Nomination of Historic Building, Structure, Site, Or

Home , Stenton (mansion), Wyck House

NOMINATION OF HISTORIC BUILDING, STRUCTURE, SITE, OR OBJECT PHILADELPHIA REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PHILADELPHIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION SUBMIT ALL ATTACHED MATERIALS ON PAPER AND IN ELECTRONIC FORM ON CD (MS WORD FORMAT)

1. ADDRESS OF HISTORIC RESOURCE (must comply with a Board of Revision of Taxes address) Street address: 1548 Adams Avenue Postal code: 19124 Councilmanic District: 7

2. NAME OF HISTORIC RESOURCE Historic Name: Wilmerton House Common Name: 1548 Adams Avenue

3. TYPE OF HISTORIC RESOURCE Building Structure Site Object

4. PROPERTY INFORMATION Condition: excellent good fair poor ruins Occupancy: occupied vacant under construction unknown Current use:

5. BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION

SEE ATTACHED

6. DESCRIPTION

SEE ATTACHED

7. SIGNIFICANCE Period of Significance (from year to year): 1700-1750 Date(s) of construction and/or alteration: circa 1713-28 Architect, engineer, and/or designer: Builder, contractor, and/or artisan: Paul Wilmerton Original owner: Paul Wilmerton Other significant persons: CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION: The historic resource satisfies the following criteria for designation (check all that apply): (a) Has significant character, interest or value as part of the development, heritage or cultural characteristics of the City, Commonwealth or Nation or is associated with the life of a person significant in the past; or, (b) Is associated with an event of importance to the history of the City, Commonwealth or Nation; or, (c) Reflects the environment in an era characterized by a distinctive architectural style; or, (d) Embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style or engineering specimen; or, (e) Is the work of a designer, architect, landscape architect or designer, or engineer whose work has significantly influenced the historical, architectural, economic, social, or cultural development of the City, Commonwealth or Nation; or, (f) Contains elements of design, detail, materials or craftsmanship which represent a significant innovation; or, (g) Is part of or related to a square, park or other distinctive area which should be preserved according to an historic, cultural or architectural motif; or, (h) Owing to its unique location or singular physical characteristic, represents an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood, community or City; or, (i) Has yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in pre-history or history; or (j) Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historical heritage of the community.

8. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES SEE ATTACHED

9. NOMINATOR

Name with Title: Kristin Hagar, historic preservation consultant Email: [email protected] Organization: Historical Society of Frankford Date: July 9, 2012 Street Address: 1507 Orthodox Street Telephone: (215) 743-6030 City, State, and Postal Code: Philadelphia, PA 19124 Nominator is is not the property owner.

PHC USE ONLY Date of Receipt:______10 July 2012______Correct-Complete Incorrect-Incomplete Date:______24 July 2012______Date of Notice Issuance:______8 April 2013______Property Owner at Time of Notice Name:______Address:______City:______State:____ Postal Code:______Date(s) Reviewed by the Committee on Historic Designation:______Date(s) Reviewed by the Historical Commission:______Date of Final Action:______Designated Rejected 3/16/07 5. BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION

Beginning at a point (fig. 1) on the northeast side of Deal Street at a distance of 231.8 feet from the southwest curb at the intersection of Adams Avenue and Romain Street, the property boundary extends (fig. 2) southeastward along Deal Street for a distance of 17 ft and 11 in. to a point; thence northeastward 143 ft. and 2 ¼ in. to Adams Avenue; thence northwestward along Adams Avenue for a distance of 18 feet to a point; thence 144 ft. and 11⅜ in. to the point of origin.

Figure 1: boundary starting point

Figure 2: Parcel: 1548 Adams Avenue

Map and parcel information (right) courtesy of Parcel Explorer, Department of Records, City of Philadelphia: citymaps.phila.gov/ParcelExplorer/ (last accessed June 3, 2012)

1 6. DESCRIPTION

The house known as the Wilmerton House is a 2-1/2 story, early Colonial house located at 1548 Adams Avenue, between Frankford Avenue and the Frankford Creek, in the Frankford section of Philadelphia. The house is detached; however, the front façade (northeast elevation) rises from the curb and the sides of the house tightly face adjacent buildings, so the property has no front or side yards. (See figs. 3, 4.) Only the front façade is in public view; additional information has been obtained through historical and contemporary maps and photographs.

