and presented them to the University of Oxford. In the decades following, she traveled with her daughters throughout France, Germany, and Italy. W. S. Lewis, ed. The Yale Edition o f Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937-1960), 2: 323 n; 17:41; 20:180 n, 389-90.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. before the American Revolution is unclear, Horace Walpole later wrote “I have an

instance, of a deposed sovereign in my neighborhood ... the late Queen of

Pennsylvania .. . Lady Juliana Penn, once mistress of a revenue of £36,000 a

y ear.” 5

While Walpole’s wild estimate was likely for effect, the Penns nonetheless

found satisfaction in their profits from America. Though entitled to only one-

quarter of these gains, Governor John Penn also benefited from the increased

cash flow in the decades before the war, allowing him to mirror in America the

activities of his much wealthier uncle. In 1766 the governor married Anne Allen,

the daughter of wealthy Presbyterian merchant and Chief Justice William Allen,

owner of Mount Airy. The couple entertained other members of the proprietary

gentry, the Penn family’s allies, at their Philadelphia townhouse. On the west

bank of the Schuylkill River outside the city, Governor Penn constructed in 1773 a

country seat reflecting his wealth and taste, naming it Lansdowne. Considered

the finest and largest of the country houses lining the river, the estate later

became the governor’s sanctuary while under house arrest during the war years.6

5 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Symbols o f Peace: William Penn’s Treaty w ith the In d ia n s (Philadelphia: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1976), passim; Horace Walpole, Strawberry Hill, to Lady Ossory, Ampthill Park, Bedfordshire, 16 August 1788, reprinted in W. S. Lewis, ed., The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), 34:i4-

6 Treese, The Storm Gathering, 22, 78-81; Robert C. Alberts, The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times o f William Bingham (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), 222.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. After the death of her husband Thomas, Lady Juliana actively directed the

family organization from England. That her letters to the family’s allies in

Philadelphia often went undelivered continually distressed her during the war

years. Though restricted by the Revolution in directing the course of her son’s

future wealth, Lady Juliana ensured that her son receive the finest education

possible. After Eton, the young proprietor matriculated at Cambridge in 1776.

Because of the status of his maternal grandfather, he was admitted to Clare Hall

with the sons of England’s nobles. Young John Penn enjoyed the benefits

befalling the son of a gentleman. Following his formal education, John traveled

to the Continent, joining his mother who was then residing in Europe. Penn later

wrote that “the revolution in America ... occasioned, by its consequences, the

removal of his father’s family from the scenery of Stoke to that of Geneva.” It

seems likely that the suspension of income from the Pennsylvania properties

caused Lady Juliana to lease Stoke Park while residing on the Continent. Her

mother, Lady Fermour, had similarly moved to Europe following the death of her

husband, the Earl of Pomfret. 7 While in Geneva, the family spent much time at

7 Living on the continent, where the cost of living was less than that in England, was a practical means of economizing for Lady Juliana. According to Horace Walpole, John Penn’s grandmother, Lady Pomfret, had moved abroad in the years following Lord Pomfret’s death because she had squandered the estate bequeathed her, prompting Walpole to compare her to Sabina. Living abroad allowed Lady Pomfret, and later her daughter Lady Juliana, to live genteelly while under financial constraints. W.S. Lewis, ed. Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 14:247; Upon his return to England in 1781, Penn sat for John Singleton Copley. The portrait is illustrated in Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley: In England 1774-1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), fig. 487. Penn’s decision to have a portrait of himself painted soon after his coming of age

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the home of an old acquaintance of Lady Juliana’s, the Countess de Viry, at her

chateau situated in Savoy, outside Geneva. 8

John marked the occasion of his coming of age in Brussels on 22

February 1781 with the international crowd that composed the Penn family’s

circle of friends and acquaintances. He noted the identities of some of their

English and American friends, including Lord and Lady Torrington, Sir John and

Lady B. Carroll, and the Izard family of Charleston, South Carolina. John

returned to England in March 1781 to make arrangements for his grand tour and

to prepare himself “for understanding the beauties & rights of Italy, & procur[e]

letters of recommendation to different parts of Europe.” 9

The journal kept by John Penn during his grand tour and later recorded in

his Commonplace Book reveals his already developed sense of taste and

appreciation for architecture. The reflections of this twenty-two year old suggest

that his critical framework had been well honed under the tutelage of his mother

in England and abroad, as well as visits to relatives and friends inhabiting

England’s great houses in this age of Robert Adam. His desire to build a country

fits into Louise Lippincott’s discussion of the 18th century view of portraits as landmarks of family history, often depicting family members at critical stages in their lives. Louise Lippincott, Selling Art in Georgian London: The Rise o f Arthur Pond (New Haven: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1983), 66.

8 John Penn, An Historical and Descriptive Account o f Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire (London: W. Bulmer & Co., 1813), 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. house outside of Philadelphia almost immediately after his arrival in 1783 might

suggest that the year and a half touring the palaces of Germany’s nobles had

inspired him to express his own taste in architecture.

That Penn would receive such an education in German neo-classical

domestic architecture was somewhat rare for the English tourist. Throughout the

eighteenth century, Germany was often paid a cursory visit on the return from

Italy, but was not viewed as an essential destination to tour as was France and

Italy. Initially, Penn planned to travel on throughout Italy after passing through

Vienna, but his tour was cut short in Germany. Penn planned such an extensive

exploration of the German states instead of France due to the war then being

waged between France and England. He likely enjoyed the attention paid to him

as a young Englishman of means. English tourists received especially warm

receptions in Germany during the 1780s. During his visit to Germany several

years after Penn’s, Heniy Crabb Robinson noted that “everywhere in Germany

English travelers are treated as if they were noble, even at the small courts, where

there is no ambassador. No inquiry is made about birth, title, or place.” 10

Given his numerous introductions at the courts of Germany’s rulers,

Penn’s experiences might support Robinson’s appraisal. At Munich, in December

1782, the young man was introduced at the palace of the Elector, where he dined

9 T reese, The Storm Gathering, 156; Thompson Westcott, The Historic Mansions and Buildings o f Philadelphia (Philadelphia: W alter H. Barr, 1895), 437; John Penn, CP Book, pp. 28-29. 10 William Edward Mead, The Grand Tour In the Eighteenth Century (B oston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914), 335, 458, 3 4 3 -m .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. one day and was invited on another to a “grand court evening,” in which the

Elector and Electress “paraded up the great saloon between two rows we made

for them to pass.” Later in the week, Penn was again invited to the palace for a

masquerade, “where we danced from eight till four o’clock, in masks & Venetian

cloaks.” Penn was not exempt from making the anglophile appraisals of German

culture of which his countrymen often fell guilty. While in Munich, he reflected

that “the German manners are not so peculiar as in the time of Tacitus, but one

may have some resemblance.” He decided that their “love of drinking too has not

left them, nor their hospitality: & gaming, far from it.”11

Beyond these observations of German manners and society, Penn’s

journal, later transcribed into his Commonplace Book, provides a constant

commentary on architecture and aesthetics. The entries demonstrate that by the

time he traveled to Germany in 1782, Penn’s appreciation and knowledge of

architectural style had been well developed. Many of the buildings visited by

Penn in southern Germany displayed the most current translations of French

neo-classicism. Much of this was the effect of French architects, including

Philippe de la Guepiere, Antoine-Francois Peyre, and Nicolas de Pigage, lured

from Paris in the decades before Penn’s visit by several powerful German dukes

and Electors.12

11 John Penn, CP Book, p. 32. 12 David W atkin and Tilman Mellinghoff, German Architecture and the Classical Id ea l (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987), 11.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn’s grand tour had begun in Lisle in early 1782, where he passed the

winter “having few acquaintances, and amusing myself still reading travelers

[accounts] that might be serviceable to me ... or else with taking lessons, for the

first time, on the harpsichord (afterwards laid aside).” In the spring he moved on

to Brussels, from where he made trips to Antwerp, Toumay, and Spa by June

1782. His love for the picturesque landscape was awakened in the woods outside

Spa, where he would frequently wander the paths and become “inspired with

some poetical ideas.” l3

During a trip to Mons, Penn visited the palace of the governor, the Duke d’

Aremburg, but judged that the house was “rather [more] convenient than

splendid.” Another trip from Spa took Penn to Dusseldorf, where he wrote that

he “visited the gallery, and not having acquaintances there, passed the rest of

[his] time in reading.” The gallery of pictures, primarily by masters of the Dutch

and Flemish schools, was the chief treasure of the Elector’s Palace and drewr

many tourists to Dusseldorf from throughout Europe. On his return to Spa, Penn

visited several palaces “of different size and magnificence belonging to the

Elector Palatine, in his two dutchies of Berg and Tuliers.” By August 1782 Penn

had left Spa, heading south toward Bonne. During this journey, Penn rested at

Buhl, visiting one of the palaces of the Elector. Penn found the palace

“handsome, though not large, and the gardens have many natural advantages,

but are ill laid out.” He commented that the Elector’s primary palace, in Bonne,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was of “considerable size, commodious, & magnificent,” despite a recent fire that

had destroyed one of the palace’s wings. **

As Penn journeyed along the Rhine River, he commented on the traces of

the Roman presence as well as the picturesque ruins of the castles built upon

summits overlooking the river below. At Koblenz, Penn described the old palace

of Clemens Wenzeslaus, last Elector of Trier, as well as the new palace that the

Elector hoped to soon complete. According to Penn, the cost of construction of

the new palace, situated “in a most advantageous spot, upon the Rhine,” was

estimated at £140,000. Penn noted that the palace promised to be a superb

edifice. The Elector was an uncle of Louis XVI of France and distinguished

himself as a tyrannical ruler and palace-builder. In 1777 he commissioned

French architect Pierre-Michel d’Ixnard (1723-95) to design the palace, but by

1779 replaced d’Ixnard with Antoine-Francois Peyre (1739-1823), who came to

the Elector with a recommendation from the French Academy. Peyre guided

construction of the 39-bay front, simplifying the d’Ixnard plan, but nonetheless

producing a somewhat severe example of Franco-German neo-classicism. ^

While in Koblenz Penn took an open chaise to Neuwied, noting that the

Count there was “absolute and independent.” In Neuwied, Penn described the

presence of the brotherhood of Moravians, and the trades carried out by

members of this religious sect. Though the Count de Neuwied was in residence at

x3 John Penn, CP Book, pp. 28-29. l4 Ibid., p. 30; Mead, The Grand Tour, 356.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his town palace during Penn’s visit, the Englishman was nonetheless invited to

tour the interiors. 16

From Koblenz, Penn passed through the mountains to Frankfort and then

on to Mainz. In the latter city, Penn commented that the Elector’s palace had “a

shabby air at the outside, being built in red stone, but the rooms are noble &

convenient.” By late August Penn reached Manheim, where he was able to

replenish his funds with one of his bankers. He admired the city’s modern

layout, the streets intersecting at ninety-degree angles and affording many views

of the Schloss of Karl Theodore, Elector Palatine and of Bavaria. In his journal he

described the interiors of the palace, rooms that had recently been embellished

under the guidance of Nicolas de Pigage (1723-96). Pigage had trained under J-

F. Blondel in Paris, and prior to introducing current French classicism to the

Rhine, had traveled to Italy and England. At Manheim, Penn viewed the Roman

antiquities as well as the celebrated collection of mechanical devices, speaking

highly of the Elector’s encouragement of the arts and sciences. Karl Theodor had

also fostered the conversion and subsequent redecoration of the National Theatre

in the Louis XVI style in 1780-81. Penn was apparently impressed with the

*5 John Penn, CP Book, p. 3 0V ; Watkin and Mellinghoff, German Architecture, 3 8 - 4 0 .

16 John Penn, CP Book, p. 2 9 -3 0 V ; Watkin and Mellinghoff, G erm a n Architecture, 3 4 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “elegant” theatre when attending a German comedy there on the evening of 3

September. *7

Upon reaching Heidelburg in late September 1782, Penn compared the

irregular plan of the city to that at Manheim. In the hills above the city, Penn

found a noble vista near the remains of an ancient palace, “ a most unsightly

monument of architecture.” He passed several months in Heidelburg, hoping to

receive news from England, likely regarding the fate of the conflict in America.

While there, Penn occupied himself with his study of Latin, mainly in preparation

for his journey to Italy. By December he had made his way to Munich, where he

was entertained at the court of the Elector.18

For some reason Penn was inspired to travel back the way he had come,

west toward Stuttgart, after this initial visit to Munich. This journey to Stuttgart

proved an important destination for Penn in the naming of the American villa he

would begin constructing a year and a half later. At Stuttgart, Penn visited two of

the country palaces owned by the Duke of Wiirttemberg, Monrepos ( 1 7 6 0 - 6 4 ) ,

near Ludwigsburg, and La Solitude (1763-C.1769). Penn attributed Duke Eugen’s

hospitality to the reception he had received in England, noting that the English

alone were permitted to tour his palaces. At Monrepos, the largest of the two

John Penn, CP Book, pp. 31-32; Watkin and Mellinghoff, German Architecture, 250.

18 John Penn, CP Book, pp. 31-32.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. country palaces, Penn found a gallery of pictures, with works by both Italian and

German painters. *9

Of the Duke of Wiirttemberg’s palaces, Penn was most impressed with La

Solitude. Penn commented on the noble approach, a mile-long road leading to

the house through a wooded and overgrown park. He was intrigued by the layout

of the Schloss, describing it as a series of detached structures with a long parlor

by itself in one part, while out of sight stood the main body. This main structure,

containing only six rooms, was “fitted up in the richest manner, but tempered, as

it were, by elegance.” Penn noted that “this elegance is equal of all the

architecture scattered about in the garden in this fanciful m anner.” 20

Monrepos and La Solitude were two of the earliest examples of French

neo-classicism in Germany. La Solitude had developed from a simple hunting

lodge into a grand country house under architects Johann Friedrich Weyhing

(1716-81) and Philippe de la Guepiere (c.1715-73). Like Nicolas de Pigage, de la

Guepiere had been a pupil of J.-F. Blondel in Paris, later serving as Karl Eugen’s

court architect. The planning and execution of the house owed a great debt to

French design, demonstrated on the exterior elevations through its firm, flat

pilaster-architrave composition. On the interior, the private rooms displayed

restrained Rococo design while the public rooms, the Weisser Saal (White Hall),

an oval saloon, and the Marmorsalon (Marble Saloon), in the French g o u t grec,

Ibid., p . 33V .

20 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were more closely linked to the neo-classical exterior. The extensive outbuildings

and famous garden follies, as well as a stable capable of accommodating up to

800 horses, were the most celebrated aspects of the Schloss. 21

After viewing Karl Eugen’s country' palaces, Penn visited the Duke’s two

town residences in Stuttgart, including the Neues Schloss designed by Italian

architect Leopold Retti, who oversaw construction until his death in 1751.

Philippe de la Guepiere, who succeeded Retti as the Duke of W iirttemberg’s court

architect, completed the palace in the neo-classical style in the 1750s. Penn was

also struck by the “spacious & capacious” Akademiesaal, situated in Stuttgart

near the Neues Schloss. One of the highlights of the academy building was a

domed circular dining hall, designed for Karl Eugen by de la Guepiere’s successor

and student, Reinhard Ferdinand Heinrich Fischer (1746-1813), in 1774. 22

Following this important visit in Stuttgart, Penn traveled through

Augsburg on his return to Munich. This second stay in Munich, planned for six

weeks before traveling on toward Vienna and then Italy, was cut short after Penn

received letters from his mother calling him to Paris. During his month stay in

Munich, Penn prided himself as “an excellent courtier to the Elector, attending

his levees sometimes twice a week.” Traveling back through Augsburg in

21 W atkin and Mellinghoff, German Architecture, 37-38, 260.

22 John Penn, CP Book, 3 2 V -3 3 ; Watkin and Mellinghoff, German Architecture, 37, 56-57, 256-257.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. January, Penn once again made his way toward Stuttgart and then on toward

Paris, at one point traveling three hundred miles without a courier. 23

When Penn reached Paris toward the end of January, he found his family

settled at the Hotel de Espagne, on the Rue de Colombier in Faubourg Saint-

Germain. The Penn family anxiously anticipated a resolution to the peace

negotiations then coming to a conclusion. Sometime after his arrival in France,

the young man was presented to the royal family at Versailles. He found the

presentation “a most fatiguing business, from the necessity of going round to all

the royal family, dispersed over the immense palace of Versailles.” He

commented on the King’s sweeping bow, as only “increasing the awkwardness of

the ceremony’s appearance.” ^

Penn’s anglophile leanings arose not only in his portrayal of court life at

Versailles, but also in describing the architecture of Paris. He complained that

“the general appearance of Paris is much inferior to London,” judging that “the

public edifices erected chiefly by Lewis 14th & a majority of the sort of houses of

Burlington house &c, with courtyard & gardens, are what principally support its

credit, & together with its size, render it a rival of our metropolis [London].”

Penn probably refers here to Lord Burlington’s 1723 Palladio-inspired villa at

Chiswick, Middlesex. He remarked that the Theatre Frangais at the Odeon, built

in 1779-82, was “the most elegant I ever saw.” The planar rectangular neo-

23 John Penn, CP Book, p. 33.

24 Ibid., p . 33V .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. classical building, situated on a semi-circular piazza, had recently been

completed by Charles de Wailly and Marie-Joseph Peyre. 25

Penn’s stay in Paris was short lived, for by 12 April 1783, he had returned

to London. While he prepared for his voyage to America aboard the June packet,

Penn delighted in his native city, admiring the talents of the metropolis’s

actresses, and slipping off for expeditions to the family’s country estate at Stoke

Poges in Buckinghamshire. The sights of London must have contrasted

significantly with Philadelphia in 1783, then emerging from years of war and

economic stagnation. In the months following his arrival in Philadelphia, Penn

was drawn toward an international crowd. In the fall of 1783 Penn befriended

Count Winsinsky of Poland, then visiting Philadelphia and America. To the

Count, Penn was able to speak of Homer and Thomas Payne, as well as his

reflections on American society. He also developed friendships with the French

officers in the American service, who, according to Penn, “made great addition to

the gaiety of the winter.” Penn seemed especially impressed with a Colonel

Ternant, who possessed “taste, and appear’d to have a very compleat

education.” 26

It seems significant that the only initial impressions of Philadelphia

supplied by Penn in his Commonplace Book were his descriptions of other

2s Ibid., p. 33V , 34; Anthony Sutcliffe, Paris: An Architectural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 59-60.

26 John Penn, CP Book, p. 34.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. cosmopolitan, though temporary, residents of the city that he had befriended. He

says nothing of his stay at the estate belonging to his cousin, the former governor,

nor does he speak of his impressions of Philadelphia or his reception there. His

next entry comes in the spring of 1784, in which he describes the process of

finding a spot to build a house on the Schuylkill River outside the city. He then

re m a rk e d th at:

I may date my becoming wholly an Englishman from the breaking up of that assembly, & publication of its minutes, relative to the treatm ent of our memorial; from the abuse of one party, by which, tho robb’d, we were almost branded as thieves, & the other’s apparent desertion, in their answ er. 2?

The Divestment Act of 1779 had stripped the Penns of most of their land

holdings, but had allowed them to keep proprietary manors surveyed before 4

July 1776. The Pennsylvania assembly set compensation for the other twenty-

four million acres of unsurveyed land at £130,000, to be paid in installments

after the war. Prior to the November 1784 elections, the moderate Republican

composition of the House encouraged the two John Penn’s to seek further

compensation, directing attorney Tench Francis to petition the assembly. When

the Republican majority ended as a result of the 1784 elections, so too did the

Penns’ hopes of additional compensation from the commonwealth. 28

2? Ibid., pp. 3 4 -35 -

28 Though the commonwealth held true to its promise of paying £130,000, in 1788 the John Penns traveled to England to plead their case before a commission established to review the claims of American loyalists. Toward their joint claim of a £944,817 loss, Parliament awarded the Penns a stipend of £4,000 a year,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn would find little sympathy for his cause in the years to follow.

Building The Solitude (fig. 2) likely provided the displaced aesthete with an

outlet, while allowing him some degree of control over his immediate

environment. Though his grand tour in Germany and stay in Paris would likely

influence the building of the house to some degree, Penn’s ever-present

anglophile leanings may have caused a desire at this point in his life to construct

an “English house.” For over a year he had followed the Rhine through Germany,

admiring but also comparing what he saw to the merits of England. In Paris, his

reaction was much the same. Now, in Philadelphia, where he felt more isolated

and unwelcome than ever before, the young man likely sought to construct

something familiar. For Penn, this was the neo-classical English country villa,

then at the peak of its popularity in the Thames River Valley. This outsider would

not build in the backwater vernacular of an earlier generation still acceptable to

many Philadelphians. Penn would build a house in a most singular style.

payable in perpetuity to the Penn heirs. As chief proprietor, the younger John Penn received three-quarters of this sum; Treese, The Stoimi Gathering, 189,197- 199.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C hapter 2

A HOUSE IN A MOST SINGULAR STYLE

He lives a most recluse life over Schuylkill. He bought about twenty acres o f land and is making it all a garden and has built a house in a most singular style.2?

Rebecca Shoemaker to Samuel Shoemaker 23 May 1785

John Penn seems to have traveled to Philadelphia with the intention of

building himself a country villa. Within weeks of Penn’s August 1783 arrival in

America, Edmund Physick wrote to Lady Juliana Penn, “he seems to think a little

inclined to keep house himself at some place in the country. ” 3° Penn’s motivation

might lie in his accommodations at Lansdowne, the country house of his older

cousin, former governor John Penn. Edmund Physick remarked in the same

August 1783 letter, “Mrs. Penn and his cousin have been both very urgent with

him to live with them at Lansdowne, where he has been for most part of his time

29 Rebecca Shoemaker, Philadelphia, to Samuel Shoemaker, London, 23 May 1785, Samuel and Rebecca Shoemaker Diaries, vol. 2, p. 208, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

3° Edmund Physick, Philadelphia to Lady Juliana Penn, 27 August 1783, Penn- Physick Correspondence, vol. 3, pp. 178-179, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereafter cited as P-P Correspondence).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hither to,” and further noted that “I can perceive their regard and affection for

him is so great that nothing would be wanting in them to make his situation as

agreeable as possible.’^1

Residing with his cousin may have proved an uncomfortable situation for

the young bachelor. Though the two John Penns worked closely together for the

next five years in their joint appeal to the Pennsylvania assembly, the nature of

their relationship is unknown. Anne Allen Penn, former governor John Penn’s

wife, later remarked of the young proprietor, “I believe he is an honest man,

though an odd one.” 32

Philadelphia’s political climate likely influenced John Penn’s decision to

make his own residence away from town. Radicals in the Pennsylvania assembly

did little to mask their animosity toward the Penns and their claims. Edmund

Physick’s words to Lady Juliana again shed light on Penn’s motivation to build on

the Schuylkill River, several miles outside the city founded by his grandfather.

Physick noted that “some of his [John Penn’s] friends think a house in the city or

very near it would be most eligible, as he will have much to do with the world.”

The next line of the letter reveals Physick’s intimate knowledge of the Penn

family’s unpopular position in the highly charged political climate of 1783: “He

will no doubt soon see the propriety, neither of being too much in it or too much

out of it, and determine accordingly.” A villa near the city allowed Penn to keep

31 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his finger on the political pulse of Philadelphia, while keeping safe distance from

unfriendly factions .33

W hether motivated by politics, familial constraints, or both, John Penn’s

greatest impetus for constructing a country house was a love for architecture and

a personal urge to build. Like many young men of means upon returning from a

grand tour on the Continent, Penn sought to produce a physical testament of his

education in aesthetics. This early experiment in architecture would likely have

taken place at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire, had John Penn’s presence in

America not been necessary. Later in life, Penn reflected that his desire to

rebuild the family estate in Buckinghamshire was present before his departure

for Philadelphia, put off for a “maturer period of his life.” In early 1784, less than

a year after his arrival in America, Penn made “a dear purchase of 15 acres,

costing 600 sterling, & on the banks of the Schuylkill. ”34 He admitted in his

Commonplace Book that he then possessed “a notion of the possibility of settling

in the country, tho not much of the probability. ”35

32 Anne Penn to John Mifflin, September 10, 1795, Shippen Papers, 33, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 33 Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, to Lady Juliana Penn, 27 August 1783, P-P Correspondence, 3:178-179; Penn later kept a townhouse, rented from Robert Morris, on the corner of Market and Sixth Streets.

34 John Penn, CP Book, p. 35.

35 John Penn, An Historical and Descriptive Account o f Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire (London: W. Bulmer & Co., 1813), 49; John Penn, CP Book, p. 34 v.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Construction of The Solitude began as early as April 1 7 8 4 .3 6 A ttorney

Tench Francis, employed by Penn to manage his affairs while in Philadelphia,

kept a list of drafts paid on the young m an’s behalf. On 2 April 1 7 8 4 , the name of

master builder William Roberts appeared next to the amount £ 7 .6 .6 . W illiam

Roberts (fl. 1760S-1770S - d. 1 8 0 8 ) is included in the list of drafts over fifty times

b etw een A pril 1 7 8 4 and December 1 7 8 6 , with total cash payments of

approximately two thousand pounds. By far the most frequently listed name in

Francis’s book, Roberts likely served as Penn’s master builder, overseeing

construction on The Solitude. His presence on the estate extended beyond the

house’s initial construction, as Penn later retained his services to make

alterations and improvements just before his departure for England in 1 7 8 8 .

Following this departure, Edmund Physick wrote to Penn on 30 August 1 7 8 8 , “I

have often called upon Mr. Roberts to get him to make the alterations you

ordered, but all he has yet done is to prepare his work for the new stair case

which he assures me shall be put together and finished nextw e e k . ” 37

Roberts’s career had vacillated during the second half of the eighteenth

century. He was elected to and served actively within The Carpenter’s Company

36 Though often simply called “Solitude” since the nineteenth century, eighteenth- century references to the house, by Penn, Physick, and others, always include the title “the” or “The.”

37 Tench Francis, “A List of Drafts - John Penn Jun. Esq. On Tench Francis,” Penn Manuscripts, Volume 2 Accounts (Large Folio) page 80: Account Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereafter cited as TF Drafts, HSP); Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, to John Penn, London, 30 August 1788. P- P Correspondence, 3:237.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Philadelphia. Prior to the Revolution he encouraged the 1775 Philadelphia

publication of Abraham Swan’s The British Architect.3s During these years, he

was also active in the building of Governor Penn’s “house over Schuylkill,”

probably serving as master builder at Lansdowne. A receipt book kept by

Edmund Physick on Governor Penn’s behalf, beginning in 1774, details the many

payments to Roberts for work done on the house. 39

In the decade following this major commission, during the years of war

and British occupation, Roberts carried out repairs on the State House while

producing ammunition boxes. His patrons following the Revolution included

prominent Philadelphian Mary Norris, for whom Roberts worked on the

rebuilding of the family estate at Fairhill, which had been burned by the British in

November 1777. Beginning in 1785 and in the years to follow, former governor

John Penn again employed Roberts to make improvements at Lansdowne. When

Lansdowne was leased and subsequently purchased by William Bingham, one of

the most important architectural patrons in late eighteenth-century Philadelphia,

Roberts’s talents were again employed around the estate. At the Grand Federal

Procession of 4 July 1788, Roberts boasted of his talents and accomplishments,

carrying a placard painted to display designs in architecture. 4°

38 S an d ra L. T atm an and Roger W. M oss, Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects, 1700-1930 (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985), 667.

