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Powelton: an Unrecorded Building by William Strickland

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Powelton: an Unrecorded Building by William Strickland Powelton: An Unrecorded Building by William Strickland OWELTON, the great Greek Revival country house formerly situated on the west bank of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia's PBlockley Township, was one of the most important buildings of its period and deserves to be better known in the literature of Ameri- can architectural history. The seat of John Hare Powel (1786-1856),1 gentleman farmer, art collector, and amateur architect, the house was one of the earliest private manifestations of the monumental Greek Revival style in America. The core of the house was built by Powel's aunt, Elizabeth Willing Powel, in 1800-1802. The portico and wings, added by John Hare Powel, the inheritor of her fortune, were designed by William Strickland in 1825; the portico was com- pleted in 1826, but the wings took almost forty years to finish. De- stroyed in 1885 to make way for West Philadelphia tenements, Powelton was Strickland's first important private commission and, as far as is known, the first private country house near Philadelphia to use a giant stone portico based on a Greek temple front. Powelton has not entirely escaped the notice of architectural his- torians, but comment has been brief.2 "Considering the architectural importance of this fine house," George B. Tatum has written, "it is surprising that it has received so little attention from either contem- porary writers or from later historians."3 Brief accounts or references 1 Henry Simpson, The Lives of Eminent Philadelphia™ now Deceased (Philadelphia, 1859)* 808-819. 2 William Harbeson, "Mediaeval Philadelphia," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (hereinafter PMHB), LXVII (1943), 226, 230. Harbeson mentions the house only in passing and dates it "about 1830." George B. Tatum, Penn's Great Town (Philadelphia, 1961), 71-72, 175. 3 Ibid., 71-72.1 should like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Tatum for suggest- ing this study. I want also to express my thanks to Mrs. Lydia Bond Powel of New York City, Mrs. Hope Powel Harkness of Providence, John Hare Powel of Seattle, John Harris of the Royal Institute of British Architects (London), Edwin Wolf 2nd, Librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Agnes Addison Gilchrist of New York. H5 I46 CHARLES B. WOOD III April to the house have appeared variously in local histories,4 social his- tories,5 genealogies,6 diaries,7 and newspapers,8 but the single most valuable description of Powelton is found in an unpublished history and genealogy of the Hare-Powel family compiled in 1907.9 This, together with a number of Elizabeth Willing Powel's and John Hare Powel's accounts and letters concerning the building of the house and some recently uncovered English drawings for "Proposed additions to Powelton Cottage/' make up the bulk of the primary source mate- rial available on the subject. The history of Powelton began on November 13, 1775, when Samuel Powel (1738-1793) and his wife Elizabeth Willing (1742- 1830) paid £1,675 sterling to her kinsmen Thomas Willing and Tench Francis for ninety-seven acres on the west bank of the Schuyl- kilL10 Today this plot would be roughly defined as lying between the Schuylkill River and 34th Street, Lancaster Avenue and, possibly, Hamilton Street. Samuel Powel is said to have erected a country house called "Powelton" shortly after he acquired the land, probably around 1779.11 Nothing definite is known about the appearance of this house, but there is reason to believe that it might have been quite ambitious as Samuel Powel created one of Philadelphia's finest town houses.12 In any case, it must have been reasonably commodi- ous, for in May, 1784, a festival of the Sons of Tammany was held at 4 M. Laffitte Vieira, West Philadelphia Illustrated (Philadelphia, 1903), 105, 170; Leon S. Rosenthal, A History of Philadelphia*s University City (Philadelphia, 1963), 36-44. RosenthaPs information is based largely on Vieira's which was apparently taken from secondary sources. 5 Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphians (Boston, 1963), 157. Burt calls Powelton "the most magnificent country house of its time in West Philadelphia." 6 Robert C. Moon, The Morris Family of Philadelphia^ Supplement (Philadelphia, 1908), IV, 192-194. 7 Townsend Ward, "A Walk to Darby," PMHB, III (1879), 159; Allan Nevins, The Diary of Philip Hone 1828-1851 (New York, 1927), I, 125. 8 Frank Willing Leach, "Old Philadelphia Families: Powel," North American, July 5, 1908. 9 Robert Johnston Hare-Powel, "Hare-Powel and Kindred Families," 1907, typescript in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereinafter HSP). 10 Office of Recorder of Deeds, County of Philadelphia, Deed Book 117,137-139 (microfilm copy, reel number 36). 