Behind the house (the southwest portion of the property) stands an L-shaped building that extends onto the property at 1550 Adams Avenue. The L-shaped building does not contribute to the historical significance of the property. The reminder of the property behind the L-shaped building along Deal Street is open. Across the street from the property, on the northeast side of Adams Avenue, are six contiguous vacant lots, all surrounded by a low-rise wooden fence. (See figs. 4, 9, 10.) The property comprises 2,574 square feet; the rectangular-shaped house within it is approximately 612 square feet. 1 The house is currently vacant.

The exterior walls are comprised of rubble stone, popularly believed to have come from the Frankford Creek bed; the foundation is also comprised of stone. Ashlar quoins feature on the façade but otherwise the stone is uncoursed (figs. 3, 7). The gable roof, not original, is covered in green asphalt shingles (fig. 3). Discoloration on the stone exterior has been caused by aesthetically careless repointing work on the mortar joints (figs. 3, 7). The quoining, original to the house, appears to be in relatively good condition. There is possibly an historic box gutter, now exposed, along the cornice line (figs. 3, 5). Three stones extending at an angle from the base of the façade, below the first floor window, give evidence that a bulkhead to the basement once existed (fig. 8).

The house, about 18 feet in width, has two bays containing a window and the doorway on the first floor and two windows on the second floor (fig. 3). The doorway, on the right side of the façade (nearest the northwest corner of the lot), is inset by several inches and raised from ground level by two steps: one, platform-like; the other, narrow. The original doorframe and door no longer exist, and the platform-like

1 Office of Property Assessment, City of Philadelphia opa.phila.gov/ (last accessed June 3, 2012); Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 2006, Map Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia; Google Maps maps.google.com/ (last accessed June 3, 2012).

2 step is curiously not quite aligned with the door opening. This, and the fact that there is movement in the stone lintel, suggests that the door opening was retrofitted or otherwise altered. The movement in the stone lintel poses a critical structural threat to the building at present. Currently, the house entirely lacks a doorframe and a door; the entrance has been boarded with plywood (fig. 7).

All three windows on the front façade are vinyl replacement windows set into historic wood frames, double-hung on the second floor and casement on the first floor. All three frames are painted brown (see figs. 3, 5, 6). Below the first-floor casement window, there is evidence of a spray-foam application to replace deteriorated sill or mortar (fig. 6). A single story, wood frame appendage to the rear of the house, presumably a kitchen shed, is evident in the 2006 Sanborn map. Among historical maps referenced by the author, a shed first appears explicitly in a 1929 Bromley map, though it may not be the same shed evident in the 2006 Sanborn map as indicated by rectangles of differing shapes (see figs. 11- 12).

Figure 3: Northeast elevation along Adams Avenue, 2011 (Historical Society of Frankford)

Figure 4: Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 2006 (Free Library of Philadelphia)

Figure 5: Detail: Northeast elevation along Adams Avenue, second-floor window

Figure 6: Detail: Northeast elevation along Adams Avenue, first-floor window

Figure 7: Detail: Northeast elevation along Adams Avenue, first-floor main entrance

Figure 8: Detail: Northeast elevation along Adams Avenue, evidence of a bulkhead

Figure 9: Aerial view, northward. Google Maps, 2012, (maps.google.com/)

Figure 10: Aerial view, southward. Google Maps, 2012 (maps.google.com/)

Figure 11 (left): Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 2006 (Free Library of Philadelphia) Figure 12 (right): Geo. Bromley, Philadelphia Wards 23 and 41, 1929 (Athenaeum of Philadelphia)

11 7. SIGNIFICANCE

Likely constructed between 1713 and 1728, the Wilmerton House is a rare remnant of early settlement in Frankford, which itself is among Philadelphia‟s earliest communities. Moreover, while the house is currently in fair-to-poor condition, it is architecturally significant, and unique, as an example of early

Pennsylvania rural architectural found today within city limits. The Wilmerton House, at 1548 Adams Avenue, meets the following criteria for designation as set forth by the Philadelphia Historic Preservation Ordinance, Section 14-2007(5), of the Philadelphia Code:

(i) Has yielded, or may likely yield, information in pre-history or history; and,

(j) Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historical heritage of the community.