39 Payments to Roberts began on 23 September 1774, Edmund Physick Receipt Book, vol. 2 (Aug. 22,1774 - July 24,1899), Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Solitude represented a major commission for Roberts, who had spent

much of the war years carrying out repairs and mending fences. Not only was the

building of The Solitude an extensive new project, but also the style in which it

would be built represented a radical change in Philadelphia architecture. Simple,

planar exterior elevations were complemented by the most current thoughts in

room arrangement and interior decorative schemes, producing one of the earliest

Philadelphia expressions of the neo-classical style (figs. 3 and 4). Significantly,

John Penn chose William Roberts over William Williams (1749-1794), a

Philadelphia builder probably better acquainted with Adamesque neo-classicism

than Roberts. Williams directed the construction of such post-war Philadelphia

neo-classical buildings as Library Hall, the President’s House, and Congress Hall.

Nonetheless, Penn had received an introduction to Roberts’s talents during his

initial stay at Lansdowne, and was probably encouraged by his cousin to employ

the craftsman while contemplating the construction of a country house of his

ow n.*1

John Penn could afford to utilize the provincial talents of a master builder

such as Roberts, even if he lacked a firsthand education in the newest London

*° T atm an an d M oss, Biographical Dictionary, 667; Mary Norris to William Roberts, 29 January 1781 and 3 March 1783, Norris Mss. Family Accounts, vol. 3, PP- 3 5 ,45 , Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Westcott, The Historic Mansions, 490; Nadine Charlotte Luporini, “Landsdowne: A Cultural Document of its Time” (m aster’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1967), 152.

4 1 Mary Norris to William Roberts, 29 January 1781 and 3 March 1783, Norris Mss. Family Accounts, vol. 3, p. 45, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Tatman and Moss, Biographical Dictionary, 855.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. building practices. Roberts’s working knowledge and Penn’s firsthand

experiences with the most current European architectural styles likely allowed a

degree of collaboration between builder and patron. However, Penn probably

relied most heavily upon his own intimate knowledge of architecture in designing

the house himself. His library contained only three, somewhat outmoded texts

on the subject; Abraham Swan’s The British Architect, Batty Langley’s The

Builder’s Compleat Assistant, and Robert Morris’s Select Architecture. T he

young man drew on these texts for practical solutions in designing a house, but

not for an education in architecture. This had been achieved through his elite

upbringing in the first circles of England, and his extensive travels on the

Continent. Penn’s letters and diary entries during his grand tour reveal that this

education in architectural aesthetics had been well honed by 1784.42

PLANNING THE SOLITUDE

Near the beginning of his Commonplace Book, John Penn sketched a floor

plan for The Solitude (figs. 5 and 6). The drawing detailed the arrangements of

rooms on the ground, second, and roof levels. The ground level was to be twelve

feet in height. The second story was set at ten feet and the roof level at seven feet.

The ground level plan is dominated by a large rectangular drawing room, opening

42 For Penn’s collaborative relationship with English architect James Wyatt, during Penn’s reworking of the family estate at Stoke Park during the 1790s, see Francis Fergusson, “James Wyatt and John Penn: architect and patron at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire,” Architectural History: Journal o f the Society o f Architectural Historians o f Great Britain 20 (1977): 47-50.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to the east (river side) onto a portico through two sets of double glass doors (fig.

7). Opposite this wall, a firebox is placed in the center of the wall dividing the

drawing room from the entry hall (figs. 8 and 9). Entrance to this hall is achieved

through a jib door (fig. 10). This complex and ingenious door is outfitted with

base molding and dado, camouflaging its presence in the room. Through the jib

door is a small lobby, preventing direct entrance into the large hall. From this

lobby space, a small stairwell descends to the basement. According to Penn’s

notes, the door leading from the lobby into the entry hall was to be covered in

green baize. The entry hall is dominated at its south end by a large wrought-iron

balustered staircase, rising to the second level and supported by a single column

(fig. 11). The west wall of the hall contains the formal double door entrance

opening onto the oval carriage turnaround and kitchen structure (fig. 12). 43

The second level of the house exhibits the most complex arrangement of

spaces. The stairwell from the first level ascends to a small landing at the

southwest corner of the floor. From this landing, a diagonal hall leads to the

library (figs. 13 and 14). According to Penn, this room was entered through a

“baize, & glass door, matching the other doors for b o o k s .”44 The glazed door,

backed in green baize, would complement the bookcases built into the east and

west walls (figs. 15 and 16). This disguised entry functioned similarly to the jib

door in the first level drawing room, blending inconspicuously into the r o o m .4 5

43 John Penn, CP Book, p. 6.

44 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In designing the library, Penn chose instead to highlight the door located on the

north wall of the room, placing over it an elaborate door surround with a

pulvinated acorn frieze and broken dentiled pediment (fig. 1 7 ). 46

Instead of entering the library, one could, upon reaching the stair landing,

continue north and enter directly into a semi-octagonal room, containing a

sleeping alcove at its northwest corner (fig. 1 8 ). The center of the east wall of this

room, flanked by walls set at angles, contained a firebox with a wooden chimney-

piece. A second doorway was placed on the diagonal wall at the northeast corner

of the room, opening into a small passage. This passage leads into a second

bedroom, square in shape except for a firebox placed at the southwest corner (fig.

1 9 ). From this bedroom, one could enter the library through its second entrance.

Alternately, one could proceed east, passing through a doorway that led to

another small lobby with cupboards built into the north and south walls. Past

one of these cupboards is a door leading to a small winder stairwell, rising to the

third level of the house. 47

The third level is dominated by a long, oddly shaped bedchamber with a

sleeping alcove set to the east of the room and flanked by walls placed at angles

(fig. 20). A tunnel-like closet, served by two small doors at either end, circles

45 Apparently the glazed door backed in green baize was never executed during Penn’s occupancy of the house. During his 1 7 8 8 voyage to England, Penn wrote to Physick from Halifax that “the Glass door ... may be made immediately” by William Roberts. John Penn, Halifax, to Edmund Physick, The Solitude, 2 7 May 1 7 8 8 . P-P Correspondence, 1 :1 8 3 . 46 John Penn, CP Book, p. 6

47 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. around this alcove. The room is lit by dormer windows placed on the north and

south walls. The west wall of the bedchamber contains another jib door leading

into a rectangular room, described by Penn as a “space or thoroughfare to ascend

upon the ladder & to which bells communicate.” From this room, a door on the

south wall leads to a small square chamber described by Penn as a “room lighted

by a glass-door, & to contain a servant’s bed.”-*8

In laying out the floor plan, and perhaps to some extent the exterior

elevations, John Penn likely relied on his edition of Robert Morris’s Select

Architecture (1757). The ground floor plan shows characteristics of both plates 1

and 37 from this text.49 In his introduction to Select Architecture, M orris

described plate 1 (fig. 21) as “a little plain building 30 Feet in Front, 30 Feet in

Depth, and 30 Feet high, to the top of the cornice, from Outside to the Outside of

the Walls on the Plan.”80 Penn likely adapted the idea of a cubic structure from

this example, laying out The Solitude to measure twenty-nine feet wide by

twenty-nine feet deep. He may have intended for the height to also measure

4s Ibid.

49 For a discussion of the influence of plate 37 of M orris’s Select Architecture on Thomas Jefferson’s first study for Monticello, and later designs by the Virginian, see Clay Lancaster, “Jefferson’s Architectural Indebtedness to Robert M orris,” Journal o f The Society o f Architectural Historians 10, no. 1 (March 1951): 3-10.

80 Robert Morris, Select Architecture (1757; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1973), 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. twenty-nine feet based on the heights of the three floors, though the space

occupied by joists and rafters lifts the building above this measurement, s1

Recognized as English Palladianism’s first published theorist, Robert

Morris would have served as an ideal introduction to the supremacy of buildings

based on cubic dimensions. In his quest to achieve ideal beauty through

geometric proportion, Morris argued the “Universal Rule” based on seven basic

proportions linked to the seven distinct notes of music. This Platonic conception

of numbers had been advocated by Palladio in the sixteenth century7 and by

French classicists, led by Francois Blondel, in the seventeenth century. Chief

among the “harmonick” proportions adhered to by Morris was the cube, widely

incorporated into the plans illustrated in his 1734 Lectures on Architectures2

The cube-shaped villa remained popular throughout the second half of the

eighteenth century7. French architect Jean-Francois de Neufforge (1714-1791)

published numerous examples of this type in his Recueil Elementaire d’

Architecture (1757-76). Many of Neufforge’s designs were based on multiples of

the “toises,” a French measurement of roughly six feet (figs. 22 and 23). A design

5* Roger Moss is credited with first discovering the connection between The Solitude and plate 37 of Morris’s Select Architecture, as well as first examining Penn’s library inventory for architectural texts; see Roger Moss, The American Country House, 88, 92. s2 Steven Parissien, The Georgian Group Book o f The Georgian House (London: Aurum Press, 1995), 19; Robert Morris, Lectures on Architecture (1736 and 1759; reprint, Westmead, Eng.: Gregg International Publishers Limited, 1971), 91,138; Rudolf Wittkower , Architectural Principles in the Age o f Humanism (London: Alec Tiranti, 1962), 144.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. by Neufforge for a house of five toises produced a cube roughly thirty feet in

dimensions, the same number prescribed by Robert Morris. In England, Robert

Adam also continued experiments with the cube throughout the second half of

the eighteenth century. An unexecuted 1773 design demonstrates Robert Adam’s

interest in proportions similar to those recommended by Morris in plate 37 of

Select Architecture. In his proposal for a villa at Cadland, designed for banker

Robert Drummond, Adam utilized similar elevations topped with the pyramidal

roof (fig. 24).53

While plate 1 of Select Architecture may have inspired the cubic form The

Solitude would take, and to some extent perhaps the interior floor plan, Penn

likely looked to plate 37 of the text for laying out the room arrangements on the

first level (fig. 25). Morris described plate 37 of Select Architecture as “a little

building intended for Retirement, or for a Study, to be placed in some agreeable

part of a park or g a r d e n . ”54 Penn seems to have adapted the central portion of

this plate for his use at The Solitude. The plan of this section shows a large

rectangular parlor divided from a hall and stairwell by a wrall containing a

centrally placed firebox. Minor differences from the plan of The Solitude

included the addition of a small closet and winder staircase off the hall in the

53 Jean-Francois Neufforge, Recueil Elementaire d’ Architecture, vol. 4 (Paris: Chez 1’auteur, 1760-61), plates 222-229; Alistair Rowan, “Villa Variants,” in The Georgian Villa, ed. Dana Arnold (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1996), 88-89; Alistair Rowan, Designs for Castles and Country Villas by Robert and James Adam (New York: Rizzoli, 1985), 46, plate 12.

54 Morris, Select Architecture, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn plan. The orientation of the stairwell in the Morris plate, with a wall

dividing it from the remainder of the hall, is not copied at The Solitude. There

are also some incongruities in the placement of windows and exterior doors, but

the Morris floor plan otherwise corresponds to the first floor of The Solitude.

The floor plan of the first level may have proven the largest point of

collaboration between Penn and master builder William Roberts. A similar plan

had been articulated decades earlier at the nearby Schuylkill River retreat of the

Shoemaker family, Laurel Hill. Though not cubic in dimension, the original floor

plan of Laurel Hill, before extensive reworking, was a derivation of the hall and

parlor plan, also likely adapted from Morris’s Select Architecture. The popularity

of this plan in the Philadelphia area as early as 1767 increases the possibility of

Roberts’s awareness of it, perhaps prompting the master builder to suggest the

familiar plan to his young patron.

FRENCH ADVANCES IN ROOM ARRANGEMENT

Though owner and craftsman borrowed a very basic floor plan from an

older architectural text to lay out the first level room arrangements, the plans of

the second and third levels attest to the radical departure taken at The Solitude.

Interestingly shaped rooms arranged without axial symmetry make up the second

and third floors of this compact house. Robert and James Adam expressed their

love for this “novelty and variety” in their 1773 publication The Works in

Architecture. The Adam brothers often assembled combinations of differently

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. shaped rooms, including those in the form of ovals, octagons, hexagons,

pentagons, as well as trefoils and quatrefoils. 55

The love for variety and novelty in the work of the brothers Adam was

influenced by the pioneering efforts of eighteenth-century French architects. The

French were well known for ingeniously distributing rooms on irregular plans.

Robert Adam noted, when publishing his plans for Derby House (1779), that

“they exhibit an attempt to arrange the apartments in the French style, which, as

hath been observed in the first part of this work, is best calculated for the

convenience and elegance of life.” A variety of sources throughout the second

half of the eighteenth century introduced the English to developments in French

planning, including the published works of Jacques-Francois Blondel, Piere

Patte, and Jean-Francois Neufforge. John Penn may have become familiar with

the French mode of “distribution” through the translations of British architects

such as Adam, though it is likely that he also observed these advances first hand

while residing in Paris with his mother in 1783.56

The probability of Penn’s first-hand familiarity with French advances in

room distribution is bolstered when one considers his position in Paris. Penn’s

1783 visit brought him to the Hotel de Espagne. Located on the Rue de

Columbier, the Penn family’s Parisian apartments were located in one of the most

fashionable districts in the French metropolis, in Faubourg Saint-Germain. H otel

55 Damie Stillman, English Neo-classical Architecture, vol. 1 (London: A. Zwemmer, 1988), 146-148.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. construction for aristocratic clients was concentrated in this Left Bank district

throughout the eighteenth century. It is likely that entrance into these interiors,

many incorporating such progressive floor plans, familiarized Penn with current

advances in room distribution.^

In laying out the second and third levels of The Solitude, Penn played with

a combination of squares and other, more complex spaces arranged without axial

symmetry. The room given the highest attention to detail on the second level, the

library, is also the largest space on this floor. By placing the library in the

southeast corner of the house, Penn produced a near square within the larger

square that forms the overall dimensions of the level. A smaller room, ten and a

half feet square, placed north of the library, forms one of the bedchambers. A

second bedroom on this level, to the west, complicates this experiment with the

form. Here, Penn juxtaposed the library and square bedroom with a semi-

octagonal space. 58 Additionally, a rectangular bed alcove extends out of an

arched opening on the south wall of this room. On the third level, Penn again

56 Peter Thornton, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior, 1620-1920 (London: Seven Dials, 2000), 138-139.

57 John Penn, CP Book, p. 3 3 V ; Sutcliffe, Paris: An Architectural History, 55. 58 Blancheaux [or Blanchon] incorporated this room type into his Maison de Biteaux, a building of cubic exterior dimensions built on the rue des Trois-Freres, Paris in 1795, see Jean-Charles Krafft, Plans, Coupes, Elevations des Plus Belles Maisons & des Hotels Construits a Paris & dans des Environs (1771-1802; reprint, Paris: Librairie d’art Decoratif et Industrial, 1909), plate 22; Thomas Jefferson also incorporated the shape into several designs, including one for a polygonal retreat, and at Monticello, see Lancaster, “Jefferson’s Architectural Indebtedness,” figs. 3,11.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. experiments with room shapes, the principal bedroom being a complex

derivation of the semi-octagonal bedchamber on the level below.

SPATIAL NAVIGATION AT THE SOLITUDE

The genius of Penn’s plan lies in its ability to incorporate such advances in

room arrangement beyond decoration, and instead to the advantage and

convenience of the occupant. The Solitude is a house built with invisible barriers,

effectively mediating public and private spaces. Penn incorporates the semi-

octagonal bedroom in his plan, but also makes use of its diagonal walls as

mediating devices to the rest of the rooms on this level. From the stair hall

landing, the entrance to the library lies at the end of an indirect passage formed

by one of these walls. The door to the library is thus hidden away, protecting this

space as a refuge and place of solitude for the poetic young scholar.

By placing the library in the southeast corner, Penn allows the other rooms

to function as a series of passages for servants to move throughout the house and

to the third level stairwell without disturbing him. Alternately, when Penn

occupied the semi-octagonal bedroom, the same servant could again move

around his master by instead passing through the library'. Spatial movement on

the second level is essentially diagonal, between the two stairwells placed at

opposite corners of the floor. The path chosen by servants or visitors is governed

by the position Penn occupies, either library or bedroom.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The small winder stair serving the third level supports Penn’s familiarity

with French advances. The use of the smaller stairwell conserves valuable floor

space on the cramped third level. Its position on the second level may have also

served as another device by Penn to separate public and private spaces. The

stairwell is set inconspicuously beyond a series of closets, thus accessible only to

those familiar with its placement. It makes sense that Penn would hide the small

winder stairwell if the third level was to be accessed only by servants. However,

the mixed function of the attic level complicates this reading of the stairwell’s

location. Though one of the spaces was clearly designated in Penn’s plan as a

servant space, the primary room on the attic level was used as a finished

bedchamber.59 This room, a derivation of the semi-octagonal bedchamber on the

second level, also containing a bed alcove, is juxtaposed against the rougher

unfinished spaces to the west. The rectangular room at the southwest corner of

this level contained a ladder leading to a deck atop the hipped roof, while the

room in the northwrest corner served as a servant bedroom.60 Penn places a

59 Penn’s sketch of the house identifies this room as the “best room of this story, with an alcove bed.” The level of detail is on par with the bedchambers on the second level, and the expense of constructing a jib door within the room suggests a function beyond servant quarters. If the space was intended to accommodate overnight guests, the entrance to this level via the small stairwell placed beyond the second level closets may have proved inconvenient to visitors. John Penn, CP Book, p. 7.

60 In the floor plan included in his Commonplace Book, Penn described the northwest room on the third level as a “space or thoroughfare to ascend upon the ladder & to which bells communicate.” The physical evidence of this trap door leading to the roof deck exists in the ceiling of this room. During a campaign to stabilize the house’s plaster ceilings, 1992-1998, the flooring on the second level

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. barrier between these rougher spaces and the finished bedchamber through the

third jib door in the house. In all, the jib doors on each level act as roadblocks for

the uninvited, perhaps alerting the visitor as to the limits of his or her access

within the house (figs. 26 and 27).61

PLINY THE YOUNGER’S INFLUENCE ON THE SCHUYLKILL

Before constructing the main house, Penn directed construction of a

small structure some distance to the west (fig. 28).62 This low-lying building,

measuring 24’5” square, housed the kitchen and offices that served the main

library was removed. A bell-pull mechanism was found beneath the floorboards, located near the firebox. Another remnant of the bell system was found within the wall of the bed alcove in the northwest room on the second level. See Photo Album: Restoration Activities-Interior, Box 3-B, book 2, part 2. Archives of Friends of The Solitude, The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia; John Penn, CP Book, p. 7.

61 Though the third level jib door is the only one specifically designating servant space from finished space, the two other jib doors act similarly. The jib door in the first level drawing room alerts the visitor of his limits within the house. Only when this door is open is he or she able to access the stair hall and the second level, containing Penn’s private chambers. This door also bars access to the stairwell descending to the basement and underground tunnel, another servant sphere. The second level jib door wrould act as a barrier to Penn’s bedchamber if occupied. The servant, or visitor, descending from the third level would realize that Penn’s room was occupied and chose instead to access the main stairwell at the other corner of the house via another route, which would include passing through the library.

62 The kitchen structure appears in the photographs of Robert Newell, taken between 1874-75. Sometime between this period and 1879, the building was razed by the Philadelphia Zoo for construction of a mammal house. The underground tunnel leading to the main house, and the basement level of the kitchen/office structure survives. See Jean K. Wolf, Report on Historic Structure

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. house. In 1785, probably early in the year, Penn recorded a visit from Mr. and

Mrs. Edward Lloyd IV of Wye House, Talbot County, Maryland. “Having

removed to the country, received a visit from Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd, who had spent

the winter at Philadelphia. Only one chamber in the house being finish’d, that

namely where I slept, & the ladies being inclined to eat, they sat in the offices, &

some meat was cook’d & brought them.” Though Penn had moved his

bedchamber into the house at this point, he continued to entertain in the kitchen

structure, which he had until recently occupied. 63

The kitchen structure was connected to the main house by a forty-one-foot

underground passage reinforced in brick (fig. 29). The brick was likely supplied

and perhaps laid by Jacob Graff, a brick maker to whom Penn paid £ 34.7.6 in

July 1784A4 Graff had supplied bricks a decade earlier for Governor John Penn

during the building of Lansdowne. Later, in 1786, Graff was involved in the work

on another notable Philadelphia residence, Henry Hill’s neo-classical townhouse

Report, Phase I, November 1995, Archives of Friends of the Solitude, The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 15-16.

63 John Penn, CP Book, pp. 3 5 , 36 V . O n page 3 5 of his Commonplace Book, Penn indicates that he was living in the kitchen structure before moving into the house as it neared completion: “The solitary beauties of my place, before I removed from the offices, which I inhabited, inspired the following translation of Gray’s o d e.”

64 While administering the estate after Penn’s 1788 departure, Edmund Physick paid Jacob Graff £1.9.5 in September 1788 for bricks, lime, and hauling for an oven then constructed in the stable, see Cash Account. Edmund Physick with the Honourable John Penn, Esq., P-P Correspondence, 3:286; TF Drafts, HSP; Francis White, The Philadelphia D irectory, 1785.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. on South Fourth Street. The July 1784 payment by the younger Penn perhaps

reflects the purchase of stone for the construction of the main house as well.65

Though Graff s name is not included in Penn’s payments again until 1788, several

of the stonemasons relying on Graff s quarry, and sometimes employed by Graff,

are included in Francis’s List of Drafts. Penn directed a small payment to

Christian Levbrant in July 1785,66 a mason who appears in Graffs own accounts

for the purchase of stone. More likely, Henry Smith, who worked frequently with

Graff and is included in Penn’s drafts, served as the mason who constructed the

stone main house, kitchen structure, and brick-reinforced underground

passage. 67

65 During the 1780s, Graff supplied a large am ount of quarried stone for the city’s building projects. He usually charged about four shillings six pence for 1 pertch stone. In 1788 Graff charged Jacob Fout £3.7.6 for laying 18 pertch stone. He also charged Fout £5.10.8 V4 for laying 8,950 bricks. In the same year, he charged Adam Lechler £16.14.10 V2 for laying 27,980 bricks, “new' and old.” A 1780s contract prepared by Graff for Godfrey Minnick’s two and a half story house called for 44 pertch stone, expensed at £13.4.0, with another £14.10.0 for laying the stone Qikely in the basement). Excavation of the basement (i7’6” by 30’ if it was a full basement), was estimated at £7.15.0. The brick house called for 41,000 brick, at £51.5.0 altogether with another £26.13.0 charged for laying. Graff charged £4.10.0 for scaffolding. Jacob Graff Account Book, 1786-1788, Graff Family Papers, 1760-1788, Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Henry Francis du Pont W interthur Museum.

66 Levbrandt’s name is alternately spelled Librand, by Francis, and Lybrant, by Graff.

67 Edmund Physick Receipt Book, vol. 2 (Aug. 22, 1774 - July 24,1899), Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jacob Graff III is best remembered for the three and a half story brick townhouse that he owned in 1776, located on the comer of Seventh and Market Streets. His famous tenant that summer was Thomas Jefferson, who rented the second floor rooms from the brick maker and his wife

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Offering a protected passage for servants from kitchen to house, below-

grade passageways like that constructed for Penn had been employed in several

eighteenth-century English villas. Their ancient predecessor, the cryptoporticus,

had been a common feature within the Roman villa. The writings of Pliny the

Younger described the cryptoporticus at his villa Laurentine outside Rome, and

at his villa Tusci, overlooking the Tiber. Penn may have been inspired to employ

the device at The Solitude from his own knowledge of Pliny’s description from

Epistles. A 1669 edition of this text appears in Penn’s library inventory. While

his familiarity with Pliny’s descriptions may have inspired the cryptoporticus at

The Solitude, this text more importantly probably helped shape Penn’s

conception of the villa.68

Penn may have also learned of the device through knowledge of

eighteenth-century English villas also employing the cryptoporticus. A 1745 plan

of Alexander Pope’s famous garden and villa in Twickenham shows the presence

of the underground tunnel. Pope employed the device to direct foot traffic from

Maria. Doris Devine Fanelli, Furnishings Plan fo r Graff House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (Philadelphia: Independence National Historic Park, 1988), 13-14; Jacob Graff Account Book, Downs Collection; The full name Henry Smith appears only once in Penn’s drafts, on 24 June 1784 for £13.11.5. However, payments to a “Smith” appear regularly between October 1784 and January 1785, a period when laying the stone for the main house would presumably be underway. The six payments to “Smith” come to roughly eighty-five pounds, TF Drafts, HSP.

68 Jam es S. Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 52-55; William H. Pierson, Jr. American Buildings and Their Architects: The Colonial and Neo-Classical Styles (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1970), 311-312; John Penn, CP Book, p. 48.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Thames side of the house to the extensive gardens behind his villa. The

passage solved the problem of the road cutting across the property by directing

visitors beneath it .69 The cryptoporticus at The Solitude similarly serves a

pragmatic solution. By linking the kitchen structure to the house via an

underground passage, Penn was able to maintain the pure cubic dimensions of

both structures while providing servants with a passage protected from the

elements.?0

INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR FINISHED WORK

The exterior of both the kitchen structure and main house were stuccoed

over stone to resemble cut ashlar. The craftsman responsible for this stucco

treatment may have been the same man who worked on the interior plasterwork

at The Solitude, Edward Turner. John Penn first directed a payment to Edward

Turner on 29 September 1784, but the majority of payments to the craftsman

came between the spring and fall of 1785, as the house neared completion. On 31

October 1784, Penn referred to his plasterer in a letter to his friend and

physician, Dr. Thomas Parke: “I must not forget to mention that my plaisterer

69 For an illustration of the 1745 plan of Pope’s garden by John Serle, see Edward M alins, English Landscaping and Literature, 1660-1840 (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), plate ix.

?° Ackerman, The Villa, 165.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [sic] thinks even yet the walls are thick enough to retain & to communicate their

original dampness.”?1

Though Penn chose to patronize William Roberts as master builder, as had

his cousin at Lansdowne, the younger Penn did not employ the same plasterer as

the former governor had a decade earlier. Governor John Penn had relied on

John Conrad to execute the finished plasterwork at his retreat on the Schuylkill

River in 1776. Though Conrad remained active as a plasterer in Philadelphia into

the 1790s, the younger Penn chose to patronize a craftsman new to America,

perhaps more familiar than Conrad in the techniques and designs popularized in

England by Robert Adam. ?2

Edward Turner seems to have emerged on the Philadelphia building scene

immediately following the Revolution. William Hamilton, builder of another

Schuylkill River estate, The Woodlands, referred to a plasterer named Turner in a

20 February 1784 letter to George Washington. Hamilton wrote that he had

retained the services of the English craftsman in 1783,73 mentioning that “While

71 TF Drafts, HSP; John Penn to Dr. Parke, 31 October 1784, Etting Papers, Penn Family, p. 19, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; In an 8 July 1784 advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet, Edward Turner identified himself as a plasterer, see Phoebe Phillips Prime, “The Alfred Coxe Prime Directory of Craftsmen” vol. 4. t2 Payment to John Conrad on 1 April 1776, Edmund Physick Receipt Book, vol. 2 (Aug. 22, 1774 - July 24,1899), Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival M anuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

?3 a British Army deserter named Edward Turner is recorded as arriving in America in 1782, perhaps the same Edward Turner employed by Penn and Hamilton. Clifford Neal Smith, “Some British & German Deserters during the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. he was a t... work I frequently talked with him about the different compositions

now so much used in England, particularly that for covering floors, Roofs, &

fronts of Houses.”74 Hamilton was likely referring to Edward Turner, as this

name appears in Hamilton’s accounts for work done at his estate.75 Under the

patronage of two of the wealthiest men in Philadelphia at the time, Hamilton and

P enn, 76 Turner prospered until his death in March 1787. The 1787 inventory of

his goods included several lots of plaster molds, large quantities of lime, various

tools, an iron ladle, a churn, wooden riddles and other plastering implements.