11 Date given without documentation, Hare-Powel, 197 (pagination at top of page used rather than a variant pagination at the foot of the page). 12 The famous Stedman-Powel House on South Third Street (1765). See Nicholas B. Wain- wright, Colonial Grandeur in Philadelphia: The House and Furniture of General John Cad- walader (Philadelphia, 1964), 88-101; Thomas T. Waterman, The Dwellings of Colonial America (Chapel Hill, 1950), 162-165; Philip B. Wallace, Colonial Houses in Philadelphia (New York, 1931), 178-189. 1967 POWELTON I47 Powelton, at which George Washington was present.13 It was still ex- tant in 1793, for in that year Samuel Powel died there during the yellow fever epidemic.14 The fate of this first Powelton is unknown; whether it was destroyed by fire or was simply rented as a farmhouse after 1800 cannot be determined.15 At all events, it was not kept as the family country house, for in May, 1800, Samuel's widow and sole heir to the family fortune began a new house called Powelton. Mrs. PoweFs building activities are known through her diaries, account books, and receipt books. On May 13, 1800, she recorded that "ground . was . broken for the cellar of Powelton House."16 That same day she paid David Gray, house carpenter, one thousand dollars "to be appropriated to the building and purchasing materials for Powelton House."17 As if to clarify matters further for future historians, she added, after another similar entry, <4N. B. David Gray is the carpenter and undertaker for building my mansion house at Powelton Farm on the Western side of the River Schuyl- kill."18 Gray was, in fact, the general contractor and probably also the "architect" of the house as there is no mention of any payment for a plan or design in the otherwise detailed and presumably com- plete records of payment to all craftsmen and laborers who worked on or supplied material for the house.19 Her arrangement with Gray was simple and businesslike; she made him regular advances of 13 Joseph Jackson, Literary Landmarks of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1939), 298. 14 Harold D. Eberlein and Cortlandt V. D. Hubbard, Portrait of a Colonial City, Philadel- phia 1670-1838 (Philadelphia, 1939), 373. 15 This study is complicated by the fact that there were always several buildings on the Powelton grounds and it is not always possible to distinguish between references to lesser farm buildings and the mansion house. It is known that there was a building standing in October, 1799, for during that month Mrs. Powel paid £6 9* $}4d "for 29 panes of glass and glazing the windows at Powelton farm house, and also for erecting a necessary." Elizabeth Powel Estate Account Book 1794-1801, Library Company of Philadelphia (hereinafter LCP). 16 Pocket Almanack and Diary for 1802, Elizabeth Powel Papers, HSP. 17 Elizabeth Powel Accounts 1794-1805, May 13, 1800, LCP. 18 Elizabeth Powel Estate Account Book 1794-1801, Feb. 4, 1801, LCP. David Gray is listed in the Philadelphia directories from 1797 to 1824 as a house carpenter residing at 162 North 5th Street. He was elected a member of the Carpenters* Company in 1801 and died in 1824. The Carpenters* Company of the City and County of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1962), 59. 19 Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century house carpenters were expected to be adept at "drawing designs." Rules and Regulations of the Friendship Carpenters' Company O769), manuscript in the Carpenters' Company library, Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia (quoted in Margaret B. Tinkcom, "Cliveden: The Building of a Philadelphia Countryseat, 1763-1767," PMHBy LXXXVII (1964), 14. See also Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic (New York, 1922), 61-62; Wainwright, 36. I48 CHARLES B. WOOD III April $1000 with which he was "to purchase all materials in his own name and credit."20 Gray also agreed "to ask no other recompense for his trouble in providing the said materials and for paying the workmen, being satisfied with the reasonable profit attending the doing the carpenter's work at the old prices."21 Apparently, however, he did succeed in obtaining an additional fee for his services as "under- taker," for when the house was completed, on January 2,1802, Mrs. Powel recorded: I have this day paid David Gray $1,017.13 the balance of his account in full of all demands for materials and workmanship of every description for the building of Powelton House in Blockley Township and the Necessary be- longing to the mansion. Mr. Gray having previously delivered to me the accounts for work and materials paid for by him except his own charge for commission on the undertaking which is now included in the present settle- ment. N. B. For the payment of these accounts I had at different periods advanced Mr. Gray n,ooo Drs as specified above the whole of my house is now finished amounting to $12,017.31 without the last coat of paint on the inside.22 No positively identifiable views of the house seem to have sur- vived.
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