Criterion J: Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historical heritage of the community.

Likely constructed between 1713 and 1728, the Wilmerton House is a rare remnant of early settlement in Frankford, which itself is among Philadelphia‟s earliest communities. The settlement of Frankford is not secondary in significance to the settlement of Philadelphia; it was a stage in it. Upon arrival in the New World in 1682 to realize his “Holy Experiment”—as well as to provide project management for what was also, in its pragmatic aspects, “a broadly conceived real estate development”2—Penn granted land to the Free Society of Traders. The Free Society was a joint-stock company of about 200 English Quaker merchants accompanying Penn as the primary investors in Pennsylvania. While numerous investors were vying for lottery assignments of prime land, because Penn envisioned the Free Society of Traders as a chief generator of economic development in Pennsylvania, he granted the company two sizable parcels in strategic, waterway locations: nearly 100 acres in the city below the dock and 20,000 acres in the city-liberties around the Delaware River and Frankford Creek.3 Though the Society disbanded within four years due to the members‟ increasing focus on personal commercial enterprises,

2 Roach (I) 5 3 Dunn and Dunn 18-19; Roach (I) 25.

12 the company was influential in the development of Pennsylvania.4 Its historical significance lies in Penn‟s perception of its importance to the development of Pennsylvania, which led him to grant prime parcels of land to its members, as well as in the fact that its members were instrumental in establishing the legislative foundations and the physical and industrial infrastructure of the new colony.

Frankford began to develop in 1682 within the 20,000-acre parcel. The Society members chiefly responsible for Frankford‟s development were Thomas Fairman (Penn‟s Deputy Surveyor General and assistant to Deputy Governor William Markham), Robert Adams, John Harper, Jr., Thomas Seary, and Henry Waddy.5 They called the parcel the “Manor of Frank,” an appellation that probably refers to the Frankford Land Company based in present-day Germantown, which was already using the branch of the Wingohocking Creek running through this parcel (i.e., the Frankford Creek) as its trade passage to the Delaware River.6

Thomas Fairman had been living in Pennsylvania, in lower Shackamaxon (present-day Kensington), since 1678, when the Delaware Valley was primarily inhabited by Dutch and Swedish subsistence farmers along the banks of the Delaware River and Frankford Creek. Having bought land from and surveyed the area with Lasse Cock, son of pioneering Swedish settler Peter Larsson Cock, Fairman played a lead role in negotiating Penn‟s purchase from the Swedes of a circa-1660 gristmill for the Society of Free Traders.7 Located on the southwest bank of the Frankford Creek (also known as the Quessinawomink along this stretch), this came to be known as the Frankford Mill.8 Fairman had additional land on the other side of the gristmill, acquired in 1680 from English Quaker settlers living primarily in Upland (present-day Chester). (See fig. 13.)

4 Dunn and Dunn 19. 5 See Hallowell; Roach (I). 6 Hallowell 8; Roach (I) 47; Watson 72. 7 Clendenin 15; Nash 56; Roach 15. 8 Dunn and Dunn 19; Roach (II) 152. Hallowell 60. By 1693, the gristmill was known as Thomas Parsons‟ Mill as well as “the old Swedes mill”; 18th century owners included William Ashbridge and Thomas Duffield. It was demolished and replaced about 1854 (Hallowell 60).

Figure 13: H. B. Roach, “Pre-Penn Settlements on the Delaware and Schuylkill (Adapted from Original Surveys),” in “The Planting of Philadelphia: A Seventeenth-Century Real Estate Development” (part I), The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 92, 1 (Jan. 1968): 15.