However, the bulk of Turner’s estate was tied up in cargo aboard the brig Betsey.

The eventual sale of eleven hogsheads of rum, thirteen hogsheads of sugar, one

cask of Queensware, and seventy-two coconuts brought an additional sum of over

five hundred pounds Pennsylvania currency to his estate. 77

American Revolution,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 60, no. 4 (December 1972): 274.

74 Sterling Boyd, The Adam Style in America 1770-1820 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 185-186.

75 A 1784 payment to Turner for £23.3.10 is included in Abraham Streaper to William Hamilton, “To Cash Pd. On his Account for W ork done at his House,” Woodlands Household Accounts, 1782-1785, Dr. George Smith Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

76 Hamilton and Penn were perhaps the two men in Philadelphia at this time most concerned with the current London fashion. Hamilton, an accused loyalist during the war, narrowly escaped punishment after arrest for Tory activities in 1778 and 1780. Hamilton left for England in the fall of 1784, returning in 1786 with architectural plans for the rebuilding of his inherited country house at Bush Hill, renamed The Woodlands. See Betts, “The W oodlands,” 224 n. 26, 227.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. John Penn’s payments to Edward Turner escalated dramatically between

1784 and 1785. The first payment, on 25 September 1784, was in the amount of

£3.6.8. By the summer and fall of 1785, however, several payments reached

£200 and a final payment, on 15 December 1785 was for £475.10.0. In the

sixteen months Turner worked on The Solitude, Penn paid him nearly £950

Pennsylvania currency. While the sum seems exorbitant, this amount likely

represented the labor involved in applying the several applications of exterior

stucco to the house and outbuildings, including the interior plastering of a stable,

as well as the delicate interior plasterwork within the main house.?8 This sum

also reflects the inflated value of Pennsylvania’s currency in the years

immediately following the Revolution. Despite these factors, Penn seems to have

also viewed the amount as excessive, and turned to an independent party to

reconcile the accounts. On 28 December 1785, Edmund Physick paid Fincher

Hellings, a Philadelphia plasterer, £1 on John Penn’s behalf for assistance in

reconciling his accounts with Edward Turner. 79

77 Edward Tuner, 1787 Administration Records, Register of Wills, file 25, book I, p. 188. Philadelphia Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

78 Following a July, 1789 storm that caused much damage to the estate, Physick wrote to Penn, then in London, of the damage to house and garden. Physick mentions the damaged interior plaster in the stable in this letter, see Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, 12 December 1789. P-P Correspondence, 3:255

79 Edmund Physick Receipt Books, vol. 3 (Dec. 3 ,1780-Dec. 27,1788), p. 97, Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; Fincher Hellings may have alternately been known as Finehard Helling. Both names appear in different directories as

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Despite the expense, the English plasterer provided Penn with ceilings

more characteristic of London than 1785 Philadelphia (figs. 30-33). A

comparison with an Adam designed ceiling allows for an appreciation of how

closely the ceilings at The Solitude drew on the work of the British designer. The

Solitude drawing room ceiling design relates closely, though simplified, to the

great dining room ceiling at Cumberland House, Pall Mall, London. Robert

Adam produced this 1780 design (fig. 34) to complement the room decorated in

the ‘Etruscan’ taste for the Duke of Cumberland. A central medallion surrounded

with swags and containing a diagonal axis with four neo-classical dancing figures,

framed within oval plaques, are shared by both the Adam design and the ceiling

at The Solitude. In both designs this central portion is bordered at either end by

rectangular panels. While the design placed within these panels is simplified at

The Solitude, depicting twin sphinxes sprouting foliate scrolls and flanking a

central urn, this motif does appear in the frieze design of the Adam interior (fig.

Philadelphia plasterers, see Phoebe Phillips Prime, “The Alfred Coxe Prime Director}' of Craftsmen,” 2: 194; After paying the large sum to Turner for the plasterwork, Penn seems to have been unsatisfied with the quality of the work. This is hinted at in a July, 1789 letter from Physick to Penn: “it is truly mortifying to see so much bad work, the effect either of unskillfullness or willfull imposition in the plaisterer in Improvements which ought to look new for many years to come but you saw the foreboding tokens of these mischiefs yourself which all the care of my family has not been able to lessen.” Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, 12 December 1789. P-P Correspondence, 3:255; A second plasterer was recorded in Penn’s drafts. Joseph Turner was paid £4 on 24 February 1787. Since this is just days before Edward Turner’s death, he was likely too ill himself to make the alterations or repairs needed by Penn. Joseph was possibly the son of Edward and Hannah Turner, learning the plastering trade from the elder Turner; TF Drafts, HSP.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 )- Similar designs in London, inspired by Adam, included the ceiling of the

Saloon at Boodle’s Club, St. James’s, London, 1775-76. The interiors of this

building were designed by John Crunden, an architect whose work drew heavily

on the designs of Robert Adam. 80

The library ceiling (figs. 36 and 37) at The Solitude also incorporated many

of the design elements used by Robert Adam and his followers. The focus of the

library ceiling at The Solitude was the centrally placed classical figure within a

circular frame. The figure is that of a Roman priestess, flanked by a classical urn,

offering sacrifice before an altar. Foliated swags encircle this central element,

joined with lion head ornaments. Four large and four small circular medallions

are set at the corners of the ceiling. The less public nature of the library allowed

Penn to place a simpler ceiling design in this room, versus the more elaborate

example in the drawing room below. However, the inclusion of the expensive

plasterwork in the library probably indicates that Penn used the space for

entertaining on some level.

While it would be a fortunate coincidence if before emigrating to America

Edward Turner had apprenticed or worked in the shop of Joseph Rose, Robert

Adam’s chief plasterer, it is perhaps enough to say that the craftsman, and his

patron, were well aware of the designs then fashionable in London. The

80 Damie Stillman, English Neo-Classical Architecture 2:plate 465; Damie S tillm an, The Decorative Work of Robert Adam (New York: Transatlantic Arts, 1966), 82,106, plates 73 and 149; Geoffrey Beard, The Work o f Robert Adam (New York: Arco Publishing Company, 1978), 56, plate 178.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. decorative work of Robert Adam did not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, his designs

were much imitated, especially after one of his draftsmen, George Richardson,

published a book of ceiling designs. Furthermore, several Adam ceilings were

illustrated in the 1773 publication authored by the brothers, The Works in

Architecture. Though no illustration in The Works of Architecture directly

corresponds to the ceiling designs at The Solitude, all the elements and

compositional schemes could have been gleaned from this text (figs. 38 and 39).81

Volumes of this text were likely available to Turner in Philadelphia by 1784, if he

did not possess them himself. As early as 1773, the first volume of the title was

included in a list of books sent to London to be purchased for the Library

Company in Philadelphia.82

The interior plasterwork throughout the house received an elaborate paint

scheme, probably executed by Joseph Stride .83 Penn directed payments to Stride

81 Other period texts illustrating the same motifs could have easily inspired the design; for example, see Placido Columbani, A N e w Book o f Ornam ents (L ondon: 1775)-

82 Charles F. Hummel, “The Influence of English Design Books Upon the Philadelphia Cabinetmaker, 1760-1780” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1955), 17. Robert Adam, The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam (1773; reprint, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1959), 48, 62.

83 Several recent studies by conservator Catherine S. Myers provide insight into the original interior paint scheme of the house. Myers found evidence of a uniform oil-based layer of a yellow/cream color paint (Munsell 5Y 9/4) on the drawing room ceiling. This layer was likely a later application, covering a polychrome water-soluble distemper paint treatment. It would have been period

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in the amount of £75 Pennsylvania currency on 13 June 1785. The P h iladelphia

D irecto ry of 1785 lists Joseph Stride as a painter, located at the corner of Fourth

and Pine. Records survive for another of Stride’s projects, a decade earlier in

1775. William Corbit of Delaware paid Stride over £45 for painting carried out at

Corbit’s Appoquinimink Creek mansion between 1774 and December 1775. A

second craftsman, George Rutter, a painter working on Fifth Street between

W alnut and Spruce Streets, may have leant a hand to a smaller extent on the

interior painting of The Solitude. On 16 August 1784, Rutter received £30

Pennsylvania currency, and on 13 September 1786, a payment of £4.12.0. Some

of the interior wall surfaces likely went unpainted, instead receiving paper

hangings.8^ William Poyntell probably provided these paper hangings, offering at

practice to remove, through scrubbing, such distemper treatments before repainting (here the yellow oil paint campaign). While the ceiling samples were problematic, Myers found the samples from the walls, doors, and trim, archived by the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the 1976 bicentennial restoration, to be more reliable. Yellow grays, tan yellows, and buff tones dominated the walls throughout the house. However, some of these treatments may have been applied following a possible original wallpaper treatment. There is also evidence of faux-wood graining throughout the house, including on the cabinets, chair rail, and door trim in the library, and on the wood fireplace mantel in the northwest bedroom; see Catherine S. Myers, Myers Conservation, Finishes Analysis: The Solitude, June 1,1998, Archives of Friends of the Solitude, The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia; Catherine S. Myers, Myers Conservation, Interior Wall Finishes Analysis: The Solitude, November 30, 2001, Archives of Friends of The Solitude, The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 4-9. 84 Though attorney Tench Francis handled most of John Penn’s accounts during the years of construction, several payments recorded in Edmund Physick’s receipt book for December 1785 were on Penn’s behalf. Near a 28 December payment specifically designated on Penn’s behalf was a 22 December payment to William Poyntell of £5.19.6 for paper hangings. While these paper hangings may not necessarily have been for Penn, such wall treatments would be expected in a house of this period finished to the degree of The Solitude. Edmund Physick

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his Second Street store the “most extensive variety ever imported into the United

States.” 8s

The same craftsman who produced the Vitruvian-scroll dados in the

library and drawing room may have also executed the carving on the elaborate

door surround in the library (fig. 17). On 15 October 1785, as the house neared

completion, John Penn directed a payment for the large sum of eighty pounds,

ten shillings to J. Reynolds. This entry likely refers to James Reynolds, the

Philadelphia carver who had arrived from London nearly two decades earlier in

August 1766. Reynolds enjoyed the patronage of some of Philadelphia’s

wealthiest citizens, including Samuel Powel, Governor John Penn, and John

Cadwalader. When Powel purchased a town house in 1769, Reynolds was

employed a year later to carry out architectural carving within the house. The

broken pediments with pulvinated cornice and Ionic dentils in the Powell house

are almost simplified versions of the library door surround at The Solitude. 86

Receipt Books, vol. 3 (Dec. 3, 1780-Dec. 27,1788), p. 96; Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C..

85 Francis White, The Philadelphia Directory (Philadelphia, 1785); John H. Sw eeney, Grandeur on the Appoquinimink (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1959)j 455 84, 85; Poyntell advertisement from 28 October 1786 edition of th eIndependent Gazetteer (Phil.), reprinted in Alfred Prime, The A r ts a n d C rafts in Philadelphia, 2:282.

86 TF Drafts, HSP; Luke Beckerdite, “Philadelphia Carving Shops: Part I: James R eynolds” A n tiq u es 125, no. 5 (May 1984): 1120-1121; Edmund Physick Receipt Book, vol. 2 (Aug. 22, 1774 - July 24,1899), Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, W ashington, D.C.; see Edward Lawler’s discussion of Robert Morris’s Market Street house, which

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Prior to the Revolution, Reynolds became well known for the elaborate

carving he carried out to complement the superbly constructed furniture of

cabinetmaker Thomas Affleck. Indeed, Penn’s familiarity with Reynolds may

have come through his patronage of Affleck (see chapter 3). The library door

surround at The Solitude was likely adapted from a similar design illustrated in

Abraham Swan’s The British Architect. John Penn possessed a copy of this text

and Reynolds was doubtless familiar with the book after its 1775 Philadelphia

reissue. Robert Bell’s Philadelphia edition, though expensive, proved popular

among Philadelphia craftsmen. An earlier London edition of the book was also

present in the library of the Carpenter’s Company of Philadelphia. 87

Another craftsman involved in the building of The Solitude was William

Stiles, who likely supplied the marble elements within the house. As early as 1

December 1784, Penn directed a payment of £50 Pennsylvania currency to the

stone carver, perhaps indicating that some of the interior rooms of the house

later became President George Washington’s rented residence in Philadelphia. John Penn’s townhouse was next door at the Stedman-Galloway House, on the corner of Market and Sixth Streets. Penn rented this house from his neighbor, Robert Morris. Lawler makes the supposition that Penn perhaps incorporated the design of a mantelpiece (ca. 1781) into the library door surround from the yellow drawing room of the Morris residence. Edward Lawler, Jr., “The President’s House in Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 126, no. 1 (January 2002): 37-40. The design of the mantelpiece and door surround were likely adapted from Abraham Swan’s The British Architect. For a mantle similar to that at the Morris house, see Abraham Swan, The British Architect (1758; reprint, NY: Da Capo Press, 1967), plate LIII.

87 Hummel, “The Influence of English Design Books,” 42-44; Swan, The British A rchitect, plate XXIII.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were nearing completion. A pattern of £50 payments continued each month

through March, and though some of Penn’s drafts for April 1785 were not listed,

Stiles received another payment of the same amount on 14 May 1785. Later in

the year, on 13 August 1785, Stiles was paid £88.19.8, which appears to have been

the last payment directed toward the craftsman. 88

On 30 July 1783, Stiles had advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette th a t

the craftsman from London proposed “to carry on the business of a Stone-cutter

in all its various branches. Monuments, Head-Stones, Chimney-pieces, Steps and

Plat-Forms may be had on the shortest notice.”89 Several years later, on 30

August 1787, the craftsman advertised his stone cutting business in the

Pennsylvania Packet. At Stiles’s shop on Third Street, near Spruce Street, one

could find “an Elegant Marble Chimney Piece, Inlaid with Egyptian Green

Marble; also several Setts [sic] of Obelisks and Vases, Made of Derbyshire spar,

for ornaments on mantle pieces.” 9° The chimney-piece advertised in 1787 may

have been similar to that provided for Penn two years earlier for installation in

the drawing room at The Solitude (figs. 40 and 41). The fluting on Penn’s marble

88 TF Drafts, HSP.

89 Pennsylvania Gazette, 30 July 1783; reprinted in Amy Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street: An Expression of Eighteenth-Century Taste” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1999), 60-61

9° Alfred Coxe Prime, The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia, Maryland, and South Carolina, 1786-1800II (Topsfield, MA: The Walpole Society, 1932), 314.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chimney-piece likely originally contained such fashionable contrasting marble

inlay, perhaps of “Egyptian Green Marble.” 91

Madeira wine merchant Henry Hill patronized William Stiles several years

later in outfitting his townhouse on South Fourth Street, in Philadelphia. Though

Hill depended on his sister, Mary Hill Lamar, to supply most of his neo-classical

style marble chimney-pieces from London, he did rely on several Philadelphians

for other chimney-pieces. In the early 1790s, Stiles charged Henry Hill a total of

“two hundred dollars for marble Chimney piece.” 92 Based on this figure, John

Penn’s expenditures of over £330 Pennsylvania currency in 1785 probably

accounts for the marble chimney-piece found in the drawing room and in the

library (fig. 42). Both chimneypieces were originally fitted with insets, perhaps of

Coade stone imported from E n g la n d .9 3

The first impression for visitors to the interior of The Solitude entering

from the west was the entry hall staircase, its balustrade fashioned in wrought

91 Though the Third Street location continued to serve as the center of Stiles’s business operations, when he died in the fall of 1793 he also had an additional site on Front Street, as well as a sawmill and a quarry. At these locations, Stiles stored his inventory- of marble, Chester stone, York flagstone, Street stone, Virginia stone, Italian slabs, and headstones, valued at £770.0.3. William Stiles, 1793 Administration Records, Register of Wills, File 169, Book I, p. 345. Philadelphia Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

92 Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street,” 55, 60.

93 The £330 Pennsylvania currency paid Stiles may have also included the decorative urns situated atop the portico and roof balustrade. The marble trim within the wood chimney-pieces in the bedrooms on the second level is probably also reflected in this sum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iron (figs. 43 and 44). Robert Adam and his contemporaries were fond of

incorporating iron balustrades into their designs for grand stair halls. In

England, James Wyatt, Robert Adam and others were able to capitalize on the

advances then being made in cast iron, sending their designs to Coalbrookdale to

be executed through this advancing industrial process. While popular in England

and throughout Europe in the finest eighteenth-century interiors, the use of

wrought iron balustrades on interior staircases in America was extremely rare.94

Though the design of the stair balustrade at The Solitude is somewhat

conservative compared to the cast iron neo-classical designs fashioned for

London interiors of the period, the presence of such a balustrade, with its

exuberant S-scrolls, would nonetheless make a bold statement in 1785

Philadelphia. 95

The stair balustrade at The Solitude has long puzzled scholars seeking to

determine the origin of its manufacture, foreign or domestic. Penn’s drafts

during the building of the house provide the best source in coming closer to

94 The neo-classical style Bingham Mansion, 1785-86, built for prominent Philadelphians William and Ann Bingham, likely also possessed an interior iron stair balustrade. Contemporary visitors describe an interior marble staircase at the Bingham’s Society Hill mansion. Such a staircase would likely have had an iron, cast or wrought, stair balustrade rather than one constructed of wood. Sincere thanks to Dr. Damie Stillman for pointing out this related example, see R obert C. A lberts, The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham, 1752-1804 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), 163-164.

95 Stillman, English Neo-Classical Architecture, 1:44. The design of the stair balustrade at The Solitude is perhaps more characteristic of designs popular a few decades earlier in London, see William Welldon, The S m ith ’s R ig h t H a n d (London, 1765), part 3 details designs for stairs.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. resolve this question. Though the fluid design of the staircase might relate it to

the work of Samuel Wheeler, one of the most notable Philadelphia architectural

ironworkers in this period, Wheeler’s name never appears in Penn’s list of drafts.

96 While this might not preclude Wheeler’s involvement in the balustrade, an

attribution might be better made on the basis of the ironworkers Penn was

known to have patronized. 97

Two ironworkers emerge from Penn’s drafts. The first, blacksmith

Nicholas Pickles, received three payments from Penn; in March 1785 for £5.17.6,

again in July 1785 for £4.9.6, and finally in May 1786 for £3.11 Pennsylvania

currency. The total amount of Penn’s three payments to Pickles cannot support

an attribution for the wrought iron balustrade. Instead, Penn’s payments to

blacksmith Joseph Skerrett might be more instructive. Penn directed just over

£103 Pennsylvania currency to Skerrett between the summers of 1784 and 1785,

when construction on the house was in full swing. Of the three payments

directed toward Skerrett, two came in the same month, August 1785, for a

combined sum of £78.18.8. 98

96 Samuel W heeler’s work can be seen at Old Christ Church, Second Street, and at Congress Hall, see Henry J. Kauffman, Early American Ironware (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1966), 75-77.

97 Boyd, The Adam Style, 194.

98 TF Drafts, HSP.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. If Penn chose to respond to current London fashion, he would have had

the iron-balustered staircase finished rather than left exposed. Throughout the

eighteenth century, lead paint was applied as a preservative for interior and

exterior ironwork in England. Prussian blue tinted paint was the most popular,

made more accessible through advances during the middle decades of the

century. Robert Adam followed the fashion at Osterley Park and Somerset House

during the 1770s. Penn may have directed his painters, Joseph Stride and George

Rutter, to apply such a finish to the stair-balustrade.^

The story of whom Penn chose to employ at The Solitude is a complex one.

Penn likely patronized Edward Turner and William Stiles because of the recent

arrival of both craftsmen from England, and familiarity with the newest designs

and techniques in plasterwork and stonecutting. William Hamilton, who had

employed Turner at his estate, may have alerted Penn of the plasterer’s talents.

In this sense, Penn seems very much aware of a new generation entering

Philadelphia following the American Revolution. But instead of patronizing these

men completely, he also sought out the talents of an older generation of

craftsmen. These men, such as William Roberts, Jacob Graff, and James

Reynolds, may have found an introduction to Penn through former members of

the Penn proprietary gentry. As will be discussed in the following chapter,

Penn’s patronage of cabinetmakers followed the same principle. The two

craftsmen employed by Penn to supply the furnishings for The Solitude, Samuel

99 Steven Parissien, A d a m Style (Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Claphamson and Thomas Affleck, highlight this dual patronage system of

newcomer and older generation craftsman.

1992), 114.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 3

THE VANITY OF ENGLISH TASTE

Advancing in my house, I gradually altered my scheme to the great increase o f the expenses it put me to. I might in part be actuated, in this, by a motive, now grown stronger, the vanity' o f English taste, in furnishing and decorating the house. 100 John Penn, Commonplace Book

On 30 June 1788, Edmund Physick wrote to John Penn, then back in

England, to report on the results of the 26 May vendue sale of Penn’s household

furnishings. Penn had left Philadelphia a month earlier, never to return to The

Solitude or America. It was Physick’s duty to report that the young man’s

mahogany furniture and silver plate had sold somewhat low, attributed to the

“great diminution of prices since you made your purchases.” Happily, Physick

reported to Penn that his silver had sold for its full value, and commented that it

was his “pleasure to assure [Penn] that a great number of People attended the

Vendue who in general mentioned to me that it was a very successful one for

you.” Though the £548.15.7 rendered from the sale may have seemed low to

Penn, his agent, perhaps seeking to soften the blow, assured him that if he “had

wanted to replace the same articles I am inclined to think you might do it with the

i°° Penn, CP Book, p. 35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. money produced.” Penn’s response on 9 July 1788 indicated that he went

unworried about the low sums fetched for his furniture, writing “I am glad the

articles sold at Vendue did not depreciate into nothing.” 101

At least two Philadelphia cabinetmakers, Thomas Affleck (1740-1795) and

Samuel Claphamson (d. 1808), supplied furniture for The Solitude.102 Penn

gave Claphamson the bulk of the commission, paying him £200 Pennsylvania

currency on 3 December 1785. Affleck too enjoyed Penn’s patronage, receiving

payments on 12 November 1784, 14 March 1785, and 30 August 1785, totaling

more than £140 Pennsylvania currency-. As in the construction of the house,

101 Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London. 30 June 1788. P-P Correspondence, 3:222; “Cash in Acco. Edmund Physick with the Hon. John Penn Esq.,” P-P Correspondence, 3:286; John Penn, Pall-Mall, London to Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, 9 July 1788, Penn-Physick Manuscripts, vol. I, p. 189. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereafter cited as P-P Manuscripts).

102 Payments to Samuel Williams, who was listed in Francis W hite’s 1785 The Philadelphia Directory as a cabinetmaker on Fourth Street, between Market and Chestnut, were also included in Penn’s List of Drafts. Though listed as a cabinetmaker, Williams’s business in 1785 was mainly in supplying tools and lumber. An advertisement placed on 3 January 1785 in the Pennsylvania Packet, described the goods sold by Williams, including planes, gouges, chisels, hammers, various saws, locks, hinges, nails, frying pans, stone cutting equipment, and shovels. No mention is made in the advertisement of furniture. A 15 January 1791 advertisement placed by Williams in the Independent G azetteer describes Williams’s extensive supply of lumber for sale, reprinted in Prim e, The Arts and Crafts, Series II, 297. During the building of The Highlands, Anthony Morris paid Williams £7.19.4 for mahogany plank for the construction of a staircase on 23 January 1798. See David W. Dangremond, “The Highlands: The Country Seat of Anthony Morris.” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, August 1981), appendix B, 81 and appendix C, 89; One payment to cabinet-maker Thomas George was also included in Penn’s drafts, on 25 May 1785 for £4.2, an amount that doesn’t compare to the sort of patronage enjoyed by Claphamson and Affleck.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn's choice of craftsmen tells an interesting tale of patronage. Instead of giving

the commission to one craftsman, Penn divided it between two cabinetmakers

possessing radically different backgrounds. While this dual patronage may have

been the result of an inability on the part of Affleck to supply all of Penn’s

furniture in time for the completion of the house, it seems likely that Penn’s

determination to patronize Claphamson had more to do with this craftsman’s

training and stylistic vocabulary.103

Bom in Aberdeen, Scotland, Thomas Affleck had served his apprenticeship

in London w here he became versed in the English Rococo before departing for

Philadelphia in 1763. Though more likely a coincidence than planned, Affleck’s

passage on the same ship to Philadelphia as Governor John Penn linked for later

furniture historians Affleck’s products to the tastes and demands of the elder

John Penn and the proprietary gentry.A 1776 payment made on Governor

Penn’s behalf by Edmund Physick links Penn and Affleck to some degree. 103

103 TF Drafts, HSP.

104 Morrison Heckscher finds no substantiating evidence to suggest that Governor John Penn wras Affleck’s chief American patron, as offered by William MacPherson Hornor, Jr. See Morrison Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 183.

103 The 25 June 1776 Penn payment to Affleck was for a black walnut coffin, likely for the burial of a servant at Lansdowne named Sussex. That Penn relied on Affleck for the coffin might suggest that Penn wras indeed patronizing Affleck during the same period for furniture. Edmund Physick Receipt Book, vol. 2 (Aug. 22, 1774 - July 24, 1899), Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival M anuscript Material Collection, Library of Congress, W ashington, D.C.; The elder Penn also directed £75.45 to Affleck in 1785, see Shippen Family Papers, 32:22, HSP.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Whether or not he indeed received the patronage of the governor for furniture,

Affleck’s business in the years following his arrival were nonetheless prosperous

ones, carrying on “the cabinet-making business in all its various branches” from

his Second Street workshop. 106

Two decades later, as the American Revolution neared a resolution,

Thomas Affleck could rest assured that he was Philadelphia’s premier

cabinetmaker. The occupational tax levied on Affleck’s yearly income totaled

£250 in 1783, by far the largest sum paid by a cabinetmaker in the city. Three

years later, in 1786, the occupational tax schedule told a very different story. In

this year Affleck was taxed only £92.30. Meanwhile, newcomer Samuel

Claphamson, whose name did not appear on the 1783 list because he was still in

England, was levied an occupational tax higher than Affleck’s, at £100. 107

Not long after Penn began construction on The Solitude, Samuel

Claphamson advertised on 8 January 1785, that he was “late from London” and

supplied “all kinds of commode sideboards, commode dressing tables, oval and

circular card tables, secretaries, dispensaries, traveling boxes and chests, cabriole

106 W illiam M acPherson Hornor, Jr., BZue Book, Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington ( 1935; reprint, Alexandria, VA: Highland House Publishers, 1988), 184; Morrison Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 183; Deborah Anne Federhen, “Politics and Style: An Analysis of the Patrons and Products of Jonathan Gostelowe and Thomas Affleck,” in ed. Catherine E. Hutchins, Shaping a National Culture, The Philadelphia Experience, 1750-1800 (W interthur, DE: The Henry Francis du Pont W interthur Museum, 1994), 300.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chairs, bamboo chairs, [and] fancy chairs.” The cabinetmaker seems to have

been responsible for introducing to post-war Philadelphia many of the new

furniture forms associated with the Federal period. Claphamson ran the

advertisement for several weeks in January 1785, subsequently adding oval

breakfast tables to the list of available furniture forms at his Market Street

workshop.108

Claphamson prospered in Philadelphia during the next two decades.

Several years after his arrival in Philadelphia, Claphamson’s advertisements

included a variety of wares, including “an exceedingly good Twelve-Month time

piece, warranted by P. Lacon, London; a fewr very large China Bowls, Cotton

quilted Counterpanes, &c.” Besides these imported luxury goods, Claphamson

advertised making circular pier tables, French chairs, sophas, and settees. In the

mid 1790s, Claphamson supplied mahogany furniture and wmdowr cornices for

the country retreat of prominent Philadelphia lawyer, politician and merchant

Anthony Morris (b. 1766).109 The craftsman increasingly diversified the wares

available at his showTOom, and in July 1798 the prosperous immigrant appeared

l°7 H ornor, B lue B ook, 317, 321-322.