14 Over the next couple of decades, Fairman, Adams, Harper, Seary, and Waddy made important contributions to the development of Frankford into a full-fledged community. In 1683, a grand jury summoned by Penn‟s new government, which included Henry Waddy, ordered the construction of a bridge over the Frankford Creek as well as the laying of the King‟s Road (Frankford Avenue) in order to facilitate horse and cart passage from the from the Schuylkill River to the Neshaminy Creek and through Philadelphia.9 This route, which followed an existing Lenni Lenape trail, is distinguished today as the first legally planned and constructed road in Pennsylvania, providing a commercial corridor for well over 300 years.10 Over the next twenty years, mainly in response to complaints of poor conditions in the King‟s Road (which, in spite of the early plans, remained a dirt road until 180411), the Provincial Council ordered the surveying and laying of several additional roads, one of which was Adams Road, named after Free Society member Robert Adams and laid out by his colleague John Harper, Jr. in 1696. Adams Road originally extended from Parson‟s Water Race Bridge at the King‟s Road (Frankford Avenue) to about Crescentville.12

Bearing in mind the raison d‟etre of the colony (and following Penn‟s explicit request), Fairman established a Friends meeting in 1683. While meetings were initially held in the home of Sarah and Thomas Seary, Fairman spearheaded the construction of a log meetinghouse within two years. This was replaced, about 1704, by a brick meetinghouse, which would ultimately evolve into the brick and stone Frankford Friends Meetinghouse, built in 1775, distinguished today as the oldest surviving meetinghouse in Philadelphia.13 By 1701 an Anglican church was established in Frankford as well, known as Trinity Church, Oxford (Township).14

While Frankford remained a farming community until the second half of the eighteenth century, industrial development was burgeoning in the late 1600s.15 The fast-running Frankford Creek and its nearby convergence with the Delaware River made Frankford an ideal place for production and

9 Hallowell 8. 10 Cooperman 7. 11 ibid., 7-8 12 Hallowell 8. While Adams Road originally extended in the same general direction as it does today, it followed a somewhat different course. 13 ibid., 33. 14 ibid., 33, 41. 15 Cooperman 9.

15 distribution.16 Society investors and other early settlers of the late-17th and early-18th century established a brick kiln, glassworks, sawmill, tanneries, and other industrial sites. Tanneries were a particular asset and driver of growth in Frankford over the 18th century, as tanning and other “dirty” industries were prohibited within the city of Philadelphia.17 With its industrial roots in the circa-1660 Swedish gristmill, Frankford is one of the oldest continuous manufacturing and industrial communities in America.

Within the community of Frankford, as old as Pennsylvania itself, the Wilmerton House is possibly the oldest surviving residence, dating to 1713 to 1728. It is also one of the oldest surviving houses in Philadelphia County, comparable in age-value to Elfreth‟s Alley, Stenton, and Wyck,18 and its early history reflects some of the key social, political, infrastructural, and economic currents propelling burgeoning Frankford.

In a patent dated May 21, 1684, William Penn granted a 305-acre tract on the north side of Frankford Creek to Henry Waddy. The land became known as Waddy‟s Grange. On January 26, 1694, Waddy added to his holdings, purchasing an adjacent 7 ¾-acre parcel from Robert Adams. Waddy died soon thereafter and, on March 24, 1698, Waddy‟s daughter and son-in-law, Ann and Richard Cony, who resided in London, sold Waddy‟s Grange “with all houses, barns, orchards, gardens, fences, inclosures, buildings, improvements + appurtenances” to Robert Adams, who already owned large tracts in the area.19 On June 7, 1698, Adams sold 100 acres of Waddy‟s Grange including the parcel now known as 1548 Adams Avenue to John Worrell.20 On February 20, “1712-13,” John Worrell, who is referred to in the deed as a maltster, transferred a 300 square perch section (1.875 acres) of the 100 acres he had obtained from Robert Adams including the parcel now known as 1548 Adams Avenue to Paul Wilmerton (a.k.a. Wilmoton), a shoemaker. No house was mentioned in this deed, but the deed did memorialize an easement granted by Worrell to Wilmerton through the land Worrell retained. The deed guaranteed to Wilmerton “free toleration, libertie, and privilege of a foot path and bridle way of Six foot wide along by the line of the said John Worrell‟s Land extending itself in Length Twenty Nine perches

16 Clendenin 15. 17 Hallowell 60. 18 The oldest surviving houses of Elfreth‟s Alley, numbers 120 and 122, were built c. 1724-28; Stenton was built between 1723-1730; and the oldest extant section of Wyck House rose in 1736. 19 Phila. Deed Book G, vol. 8, 346. 20 ibid., 348.