108 Alfred Coxe Prime, The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia, Maryland, and South Carolina, 1786-1800, Series II (Topsfield, MA: The W alpole Society, 1932), 172; The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 8 January 1785; The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 10 January' 1785.

109 The daybook for the construction and furnishing of The Highlands lists at least two payments to Claphamson. In 1795 Morris paid Claphamson £45 for two mahogany bureaus, and in 1796, the cabinetmaker was paid £3.7.6 for “three comishes [sic] gilt and white.” Dagremond, “The Highlands,” appendix E, 94.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at the United States District Court in Philadelphia to become a naturalized

citizen.110

When he died in April 1808, the cabinetmaker had already retired to the

countryside outside Philadelphia, retaining several properties in the city. In

Blockley Township he lived with his wife, Margaret Wynn Claphamson. Though

he made generous provisions for Margaret’s family in his will, Claphamson

remembered well the father and siblings he had left in England.111 The value of

Claphamson’s estate upon his 1808 death, including funds deposited in the Bank

of North America and the principal of bonds and mortgages, came to $22,780.35.

In 1784, Claphamson had offered specialized luxuiy items to a city recovering

from war and anxious to step up to current London fashion. In the years

following, he had expanded his shop to include imported wares, and with his

profits he invested in property7 throughout Philadelphia. Listed in his 1808

110 The Pennsylvania Packet, 20 July 1787; P. William Filby, ed., Philadelphia Naturalization Records (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1982), 93.

111 When Samuel Claphamson married Margaret Wynn, a widow, she brought to the union several children from her first marriage. To his father, Samuel Claphamson, Senior, “of the City of Norwich in old England,” the Philadelphian left an annuity of “one hundred and sixty dollars silver money per annum.” To his “two beloved sisters Elizabeth & M artha,” Samuel left a principal of £1,000, with an additional £2,000 specie Pennsylvania currency for their care deposited in the hands of his brother, John Claphamson. Samuel Claphamson, 1808 Will Records, Register of Wills, File 90, Book 2, p. 346. Philadelphia Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. inventory was one “lot of joiners tools,” valued at $25, perhaps the same tools

that had formed the foundation of Claphamson’s wealth in his adopted city.112

Because Claphamson’s January 1785 advertisement of being “late from

London” came several months after Penn’s first payment to Affleck in November

1784, it seems likely that Penn was unaware of the craftsman’s presence during

his early patronage of Affleck. Penn’s third and final payment to Affleck came in

August 1785. Several months later, in December, Penn paid Claphamson a larger

sum than he had to Affleck over the last year. The likely scenario might be that

Penn was introduced to the work of Affleck through his cousin and other

members of Philadelphia’s elite who had patronized the cabinetmaker before the

war. However, sometime in 1785 Penn probably realized that Claphamson was

more aware than Affleck of the neo-classical furniture then stylish in England, the

type of furniture Penn desired for The Solitude.u3

During the May 1788 Penn vendue sale, Samuel Claphamson approached

Edmund Physick regarding a wardrobe constructed for John Penn but never

delivered. Claphamson claimed that the wardrobe had never been fully paid for.

He reported to Physick that he “had been long trying in Vain to sell a Wardrobe of

[Penn’s] he had in his Shop, a little out of Repair, and that the highest price ever

offered for it was £10.” Claphamson maintained that he had agreed to construct

the wardrobe for Penn for £20, at a time when goods were at least two fifths in

112 Samuel Claphamson, 1808 Will Records, Register of Wills, File 90, Book 2, p. 346. Philadelphia Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. their price higher than they were in June 1788. Penn had paid Claphamson £15,

leaving £5 pounds now due. Because Penn had already departed for London,

Physick resolved that the wardrobe should take its chance at the public sale,

where it subsequently brought £13.15.0, which according to Physick, was the

present full value of a new one. 114

Earlier that day, as Physick witnessed the low prices fetched during the

vendue sale, he “determined not to let [Penn’s] Oval [wardrobe] be sold, not

knowing at the time that [he] had any other.” The “other” wras the wardrobe

brought to Physick’s attention by Claphamson. Judging from Physick’s choice of

words, the second wardrobe may have also been oval in shape. As the auction

had progressed, Physick realized Penn’s mahogany furniture was selling below

value. He chose to pull only one piece from the auction, that being the oval

wardrobe. His determination to spare the article from a lowr hammer price

indicates the value Physick placed upon it as a very singular object. us

“3 TF Drafts, HSP.

114 Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, P-P Correspondence, 3:222.

u5 Ibid.; For the sake of confusion, there was another wardrobe mentioned in the above 30 June 1788 letter from Physick to Penn. This piece, referred to as a “small article” by Physick, was sold to Mrs. Allen for six pounds. Physick gives no indication that this wardrobe was oval in shape. This may be the clothespress (accession number 77-30-2) identified as belonging to John Penn in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This case piece of simple, strait- forward design, with ogee bracket feet, is attributed to Penn’s ownership on the basis of a paper label inscribed “Penn’s Wardrobe.” Though the provenance of the PMA clothespress is undocumented, it may be that purchased by Mrs. Allen in May 1788.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The wording of Physick’s letter supports an attribution to Claphamson for

the oval wardrobe pulled from the auction earlier that day.116 Even if

Claphamson can be connected to the manufacture of both wardrobes, the

problem of the design lingers. The oval wardrobe created for Penn seems to be

the only example of this form at this early date. "7 Its boldness of design places

Penn’s wardrobe in a category’ of its own for eighteenth-century American

furniture. In planning a very singular house and garden, a design attribution to

Penn himself might not be out of reach. Penn perhaps sought the talents of this

newcomer cabinetmaker to execute the bold free-standing oval design he

envisioned.118

'16 See Appendix E: Catalogue Description, of an oval clothes press, perhaps one of the “oval wardrobes” produced by Claphamson for Penn. The following discussion of the design of Penn’s oval wardrobe depends upon the visual evidence of the press examined in Appendix E.

“7 The freestanding oval form, and derivations, appear as Austrian and German secretaires of the Biedermeier period. The earliest example of the type found by this author dates to the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, George Himmelheber, Biedermeier Furniture (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), p lates II, 15-17, 91,101-103, a n d 109.

118 During his grand tour, Penn may have made contact with a cabinetmaker then experimenting in bold design, a craftsman capable of creating the free-standing oval form that stayed in the young man’s memory until his arrival in Philadelphia. Since the form later appears in Germany, though twenty-five years after Penn’s example, German cabinetmakers may have been experimenting with the free-standing oval as early as Penn’s 1782 tour of the region. During the summer of 1782, Penn recorded that while in Coblenz he had taken “an open chaise to pay a visit to Neuwidt [sic].” There, Penn spoke of the brotherhood of Moravians and the many trades carried on by them. Neuwied in the 1780s was one of the principle furniture-producing centers of Europe. Of extreme importance was the presence of Moravian Ebeniste David Roentgen (1743-1807),

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nonetheless, allowing Claphamson some credit in designing the wardrobe

gains merit given his position in Philadelphia in the mid 1780s. Recently arriving

from England, Claphamson may have viewed the creation of a specialty form,

such as the oval wardrobe, as his chance to compete against successful

cabinetmakers such as Affleck. n9 The oval wardrobe speaks to Claphamson’s

inventiveness as an entrepreneurial craftsman. Claphamson turned his

knowledge of English neo-classicism into a marketable commodity to compete

against Affleck and other Philadelphians more comfortable with the Rococo. It

may have been the oval wardrobe that first attracted Penn to the cabinetmaker’s

Market Street shop, underlining Claphamson’s talents and awarding him the

commission of other furnishings for The Solitude, including a second oval

wardrobe several years later. 120

then at the height of his career. Roentgen was at the fore of neo-classical furniture design in the 1780s, and could count among his clients Marie Antoinette, Catherine II, Frederick the Great, and Louis XVI. Unfortunately no evidence was found by this author to support the thought provoking proposition that Roentgen was producing free-standing oval forms like that created for Penn by Claphamson. John Penn, CP Book, p. 30V . Hans Huth, Roentgen Furniture, Abraham and David Roentgen: European Cabinet-makers (London: Sotheby Parke Bemet, 1974).

“9 The Philadelphia cabinetmaking industry, dominated by Affleck in the years Claphamson established his workshop, was likely similar to that in Boston in the 18th century, where immigrant cabinetmakers found it difficult to penetrate the networks dominating the industry in that city. See Brock Jobe, “Boston Furniture Industry 1720-1740,” in Boston Furniture o f the Eighteenth Century, ed. W alter Muir W hitehill (1974; reprint, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 12.

120 See M argaretta Lovell’s discussion of bespoke work and Newport luxury items. Margeretta Lovell, “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’ The Business of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. W hether designed by Penn or Claphamson, the oval wardrobe says much

about both. Claphamson may have been courageously experimenting to draw

attention to his new business, but significantly Penn was the purchaser of the

wardrobe. When Claphamson offered the second oval wardrobe for sale in his

shop, this one made specifically for Penn, he could find no purchaser. That the

form was specialized and expensive, as recognized by Physick during the vendue

sale, is one explanation. Another is that Claphamson found few people, besides

Penn, who were attracted to this somewhat odd form. Perhaps it was only when

it became associated with the peculiar young builder of The Solitude that the

object was able to find a purchaser at the vendue sale.

Along with the oval wardrobe, Penn may have commissioned Claphamson

to construct his mahogany seating furniture. In preparation for the 26 May 1788

vendue sale of Penn’s goods, an inventory was made of the contents of The

Solitude. Penn’s mahogany furniture included a suite composed of three “elegant

large settees, having hair bottoms, with satin stripe, a double row of gilt nails and

fluted legs.” The settees, described as being in the “modern fashion,” matched

the two armchairs and twenty-four side chairs similarly described. Penn’s agent,

Edmund Physick, who was administering the vendue sale, wrote that he had

become “a purchaser myself of a Sophia [sic], two Arm Chairs, [and] twelve other

Cabinetmaking in Eighteenth-Century Newport,” Winterthur Portfolio 26 (Spring 1991): 44-

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chairs (my own not being good enough for the fine Room I now occupy).” 121

Penn’s suite of sofas and chairs is very likely among the earliest examples of neo

classical furnishings made in America. Penn probably turned to Claphamson to

achieve this departure in aesthetics. 122

W ithout additional documentation, it would be an impossible task to judge

which items listed in the inventory were constructed by Affleck versus

Claphamson. One piece of furniture, however, might point to Claphamson. The

immigrant cabinetmaker’s 1785 Pennsylvania Packet advertisement had

included the manufacture of commode sideboards, a new furniture form in post

war America. In the Penn inventory, the form was present: “1 large semicircular

side board table, in which are three drawers, the middle drawer divided into

eleven partitions, leaded for liquors.” Claphamson’s familiarity with the form

makes him the more likely candidate for the construction of this article. 123

121 The “fine Room I now occupy” probably refers to The Solitude, which Penn allowed Physick to summer in after his departure for London in 1788; Some of the furniture purchased by Physick at the 1788 vendue sale seems to have been kept in his possession until his 1804 death. The inventory of Physick’s house described “12 mahogany chairs, 3 dollars each,” and one settee, valued at twelve dollars, in the second floor front room of his Northern Liberties home. “An Inventory of the Goods & Effects late belonging to Edmund Physick,” Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival M anuscript Collection, Library of Congress.

122 Marie G. Kimball, “The Furnishings of Solitude, the Country Estate of John P enn,” The Magazine Antiques 20, no. 1 (July 1931): 29; Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, P-P Correspondence, 3:222; “Inventory of the Plate, Household Furniture and other Goods of the Hon. John Penn, jun.” 1788, printed by Dunlap and Claypoole, Philadelphia. Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Henry Francis du Pont W interthur Museum (hereafter cited as Penn Inventory).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The furniture at The Solitude also included a large dining table with two

semicircular tables “to fix at each end, which 2 being put together form a round

table of themselves.” One elegant card table12-* and two breakfast tables were also

listed in the inventory, perhaps not unlike the oval examples advertised by

Claphamson. Likely used by Penn in his library was the writing table with brass

castors, containing “3 drawers on each side.”12s

The “4 plain mahogany chairs for a hall” were probably arranged along the

walls of the entry hall. These four chairs were likely the same bought at the 1788

vendue sale by James Bringhurst, who served as master builder at Henry Hill’s

Philadelphia townhouse. On 5 June 1788, Hill paid Bringhurst £4.12 for Penn’s

four mahogany hall chairs. Hill also paid Bringhurst for a writing table and a

cotton counterpane purchased at the Penn sale. The writing table, for which Hill

paid Bringhurst £ 2.6, was likely that described above.126

123 Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

1:4 The collection of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation includes a card table supposedly belonging to John Penn at The Solitude. The CWF table (accession number 1976-26), one of a pair, is dated c. 1765 and is characteristic of the high- style Rococo mahogany furniture associated with the tastes of Governor John Penn. The attribution to the younger John Penn is based solely on an engraved brass plaque identifying the table as Penn’s. According to the plaque, the table was purchased by Jos. Parker Norris at Penn’s vendue sale. More likely, Mr. Norris purchased the pair at the elder John Penn’s vendue sale, a few days earlier in May 1788. Penn’s inventory only lists one card table, not a pair. Secondly, Penn would not likely have included the twenty year old table in a house furnished otherwise in the neo-classical style, and a table described as “elegant” in 1788 was likely neo-classical in style.

l2s Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The advertisement of Penn’s vendue sale described a large number of

bedsteads and bedding. The “excellent large bed, bolster and pillows perfectly

new” may have been positioned on a bedstead in the alcove of Penn’s second level

bed chamber. The alcove was perhaps hung with the set of “hair colour furniture

cotton bed curtains, pattern William Penn’s treaty with the Indians.” The bed

curtains were likely complemented in the same room by the “window curtains to

match.” The advertisement also listed several field bedsteads on castors, with

curtains of green furniture check and minionet gauze. Perhaps used by Penn’s

household servants were the “common poplar bedsteads.” These less expensive

bedsteads may have been arranged in the third level servant spaces, as well as in

the kitchen wing, and perhaps the stable building.127

Upholsterer John Davis may have supplied some of the window and bed

hangings for The Solitude. Perhaps Davis was responsible for the four “cotton

and worsted striped parlour curtains, with cord &c.,” as well as the less formal

sets of green and red furniture check window curtains. Penn directed payments

toward Davis on 22 October 1784 and again on 18 March 1786. The combined

sum of these two payments came to over £21 Pennsylvania currency. Before his

1793 death, John Davis also supplied Philadelphia merchant Henry Hill with

curtains, pulleys, cloak pins, and other associated items between 1790-91.128

126 Ibid.; Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street,” 28 n.

127 Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The floor coverings listed in the vendue sale advertisement included an

“elegant Wilton carpet 20 [feet] by 12 [feet], with some spare pieces.” The

drawing room, measuring 26 feet by 17 feet, would have been the only room in

the house large enough to accommodate this expensive English import. Perhaps

in the entry hall, or in the library on the second floor, was laid the large ingrain

Scotch carpet, described as “but little used.” Elsewhere in the house the floors

were covered with five “good green rugs.” 129

The walls of The Solitude were likely lined in prints, maps, paintings, and

charts. Penn perhaps hung the large oval looking glass in gilt frame above the

chimney-piece in the drawing room. A popular mode for displaying works on

paper in the period would have included simply tacking such items onto the wall,

especially in the hall. Of the many maps Penn recorded in his Commonplace

Book, many related to Pennsylvania, likely to aid him in his appeal for

reimbursement of the confiscated Penn tracts. One in particular may have been

commissioned by Penn for this purpose, described as a “large map of

Pennsylvania, exhibiting all the remaining Proprietary estate, 1787.” Penn’s

maps included Deslisle’s modern maps, as well as D’Anville’s ancient maps.

128 Ibid.; TF Drafts, HSP; Prime, The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia, M aryland and South Carolina, 1786-1800, Series II, 219; Transcription of Henry Hill’s accounts by Susan Garfinkle, from John Jay Smith Papers at the Library Company of Philadelphia, Hill-Physick-Keith House folder, Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Many thanks to Amy Henderson for sharing with me Susan Garfinkle’s transcription.

129 Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Several focused on Europe, including a set depicting the environs of Geneva and

another depicting Paris. Penn also possessed plans of the cities of Manheim,

London, and Bath. Others focused on more exotic locales, including three charts

of the west coast of Africa.^0

Penn’s collection of prints included The Ruins ofBalbec, “old pictures on

the subject of Pamela,” and a set depicting Captain Cook’s voyages. The three

pictures of William Penn listed were likely hung to remind visitors of John Penn’s

ancestry, reinforced upstairs by Penn’s bedhangings and curtains, depicting his

grandfather’s famous treaty with the Indians. Besides prints depicting other

Britons, including one of Lady Bell Finch, Penn possessed a series of prints

entitled “Heads of illustrious Americans.”^ 1

Among the pictures listed were those focusing on architecture.

Unfortunately, Penn gave no indication of the subjects of the “plans & elevations

of buildings, 6.” He did possess two sets of Irish family seats, and another,

“Milton’s country-seats of Ireland, 1787,” arrived for Penn aboard the S u tto n in

September of that year. The Ruins ofBalbec, listed above, was also an important

source on ancient architecture. This set, produced in 1757 following Robert

l3° Ibid.; John Penn, CP Book, pp. 5 8 -5 8 V , 60.

l3! Ibid. pp. 5 8 -5 8 V ; Lady Bell Finch was a close friend of Penn’s grandmother, Lady Pomfret. The inclusion of the print in Penn’s possession perhaps displayed for visitors the aristocratic connections of his mother’s family, W. S. Lewis, ed., Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 1 4 : 2 4 8 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. W ood’s journey to Balbec, capitalized on the popularity of Wood’s earlier R uins

ofPalmyra.1^

In the entrance hall, Penn may have hung the large plan of The Solitude

produced by John Nancarrow and listed among Penn’s prints and maps. He also

likely hung the Penn coat of arms, “painted and drawn on vellum.” A portrait of

Penn (fig. l), by Robert Edge Pine and given later as a gift to Edmund Physick,

may have also hung somewhere in the h o u s e . ^ 3 Several “prospects drawn and

painted by Mr. Pine,” perhaps of the picturesque Schuylkill River, were among

the items Penn later directed Physick to send to London rather than sell at

vendue.

*32 John Penn, CP Book, 5 8 - 5 9 ; R obert W ood, The Ruins ofBalbec, Otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria (London: 1 7 5 7 ).

133 Physick refers to the Robert Edge Pine portrait in a letter to Penn dated 13 M ay 1 7 8 8 , Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, to John Penn, London, P-P Correspondence, 3 :2 2 1 ; The painting of Penn was among the items listed in Physick’s household inventory upon his 1 8 0 4 death, “a painted picture of John Penn Jr. & 3 prints of others of that family,” valued altogether at four dollars. “An Inventory of the Goods & Effects late belonging to Edmund Physick,” Edmund Physick Family Papers, Archival Manuscript Collection, Library of Congress; A letter in the collection of the current owner of the Pine portrait indicates that perhaps former governor John Penn conferred the portrait of the younger Penn to Physick. It was perhaps the elder Penn who commissioned the portrait, displaying it at Lansdowne, or at his townhouse on Chestnut Street, before giving it as a gift to Edmund Physick.

134 John Penn CP Book, 5 8 -5 8 V ; Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, 13 M ay 1 7 8 8 . P-P Correspondence, 3:220-222; E d m u n d Physick to John Penn, London, 2 4 O ctober 1 7 8 8 . P-P Correspondence, 3 : 2 4 4 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While the description of the items to be sold at the vendue sale is the best

indication of Penn’s household effects, some of the contents of The Solitude likely

escaped this inventory. While making preparations for his departure to London,

Penn wrote Physick on 20 April 1788, “I shall except, from inventories I deliver

you, such articles as will not be sold, either because I carry them with me, or on

other accounts.” Among the items known to be sent on to Penn in London were

the Robert Edge Pine landscapes, Penn’s extensive library, papers relating to the

proceedings of the Pennsylvania assembly, a small case of wine, and two deer. l35

Though much of his silver was sold at the vendue sale, some of John

Penn’s plate, which seems to have been the family silver, was sent to London by

Physick in 1790, while Penn was touring Italy. Exactly why Penn chose to have

Physick wait several years before forwarding the “family plate” is unclear, but in

November 1790 Physick directed several items to “Messrs Barchlay’s & Triton,

No. 56 Lombard Street.” The plate was weighed in Philadelphia by silversmith

John German, and consisted of items weighing a total of 258 ounces. Included

was a monteith, weighing 82 ounces, two mugs, two w'aiters, a coffee pot, four

lards, an orange strainer, and a punch ladle. Also listed were two large sauce

spoons, one crane, one chaffing dish with lamp, one large tankard without cover

and another possessing a cover. * 36

l35 John Penn, Philadelphia, to Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, 20 April 1788, P-P Manuscripts, 1:181; Edmund Physick to John Penn, London, 24 October 1788, P- P Correspondence, 3:244-245.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Among the silver that was sold at the 1788 vendue sale were twelve table

and tea spoons “of the latest fashion and but little used.” Also listed was a teapot,

a soup ladle, two salt spoons, seven large silver handled table knives and eleven

silver handled forks as well as desert knives and forks to match. Among the

plated wares was a large server, four pairs of “elegant English plated candlesticks,

two pair ditto French washed, [and] one pair of ditto with branches.” ‘37

At least one of the silversmiths patronized by Penn is known. On 22 April

1788, Penn directed a payment of £7.12.6 to Nathaniel Richardson, then working

with his older brother Joseph, Jr., from the house they inherited from their father

on Front Street, between Chestnut and Walnut Streets. The Richardsons had

quickly resumed trade with London in 1783, allowing them to provide silver in

the neo-classical style to their Philadelphia patrons. The brothers found it

difficult to retail the imported silver in the post-war economy, and increasingly

reduced their orders from London while supplying their own translations of neo

classical forms. The small sum paid by Penn in April 1788 might indicate that

Nathaniel Richardson filled the order himself. Though he may have chosen to

patronize local craftsman for at least some of his silver, the plated ware was

clearly imported, as were the Japanned tea trays, waiters, bread basket, servers,

and tea urns, one with plated legs, handles and ornaments. Other items of

‘36 Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, to Messrs. Barchaly’s & Triton, London, 3 November 1790, P-P Correspondence, 3:293. John German [or Germon] was a Philadelphia silversmith, Clement Biddle, The Philadelphia Directory, 1791.

*37 Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. foreign manufacture likely included the “dozen green ivory handled table knives

a n d forks, alm o st n e w . ”^ 8

Penn also purchased imported ceramic services. The set of “elegant

Dresden tea china” was likely the most expensive of Penn’s ceramics. A set of

dining china was also described, perhaps also from Dresden, containing dishes,

soup plates, and numerous serving dishes. Penn’s everyday service was likely his

English manufactured Queen’s Ware, consisting of ten plates, serving dishes,

butter boats, sugar dishes, and cups and s a u c e r s .‘39

William Whiteside likely retailed some of Penn’s imported household

ceram ics.‘4° On 2 August 1788, Edmund Physick paid Whiteside £1.10.6 on

*38 Ibid.; Francis White, The Philadelphia Directory, 1785; Martha Gandy Fales, Joseph Richardson and Family: Philadelphia Silversmiths (Middletown, Conn: Published for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by Wesleyan University Press, 1974), 154; The two John Penn’s jointly patronized Philadelphia silversmith Joseph Anthony, Jr., (1762-1814) in February 1788. Anthony produced two presentation tankards engraved with the Penn arms, which were given to Penn lawyers Charles Jarvis and Gunning Bedford, for their work with the Penn petitions, turned down by the legislature in 1787. The Jarvis tankard is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 50-53-1. The Bedford tankard is in the collection of the Wadsworth Athenaeum. Beatrice B. Garvan, Federal Philadelphia 1785-1825: The Athens o f the Western World (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987), 18.

‘39 Penn Inventory, Downs Collection.

‘4° Aside from William Whiteside, Penn also made payments to James Gallagher, a china merchant located on Second Street between Market and Chestnut Streets (Francis White The Philadelphia Directory, 1785); Payments to Gallagher, on 16 January 1785 for £5.11.0 and on 3 September 1785 for £8, were likely also toward the purchase of household ceramics. The more expensive Dresden tea service may be represented in one of Penn’s many payments to merchants throughout

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn’s behalf, “in full for Chinaware.” Earlier, in January 1787, Penn had

directed a payment of £12.15.7 to the merchant. Whiteside, whose Tea and China

business was located on Second Street between Arch and Race Streets, served as

just one of Penn’s suppliers for imported goods, w

Unlike other wealthy Philadelphians, including William Bingham, former

Governor John Penn, and Henry Hill, the builder of The Solitude chose to

patronize local cabinetmakers rather than importing his furniture from

London.1-*2 Perhaps Penn felt he had less to prove, confident of his taste and

gentility without displaying it with imported furnishings. Instead, he challenged

the talents Thomas Affleck, a craftsman more accustomed to working in a Rococo

stylistic vocabulary. Perhaps Affleck was unable to meet Penn’s demands,

because as work on the house progressed, Penn transferred his patronage to

immigrant cabinetmaker Samuel Claphamson. In outfitting a house in the

newest style on the periphery of British culture, Penn recognized that certain

household articles, such as textiles, ceramics, and plated wares, needed to be

the city during the building of the house, including Robert Morris, John Meng, and Bache & Shee. TF Drafts, HSP.

•-*1 “Cash in Acco. Edmund Physick with the Honourable John Penn, Esq.” P-P Correspondence 3:286; Francis White, The Philadelphia Directory, 1785; TF Drafts, HSP.

l*2 For Bingham’s patronage of fashionable English cabinetmaker George Seddon, see Edgar de N. Mayhew and Minor Myers, Jr., A Documentary History o f American Interiors. From the Colonial Era to 1915 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980), 84 ; for Governor Penn’s “List of English Furniture,” see Marie G. Kimball, “The Furnishings of Lansdowne, Governor Penn’s Country' Estate.” The Magazine

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. household articles, such as textiles, ceramics, and plated wares, needed to be

imported from England and elsewhere. These articles allowed Penn to entertain

in the manner of an English gentleman, especially important to the young

aesthete when confined to a life in the provinces.

A n tiq u e s 19, no. 6 (June, 1931): 455; Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street,” appendix.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C h ap ter 4

THE PICTURESQUE AND THE POETIC

I shall not easily forget the picturesque scenes o f the Schuylkill, to which there are not m any places equal, & shall think with pleasure of the peace & quiet they furnished me.^3

John Penn to Edmund Physick 8 August 1788

A study of The Solitude would be incomplete without a consideration of

the landscape surrounding John Penn’s villa. Eighteenth-century English

gentlemen were accustomed to think of the design of house and garden as

integral. Building and landscaping schemes were often contemporary and

coordinated, and the shape and size of the house would have an important

influence on the layout of its surroundings. In the case of The Solitude, the

landscape garden deserves consideration for the same didactic purposes served in

examining the house. By “reading” the landscape, a better understanding of John

Penn’s intellectual construct and relationship with his environment is gained. ^

>43 John Penn, London, to Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, 8 August 1788. P-P Manuscripts, 1:195.

!44 Tom Williamson, Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth- Century England (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. John Penn looked to the fathers of the picturesque movement, English

writers Thomas Gray (1716-71) and the Reverend William Mason (1724-97), to

both inspire and affirm his design decisions at The Solitude. The landscaped

garden at The Solitude stands out among early American efforts to shape the

environment in that Penn’s design was so heavily influenced by his

understanding of contemporary poetry and this medium’s link to the picturesque

movement. Instead of aping the picturesque gardens being created by his

contemporaries in England, Penn responded on a very personal level to the poetic

descriptions of Gray and Mason. Penn’s reflections on the picturesque, as well as

the original landscape design for The Solitude, communicate his understanding

of the movement.