16 between the said Robert Adams Road and the high Queen‟s Road.” Twenty nine perches equals 478.5 feet, exactly the distance the Wilmerton House stands from Frankford Avenue along the line of Adams Avenue; the path ensured by the easement was a driveway from Frankford Avenue to the house.21 On April 10, 1718, Worrell and yeoman George Winter sold an adjacent 1 ¾-acre tract to the west of the 300 square perch tract to Wilmerton.22 On August 3, 1728, Paul Wilmerton and wife Catherine sold both tracts, the 300 square perch tract to the east and the 1 ¾-acre tract to the west, to Isaac Leech. Significantly, the deed for this transaction notes that the transfer included both tracts “together with a Dwelling house thereupon.”23 Thus, the house was likely constructed by Wilmerton between 1713 and 1728.24 Subsequent deeds will be noted later in this narrative to disprove the possibility that this house was demolished and replaced during the 19th century.

It is worthy of mention that around this time the first school in Frankford was established Nathaniel Walton, possibly adjacent to the house in present-day Womrath Park between Adams, Frankford and Kensington avenues (fig. 14). Walton, who had been teaching possibly as early as 1718, definitely by 1727-28, resided in present-day Womrath Park.25

21 Phila. Deed Book F, vol. 4, 427. The date in the deed is likely listed as “1712-13” because the recorder of the deed in 1728 was unable to determine whether “the Eleventh year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Ann Queen of Great Brittain” was 1712 or 1713. Given that Anne ascended the throne on March 2, 1702, it is likely that the date of the deed is February 20, 1713. 22 ibid., 425. 23 ibid., 423. 24 Unfortunately, the repository of fire insurance surveys maintained by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania includes no surveys for this property. 25 Hallowell 55.

Figure 14: Aerial view, northward, illustrating proximity of Wilmerton House and Womrath Park. Google Maps, 2012 (maps.google.com/)

Isaac Leech, Esq. (1692-1744), was the son of Tobias (Toby) Leech, the first of the surname Leech to migrate to Pennsylvania, in 1682 from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, and known as one of the founding fathers of Cheltenham Township, PA, along with Richard Wall. Arriving in Pennsylvania within weeks of William Penn, Toby purchased from Penn a 200-acre tract on which he established his plantation. Toby Leech was one of the wealthiest and most landed among the early colonists and ran large-scale tanning, milling, and farming enterprises. He also served in the Provincial Assembly from 1713 until circa-1720. By the time of his death in 1726, his Cheltenham seat had grown from 200 to 2,700 acres, and he additionally owned plantations in Philadelphia, Chester, and New Castle counties. To Isaac Leech, one of six surviving children, he willed his Cheltenham mansion and 366 acres of land as well as shares in his mill, tannery, and all other plantations.26

Isaac, like his father, was a tanner and a farmer, and he became wealthy in his own right, adding land holdings to his inherited properties. He was a well established, politically active figure in the colony, winning election to the position of High Sheriff of Philadelphia County in 1727 (though he did not

26 Leach 205-210.

18 serve27) and serving as a Philadelphia County judge from 1741 until his death three years later. While Isaac was based on the Leech estate in Cheltenham Township, presumably he purchased the property at 1548 Adams Avenue in conjunction with his interest in the old Swedish gristmill. His will gives evidence of this interest: upon Isaac‟s death in 1744, the property transferred to his son, Isaac Leech, Jr. (circa-1730 -1763), along with a one-third share in the “Frankford Mills.” Isaac, Jr., a first cousin of Dr. Benjamin Rush on the side of his mother, Rebecca Hall, also inherited the Cheltenham mansion and much of the estate, as his father had explicitly directed him to carry on the family tanning business.28 While tanning appears to have been his primary occupation, Isaac, Jr., maintained the Frankford house until his death in 1763; the house passed to his children, Isaac (III), Rachel, Rebecca, and Martha.29 (See figs. 15-16.)