John Penn’s efforts in laying out his estate attest to his awareness of the

sea change then occurring in British landscape theory. The stabilized beauty

characteristic of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s landscaped parks was challenged

by the growing obsession with picturesque theory in the 1780s. Capability Brown

(1715-1783) leapt to the forefront as a ‘professional improver’ with notable

commissions in the late 1750s and throughout the 1760s. His interpretation of la

belle nature transformed estates such as Chatsworth, Syon, Blenheim, Luton

Hoo, Richmond, and Lord Cobham’s estate in Buckinghamshire, Stoke Poges

Qater owned by the Penn family and renamed Stoke Park). Brown sought to

eliminate any ‘false accidents’ at these estates, instead aiming to perfect nature by

reworking and often clearing whole landscapes Best described under Edmund

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Burke’s definition of the beautiful, Brown’s landscapes possessed smoothness

and gentleness in the sloping lawns, serpentine paths, and trees and shrubs

planted in rounded clumps. At Stoke Poges, the house John Penn inherited upon

his father’s death and went about reworking in the 1790s, Brown in the 1750s had

united five quadrangular pieces of water to produce the appearance of a natural

river. Penn acknowledged the outmoded appearance of Brown’s plan for the

estate when he later wrote that it was “more suited to the taste of former times.”

1 4 5

During the 1760s, while Capability Brown enjoyed the height of his

popularity, the seeds of the picturesque movement were being sowed. Writers

Thomas Gray and William Gilpin traveled the countryside of Britain seeking “that

kind of beauty which would look well in a picture. ”146 With painterly criticism

Thomas Gray evaluated these picturesque qualities in nature, eager to happen

upon “Peeps & delightful Openings.” 147 Accounts of his tours of Scotland in 1765

and the Lakes in 1768 were published posthumously in M ason’s 1775 P oem s o f

M r. G ray. Gray reflected at Kirkstall Abbey, “The gloom of these ancient cells, the

145 David Jacques, Georgian Gardens: The Reign o f Nature (London: BT Batsford, 1983), 78-79; Edward Malins, English Landscaping and Literature, 1660-1840 (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 99-100, 109; John Penn, A n Historical and Descriptive Account of Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire (London: W. Bulmer & Co, 1813), 33.

146 prom William Gilpin’s Essay on Prints (1768), reprinted in John Dixon Hunt and Peter Willis, eds., The Genius o f the Place (London: Paul Elek, 1975), 337.

147 John Dixon Hunt, The F igure in the Landscape (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 156.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. shade & verdure of the landscape, the glittering & m urm ur of the stream, the lofty

towers & long perspective of the church ... detain’d me for many hours.” 148

Gray had expressed a similar reaction to the Elizabethan-style house in

Buckinghamshire that John Penn would inherit in 1775. In his 1813 description

of the estate, John Penn proudly wrote that the former house had inspired Gray’s

1750 ballade Long Story, in which Gray “so admirably describes the style of

building of the ancient mansion-house at Stoke-Poges, (which we now call

Elizabeth’s) both with regard to its beauties and defects; and delineates the

fantastic manners of her time, with equal truth and hum or.” 149

Penn made much of Thomas Gray’s connection to Stoke Poges in his 1813

An Historical and Descriptive Account of Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire.

Indeed, Penn’s early familiarity with the author may have been a result of Gray’s

celebrity status at Stoke Poges. While Gray’s poetry exerted an enormous

influence on Penn’s plan for the landscape at The Solitude, the poet’s influence

continued beyond Penn’s American experience. Penn later articulated his hero

worship of Gray by erecting a monument in the late 1790s at the rebuilt Stoke

Park. Penn collaborated with landscape designer Humphry Repton to choose a

148 Jacques, Georgian Gardens, 96; John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1992), 175.

149 John Penn, An Historical and Descriptive Account, 23.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. suitable location in the park for the sarcophagus, and commissioned architect

James Wyatt to design the memorial.‘ 5°

The literary work of Thomas Gray, especially his ode on “The Bard,” had

awakened the imaginations of many eighteenth-century poets and painters.

Indeed, Thomas Gray’s work preoccupied Penn’s thoughts on the eve of his

journey to America. The amateur poet later wrote that while preparing for his

journey to Philadelphia, he hastily sought to compose a sequel to Gray’s A Long

S to ry. John Penn’s writings demonstrate his very academic and poetic

understanding of the picturesque. This no doubt resulted from his careful study

of the work of Gray. His library contained the 1775 posthumous publication of

Gray’s work by his friend the Reverend William Mason. Penn also possessed a

1768 Glasgow publication of Gray’s poems. Thomas Gray’s Alcaic Ode, in w hich

the poet seems to recognize that fortune will doubtless remove him from such

sublime scenery, inspired John Penn to translate the Latin verses into his

Commonplace Book. This becomes more significant in that Penn specifically

associated the poem with the landscape of The Solitude. While his house wras

nearing completion Penn wrote: ^

The solitary beauties of my place ... inspired the following translation of Gray’s ode, written at the Chartreuse. O tu, severi religio loci, & c.

Thou guardian of the awful place,

*5° Ibid., 60-61.

151 H u n t, The Figure, 145,158; John Penn, An Historical and Descriptive A cco u n t, 50-51; John Penn, CP Book, p. 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Whatever thy name, for none, I deem, Of import light art thou, whose trace Thy groves declare, & native stream. (And clearer for the God is seen

Mid rocks, along the m ountain’s height, Rough crags, & roaring waves between, And in the woods umbrageous night, Than if in fame, with Sculpture’s hath He toasted gold, & Phidian art) O hail, & to a wearied youth That calls thee, Quiet’s balm impart. Spots, thus retir’d, & silence sweet Should Fortune’s will my fate deny And might again, where billows beat Immerge me, in the storms I fly; At least, o power, of the days of age Give me to pass, from tum ult fire, And leave the loud disunctious rage Of crowd, & life’s anxiety 152

Penn’s early acquaintance with the writings of Gray, spurred by the poet’s

connection to Penn’s boyhood home, likely served as introduction to other

notable theorists of the picturesque movement. The Reverend William Gilpin’s

(1724-1804) appreciation for the picturesque landscape took the form of

sketching while he sought to codify the rules of picturesque beauty. His

reflections were first published in 1768 in his Essay on Prints. Gilpin’s definition

of the picturesque came to include the now familiar characteristics of variety,

irregularity, roughness, intricacy, and movement. Beginning in 1770 he focused

his writing on real picturesque landscapes, keeping a journal of his travels along

the River Wye and South Wales, later published in 1782. ^3

‘s2 John Penn, CP Book, p. 35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Gilpin sought to promote picturesque travel, but his writings would spark

new theories on landscape gardening. Seventeenth-century landscape paintings

by Claude Lorrain, Salvator Rosa, Meindert Hobbema, and Nicolas Poussin,

embodied the characteristics of the picturesque. Gilpin addressed Englishmen

familiar with these works. Returning from their grand tours on the Continent,

they were encouraged to notice the picturesque qualities of these landscape

paintings inherent in the natural English countryside. Many took the suggestions

a step further, seeking to recreate the picturesque on their own estates.

Returning from the grand tour and familiar with theories on the picturesque,

John Penn can be included among the dilettante embracing the new landscape

theory. As with his desire to build a neo-classical house, this experiment in

gardening would have likely taken place at the family estate in Buckinghamshire

had his presence in America not been necessary. ^4

John Penn owned the writings of the Reverend William Gilpin, but not

until after he had laid out his landscape plans for The Solitude. “Gilpin’s

northern tour, 2 volumes” was listed among the books arriving for Penn by the

sh ip S u tto n in September 1787. Of course, simply because they were not listed

among the contents of his library does not preclude Penn’s knowledge of Gilpin’s

J53 Jacques, Georgian Gardens, 219. 154 Mavis Batey, “The High Phase of English Gardening,” in British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Robert P. Maccubbin and Peter Martin (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984), 44; Prisilla W righton, The English Picturesque: Villa and Cottage 1760-1860 (Indianapolis: Indianapolis M useum of Art, 1973), 141.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. earlier texts. However, even if this were the case, Penn’s reflections in his

Commonplace Book, and the contents of his library, show a keen awareness of

picturesque theory with or without Gilpin’s instruction.^

While the popularity of Gilpin’s writings linked his name with the

picturesque for posterity, his contemporaries likely supplied the education in the

picturesque needed by Penn to create the garden at The Solitude. Another

significant contribution to the literary construct of the picturesque was the work

of Thomas Gray’s friend, the Reverend William Mason. No author, until the late

1760s, had attempted to express his views on the Natural Style in verse. William

Mason set himself this task in 1767, though his poem The English Garden w ould

not be published until 1772. Paying homage to nature and variety while rejecting

mechanical order, Mason wrote The English G arden in blank verse, perhaps to

stress his preference for variety in all things. The poem praises the genius of the

place while condemning the formalism of French landscaping. 1=6

John Penn possessed a copy of The English Garden as well as other poems

by William Mason published in 1774. Penn’s library also included copies of

Y oung’s Six Month Tour an d his Six Weeks Tour. Arthur Young (1741-1820) had

also played a vital role in popularizing the picturesque. Young’s T ours began to

appear in 1768, encouraging an appreciation of ‘picturesque elegance.’ The

combined literary" heritages of Gray, Mason, and Young would have significantly

*55 John Penn, CP Book, p. 58V .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contributed to Penn’s understanding of the picturesque. Other texts in Penn’s

library that likely shaped his views were Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical

Enquiry into the Origin o f our Ideas o f the Sublime and Beautiful, and Philip

M iller’s The Gardener’s Dictionary. M iller’s D ictionary proved to b e an

important technical guide for many notable eighteenth-century Americans,

including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Bartram of Philadelphia,

and Sir Peyton and Lady Jean Skipwith of Virginia. With these theoretical and

practical texts, John Penn designed and shaped his fifteen acres on the Schuylkill

River while constructing his house. is7

In 1785 Penn hired John Nancarrow to survey his small estate and

produce a representation of the intended landscape plan. Nancarrow received

£15 from John Penn on 20 May 1785. There is no evidence to suggest that

Nancarrow provided any service to Penn beyond delineating the scheme on

paper, 188 Penn’s direct involvement and total responsibility for the landscape

plan seems likely given his knowledge of picturesque theory. The suggestion that

Jacq u es, Georgian Gardens, 105; Malins, English Landscaping, 116-117; Hunt and Willis, The Genius of the Place, 337-338. !57 John Penn, CP Book, pp. 49-52; Hunt and Willis, The Genius o f the Place, 337; Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century (Boson: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976), 123, 222.

is8 Nancarrow had provided an earlier survey of the estate describing the boundaries of the strip of land, measuring just over fifteen acres, purchased by Penn from Isaac Warner. The plan, dated 30 April 1784, survives at the Historical Society of Philadelphia. This earlier technical work likely inspired Penn to again hire Nancarrow in 1785 to represent his landscape design. See: Penn Manuscripts, Warrants and Surveys, p. 83, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. English artist George Isham Parkyns was responsible for the landscape at The

Solitude is not possible. J59 Parkyns (1749-1820), one of the first landscape

architects practicing in America, did not reach Philadelphia until 1795, nearly ten

years after Nancarrow surveyed and delineated Penn’s fifteen acres on the

Schuylkill River. Nancarrow’s 1785 pen-and-ink drawing of Penn’s scheme

survives and gives the clearest indication of his aspirations for the estate. 160

The Nancarrow plan (fig. 45) represents the small rectangular strip of land

fronting the Schuylkill River, wedged between properties belonging to Isaac

W arner and Mr. Bolton. From the east portico of the house, a winding path

descends along a hillside down towards the river, but then turns to the south,

crossing a stream, and emerging into a wooded area. Penn may have specifically

159 Jam es D. Komwolf notes that William Birch, in his autobiography, attributes the design of the gardens at The Solitude and at The Woodlands, to Parkyns. Birch wrote “Mr. Perkins [sic], when he favored this country with his celebrated talents, made a sett of drawings of them [Schuylkill retreats], Twenty miles up, which he called the Tour of Schuylkill... Mr. Greenleaf had a very engaging spot of much beauty layed out by Mr. Perkins near Solitude.” William Russell Birch, Autobiography, 2 vols. Typescript, p. 45, Birch Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; John Komwolf, “The Picturesque in the American Garden and Landscape before 1800,” in British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, eds., Robert P. Maccubin and Peter Martin (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984), 105 n.

160 A payment was also directed to Nancarrow on 29 March 1787 for £49.4.6, raising the possibility that Penn’s plan was delineated as late as then, after the estate had actually been landscaped, TF Drafts, HSP; Eleanor M. McPeck “George Isham Parkyns: Artist and Landscape Architect, 1749-1820,” Q u a rte rly J o u rn a l o f the Library o f Congress 30, no. 3 (Ju ly 1973): 171-172, 176. A ccording to McPeck, Parkyns joined the Nottingham regiment in 1782 and spent the next five years sketching the surrounding English landscape while encamped at his native

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. purchased the fifteen acres from W arner because of the presence of the stream

and ravine, enhancing the picturesque qualities of the site. Indeed, the stream is

centered on the property, suggesting that it is the focal point of the landscape.

The path then progressed along the southern boundary of the estate, bordered by

a ha-ha, until it reached a flower garden. This garden, surrounded by trees and at

some distance from the house, is laid out in irregular shapes clumped together to

form a crooked rectangle, completely banishing right angles. The plan for this

flower garden takes Penn’s obsession for the irregular to a seemingly ridiculous

and impractical extreme.

Between the house and the kitchen wing is a grove of trees planted in the

shape of an oval, outlining a carriage turn-around for the drive that enters the

estate from Falls Road. This road runs across Penn’s property, dividing it into

two unequal halves. The half fronting the Schuylkill River receives the most

attention in the plan. A bowling green is set toward the northern boundary of the

estate. A plot of ground heavily planted with trees and overrun by both curving

and irregular paths is bordered by the bowling green, the drive, and Falls Road.

This plot is appropriately labeled “The W ilderness.” On the opposite side of the

road is the only indication of regularity in the design. This area, labeled the

kitchen garden, is the largest feature of the scheme and is located next to the

stable and carriage house, away from the attention of the visitor.

Nottinghamshire. Parkyns sailed to America in the 1790s, and reached Philadelphia in 1795.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Penn’s intention in laying out the area termed “The Wilderness" may have

been an attempt to reproduce the type of landscape he fell in love with outside

Spa. During his grand tour, Penn had wandered the countryside outside the

fashionable resort, through an overgrown area intersected by paths. This wooded

landscape had inspired Penn to write a two-page poem, entitled Ode Written at

Spa. Penn likely employed his contrived wilderness on the Schuylkill to inspire

similar “poetical ideas.”161

The plantings were carefully arranged to allow Penn advantageous views

of the Schuylkill, or perhaps to allow river passengers views of his house. The

land directly in front of the house was clear of plantings, except for seven trees

clumped near the river, perhaps to add perspective. In the area of heavy

plantings south of the stream, an allee was carved out to allow a direct southeast

view from the house down to the river. Another vista was created to allow a

sudden view of the house for those walking along the path bordering the estate’s

southern boundary.162

Contemporary written accounts suggest that the plan as delineated by

Nancarrow was executed. On 23 May 1785, Rebecca Shoemaker wrote that young

John Penn “lives a most recluse life over Schuylkill. He bought about twenty

acres of land and is making it all a garden and has built a house in a most singular

161 John Penn, CP Book, pp. 29-30.

162 Elizabeth McLean, “Town and Country Gardens in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” in British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, eds.,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. style. ”l63 Shoemaker’s observation would suggest that the garden was executed

and that it was already in progress when Nancarrow was paid for his

representation of the estate. Two early nineteenth century pictoral depictions of

The Solitude support the probability of the plan’s execution under Penn’s

ownership. William Russell Birch’s S olitude, c. 1808 (fig. 2), and Captain Joshua

Rowley W atson’s sketch of the estate, c. 1816 (fig. 46), show evidence of Penn’s

picturesque garden as it had matured in the decades after his 1788 departure.

On 5 July 1789 a violent storm wreaked havoc on The Solitude. Edmund

Physick, John Penn’s agent who resided at the estate for a number of years

following Penn’s 1788 return to England, wrote of the destruction to house and

garden. After expressing regret that “The Solitude had its Beauty much defaced

by this incident of Providence,” Physick went on to detail some of the losses

incurred. The letter describes several features of the landscape, and suggests that

the original scheme had been executed:

The very heavy falls of water ran over the road with such force as to carry along with it as much gravel off the walks, into the gully & river (exclusive of common dirt) as has taken seventeen wagon loads to replace. The several of the stones placed near the Bridge to resemble natural rocks were undermined, the earth being washed from under them, the bridge was injured, and the water flounced down the gully with such great rapidity and violence as to deepen it three feet below the foundation of the wall you had laid for supporting the bank, the stone wall diving your land from Boltons was in many places washed down, almost all the land was removed out of the

Robert P. Maccubin and Peter M artin (Williamsburg: The Colonial W illiamsburg Foundation, 1984), 142.

l63 Rebecca Shoemaker, Philadelphia to Samuel Shoemaker, London, 23 May 1785, Samuel and Rebecca Shoemaker Diaries, vol. 2, p. 208, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. garden walks and thrown up in great ridges and piles over the beds so as to alter the whole form of the garden, these disagreeable effect having happened, my wife proceeded to get such repairs made as were most necessary, leaving some stone work under the planted stones in the gully unfinished, until we can be favored with your thoughts upon it. l6«

Physick’s letter implies that the circuitous paths cutting through the

garden indeed existed, and that they were covered in gravel. Significant also is

the stonework around the stream, laid to resemble natural outcroppings,

according to Physick. Penn seems to have responded to the picturesque

aesthetics of Gilpin and Gray, who favored rocky outcroppings because of the

roughness and variety these features leant to the landscape.

It has been suggested that no American gardens followed picturesque

principles on a large scale before 1786. John Penn’s estate pushes this date back

by at least a few years. l6s Penn not only responded to the aesthetic tastes then

emerging in England, but seems to have had a very deep, cerebral response to the

picturesque writings of Gray, Mason, and Young. Instead of simply copying

English prototypes with the help of a trained professional, as many of his

l64 Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, to John Penn, London, 12 December 1789. P- P Correspondence, 3:254. Two men were employed by Physick to recreate the landscape garden as it had appeared before the 1789 storm. Isaac and Joseph Warner were given this task in December 1789. Both names were listed frequently several years earlier during the building of the house in Tench Francis’s List of Drafts, suggesting that perhaps they were responsible for carrying out Penn’s initial scheme, P-P Correspondence, 3:286; TF Drafts, HSP.

l6s James D. Komwolf, “The Picturesque in the American Garden and Landscape before 1800,” in British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century , eds., Robert P. Maccubin and Peter Martin (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984), 94.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contemporaries were then doing in England, Penn went about designing a

landscape based on his own literary understanding of the picturesque.

Any intention to “read” the landscape garden at The Solitude is best

served when grounded in Penn’s own reflections. He did not simply build his

garden because of a superficial understanding of a movement gaining popularity

in England at the time. Penn prided himself on a sophisticated understanding of

theory, demonstrated in his own reflections:

Before I read the marquis d’Lamenoiselle’s excellent treatise on landscape, I find similar sentiment to one of his in my letter (date April 1783) to W. Gould. He recommends a proportion to be observed between the mansion and extent of prospect; a precept I have studiously followed, without knowing it, both in practice, at the Solitude, & in theory in this extract from the letter.

The April 1783 letter to W. Gould reads:

The Abbe Deslisles’ is a poem of the same length as Masons, & much esteemed in France. Deslisle recommends upon the whole the irregular gardens, but not only allows the regular ones to Kings & nobles, but talks of vista’s as vouter d’arbur, as picturesque. There is however a simple grandeur in the terrace of Windsor, & the platform before the elector John William’s house near Cologne, which is nothing but a pavement, from which you look directly down upon the forest, & over an immense tract towards the city & surrounding fields, & bordering Rhine. Here are not even Vista’s, but elevation occasions an effect much beyond little contrivancies, & I think therefore should be first considered. The ‘earthly gods’ should not appear on the usual level.166

Penn then concluded in his Commonplace Book that “the extract supports

the marquis’s argument, tho only by the way; its end being to prove the all

166 John Penn, CP Book, p. 114.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. efficiency of Nature.” Penn’s familiarity with Jacques Dellile’s 1782 Les Jardins

attests to the varied voices contributing to his final vision of the picturesque.167

Aside from its importance as perhaps one of the earliest American

landscapes shaped around principles of the picturesque, The Solitude served as a

model for an important English garden a decade later. Penn’s experiments in

landscaping continued upon his return to England, transforming the Capability

Brown designed landscape of Stoke Park. In Buckinghamshire, Penn would

collaborate with one of the key figures of the picturesque movement, Humphry

Repton. Again, at Stoke Park, Penn’s concept of the landscape enjoyed a

reciprocal relationship with the poetry of Gray and Mason. For Penn, these

writings constantly inspired his designs as well as confirming the legitimacy of

his own landscaping ideas. During a later reworking of the landscape at Stoke

Park, Penn reflected that he was afforded the opportunity in the garden for

“making ‘images reflect art to art,’ or realizing such a fancied scene as that

presented to the reader of poetry by Mason (in the fourth book of his English

Garden), by a garden founded on the same principles of art.” Nearly thirty years

after designing the garden at The Solitude, Penn fell upon Gray and Mason as

constants to guide him in shaping his environment.168

167 Jacques Dellile’s work on gardens also appears in the inventory of Penn’s library, John Penn, CP Book, p. 48.

168 John Penn, An Historical and Descriptive Account, 69-70; Fergusson, “James Wyatt and John Penn,” 46-48. Though Penn relied on Repton to landscape Stoke Park, he continually reworked the scheme in the years to come, sometimes with the aid of Repton, other times to his own ideas.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. John Penn was a thinker and a poet, and the garden landscape at The

Solitude reflects its creator’s deep interest in literature and landscape theory.

John Penn’s experiment in landscaping should be viewed as an extension of his

very cerebral approach to life, even when confined to an unfriendly environment

far from his home. Following his return to England, Penn wrote that The

Solitude was “a place which made my stay in a distant country, so full of trouble

& anxiety, more tolerable to me .”l69 Gardens have always served as a means of

mediating the physical world. Edmund Physick realized the therapeutic nature

of the landscape garden for Penn, writing in 1788 of “those delightful and

picturesque varieties which you so justly describe, and which I have known to

afford you much agreeable comfort, at times when you ought to have received it

from more sources than one.”‘ 7° The fifteen acres on the Schuylkill River allowed

Penn some control over his environment while serving as a canvas to work out his

theories on the picturesque. John Dixon Hunt asserts that built environments

are never as didactic as is poetry or other verbal forms. He concedes that there

were many in the eighteenth century that sought to make them more so. John

Penn’s garden might be included among these principal examples, telling us as

l69 John Penn, London, to Edmund Physick, Philadelphia, 8 August 1788. P-P Manuscripts, 1:195.

*7° Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, 24 October 1788. P-P Manuscripts, 3:240.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. much about his interests and his response to his environment as the poignant

reflections in his Commonplace Book.1?1

171 H u n t, Gardens and the Picturesque, 9,16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 5

T H E IDEAL VILLA

The greatest [attraction] is the relaxation and carefree luxury of the place - there is no need for a toga, the neighbors do not come to call, it is always quiet and peaceful - advantages as great as the healthful situation and limpid air.1?2

Pliny th e Y ounger to D om itus A pollinaris Epistles, Book V. vi

When John Penn laid out his retreat overlooking the Schuylkill River, he

drew on a long tradition of villa construction dating back to ancient Rome.

Though in essence a country house, the villa always existed in the context of an

urban setting, providing a counterbalance to life in the city. The rise of the villa is

often associated with periods of metropolitan growth, as in the case of ancient

Rome and eighteenth-century London. Philadelphia, as a growing urban center

in the mid to late eighteenth century, with an English-speaking population

second only to London, developed a villa culture in part because of this growth.

The survival of many Philadelphia villas prompted John Cornforth to comment

“It is one of those odd accidents of history that the best illustrations of villa life as

172 Pliny the Younger’s fist century, A.D., description of his villa Tusci is reprinted in James S. Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology o f Country Houses (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. it was understood in England and developed along the banks of the Thames in

the 18th century should exist in Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Schuylkill

River a few miles from the center of Philadelphia.” ‘73

The rise of the English villa as a distinct form apart from the large

mansion was witnessed in the beginning years of the reign of George I. The

English Palladians were responsible for introducing the concept of the villa to

England, with Lord Burlington’s 1729 house at Chiswick representing the ideal

retreat set within a short distance of the metropolis. As suburban residences set

on modestly sized nonagricultural plots within reach of London, many villas were

erected at nearby Richmond and Twickenham. By the second half of the

eighteenth century, smaller-scaled country villas sprouted along the banks of the

Thames River, many neo-classical in style. Over half the designs for country

houses described in the Royal Academy catalogues in the final decades of the

eighteenth century7 were specifically identified as villas. These less formal

retreats tended to eliminate the Italian-derived raised basement, instead setting

the principal level flush to the ground to increase communication to the gardens

stretching beyond the frequently employed French doors. The importance of the

!73 Ackerman, The Villa, 9; John Comforth, “Fairmount Park, Philadelphia - I,” Country Life (4 January 1973), 18; quoted in Mark Arnold Bowser, “Loudoun, Germantown, Philadelphia: Country House of the Armat Family, The Years 1801- 1835,” (master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1984), 3. Health concerns also prompted wealthy Philadelphians to escape the city in the summer months.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. garden was bolstered at these small villas, becoming part of a prescribed circuit

for visitors. l7«

Eighteenth-century Philadelphians had embraced derivations of the

Palladian-style English villa in the decades preceding the American Revolution.

Elevations borrowed from popular architectural texts of the period were

reproduced in the countryside outside the city, many along the Schuylkill River.

Mount Pleasant (1761-62), built for Captain John MacPherson, Cliveden (1763-

67) for Benjamin Chew, and Port Royal (1762) for Edward Stiles are

characteristic examples of this group. Governor John Penn’s large Palladian-

inspired country' seat, built in 1774, represented a culmination of this house type

in the pre-war period. If Governor Penn’s Lansdowne came to epitomize the

Philadelphia country house of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, his

younger cousin’s nearby villa would define and inspire a new generation of house

building in the decades to follow. Penn introduced to post-war Philadelphia the

latest villa type to be popularized in England, described by Charles Middleton in

Picturesque and Architectural Views for Cottages, Farm Houses and Country

Villas (1793) as embodying “elegance, compactness, and convenience.” Instead

of looking to the late-eighteenth century villas built along the Thames in

l74 Ackerman, 135,150; John Summerson, Georgian London: An Architectural S tu d y (New York: Praeger Press, 1970), 272-273; Stillman, English Neo-Classical Architecture, 1:138, 141.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Twickenham and Richmond, fashionable Philadelphians could look for

inspiration in Blockley Township, on the banks of the Schuylkill River. ‘75

In planning the first level of The Solitude, Penn and William Roberts

relied on Robert Morris’s Select Architecture, but also perhaps on the vernacular

traditions that had shaped at least one Schuylkill River villa two decades

earlier. 176 By adapting the Morris plan at The Solitude, Penn and Roberts

breathed new life into the Palladian prototype. Subsequent Philadelphians in the

decades to follow also viewed the Morris plan as a suitable solution for their neo

classical retreats, apparently finding no incongruities in incorporating the nearly

half-century old design into their Federal-style villas.

The Morris plan owes its survival in neo-classical Philadelphia to John

Penn, who chose to carry the plan into the city’s post-war building vocabulary'. Of

the extensive group of small villa structures built in the Federal period relating to

The Solitude, many incorporated the Morris hall and parlor plan in the interior.

While this floor plan serves to link this group of neo-classical villas built after The

Solitude, the more recognizable shared characteristics were visible on the exterior

elevations. These villa structures share stuccoed exteriors, hipped roofs with

decks, porticoes, and often times overall cubic dimensions (fig. 47).177

175 Stillm an, English Neo-Classical Architecture, 1:138.

176 The original floor plan of Laurel Hill, built c. 1767, was very much informed by the Robert Morris hall and parlor plan.

177 Dr. Roger Moss points out the influence of The Solitude on Ormiston and Rockland in Roger Moss, The American Country House, 89-90. Also, sincere

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Perhaps one of the earliest villas inspired by the elevations of The Solitude

was a house built downstream by David Beveridge (fig. 48). Beveridge’s retreat

is identified in a map of the area illustrated by Peter C. Varle in 1796. Named

Echo, the house was located on the west bank of the Schuylkill River and to the

south of Penn’s estate. Several years earlier, in 1792, Echo was the subject of a

watercolor sketch by James Peller Malcolm. The Malcolm sketch depicts the

stuccoed neo-classical building, with hipped roof and a one- story portico

attached to its east fagade. Though similar in its cubic massing and small scale to

The Solitude, Echo diverges in two respects. The one story portico at Echo is

pitched, supporting what seems to be large neo-classical sculptural figures. To

the rear of Echo is a small lean-to structure, disturbing the otherwise pure cubic

dimensions of the house. Philadelphia artist William Birch rented the house for

his family in 1796, sharing his accommodations at Echo with the Spanish

minister to the United States, Joseph Jaudennes. It was likely in these years that

Birch made studies of a very similar villa upstream, The Solitude.1’'8 These

thanks to Dr. Moss for calling to my attention Cherry Hill, renamed Loudoun, and the 1984 work of Mark A. Bower; for a discussion of a large group of Federal- era villas built outside Philadelphia, of varying forms and sizes, see Bower, “Loudoun,” 7-13.

178 Birch may have made his studies of The Solitude several years later. According to his autobiography, Birch visited The Solitude in 1798, by invitation of Mr. Guillermard, a British Commissioner then renting the house. William R. Birch, “Autobiography of William Birch,” 2 vols., typescript, 44. Birch Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

100

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. studies yielded an oil painting (fig. 2) and subsequent print in his 1808 series

titled The Country Seats o f the United States.1^

When Edward Burd made his 1793 purchase of Bellville, on Edgeley Point

Lane, he perhaps already had in mind the construction of a small villa like The

Solitude. In the years following, Burd, a veteran of the Revolution, transformed

the forty-five acre estate on the east side of the Schuylkill River with formal

gardens. In 1798 he began construction on a new villa, drawing on the elevations

and floor plan of John Penn’s estate, located on the opposite side of the Schuylkill

River and to the south. Though constructed of brick rather rubble stone,

Ormiston originally received a stucco facing, linking the exterior, with its single

level portico and hipped roof, closely to The Solitude (fig. 49).180

The interior floor plan of Ormiston drew on the Morris hall and parlor

prototype articulated at The Solitude (fig. 50). While the depth of the parlor at

Ormiston remained similar to that at The Solitude, roughly 18’ deep, the overall

depth of the house was expanded beyond the cubic proportions set by Penn.181

‘79 Martin P. Snyder, “William Birch: His ‘Country Seats of the United States,”’ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 81, no. 3 (July 1957): 229-30, 236; Martin P. Snyder, City o f Independence: Views of Philadelphia before 1 8 0 0 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), 169, fig. 97. Birch, Autobiography, HSP, 3 9-

180 “Ormiston,” Historic American Buildings Survey, PA-187, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

181A centrally placed vestibule running the depth of the parlor, dividing the once large space into a sitting room and parlor, was a later addition. See note on “Ormiston,” HABS, PA-187, LC.

101

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The expanded dimensions were reflected in the “hall” half of the first level, which

was carved into separate spaces. Ormiston is a much larger house than The

Solitude. The front facade measures 34’3”, while its sides measure 40’n ”. The

expanded dimensions at Ormiston allowed for four comer rooms on the second

level, the southeast room laid out at i8’ 2 V4” square (fig. 51). The third level also

lacked the complexity of room arrangements expressed at The Solitude, instead

divided into two equally sized rooms to the east, with one larger room to the west.

One stairwell, placed toward the center of the north wall, served all three levels of

the house, as well as the basement. A small stair ladder placed centrally on the

attic level ascended to the roof deck.182

Near Ormiston, nearly a decade after Burd constructed his country house,

George Thompson built a small retreat overlooking the Schuylkill River in 1810,

naming it Rockland (fig. 52). The cubic structure, somewhat larger in

dimensions than The Solitude, incorporated the characteristic hipped roof,

stuccoed exterior, single story portico, and roof deck. The fenestration on the

east facade (land side) followed that on the west facade of The Solitude, though

the builder of Rockland added an elegant bowed portico over the entry door (fig.

53). While Rockland incorporates symmetrical fenestration on the principal

facades and the south fagade, the north wall lacks the even distribution of bays

Penn ensured at The Solitude.

182 Ibid., Floor Plans, HABS, PA-187, LC.

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. On the west fagade, overlooking the river below, four openings connect the

portico to the interior parlor. The first level floor plan (fig. 54), basically the hall

and parlor prototype expressed at The Solitude, deviates somewhat from Penn’s

design. The larger parlor at Rockland is served by two fireboxes, on the north

and south walls. Movement throughout the floor is more direct, with a central

opening between the hall and parlor, versus Penn’s use of jib doors and passages.

Rather than these devices, floor space is given to an additional room off the hall,

to the north of the entry. Despite these alterations, Thompson found the exterior

elevations and interior floor plan of the twenty-five year old house across the

Schuylkill River still fashionable enough to incorporate into his own neo-classical

villa in 1810.

Stephen Girard’s country house, Gentilhommiere (fig. 55), also

incorporated the exterior elevations of The Solitude, as well as a similar first level

Morris-inspired interior floor plan .l83 The house followed the approximate

proportions laid out by The Solitude, with almost equal dimensions of overall

depth and width. The east facade of Gentilhommiere measured 24’4”, while the

north and south facades of this original portion measured 24’n ”. Under Girard’s

ownership the house wras greatly expanded, though this eastern portion remained

basically unaltered. The history of building campaigns remains unclear at the

l83 Erected to the east of Gentilhommiere were twro small cubic outbuildings, both measuring seventeen feet in depth and width. Perhaps these cubic outbuildings were following the precedent of the small cubic kitchen structure constructed to the west of The Solitude.

103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Passyunk Township farm purchased by Girard in December 1797, though some

attem pt has been made to establish an original date of construction. l84

A detailed architectural investigation of the house in 1962 by the Historic

American Buildings Survey determined four probable building campaigns,

beginning at the east and progressing to the present central block and later

western extension. The east wing, determined to be the oldest and thought to be

constructed in two stages, began with the eastern facade and the interior parlor

(fig. 56). According to the 1962 HABS team, the hall containing the stairwell was

erected as a later addition to the parlor, making the structure more cubic in

dimension. l8s

More likely, the eastern section of the present house was planned, if not

constructed, as a single unit. This basically cubic structure may have been

erected under Girard’s early ownership of the estate, for beginning in December

1798 payments w^ere made for bricks, hardware, plastering, and painting. When

completed, this structure wrould have appeared similar in exterior elevations to

the western facade of The Solitude, including the low pyramidal roof. The

northern and southern facades lacked the symmetrical fenestration articulated at

l8"» “Gentilhommiere: Stephen Girard Country House,” 1962 Edward B. L. Todd drawing, Historic American Buildings Survey, PA, 51-PHLA, 226, survey number PA 140. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.

l8s Ibid., 7.

104

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Solitude, and the physical evidence does not survive to suggest whether or

not a portico was attached to the western facade.186

The second level floor plan of Gentilhommiere presented a departure from

The Solitude (fig. 56). Here, one stairwell serves the basement, first, and second

levels, while none ascends to the attic level. Several rectangular rooms were

arranged in a straightforward manner around the corner stair hall. As with many

of the villas built along or near the Schuylkill River, where the first level mirrors

that at The Solitude, the second level floor plans lack the complex lay out Penn

infused into the constraints of his small retreat.l8?

Cherry Hill presents a further departure from the prototype of The

Solitude (fig. 57). Here the simple cubic structure is used more temporarily,

with the goal of incorporation into a larger house. Philadelphia merchant

Thomas Armat (1776-1806), and his wife Ann Yates Armat, constructed Cherry

Hill, later renamed Loudoun, in lower Germantown in 1801. Perhaps due to

financial constraints, the young couple elected to build a smaller house, but

intended from its inception to enlarge their residence overlooking Germantown

Pike. The builder at Cherry Hill followed the Robert Morris hall and parlor plan

on the first level. Also following the lead of The Solitude, Cherry Hill was laid out

with equal dimensions of width and depth. The east fagade of the Armat retreat

related closely to the west entrance of The Solitude, a symmetrically placed

l86 Ibid., 8.

105

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. central door with a hipped roof and roof deck. However, this was a temporary"

solution for the Armats. In the years to follow, the family would expand the

house, emphasizing instead the south facade by adding a portico and additional

bayrs . 188

The exterior of Cherry Hill likely alerted observers of the Armats’ plans for

expanding their small, cubic villa. The most striking clue was the abruptly ending

gable roof on the west fagade, which eventually allowed the house to be expanded

without reworking the roof line. While the east fagade presented a uniform front

between 1801-1808, the west and north facades lacked the symmetrically placed

windows present at The Solitude. As at Gentilhommiere, the presentation fagade

incorporated the symmetrical fenestration seen at The Solitude. Nonetheless, the

builders of these two later villas were more compelled to let the exterior reflect a

more comfortable, if less formal, placement of windows and doors on the side

facades.

Though the ground level floor plan at Cherry Hill related closely to that at

The Solitude, the second level of the Armat country" house lacked the

inventiveness displayed in laying out Penn’s private chambers. Rather than

placing two stairwells on the second level, one descending to the first level and

another ascending to the attic level, the Armats made the more practical choice of

187 Ibid., 1962 Edward B. L. Todd drawing. 188 Mark Arnold Bower, “Loudoun, Germantown, Philadelphia: Country House of the Armat Family, The Years 1801-1835,” (master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1984). iv-v, fig. 17.

106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. having one stairwell serve all four levels of the house. Because there was only one

stairwell on the second level, the room arrangements were more traditionally laid

out. As with the other houses, Cherry Hill lacks the semi-octagonal chambers

and the indirect diagonal passageways present at The Solitude. The layout on the

second level also made for a more practical arrangement once the additional

rooms were added on to the west.

While at least five villas built outside Philadelphia seem to have been

inspired by The Solitude, none exactly mirror Penn’s retreat. The interiors of

each adapted the Morris hall and parlor prototype and the exteriors are linked by

stuccoed facades, one-story porticoes, and hipped roofs. l89 The group also shares

at least one facade laid out with the same fenestration displayed on the western

facade of The Solitude. Despite these shared characteristics, none display the

strict principles articulated by Penn. Each adjust the fenestration on the non

presentation facades, whereas Penn adhered to symmetrically placed exterior

windows and doors on all four w'alls.1^0 These houses also lack the complexity7 of

room shapes and arrangements, instead laying out more practical living spaces.

Ormiston and Rockland play with the cubic proportions Penn sought to achieve,

l89 Echo, the home of David Beveridge does not survive, and no indication of the interior floor plan is known by this author.

*90 Penn’s strict symmetrical facades made for awkward window placements on the interior, such as in the first level lobby placed between the hall and parlor, and the second level passageway placed between the northwest and northeast bedchambers.

107

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. expanding the dimensions of the house to accommodate family members, a

concern not shared by Penn.

The characteristics lacking in these other neo-classical villas are exactly

the aspects that make Penn’s design so unique. Although the plan of The Solitude

made for a less practicable house, it makes for a much more personalized one.

The work of the young aesthete is evident in the perfectly symmetrical exteriors.

His concerns for privacy, but also his familiarity with French advances in

planning, are reflected on the second and third level floor plans. Extras, such as

jib doors, recessed bed alcoves, an iron stair balustrade, and sophisticated

plasterwork attest to the level of detail Penn sought to achieve. These were not

reproduced on the same level at the houses built in the decades to follow.

Penn was not only building a pleasure house away from the city, he was

recreating the villa ideology described in the ancient works of Horace, Pliny the

Younger, and Virgil, texts that were included in the inventory of his library. Penn

was also well read on the work of Pope, Shaftesbury, and James Thomson,

eighteenth-century Englishmen whose writings helped fuel Penn’s desire to build

a villa of his own. Robert Morris’s plan for “a little building intended for

retirement,” helped Penn visualize the type of structure described in these works.

It was perhaps inevitable that copies would be erected of The Solitude by other

Philadelphians. The builders of these retreats no doubt lacked Penn’s interest in

108

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the ideology of the form, instead simply borrowing from the fashionable model to

assert their own refinement. ^

191 John Penn, CP Book, 47 -51; Ackerman, The Villa, 10; Morris, Select Architecture, 6.

109

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONCLUSION

Philadelphia has become a much more pleasing residence than when you left it. There is a greater resource in the numbers as well as choice o f society.l<^2

William Bingham to John Penn 19 Ja n u a ry 1792

As indicated by Bingham in his 1792 letter to former governor John Penn,

Philadelphia had changed much since he and his younger cousin had departed for

London in 1788. With this growth in population, wealth, and cultural awareness,

the city’s residents shaped their environment to the neo-classical tastes that had

begun filtering into America before the Revolution. Penn perhaps would have

taken some degree of pride in the transformation of the city’s cultural landscape.

In building, furnishing, and subsequently selling off the contents of The Solitude,

Penn had influenced the material life of wealthy Philadelphians.

The dispersal of Penn’s neo-classical style furnishings at the May 1788

vendue sale brought fashionable articles into the parlors of some of

Philadelphia’s most prominent residents. Some of Penn’s seating furniture went

to Edmund Physick, who used these articles while residing and entertaining at

Penn’s villa, and later at his own home in the city. Though he imported much of

110

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his neo-classical furnishings from England, Madeira merchant Henry Hill, who

built a large federal-style townhouse on South Fourth Street from 1786-1788,

purchased furniture from the Penn sale as well, incorporating it with his

imported furniture in the interiors of his new house. ‘93

Perhaps more significantly, John Penn influenced the talents and abilities

of Philadelphia’s craftsmen. The young Englishman confronted a major dilemma

in constructing his house, namely the limitations of provincial Philadelphia

craftsmen. To oversee construction, Penn chose a master builder who had

developed his reputation in the years preceding the American Revolution.

Though William Roberts could name among his achievements Lansdowne, the

1774 Palladian-style retreat of Penn’s older cousin, Governor John Penn; the

192 William Bingham, Philadelphia to John Penn, London, 19 January 1792, Bingham Letterbook, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. ‘93 Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street,” 28, n 72; Edmund Physick, The Solitude, to John Penn, London, 30 June 1788, P-P Correspondence, 3:222; While abroad in England, and presumably working with a London architect on the plans for the rebuilding of his house at Bush Hill, renamed The Woodlands, William Hamilton wrote to Thomas Parke regarding a “Sideboard ... bought of Mr. Penn.” Richard Betts suggests that Hamilton needed the dimensions of the sideboard to determine the size of the recessed alcove to be placed in the dining room of The Woodlands. It seems unlikely that Hamilton could have purchased a second hand sideboard for his new house from the former governor, since the sideboard was a form just emerging in America following the Revolution. It also seems more likely that Hamilton would have been attracted to the neo-classical furnishings John Penn was commissioning for The Solitude, though why Penn would sell a sideboard to Hamilton before 1785, three years before his departure for England, is unclear. Perhaps Penn was unhappy with a sideboard constructed early on, maybe produced by Affleck, decided to sell it to Hamilton, and commissioned another of Claphamson, (the sideboard appearing in the 1788 inventory)- The possibility that Hamilton literally designed part of The Woodlands around a piece of neo-classical furniture commissioned by Penn is certainly intriguing. Betts, “The Woodlands,” 225.

Ill

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. carpenter’s stylistic vocabulary lacked the young m an’s firsthand impressions of

neo-classicism in England and on the Continent. Indeed, John Penn may have

felt pressure to patronize the master builder from the encouragement of his

cousin. He probably learned of cabinetmaker Thomas Affleck through the same

m eans.

While patronizing an older generation of Philadelphia craftsmen, such as

Affleck and Roberts, Penn also sought the talents of a new wave of craftsmen

emigrating from England. The interiors of The Solitude benefited from two men

making their way to America in the 1780s, Edward Turner, who achieved the

sophisticated plasterwork inside the house, and William Stiles, who provided the

neo-classical chimney-pieces. A third craftsman, Samuel Claphamson, literally

replaced the representative of Governor Penn’s generation, Thomas Affleck, when

he received the bulk of the Penn commission as the house neared completion.

Penn’s patronage provided an initial demand for the talents of these immigrant

craftsmen, allowing them to work in the newest style and alerting other

Philadelphians of the shift in fashion their work represented.

Penn’s influence also came through his friendships and associations with

other elite Philadelphians, many of whom would chose to build in the neo

classical style. Penn became associated with Henry Hill through the purchase of

Hill’s Madeira wine, and the wealthy merchant likely visited the young man’s

estate while formulating his own ideas about architecture prior to the building of

his townhouse on Fourth Street. Penn was also a member of a circle of friends

112

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. composed of Doctor Thomas Parke, Robert Edge Pine, and William Hamilton,

builder of The Woodlands. Penn was likely a regular fixture at Hamilton’s

“bachelor dinners” before the latter’s departure for England in the fall of 1784

and following his return to Philadelphia in 1786. Penn’s acquaintances were

furthered by associations made through his membership in some of

Philadelphia’s elite social clubs, including the Cold Spring Club. ^4

The frequent visitors to The Solitude benefited from Penn’s expression of

taste on the Schuylkill River. Though the house was still under construction,

Penn entertained the family of Edward Lloyd IV in 1785, beginning a

correspondence between Penn and Lloyd that included the exchange of poetry.

The Lloyds may have been inspired to incorporate the neo-classical

characteristics of Penn’s villa as they rebuilt Wye House, 1787-1788, in Talbot

County, Maryland. George Washington was also among the visitors making the

ride to The Solitude during the Constitutional Convention. And subsequent

*94 Henderson, “321 South Fourth Street,” 25-26; William Hamilton to Dr. Thomas Parke, 31 May 1783, Pemberton Collection, vol. 39, p. 2a, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Robert Edge Pine to Dr. Thomas Parke, 11 May 1787, case 30, Dreer Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; John Penn, Jr. to Dr. Thomas Parke, 11 March 1784, Pemberton Papers, vol. 40, p. 119, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; John Penn to Dr. Thomas Parke, Saturday 10 April, 1784, Pemberton Papers, v. 40, p. 150, HSP; A membership payment to the Cold Spring Club came on 8 July 1786, Tench Francis, “A List of Drafts - John Penn Jun. Esq. On Tench Francis,” Penn Manuscripts, Volume 2 Accounts (Large Folio) page 80: Account Book, HSP; Doctor Parke also oversaw Hamilton’s affairs during the latter’s trip to England, 1784-1786, Betts, “The Woodlands,” 224, 227.

113

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. occupants of the villa, leasing the summer retreat after Penn’s 1788 departure,

continued to make the house accessible to visitors. ^5

As an accused loyalist, Penn felt the burden of his family name amidst the

hostile Philadelphia political climate of the mid-i78os. Building an English villa

gave Penn a release, but perhaps more importantly allowed him to exert some

control over his immediate physical surroundings. In laying out a picturesque

garden around his neo-classical house, Penn was able to shape the physical world

around him to his own ideas. By building The Solitude, Penn reminded himself

of the world to which he belonged, but also served to ease his discomfort in a

foreign land. Marcia Pointon argues that the eighteenth-century English country

house was a three-dimensional portrait of its owner. The Solitude stands to

remind us of John Penn’s experience in America, as well as the sometimes

therapeutic nature of expressing one’s taste. 196

195 John Penn, CP Book, p. 36V ; Alexandra Alevizatos, ‘“Procured of the Best and Most Fashionable Materials:’ The Furniture and Furnishings of the Lloyd Family of Maryland, 1750-1850,” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1999), 98; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Diaries of George Washington 1748-1799, vol. 3 , (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), 228; William R. Birch, Autobiography of William Birch, 2 vols., typescript, p. 44, Birch Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 196 Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England. (New Haven: Published for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1993), 20.

114

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A PPEN D IX A

DRAFTS OF JOHN PENN, 1784-1786

Tench Francis, “A List of Drafts - John Penn Jun. Esq. On Tench Francis” Penn Manuscripts, Volume 2: Accounts (Large Folio) Page 80: “Account Book” Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

[1784 DRAFTS]

The following are drafts of John Penn Jun. Esq. Returned to him by Tench Francis the 17th May 1785. £ s P

1 April Cooper R[?]ifford 60 0 0 do. do. Jas. Whiggins 64 10 0 do. do. W m W arn er 50 0 0 2 do. Bearer 2 11 8 do. Do. W m R oberts 7 6 6 do. do. Sarah Clarke 4 10 0 4 do. Bearer 10 0 0 do. do. D itto 12 5 0 8 do. D itto 4 4 0 do. do. D itto 9 15 0 10 do. Ditto 5 0 0 do. do. D itto 14 8 0 11 do. D itto 12 10 0 12 do. D ittto 9 7 6 do. do. D itto 5 0 0 do. do. W R oberts 37 10 0 13 do. B earer 30 0 0 do. do. Sarah Clark 12 0 0 15 do. W m R oberts 7 10 0 16 do. Rob Bevarly[?] 15 0 0 17 do. Ch Cecil 50 0 0 20 do. B earer 6 5 0

115

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. do. do. Harbeson 2 16 6 23 do. R. Bevarly [Briarly?] 15 o o

17 May 1785 447 -9-2 errors excepted

The following drafts of J Penn Jr Esq returned to him by T. Francis the 1 June 1785 N o d ate Frosh 54 19 4 R oberts 30 0 0 Servant 20 0 0 Frosh 20 0 0 R oberts 40 0 0 H olstein 8 5 0 C artw right 6 0 0 H iggins 10 O 0 Bolton 12 0 0 Rigdeway 52 0 0 R oberts 30 0 0 W alters 75 0 0 J u n e 1 Bedford 5 6 11 B earer 56 5 0 July 6 Roberts 41 3 0 7 W arner 40 0 0 17 H u n ter 120 0 0 Cartwright 12 0 0 B earer 12 17 0 2 0 W arner 1046 1 0 27 G raff 34 7 6 29 Ridgeway 100 0 0

Errors excepted 1 June 1785 1826.5.7

The following drats of J Penn Jr Esq. Returned to him by T. Francis the 1 June 1 7 8 5 Aug 2 Meng & Co 29 10 0 3 Sellers 50 0 0 5 Mr. H iggen 25 0 0 H odgson 90 0 0 Cato 10 9 0 6 M adig 15 0 0 7 Roads 20 0 0 R oberts 30 0 0 16 C R ucker & Co 30 0 0

116

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 do. 56 5 0 356 4 0 Sep 1 Roberts 112 10 0 S kerrit 25 6 5 M eng 20 10 0 2 S tephens 29 5 0 5 H iggins 15 12 5 7 W alters 10 O 0 9 M adeira 10 O 0 10 B earer 10 0 0 13 M inney 15 2 6 Ridgeway 24 15 1 R oberts 37 IO 0 16 Standley 8 5 0 19 B earer 5 16 7 d itto 5 10 2 21 S tarr 22 2 2 24 Biarly 4 5 3 25 R oberts 37 10 0

Errors excepted l June 1785 394-0.7

The following drafts of J Penn Jr Esq returned to him by T. Frances 1 June 1785 Sep 25 Bearer 20 0 0 C artw right 10 4 8 26 G & J Dorsey 55 10 8 V2 28 Roads 14 17 6 29 T u rn er 3 6 8 Q u & H u n ter 22 7 6 30 R oberts 53 17 7 180 4 7 V2 O ct 2 M anfield 133 10 6 6 H iggins 5 13 5 9 R oberts 37 10 O Roads 22 13 9 C Freem an 4 10 0 11 R oberts 13 15 0 14 Stone 4 0 0 17 H iggins 17 15 7 20 Clever 5 12 6 21 Stephens 6 0 0 22 Davis 6 2 6 R oberts 37 10 0

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 Sm ith 12 6 O Harig[?] 13 0 7 28 W illiams 29 7 11

Errros excepted l Junei78s — 33 9-7-9

The following drafts of J Penn Jr Esq retd. To him by T Francis the 1 of June 1785 N ov 1 R oberts 22 3 0 6 Do. 37 10 0 7 C ottringer 50 O 0 Bowdn 3 6 8 10 Hall 4 10 3 Sm ith 16 5 0 11 Cook 2 17 0 T hom as 2 14 6 12 D orsey 30 0 O 0 Crain[Cream?] 7 13 6 Afflick 30 17 6 16 R oberts 7 O 10 17 H iggins 9 6 1 W alter 20 0 3 20 R oberts 86 1 5 22 Sm ith 12 8 0 23 Fry[?] 8 0 10 24 M anfield 73 10 4 H iggins 11 7 8 29 Bearer 20 0 0 30 W arner 150 0 0

Errors excepted the 1 June 1785 — 875.12.10

The following draft of John Penn Jr Esq returned to him by T. Francis the 1 June 17 8 5 Dec. 1 Bearer 37 10 0 3 Higgins 5 1 6 5 Rice 11 3 8 Roberts 37 10 0 6 Craiff [Graff?] 22 6 3 Sellers 25 5 0 Sm ith 14 11 0 7 Bispham 6 O 3 Bell 16 10 0 Dean 12 9 9 McCartyt?] 2 12 6

118

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Higgins 4 19 5 King 10 7 6 Roberts 9 7 6 8 Stronde[?] 75 0 0 14 Bearer 10 0 0 16 Stiles 50 0 0 17 W alters 104 1 1 Roberts 13 2 9 20 do. 37 10 0 21 Sm ith 21 0 0 24 J&M Clenachan 13 16 3 Brown 4 10 0 25 Higgins 8 16 9 30 Bearer 3 18 10 House 3 0 0

Errors excepted 1 June 1785 — 560.9.11

[1785 DRAFTS]

The following drafts of John Penn Jr. Esq returned to him by T Francis the 1 June 1785 Ja n 1 Roads 9 10 O 3 Roberts 43 15 O 5 R M cKnight 13 4 9 M r Canton 6 0 0 7 Bell 19 1 6 Bearer 5 0 0 8 ditto 3 7 6 Fry[?] 14 10 4 11 Bearer 5 0 0 16 Gallagher 5 11 0 17 Bearer 2 5 8 18 Bailey 3 7 9 Sm ith 9 9 0 19 Reeves 2 2 6 22 Higgins 14 O 4 Bearer 7 O 3 do. 2 1 6 25 do. 10 O 0 27 Stiles 50 O 0 28 Roberts 75 O 0 30 Bearer 5 O 0

119

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Errors excepted the l June1 7 8 5 — 305-71

The following drafts of John Penn Jr. Esq. Returned to him by Tench Francis the 1 June 1785 Feb. 1 Fry 8 0 0 2 Roads 12 0 0 3 Bearer 60 0 0 9 do. 7 16 0 R oberts 20 n 6 10 Bearer 6 15 10 12 do. 2 0 0 15 do. 37 10 0 do. 3 12 0 19 do. 6 10 0 do. 10 0 0 Clarke 9 16 3 W illiam s 22 12 9 V2 Stiles 50 0 0 20 Bearer 3 0 0 23 Bell 40 0 0 24 M G uiggen 8 0 0 25 Bearer 3 2 6 26 do. 12 3 6 Bradford 12 0 0 28 R oberts 7 15 0 M arriot 3 0 10

Errors excepted the 1 June 1785 — 346.5.8 V2

Returned the following drafts to John Penn Jr. Esq. By Tench Francis the 1 June 1785

M arch 1 Bearer 3 3 0 4 do. 5 O 0 6 Reviere 18 10 0 Roberts 37 10 0 7 Bearer 3 15 0 14 Affleck 25 4 0 Roberts 13 3 11 15 Bolton 13 10 0 Fry 15 10 2 Bearer 12 16 6 17 do. 10 0 0 18 Stiles 50 0 O

120

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 Dorseys 67 10 0 20 Higgins 22 15 0 do. 3 0 0 21 Bell 30 15 0 22 Bearer 3 9 7 Pryor 3 12 O D obson 6 15 O Parish 4 12 6 Briarly 15 15 O Pickets 5 17 6 23 R oberts 37 10 0 T u rn er 9 15 10 Qu & Hunter 5 15 0 Bearer 4 15 0 do. 11 16 0 do. 4 18 1

Errors excepted i June 1785 —446.14.1

Returned the following to John Penn Jr. Esq the 1 June 1785 Constable & Ruckers draft[ ?] for 16 15 8 Rec. For Fry[?] of Goods[?] by Andrew 5 8 9 Reed. For Cash [ ?] for Dung[?] 88 10 o — 110.14.5

[THE FOLLOWING DRAFTS, DATED BETWEEN 24 APRIL 1785 AND 14 MAY 1785, WERE LISTED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ACCOUNTS, AND ARE INCLUDED HERE INSTEAD FOR CLARITY]

A List of drafts - John Penn Jun. Esq. On Tench Francis - returned by TF to Mr. Penn the 13 May 1785.

24 April 1785 to Bearer 12 1 6 26 do. W. Roberts 37 10 0 do. do. Bearer 20 10 0 do. do. Waine & Maxfield 140 0 0 do. do. Bearer 13 10 0 27 do. Ditto 2 13 10 do. do. E. T urner 40 17 6 do. do. Bearer 3 10 0 do. do. Do. 6 5 0 do. do. W. Roberts 9 0 0 30 do. Bearer 15 0 0

121

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 M ay do. 17 8 0 3 d o Do. 3 0 0 do. do. Fra[?] Walter 5 0 0 4 do. Bearer 13 15 0 6 do. Ditto 15 0 0 do. do. D itto 2 10 7 V2 7 do. P. H iggins 20 0 0 do. Do. B earer 5 0 0 8 do. C Cecil 63 0 0 9 do. B earer 16 16 0 10 do. William Roberts 50 0 0 do. do. Bearer 19 10 0 11 do. D itto 10 0 0 do. do. D itto 4 0 0 0

581.17.5 V2

Errors excepted, 13 May 1785.

The following are drafts of John Penn Jun. Esq. Returned to him by Tench Francis the 17 day of May 1785.

10 May 85 Bearer 4 4 0 12 ditto ditto 4 10 0 13 ditto Nich. R ush 13 3 6 do. ditto Bearer 6 12 0 do. Ditto Isaac Warner 50 0 0 14 ditto William Stiles 50 0 0 128.9.6

E rro rs excepted th e 17 M ay 1785 “Returned the following drafts to John Penn Jun. Esq. The 6 January 1786 4 To Chas Co wen 4 0 0 18 Jo h n M inny 4 1 0 19 Henry Lalor 3 1 0 20 John Nancarrowr 15 0 0 21 John Brearly 10 0 0 William Jordan 9 18 0 22 Benja. Smith 27 19 0 Rachel Reed 8 0 4 25 William Jordan 11 6 O William Roberts 37 10 0 Tho. George 4 2 0

122

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 William Roberts 6 0 O Robert Briarly 15 0 O 27 M ary Bell 34 15 O 29 Sam. Williams 30 11 1 30 David Wilson 5 2 O J u n e 2 Robert Crean 17 11 3 3 Jams McK[H?]iggins 6 8 4 William W arner 14 17 6 4 William Jordan 14 18 0 Chas. Cowen 10 0 0 5 Sarah Clark 18 0 0 Edw ard T u rn e r 37 10 0

Carried over 345 -14-2 Errors excepted

Returned the following drafts to John Penn Junr the 26 of January 1786 Brought over 345 -14-2 Ju n e 6 To John Cottringer 100 0 0 7 Robt. Briarly 3 9 3 ditto 27 17 0 8 Jo h n Peck 15 0 0 9 William Roberts 37 10 0 12 Chas. Cowen 10 0 0 13 Joseph Stride 5 0 0 Maty Russell 4 15 0 14 Chas. Cowen 10 0 0 15 William Roberts 12 2 8 17 Joseph Warner 266 19 4 18 Gre. & J o h n D orsey 26 2 11 19 Bearer 2 3 6 David Landreth 13 2 6 20 Charles Cecil 20 0 0 21 Chas. Cowen 20 0 0 Rachel Reed 5 16 8 22 Benja. Smith 21 8 0 24 William Jordan 15 12 0 Henry Smith 13 11 5 Peter Higgins 12 0 0

Carried over 1050.4.5 errors excepted

Returned the following drafts to John Penn Junr. Esq. The 26 January 1786

123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Brought over 1050..4..5 Ju n e 24 To William Jordan 13 10 0 W . R oberts 37 10 0 G & J. D orsey 11 7 7 25 R. Reed 6 14 1 27 John Stephens 25 6 8 Ju ly 2 Robert Brearly 10 0 0 5 D itto 20 3 0 6 Stemfeltz & Mintzer 9 0 0 Nich. Ru[a]sh 11 11 7 William Jordan 12 5 O 11 R R eed 17 0 4 J Brow n 7 5 10 12 William Roberts 37 10 O Paid Allen Ridgeway 43 2 6

Errors excepted 1312.11.0

Ju ly 4 To Rachel Read 7 15 0 5 G & J Dorsey 3 13 8 1 11 do. 8 13 1 13 W ayne & M 127 18 8 14 B earer 50 0 0 do. 1 12 0 Jon.a Douglass 10 0 0 15 E. T u rn er 200 0 0 16 B earer 2 6 10 Jon.a Douglass 3 6 0 18 Jos LeBlanc 20 6 9 G & J D orsey 1 14 0 B earer 19 18 0 20 Christ. Librand 18 7 22 Mahlon Hall 3 1 O Jon.a Supple 8 18 5 Sarah Clarke 5 12 8 23 Will Jordan 27 8 O Nich. R ape 2 5 O Robert Briarly 8 9 6 Nich. Pickett 4 9 6 25 J n . Brow n 12 18 6 27 W m . W arn er 50 0 0 Robt. Briarly 20 0 0 28 Wm. Roberts 50 12 0

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 W m . Jo rd a n 21 12 o

o /3

Brought up 673.9.5

29 Bearer 15 0 0 Chas. Cecil 80 0 0 30 Bearer 25 6 0 W m G eorge 3 0 0 4 Jacob Keackler 8 15 0 5 Bearer 15 13 0 Robt. Bri[e?]arly 4 16 3 Cath. Smith 3 0 0 Stusmfeltz & Mintzers 7 10 0 Sam. N oble 1 6 0 G & J D orsey 3 0 0 8 W m Jo rd a n 20 14 0 9 Jon.a Douglass 1 10 4 io Chas C[G]ower 6 9 2 12 W m W oodhouse 6 10 O 13 Jos. Skerrett 20 0 O W m . Jo rd a n 9 18 O Will Roberts 37 10 O Bearer 14 14 0 W m Stiles 88 19 8 M. Mcutcheon 5 2 9 15 Robt. Brearly 7 7 2 19 Bearer IO 0 0 Richd. Cream 11 15 0 20 B earer 14 16 0 R Brearly 5 11 9 V over 1101.13.7

Brought forward 1101.13..7 20 Jn. Richards 7 13 0 Jos. Skerrett 58 18 8 21 Isabel Coo 10 0 0 22 Fred. Smith Esq. 60 0 0 25 W .Jo rd a n 20 8 0 28 Bearer 9 19 0 Chas. Cecil 50 0 0 29 Jn . Brocks 6 10 9 D. Coxe 9 15 10

125

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. R. Brearly 7 4 8 30 Geo. Meade 12 19 0 Thos. Affleck 87 10 0 3 i R. Brearly 4 7 6 Sept. 1 do. 3 4 2 2 M iller & C. Ft. W ine 5 5 0 Porterage do. 0 5 0 3 Jn Standley 15 0 0 Jn. Spooner 10 0 0 Jas. McKiggin 7 19 3 Wm. Roberts 37 10 0 Jas. Gallagher 8 0 O 6 Bearer 7 0 0 9 Isaac W arner 50 0 0 R. Briarly 17 9 7 V2 W .Jo rd a n 21 0 0 1629.13.-- */

brought up 1629.13.-

Sept. 17 Bearer 3 12 10 18 do. 8 15 0 W D onnavan 3 3 1 20 Jn. Standley 23 14 3 Sarah Clarke 4 10 8 24 W m Jo rd a n 14 12 0 ? L andreth 13 2 6 Wm. Roberts 37 10 0 25 Chas. Cecil 30 0 0 Oct. 1 Bearer 15 17 10 2 Bill for W ine 137 10 0 7 Bearer 9 0 0 do. 7 0 0 8 Wm Roberts 37 10 0 Wm Jordan 12 15 0 Bearer 13 0 0 do. 10 0 0 do. 5 0 0 15 Chas. Cecil 16 5 0 Bearer 13 14 2 Jas. Reynolds 80 10 0 W. & Maxfield 63 0 0 16 W m. Jo rd a n 13 6 0 21 Bearer 18 10 6

126

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jos. C ook 15 o o B earer 10 11 o over 2268.12.3 V2

brought forward 2268.12.3 V2 Oct. 25 W m J o rd a n 11 5 0 26 B earer 28 0 0 28 G & J Dorsey 11 3 5 30 B earer 4 2 6 do. 10 0 0 do. 17 15 7 W m R o b erts 30 0 0 Nov. 6 Edw. Turner 2 0 0 0 O B earer 25 0 O 12 do. 15 0 O Wm. Roberts 37 0 O 19 do. 75 0 O B earer 15 0 O do. 5 0 O 22 Isaac Warner 50 0 O 26 Richard Crean(m?) 5 0 O 28 B earer 8 11 IO Dec. 2 do. 6 12 6 3 C. Cecil 30 0 0 W m R oberts 37 10 0 S. C lapham son 2 0 0 0 0 B earer 10 0 0 4 ditto 13 15 10 6 ditto 10 0 0 9 ditto 6 7 3 15 Edwd. Turner 457 10 0 18 C. Cecil 50 O 0 B earer 7 7 11 up 3646.4.1

Brought up 3646.4.1

Dec. 18 Dav L[?]ambeth 16 14 6 21 James C. Fisher 3 0 0 O 0 22 R. B rearly 6 11 3 24 B earer 9 8 4 31 Wm. Roberts 100 0 0

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. B earer 10 o o

[1786 DRAFTS]

1786 7 G & J D orsey 27 19 7 8 Jas.? McKiggin 21 11 6 11 Fre.? Smith 37 10 0 14 Wm. Roberts 37 10 0 4213. 9. 3 1/2 Brought forward 1312.11— 5526. o. 3 1/2 Errors excepted

1786 paid Ja n . 15 Jos. B[?]ubin 6 12 6 27 W. R oberts 100 0 O C. Cecil 10 0 O J. Standley 21 1 11 J. Peck 3 0 0 O Feb.11 R. Creane 7 1 3 S. Williams 36 12 0 Isabella Coo 5 5 0 13 B earer 12 14 6 14 b e arer 10 O 0 18 R oberts 2 0 0 0 25 M Hall 3 15 0 J Stanley 12 0 0 26 b earer 10 0 0

Mar. 3 J. Dorsey 27 5 0 4 W agoner 15 8 11 Gap Mine Land Co 7 0 0 11 Jos Stride 50 0 0 W. R oberts 26 0 0 J. Stanley 17 13 10 13 B earer 10 0 0 18 Bache 3 0 0 J. Davis 15 7 6 27 R Brearly 6 5 5 b earer 15 2 1 J . W arn er 12 12 O 490.16.11

128

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. am ount brought up 490 16 11 Apr. 2 C. Cecil 2 17 7 6 W. Roberts 12 0 O 8 D. Landreth 14 13 6 n Elizabeth Cow 9 11 5 13 bearer 15 6 5 20 R. Crane 5 0 0 22 N. Richardson 7 12 6 bearer 10 0 0 24 ditto 24 9 11 Bartholomew 6 1 0 28 W. Roberts 10 0 0 M ay 1 bearer 5 5 0 7 P. Strumsels[?] 7 10 0 S. Delany 16 Aug last 12 5 0 633-9-3

129

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B

DRAFTS OF JOHN PENN, 1786-1787

Tench Francis, “The Honble John Penn Jun. To Tench Francis, April 23,1787” Penn Manuscripts, Volume 2: Accounts (Large Folio), page 81. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

[1786 DRAFTS]

1787 April 23 to the following drafts &c returned to him this day vir.

£ s P D ated 17 M ay 1786 Bearer 21 8 11 Nicholas Pickles 3 11 0 Ja. McKiggins 19 11 0 28 Bearer 20 0 0 ditto 5 2 4 69 13 3 1 June 1786 John Standley 20 8 5 3 do. Robert Morris 1755 0 0 do. For a mistake 20 0 0 4 Peter Miller 65 12 3 6 Doctor Baker 3 0 0 10 Bearer 10 0 0 15 ditto 13 9 3 ditto 6 0 0 23 dito 21 5 3 25 ditto 6 9 7 1921.4.9

8 July 1786 Cold Spring Club 3 15 O 9 do. E Coo 9 0 0 10 Bearer 5 0 0 14 ditto 12 0 0 20 Charles Cecil 8 18 17 21 David Landreath 14 13 8

130

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. b earer 5 0 O 25 John Cottringer 163 10 O 26 John Standley 13 15 7 V2 235 12 10 V2 7 August 1786 Bearer 16 6 9 15 do. Ditto 7 5 0 d itto 13 2 6 16 ditto 5 OO Joseph Leblane[c] 6 17 O 18 B earer 9 16 10 V2 22 Wm Roberts 25 17 6 23 ditto 10 O 0 31 ditto 3 17 O 109.19.10 V2 carried over 2336.10.9

brought over 2336.10.9

1 September 1786 B earer 11 19 0 2 ditto 3 6 0 John Stevens 14 17 0 John Murdock 4 13 10 13 George Rutter 4 12 0 16 B earer 14 16 0 23 ditto 11 13 3 25 ditto 8 14 7 26 William Roberts 12 0 O 27 David Landreth 21 4 2 B earer 4 6 3 112 2 1 4 October 1786 William Sheaff 24 5 10 B earer 10 0 0 7 ditto 12 13 4 11 ditto 5 0 O 12 W illiam R oberts 12 14 O 18 B earer 17 17 O 20 ditto 6 11 3 24 d itto 10 0 O 25 John Dorsey 16 4 3 1/2 Eliz. Coo 12 8 4 127.14.0 V2

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 November 1786 B earer 11 4 4 9 ditto 4 9 2 10 d itto 10 0 0 20 d itto 12 10 3 21 John Spooner 9 0 0 29 B earer 10 6 9 d itto 10 0 0 67.10.6

1 December 1786 B earer 6 10 0 5 Jacob Johnson 9 16 8 7 John Dorsey 8 17 8 William Roberts 12 0 0 14 James Mkiggins 12 18 3 17 David Landreth 15 1 8 18 Edward Moyston 13 8 6 19 B earer 6 8 0 20 d itto 3 0 0 22 d itto 5 0 0 23 d itto 9 0 0 25 d itto 8 0 0 26 ditto 3 8 3 H 3 -9-0 carried forward 2757.6.42

[1787 DRAFTS]

1 January 1787 B earer 10 0 0 2 ditto 9 0 0 W m W hitesides 12 15 7 V2 B earer 8 19 7 V2 Hart & Remington 18 12 0 B earer 14 13 0 8 d itto 9 0 0 9 d itto 18 7 0 d itto 12 10 0 12 ditto 11 3 9 24 ditto 10 0 0 28 ditto 8 13 4 143-4-3 V2 2 F eb ru ary

132

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. B earer 10 0 0 8 ditto 7 0 0 11 ditto 20 0 0 16 ditto 11 10 6 17 ditto 5 0 0 20 ditto 8 0 0 21 ditto 9 5 4 22 ditto 15 O 0 ditto 20 O 0 23 d itto 41 15 0 d itto 9 O 0 24 Mary McCloud 8 16 0 B earer 7 10 0 Jo sep h T u rn er 4 0 0 2 8 B earer 5 0 0 181.16.10

6 March 1787 B earer 11 10 10 6 d itto 25 0 0 13 A D uncan 3 10 0 B earer 3 5 0 J. McKiggins 29 3 0 14 H ew es & A nthony 7 10 4 Bearer (no date) 18 10 2 22 d itto 5 0 O 23 ditto 2 16 0 ditto 50 0 0 27 ditto 9 0 0 29 J Nancarrow 49 4 6 30 J Parish 14 18 9 B earer 13 10 3 D itto 10 0 0 253-8.10

Carried forward 3335-16.4

3 April 1787 B earer 11 6 8 4 Elizabeth Coo 10 7 10 9 B earer 23 O 10 13 ditto 14 O 0 ditto 10 10 0 14 d itto 10 10 0

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 d itto 3 18 9 ditto 6 10 6 90 4 1 3 4 2 6.0.11

To the credit of Edmond Physick by Order of JP 2400 To Cash pd R. Morris for Bills of Excha. 5250 £3000 Stl at 75 P Cr 11,076.0.11

134

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX C

OCCUPATIONS AND ADDRESSES OF SOME OF THE NAMES LISTED IN JOHN PENN’S DRAFTS, FROM THE PHILADELPHIA CITY DIRECTORIES

Reference Name Occupation A ddress M P85 Affleck, Thomas [cabinetmaker] 34 Pear Street M P85 Affleck, Thomas 27 Elmslie’s Alley FW 85 Bache & Shee m erch an ts F ro n t betw een C hestnut & W aln u t MP85 Bispham, Joseph H atter 989 Front Street FW 85 Cecil, Charles House-jack maker Front near Market FW 85 Claphamson, Samuel cabinetmaker Market b. Third and Fourth Streets FW 85 Cottringer, John merchant taylor Chestnut b. Second and Third Streets FW 85 Delany, Sharp Coll. Of Customs F ront b. M arket & Chestnut Streets FW 85 Delany, Sharp & William druggists Corner Walnut and Second Streets FW85 Donavan, William goldsmith & jeweler Second b. Chestnut and Walnut Streets FW85 Dorsey, John grocer Third b. Market and Arch Streets FW 85 Douglass, John cabinetmaker South, b. Third and Second Streets FW 85 Fisher, James C. merchant Arch b. Front and Second Streets FW 85 Gallagher, James china merchant Second b. Market and Chestnut FW85 George, Thomas cabinet maker Chestnut between Third and Fourth FW 85 George, William tin smith Penn near South

FW 85 Graff, Jacob b rickm aker Arch b. Fourth and Fifth Streets MP85 Harbison, Benjamin [coppersmith] 328 Market Street CB91 Johnson, Jacob cordw ainer 28 Chestnut Street

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M P85 Jordan, William 237 W alnut Street FW 85 Lalor, Henry H a tte r Fourth b. Arch and RaceStreets M P85 Le Blanc, Joseph S hopkeeper 295 W alnut Street CB91 Levbrandt, Christian brick maker 123 Story Street FW 85 Meade, George merchant Water, near Walnut FW 85 Meng, John merchant Moravian alley, b. Arch and Race FW 85 Miller, Peter, Esq. F eriviner Third b. Arch and Race Streets FW 85 Morris, Robert, Esq. M erchant Market b. Fifth and Sixth Streets. FW 85 Moyston, Edward city tav ern keeper Second b. Chestnut an d W aln u t Streets FW 85 Murdoch, John goldsmith F ro n t b. W aln u t and Spruce Streets M P85 Nancarrow, John Surveyor 237 Market Street FW 85 Parish, John shopkeeper Third b. Arch and Race Streets FW85 Pickles, Nicholas Blacksm ith Penn b. South and Almond Streets FW 85 Quarrier and Hunter Coach & harness Filbert b. Seventh m akers and Eighth Streets M P85 Rape, Nicholas 231 Market Street FW 85 Rapp, Nicholas wheelwright Market, b. Sixth and Seventh Streets FW 85 Reynolds, James carver and gilder Third b. Market and ArchStreets FW 85 R ichardson, Jos. & goldsm iths F ro n t b. C h estn u t & N athaniel Walnut streets FW 85 Roberts, William carp en ter Chestnut b. Sixth and Seventh Streets FW 85 Rutter, George p a in ter Fifth b. W alnut and Spruce FW 85 Scheaf, William m erch an t corner of Fifth and M arket CB91 Skerrett, Joseph blacksm ith 16 South Fifth Street FW85 Smith, Benjamin Taylor in C reffon’s Alley FW 85 Smith, Frederick Gentleman Fourth b. Union andPine FW 85 Smith, Henry * fringe and Front b. Arch and Race m aker FW 85 Steeomfelts, George grocer & innkeeper Second b. Vine and Callowhill Streets M P85 Stephens, John saddler & capmaker 51 Chestnut Street

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FW 85 Stride, Joseph p a in ter corner Fourth and Pine FW 85 Styles, William stonecutter Third b. Spruce and U nion FW85 Twiner, Edward plaisterer Market b. Eighth and N in th M P85 Turner, Edward [plasterer] 184 Market Street M P85 Turner, Joseph P laisterer 485 Third Street FW85 Wayne & Maxfield lumber merchants c o rn e r T h ird a n d C allow hill FW85 Whiteside, William Tea & China Second b. Arch & Race M erchant FW85 Williams, Samuel cabinetmaker Fourth b. Market and Chestnut FW 85 Woodhouse, William Stationer & Front b. Market and bookbinder Chestnut Streets

M P85: MacPherson’s Directory, 1785 FW85: Francis White, The Philadelphia Directory, 1785 CB91: Clement Biddle, The Philadelphia Directory, 1791

Note: Edward Twiner, plasterer, listed in Francis White’s 1785 directory on Market Street, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, is probably the same as Edward Turner, listed in MacPherson’s 1785 directory at 184 Market Street. The same applies to Nicholas Rapp and Nicholas Rape.

* Another Henry Smith, whose name escaped the city directories, was living in Philadelphia in the 1780s and may have been the craftsman referred to in the payment. A bricklayer and stonemason named Henry Smith was working for Jacob Graff, who supplied bricks and perhaps the stone for the construction of The Solitude. For a discussion of Graff and Smith, see chapter 2.

137

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX D

ACCOUNTS WITH EDMUND PHYSICK, 1788-1790

Following his May 1788 departure for London, John Penn hired Edmund

Physick to manage his accounts. Many of the names from Tench Francis’s List of

Drafts, such as Isaac and Joseph Warner, Samuel Claphamson, and Jacob Graff,

appear in Physick’s accounts, here with some description of their services. Many

of these charges were for activities begun before Penn’s departure. Physick’s

accounts also give us the only indication of Penn’s servants, who probably include

John Standley, John Spooner, Patience Rees, and Polly Miller.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania Penn-Physick Correspondence, vol. Ill, p. 286.

“Cash in Acco. Edmund Physick with the Honourable John Penn Esq.”

July 1, 1788 To furniture and goods for sales made by John Patton, Esquire, vendue master £548.15.7 July 3, 1788 To ditto received of W. Pollock for a pair of window blinds sold him, after allowing him 11/3 for three pair of Brass hooks, which were stole at the vendue, belonging to curtains he bought 0.11.3 July 8, 1788 To ditto received from Reinard Sheen for a Fire Screen and leather for bringing wood to the fire places into the rooms 0.15.0 To ditto received of sundry persons for some cloaths left unsold at vendue 30.0

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. July 28, 1788T0 ditto received of W. [Or Mr.] Cotringer for a looking-glass and two waiscoats 10.0.0 Dec. 18,1789 To furniture and goods received of Dr. Way for sundry articles of apparel 11.6.9 Dec. 23, 1789 To ditto received of D&F Clark for an Old Chariot sold them 5 0 .0 .0 Aug. 3,1789 To furniture and goods for 12 gall. Madeira wine retained in 1788 by E. Phvsick 10.10.0

May 28,1788 By charges paid Adam Zantzinger for two Deers a buck and doe 10.0.0 May 30,1788 By ditto Paid David and Francis Clark, coachmakers in full of their account 9.2.0 May 31,1788 By ditto paid George G[orQ]uest in full of his account 0.9.10 paid Polly Miller for 9 weeks wages due this day 3-7-6 June 2,1788 By ditto paid Patience Rees for wages due to her this day 9.15.0 June 17,1788 By ditto paid John Hall, Blacksmith in full of his account 1.10.5 June 24,1788 By ditto paid Edward Summers in full for his work due from 7th April to 7th instant when he was discharg’d 9.0.0 June 24, i788Paid Jacob Johnson for oak and hickory wood delivered before 27 April last, in full 6-3-7 Paid John Spooner his accot. Of expenses for the deer, portage, mending kitchen, truck[?] before sold 0.18.6 July 3, 1788 By ditto paid John Standley in full of his accot. For marketing and for wages he paid to Robert Craig which settles all acco. With him except his wages due to 7th last month 21.7.3 Aug. 2,1788 By ditto paid Mr. Whitesides in full for Chinaware 1.10.6 Sept. 12, 1788By ditto paid John Spooner for 4 months board wages, which will be due the 26 instant, also paid him 10..10.3 in part of his wages 23.10.3

139

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sept. 17,1788 By ditto paid Christian Miller for building an oven and other jobs done to the stable kitchen and for ferriage of waggon with bricks 1.9.0 Sept.25,1788 By ditto paid Jacob Graff for bricks, lime and hauling for the oven 1 9 5 Nov. 12,1788 By ditto paid John Spooner in full of his acco. For money he paid for three months and 17 days. Rent of a Stable for the Deer, oats and hay for them, sea stores, casks porterage and sundry other small articles 9.6.3 Nov. 12,1788 Paid Daniel King half the cost of a brass knocker, Mr. Morris having agreed to pay the other half 0.17.6 Oct. 16,1789 By charges, paid Samuel Claphamson in full of all his demands including in particular a balance left unpaid by the honorable John Penn for a wardrobe 6 .0 .0 Dec. 2, 1789 Paid Issac W arner for hauling gravel and dirt to repair the damages done by the flood at the Solitude in July last 2.2.6 Dec. 2,1789 Paid Joseph Warner for a cedar post for the gate, checks to the cellar door, braces to the garden fence and work 2.1.6 Dec. 2,1789 Paid to David and Judy Johns for their time spent and trouble taking care of the Solitude from November 1788 to June 1789 14 .13-4 Dec. 23,1789 By charges paid David and Francis Clark for house room for the chariot 16 months £6. and for repairs £1.10.0 7.10.0 Jan. 7,1790 By ditto paid John Standley for 1 year 1 month and 7 days wages due him from 1st May 1787 to 7, June 1788 55 -0.0

140

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX E

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION

Oval Clothes Press A m erican Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Probably Samuel Claphamson 1785-1788 86” high 58 1/2” wide 13” deep

Description: A double-door fronted clothes press in the form of a free-standing oval, with an outward curving base and ogee bracket feet. Four interior shelves and a bottom lidded compartment in base.

Materials: Mahogany top, side panels, front, doors, front and sides of base, feet; yellow pine interior shelves; tulip poplar top and rear panels; white pine rear frame; tulip poplar interior bottom; oak rear slat for bottom lid; walnut or butternut bottom lid; brass hardware.

Construction:. Curved top panels, with grain running front to back, set into grooved curved front rail and simply nailed to top edge on rear and side rails. Medial top brace, running from front to back, fit with a dovetail joint to rear medial framing member. Rear of case constructed of panels screwed onto side frames and received into center vertical and horizontal framing members. Sides constructed of curved panels running up and down, set into grooved rails. Notch of door panels fit into thin grooves in frame. Base may be a dovetailed frame across which case sits atop with feet simply set in. Feet made up of two thicknesses with curve of ogee as one piece (mahogany), and inner element behind of yellow pine.

Inscription: Four scratches on rear of lower right foot, resembling P and three characters, perhaps PENN.

Condition: Proper left rear ogee foot spliced in half. Side of right front foot cracked diagonally. Replaced beaded edging on both doors. Top interior shelf missing. Right door panel cracked/warped in several places, with a later diagonal brace running behind. Key escutcheon not original. Rear panels white washed.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Provenance: Loaned to The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks in 1981 by a private collector (accessioned LS81.23). Prior history unknow n.

Oral tradition links the oval clothes press at the Hill-Physick-Keith House to John Penn’s ownership, referred to as the “oval wardrobe” in the 1788 correspondence between Penn and Edmund Physick. Though the provenance remains unclear, the likelihood that this press was owned by Penn necessitates its inclusion here. The oral tradition of the press belonging to Penn, its Philadelphia history of ownership, and the unusual nature of the form link the Hill-Physick- Keith House example to Penn. No related examples of this form are known. For further discussion on the form and Penn’s patronage of Samuel Claphamson, see ch a p te r 3.

Location: Hill-Physick-Keith House, The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks.

142

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 58: Oval Clothes Press, c. 1785-1788, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Attributed to Samuel Claphamson. Collection of the Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, Philadelphia. Photo by author

143

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX F

JOHN PENN’S INVENTORY

“Inventory of the Plate, Household Furniture and other Goods; of the Hon. John Penn, jun. Esquire, which are to be exposed to Sale, on Monday the 26th instant, at his House on the corner of Market and Sixth Streets, at 9 o’clock in the morning, viz.”

May 1788, Printed by Dunlap and Claypoole, Philadelphia. Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Henry Francis du Pont W interthur Museum.

Silver Twelve table spoons of the latest fashion and but little used 12 te a d itto 1 te a p o t 1 soup ladle 2 salt spoons 7 large silver handled table knives and 11 ditto forks 11 desert ditto knives and 11 ditto forks a small lot of broken silver knives and forks 1 pair of very elegant fashionable silver shoe buckles, inlaid with gold 2 pair of large fashionable silver ditto

P late W are 1 large server 4 pair of elegant English plated candlesticks 2 pair of ditto French washed 1 pair of ditto with branches 4 salts plated 1 pair of sugar tongs ditto 11 knives and 11 forks ditto

Mahogany Furniture In excellent order and modern fashion, 2 elegant large settees, having hair bottoms, with satin stripe, a double row of gilt nails and fluted legs 2 ditto arm chairs to suit

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 ditto chairs 4 pain mahogany chairs for a hall l writing desk standing on brass castors, with 3 drawers on each side 1 large semicircular side board tables to fix at each end, which 2 being put together form a round table of themselves 1 eleg an t card table 2 breakfast tables and a small dressing table 1 wardrobe or cloaths press and a washing stand 3 silk blinds and 2 catgut ditto, in mahogany frames 1 field bedstead on castors with sacking bottom and furniture stripe cotton c u rta in s 1 tray and 1 tea caddie

G lassw are 1 large oval looking glass in gilt frame 1 small ditto ditto 2 small dressing glasses a set of castors, containing 5 pieces with silver tops, in black stand 2 elegant cut and ground quart and 2 ditto pint decanters 2 plain quart decanters and 2 pair of japanned bottle stands 6 plain gobblets 12 plain double flint tumblers and 11 smaller ditto 1 beer glass 26 cut and ground wine glasses and 4 plain ditto

C hina 1 four quart and 1 three quart blue and white china punch bowls 1 quart and 1 pint china mug A set of elegant Dresden china, containing 2 tea pots and trays, 6 breakfast cups and 7 saucers, 5 coffee cups, 10 tea cups and 16 saucers, 3 small tea and 3 ditto coffee cups, 2 tea canisters, 1 sugar dish and stand, 2 cream jugs, 2 slop bowls, 1 spoon tray. A set of elegant dining china, containing 2 large tureens and dishes, 2 small ditto, 2 largedeep sallad dishes, 1 deep fish dish and strainer, 13 dishes sorted, 1 pudding dish cracked, 11 soup plates, 4 dozen and 3 flat ditto, 4 butter boats & stands, handles broke off

Oueensware 2 large dishes 5 small ditto 10 p lates 2 butter boats 2 sugar dishes 6 cups and saucers of English china

145

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bed and Room Furniture 1 set of hair colour furniture cotton bed curtains, pattern William Penn’s treaty w ith th e Indians 3 window curtains to match ditto 4 cotton and worsted striped parlour curtains, with cord, &c 2 red furniture check window curtains, almost new 3 green ditto 3 ditto old An elegant Wilton carpet, 20 by 12, with some spare pieces 1 large Scotch carpet but little used 1 stained field bedstead with sacking bottom 1 ditto ditto and curtains of green furniture check 1 ditto ditto and curtains of minionet gauze 5 common poplar bedsteads and 2 ditto that shut into the form of drawers

Beds and Bedding 1 excellent large bed, bolster and pillow perfectly new 3 small beds, with bolsters and pillows, to suit the field bedsteads 4 small beds, bolsters and pillows, and four spare bolsters and 5 pillows 1 large hair mattress 2 large wool ditto and 9 small wool ditto 3 pair 9 4 rose blankets perfectly new and 15 rose blankets worn 5 good green rugs and 3 elegant cotton counterpains

Linen 3 breakfast table cloths and 4 damask dining table cloths 4 pair fine sheets and 3 V2 ditto very old 3 brown Russian sheeting sheets very good

a variety' of wearing apparel, some new, the rest worn 1 large ink stand and 1 small ditto 1 dozen green ivory handled table knives and forks, almost new 1 dozen table knives and 9 forks tipt with silver, but much used 1 pair of elegant dining room brass andirons, with polished steel shovel, tongs, and hearth b ru sh 1 inferior pair of brass ditto ditto (for parlour) and a steel fender 2 pair common andirons, shovel and tongs 1 elegant polished steel grate, shovel, tongs, poker, fender and hearth brush 1 chiming clock to set over a mantle piece 1 elegant Japan tea tray and 4 waiters 1 ditto bread basket and 2 small servers

146

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. l ditto bronze tea urn, with plated legs, handles and ornaments 1 plain brown tea urn a tin show er b a th 1 elegant entry glass lanthom, cord, &c a very compleat and useful kitchen grate or ranger, having even,- convenience for dressing all kinds of meats sundry pots and a variety of kitchen furniture of every kind, to tedious to en u m erate. 1 dozen Windsor chairs 2 old clocks 3 dozen excellent claret and some spermaceti candles

147

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX G

THE DIARY OF NICHOLAS PICKFORD

In 1920, Harold Donaldson Eberlein introduced the world to the diary of

Nicholas Pickford, an English traveler visiting the United States in 1786. While

the diary is concerned mainly with descriptions of Philadelphia, Pickford also

visited William Hamilton at The Woodlands. During his stay at Hamilton’s

Schuylkill River estate, Pickford described a visit to The Solitude. In 1979, the

diary was discredited by Richard Betts in his study of The Woodlands. According

to Betts, Cortlandt Van Dyke Hubbard, who was Eberlien’s associate, claimed the

diary was a fabrication. Because of concern for its reliability, the diary

description of The Solitude was not referenced in the text of this thesis, but is

reproduced here. See Richard J. Betts, “The Woodlands,” W in terth u r P ortfolio

14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1979): 213, n. 3.

Harold Donaldson Eberlein, ed., “Further Passages from the Diary of Nicholas Pickford Esquire, Relating to his Travels in Pennsylvania in 1786,” The Architectural Review: A Magazine o f Architecture & Decoration XLVIII (July- D ecem ber 1920): 31.

Saturday, May 26th. This Afternoon Mr. Hamilton drove me in his Chariot to see his Friend John Penn, Grandson of the first Proprietary and Son of the Honourable Thomas and the Lady Juliana Penn of Stoke Poges. He hath been several years in Philadelphia, endeavoring to reclaim a Share of the family Property, and hath built himself an House - it is no more than a Box, four square, six-and-twenty feet in each direction - called “The Solitude.” It stands on

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Banks of the Schuylkill, not far from his Cousin’s Seat, Lansdowne House. In many ways he is of kindred Spirit with Mr. Hamilton — a cultivated Bachelor, with a well-trained Taste in Literature and the Fine Arts, and not a little Aptitude in Architecture as well, as “The Solitude” plainly shows. Most of the ground floor is taken up by a Parlour extending clean across the whole House. An Hall, nine feet wide, with a Staircase, occupies all the rest of the ground floor. The House outside is Simplicity itself, but well proportioned. W ithin there is more heed to the Amenities and Elegance of Ornament. In the Parlour is an excellent Ceiling delicately wrought in the modem Mode, such as Richardson or Robert and James Adam design to be executed with Moulds. The Frieze, too, is good. The Staircase is adorned with a wrought iron Handrail according to the best present Fashion. The Kitchen is in a separate Building, about five-and-twenty feet distant. On the first floor is the Library, a room about fifteen feet square, with well- stored Bookshelves built into the Walls. Here also is a good Ceiling of Like Fashion, but of different Design, with that in the Parlour. The rest of the first floor is given over to several Bed-Chambers, while the Servants’ Rooms are in the A ttic.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ILLUSTRATIONS

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1 Portrait of John Penn, Robert Edge Pine, c. 1787. Private collection. Photograph courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4 The Solitude, west facade, facing site of carriage turnaround and kitchen structure Photograph by author

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'-ri~. , i rU ^ y Figure 5. Plans and Elevations, The Solitude, ground and second level, drawn by John Penn, c. 1784, from John Penn’s Commonplace Book. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

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Figure 6 Plans and Elevations, The Solitude, attic level, drawn by John Penn, c. 1784, from John Penn’s Commonplace Book. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum ofArt Figure Figure 7. The Solitude, drawing room, east wall, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum ofArt

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Figure 8. Figure The Solitude, drawing room, west wall, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum Museum of Art. Photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Museum Museum ot Art. Photo hy Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Figure Figure 9. The Solitude, drawing room, southwest corner, as installed hy the Philadelphia

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 10. The Solitude, drawing room, northwest comer jib door. Photo by author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 11. The Solitude, entrance hall and staircase, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Figure 12 “Detail of Main Entrance, Solitude,” drawn by R. Millman, 1932. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 13 The Solitude, library, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, June 1930 Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 14 The Solitude, library, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

206 15 - 015 '- Woodwork painted white P eriod. J/je a n d Adam ceding white,. Room are mahogany - are Walls painted putty color - excepting passage doors and book-cases which -Revolutionary -Revolutionary / Pennsylvania — Wood- < < Book-Cases branBook-Cases in Li Philadelphia Panelling in H ead Colonial Houses: Philadelphia Pre "SOLITUDE "HOME "HOME JOHN. OF PENN"SOLITUDE Wallace, 3ft

O/as'sl Ut Figure 15. "Book-Cases in Library," The Solitude. Measured and drawn hy M. Luther Miller, 1951. tor Details ON L/l

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - c57//- © B aseboard Shutter S c a le , Garbed Wood ^ ^ % Muni in''- TMuni - % ft? <-Door JU I I I H J p Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Library Details Book.-Case Colonial Houses: Philadelphia Pre-Revolutionary Period. \SOLITUDE" HOME OF JOHNPENN

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Plaster Plaster Cornice Door' s n W/ndow-jj Figure 16. “Library Book-Case Details,” The Solitude. Measured and drawn by M. Luther Miller, ftrim ftrim at Os cr\

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. P eriod. Pre-Revolutionary — Philadelphia Philadelphia Door Trim Elevation Houses: r Detail Door-way of in Library Philadelphia — Pennsylvania “SOLITUDE’'HOME JOHN OF PENN Carwd Wood' I'/d I'/d Door Miller, Miller, 1911. Wallace, Colonial 2 Figure 17. “Derail of Door-way in Library," The Solitude. Measured and drawn hy M. Luther Sc ahSc Scale h rDetails n O

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18 The Solitude, northwest bedroom, as installed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art Photo by Eric Mitchell, 1985 Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Photo Photo hy Eric Mitchell, 1985. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 20 The Solitude, bed alcove, attic level, east wall. Photo by author.

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Figure 21 XA little plain building, 30 Feet in Front, 30 Feet in Depth, and 30 Feet high,"Robert Morris, Select Architecture, 1757, plate 1.

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Figure 22 “III. Batiment de 5 Toises de face,” Jean-Francois Neufforge, Recueil Elementaire d’Archiiecture IV (Paris, 1760-61), plate 223. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IT fltitunctiC ./• J /Iv4iv.»*

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Figure 23 “II. Batiment de 5 Toises,” Jean-Francois Neufforge, Recueil Elementaire d’ Architecture IV (Paris, 1760-61), plate 222. Courtesy, The W interthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i ...... '...... 1 ! ■ ■ ■ i ...... L- ...... 1 ■ ■

Figure 24 Villa at Cadland, unexecuted plan by Robert Adam, 1773. Alis tair Rowan, Designs for Castles and Country Villas by Robert and James Adam.

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Figure 25 “A Little Building intended for Retirement, or tor a Study, to be placed in some agreeable Part of a Park of Garden," Robert Morris, Select Architecture, plate 37-

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 26. The Solitude, jib door, attic-level bedroom, west wall. Photo by author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Figure 27. The Solitude, jib door, northeast bedroom, west wall, second floor. Photo by author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27

Figure 28 The Solitude, photograph by Robert Newell, c. 1874. Showing kitchen structure before mid-1870s demolition. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A'i/tA«r> e *»*»•'**•* / • ****y *»*»•'**•* ttiii** M n t r i t ** tir. i ' & u / i . V« . . V« M|^^| /A «/#*'« Jf/t> I Jf/t> *Ur+t*/- *Ur+t*/- £%+fAA RUN MAY tM, MAY tM, f t / o 5l,M. . t+ri+t** **+***< —* **+***< t+ri+t** LITUd£ LITUd£ MANSION. .". Imtt, .. {*funfSj*n rf{*funfSj*n fat-rnri' /ttf/intn i 5 0 , jlitit/Atitt fa'rttn>t//c jlitit/Atitt fa'rttn>t//c #/*/**» #/*/**» »»♦»• >#»(*##/»«•# *W«

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art Figure Figure 31. The Solitude, detail of drawing room ceiling. Photo Wallace, hy Philip n. 13. d.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 32 The Solitude, detail of drawing room ceiling. Photo by Philip B. Wallace, n. d. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Figure Figure 33. The Solitude, cornice of drawing room. Photo Wallace, hy Philip n. 13.

183

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 34 Cumberland House, Pall Mall, London. Robert Adam design tor the great dining room ceiling, 1780. Stillman, The Decorative Work of Robert A dam.

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Figure 35 Cumberland House, Pall Mall, London. Design for the frieze in the great dining room, 1780. Stillman, The Decorative Work of Robert Adam.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 36 The Solitude. Detail of library ceiling, second level. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Figure 37 The Solitude. Detailed drawings of library and parlor ceilings. Measured and drawn by Charles L. Hillman and John McClintock, 1897. Free Library of Philadelphia.

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Figure 38 “Design tor a Ceiling in the Etruscan taste executed in the Countess of Derby’s Dressing Room, ’ central section. Robert Adam, The Works in Architecture, 1777-

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 39 Ceiling of the library ot Sir W. W. Wynn, central section. Robert Adam, The Works in Architecture.

188

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 40 The Solitude, chimney-piece, west wall, first floor, drawing room, c. 1785. Attributed to William Stiles. Photo by author

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. *

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£ - Figure 41. Figure Fireplace - East Room - The Floor,” First Solitude. Measured and drawn by W. C

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 42 The Solitude, chimney-piece, west wall, second floor, library, c. 1785. Attributed to William Stiles. Photo by author

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 43 The Solitude, detail of staircase. Photo by Beidleman, 1915. Courtesy, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 8 5

J P E N N , The Solitude. m r,” Colonial Ironwork in Old j. Philadelphia m m ^ West Bank o fthe Schuylkill irew Detail oBalustrade f Stairat Second Well\ Floor Apprqj. Genlresj.. ■ “SO LITU D E'JO H N Hand R ail W%%: Detailo fmoot

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Secured to RailSecured Figure 44.Figure “Petail of Balustrade at Stair Well, See I'1 m h i . 4 in S n i'"> Measured and drawn William by Allen Punn, 1930. Wallace, 9 v/ith Screws (Secured to Steps to (Secured 0 7-iit- vO u>

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 45. “Plan of the Seat of John Penn, jun.r Esq.r in Bloekley Township and County of Philadelphia," signed hy John Nancarrow, e. 1785. Courtesy, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Figure 40 Solitude Jno. Penn Esqr. 2$‘h. October [ 1S 16]. by Captain Joshua Rowley Watson. Pen and black wash over graphite. Foster. Captain Watson's Travels in America.

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Figure 47 “Solitude,” exterior elevations and floor plans. Measured and drawn by Charles L. Hillman and John McClintock, 1897. Free Library of Philadelphia

The characteristic hipped roof, stuccoed exterior, fenestration and first level interior floor plan were incorporated into several villas built outside Philadelphia in the Federal period.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 48 home ot n.ivid Bcveridize, James Poller Malcolm, warerci>lor. e. 1792, east facade. Snyder, City of Independence.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 49 Ormiston, c. 1798, east facade. Photo by Author The brick exterior ot Ormiston was originally stuccoed and scored to resemble cut ashlar.

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Figure 50 Ormiston, first level floor plan Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress

A later alteration created the central hall, cutting the original parlor into halves, as noted on the plan above.

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Figure 51 Ormiston, second and attic level floor plans Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 52. Rockland, 1810 West facade, facing Schuylkill River. Photo by author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 53. Rockland, 1810 East facade. Photo by author

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 54 Rockland, first level floor plan. Kieran, Timberlake (Sc Harris, “Assessment of Ten Historic Structures in Fairmount Park, November 1987,” Fairmount Park Commission Archives, Philadelphia.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 55 Gentilhommiere, c. 1798 Original wing, southeast comer. Photo by author.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T O 6 jrAGR A STAOR 6

First level floor plan

Second level floor plan

Figure 56 Gentilhommiere, c. 1798 First and second level floor plans. 1962 drawing by Edward B. L. Todd, based on 1940 drawing by Frank Choteau Brown. Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

205

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. .4»wr>t k a «:a ;

F itz u re y'hcrrv llill (Liter renamed Loudoun), Germantown. Pennsylvania, c. 1 SO I Conjeerural plans and elevarions drawn In' Mark Bower, 1084 Mark Bower. “Loudoun."

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Sources

Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bingham Letterbook. Birch Papers. Cadwalader Collection. Coxe Papers. Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers. Dreer Collection. Etting Papers. Norris Miscellaneous Family Papers. Pemberton Papers. Penn Family Papers. Penn Manuscripts. Penn Miscellaneous (Warrants & Surveys). Penn-Physick Correspondence. Penn-Physick Manuscripts. Shippen Papers. Samuel and Rebecca Shoemaker Diaries. Dr. George Smith Collection. Society Collection. Stauffer Collection

Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Friends of The Solitude, Zoological Society of Philadelphia. Archival Collection.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Historic American Buildings Survey Reports Archival Manuscript Collection, Edmund Physick Family Papers.

Philadelphia Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Register of Wills.

The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hill-Physick-Keith House folder.

Prime, Phoebe Phillips. “The Alfred Coxe Prime Directory of Craftsmen, compiled by Phoebe Prime from Philadelphia City Directories 1785-1800, and the Alfred Coxe Prime file of Newspaper Advertisements,” 1960. Xerography.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Henry Francis du Pone Winterthur Museum. Joseph Downs Collection ot Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.

Books and Periodicals

Ackerman, James S. The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Adam, Robert. The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam. 1773. Reprint, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1959.

Alberts, Robert C. The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham, 1152- 1804. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969.

Alevizatos, Alexandra. “‘Procured ot the Best and Most Fashionable Materials:’ The Furniture and Furnishings of the Lloyd Family of Maryland, 1750-1850.” Master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1999.

Arnold, Dana. The Picturesque in Late Georgian England. London: The Georgian Group, 1995.

Batey, Mavis. “The High Phase of English Gardening.” In British and American Gardens The Eighteenth Century, eds. Robert P. Maccubbin and Peter Martin, 44-64. Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984.

Beard, Geoffrey. Decorative Plasteruvrk in Great Britain. London: Phaidon Press, 1975.

Beard, Geoffrey. The Work of Robert Adam. New York: Arco Publishing Co., 1978.

Beckerdite, Luke. “Philadelphia Carving Shops: Part I: James Reynolds.” Antiques 125, no. 5 (May 1984): 1120-1133.

Betts, Richard J. “The Woodlands.” Winterthur Portfolio 14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1979): 213-234.

Bezanson, Anne. Prices and Inflation During The American Revolution: Pennsylvania,

208

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 770-1 790. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951.

Bower, Mark Arnold. “Loudoun, Germantown, Philadelphia: Country House of the Armat Family, The Years 1801-1835.” Master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1984.

Boyd, Sterling. The Adam Style in America, 1 770-1820. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985.

Columbani, Placido. A New Book of Ornaments. London: 1775.

Curran, C. P. Dublin Decorative Plasterwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Tiranti, 1967.

Dalzell, Bonnie. “Secrets of ‘The Solitude’ - an Adanvstyle jewel owned by John Penn in Philadelphia.” American Antiques (September, 1977): 21-24.

Dangremond, David W. “The Highlands: The Country Seat of Anthony Morris.” Master’s thesis. University of Delaware, 1981.

Eberlein, Harold Donaldson, ed. “Further Passages from the Diary of Nicholas Pickford Esquire, Relating to his Travels in Pennsylvania in 1786.” The A Architectural Review: A Magazine of Architecture & Decoration 48 (July- December 1920): 27-31.

Fales, Martha Gandy. Joseph Richardson and Family: Philadelphia Silversmiths. Middletown, Conn: Published tor the Historical Society ot Pennsylvania by Wesleyan University Press, 1974.

Fanelli, Doris Devine. Furnishings Plan for Graff House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Independence National Historical Park, 1988.

Federhen, Deborah Anne. “Politics and Style: An Analysis of the Patrons and Products ot Jonathan Gostelowe and Thomas Affleck.” In Shaping a National Culture: The Philadelphia Experience, 1750-1800, ed. Catherine E. Hutchins, 283-311. Winterthur, DE: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc., 1994.

209

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fergusson, Frances. “James Wyatt and John Penn: Architect and Patron at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire.” Architectural History: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 20, no 45 (1977): 45-55.

Filby, P. William, ed. Philadelphia Naturalization Records. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1982.

Fitzpatrick, John C. The Diaries of George Washington, 1748-1799. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925.

Foster, Kathleen A. Captain Watson’s Travels in America: The Sketchbook and Travels O f Joshua Rowley Watson, 1772-1818. A Barra Foundation Book, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Garvan, Beatrice B. Federal Philadelphia, I 785-1825: The Athens of the Western World. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987.

Harris, Eileen. The Furniture of Robert Adam. London: Alec Tiranti, 1963.

Hecksher, Morrison H. and Leslie Green Bowman. American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.

Henderson, Amy. “321 South Fourth Street: An Expression of Eighteenth-Century Taste.” Master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1999.

Himmelheber, Georg. Biedermeier Furniture. London: Faber and Faber, 1974.

Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Rococo Architecture in Southern Germany. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1968.

Hornor, William MacPherson. Blue Book: Philadelphia Furniture, William Penn to George Washington. 1935. Reprint, Alexandria, VA: Highland House Publishers, 1988.

Hummel, Charles F. “The Influence of English Design Books Upon the Philadelphia Cabinetmaker, 1760-1780.” Master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1955.

210

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hunt, John Dixon. Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.- The MIT Press, 1992.

H unt, John Dixon. The Figure in the Landscape: Poetry, Painting, and Gardening during The Eighteenth Century. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Hunt, John Dixon and Peter Willis, eds. The Genius of the Place: The English LandscapeGarden 1620-1820. London: Paul Elek, 1975.

Huth, Hans. Roentgen Furniture, Abraham and David Roentgen: European Cabinet makers. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1974.

Jackson-Stops, Gervase. An English Arcadia, 1600-1990. Washington, D.C.: The American Institute ot Architects Press, 1991.

Jacques, David. Georgian Gardens: The Reign of Nature. London: BT Batsford Ltd, 1983.

Jobe, Brock. “Boston Furniture Industry 1720-1740.” In Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Walter Muir Whitehill, 3-48. 1974. Reprint, Charlottesville: University Press ot Virginia, 1986.

Kauffman, Henry J. Early American Ironwork: Cast and Wrought. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1966.

Kimball, Marie G. “The Furnishings ot Lansdowne, Governor Penn’s Country Estate.” Antiques 19, no. 6 (June, 1931): 450-455.

Kimball, Marie G. “The Furnishings ot Solitude, the Country Estate of John Penn.” Antiques 20, no. 1 (Juiy> 1931): 27-31.

King, David. The Complete Works of Robert and James Adam. Oxford: Butterworth Architecture, 1991.

Klaiber, Hans Andreas. Schloss Solitude. Munchen: Deutscher Kunstverla, 1984.

211

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Komwolf, James D. “The Picturesque in the American Garden and Landscape b before 1800.” In British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, eds., Robert P. Maccubbin and Peter Martin. Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984: 93-106.

Kxafft, Jean-Charles, Plans, Coupes, Elevations dues Plus Belles Maisons & dues Hotels Conscruits a Paris & dans des Environs. 1771-1802. Reprint, Paris: Librairie d’art Decoratif et Industrial, 1909.

Lancaster, Clay. “Jefferson’s Architectural Indebtedness to Robert Morris.” Journal of The Society of Architectural Historians 10, no. 1 (March, 1951): 3-10.

Lawler, Edward, Jr. “The President’s House in Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 126, no. 1 (January 2002): 5-95.

Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: For Use or for Delight. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.

Lewis, Wilmarth Sheldon, ed. The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence. 48 v. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937-1983.

Lippincott, Louise. Selling Art in Georgian London: The Rise of Arthur Pond. New Haven: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1983.

Long, Timothy Preston. “The Woodlands.” Master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1991.

Lovell, Margeretta. “‘Such Furniture as Will Be Most Profitable,’ The Business of Cabinetmaking in Eighteenth-Century Newport.” Wintherthur Portfolio 26 (Spring 1991): 27-62.

Luporini. Nadine Charlotte. “Lansdowne: A Cultural Document of Its Time." Master's Thesis, University of Delaware, 1967.

Malins, Edward. English Landscaping and Literature, 1660-1840. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.

212

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mavhew, Edgar de N. and Minor Myers, Jr. A Documentary History of American Interiors, From the Colonial Era to 1915. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980.

McLean, Elizabeth. “Town and Country Gardens in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia.” In British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, eds., Robert P. Maccubbin and Peter Martin, 136-147. Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984.

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