27 “It was the custom during the colonial period to choose at the annual election two persons as sheriff, and to return the names of both to the governor, who selected and commissioned one of them. On the occasion named, the governor‟s choice fell to Owen Owen, Esqr, the other name returned. Owen had held the office the previous year.” (Leach 215). 28 Leech 215-220. 29 Phila. Deed Book D, vol. 12, 428.

Figures 15-16: N. Scull and G. Heap, A Map of Philadelphia and Parts Adjacent, circa 1750 (Athenaeum of Philadelphia). The house in question is not the house labeled “Leech,” which was a “large stone messuage tenement or dwelling house” owned by Joseph Leech to the east of Frankford Avenue, but is likely the house west of Frankford Avenue closest to Frankford Creek.

The property transferred out of the Leech family in 1785, when the children and their spouses sold it to John Deal (1746-1788), a butcher, for two-hundred pounds.30 John Deal was the grandson of John Diel, a farmer who was among the first Germans to settle in Pennsylvania, in 1688.31 This deed of 1785 referred back to the 1728 deed, stating, "It's the same Messuage Land and Premises that Paul Wilmerton and Catherine his Wife by Indenture … on the second & third days of August 1728 … did grant and confirm unto Isaac Leech.”32 This deed thus confirms that no new house was built upon the property between 1728 and 1785. Following the death of John Deal‟s wife, Elizabeth Gardener Deal in 1836, Orphans Court conferred ownership of the house to their daughter, Susannah Deal Harper in 1840.33

A later deed of November 1897 (from Louisa M. Rebischon to Daniel Galheber) documents the next two transactions and references the house. Susannah Harper, in her will dated March 1857,

gave to her son, Robert W. Harper, a stone messuage and lot situate on the southwest side of Adams Street in Frankford containing in front or breadth on said Adams Street eighteen feet and extending of that width in length or depth between parallel lines along ground of John D. Harper to Frankford Creek. Bounded northwestwardly by ground of John D. Harper southwestwardly by Frankford Creek southeastwardly by lot devised to Martha Harper and northeastwardly by Adams Street… .34

The deed of November 1897 additionally references the subsequent transaction of November 1876 between Robert W. Harper and his sisters Martha Harper and Eliza (Harper) Smith, which notes the stone house on Adams Street originally owned by their mother, Susanna Harper. “Martha S. Harper… gave and bequeathed to her sister Eliza Smith whatever interest she had in the stone house on Adams Street given to her by her mother.”35

The most important finding among the 18th and 19th century deeds warrants reiteration: "It's the same Messuage Land and Premises that Paul Wilmerton and Catherine his Wife by Indenture … on the second & third days of August 1728 … did grant and confirm unto Isaac Leech.”36 This statement explicitly confirms that no new house was built upon the property between 1728 and 1785. And, as

30 Phila. Deed Book D, vol. 12, 428; Campbell 1787. 31 Campbell 1785-1787. 32 Phila. Deed Book D, vol. 12, 428 33 Philadelphia Historical Commission file: 1548 Adams Avenue; Campbell 1788, 1799, 1802. 34 Phila. Deed Book WMG, vol. 221, 539. 35 ibid., 539-540. 36 Phila. Deed Book D, vol. 12, p. 428

21 demonstrated, subsequent deeds through the 19th century continue to reference that same stone house, which continues to appear on Philadelphia atlases and fire insurance maps up to the 2006 Sanborn. Moreover, architectural analysis logically places the house in the first half of the 18th century, which will be discussed in the next section.

Figure 17: G.W. Bromley, Philadelphia Atlas, 1895 (Athenaeum of Philadelphia)

Figure 18: G.W. Bromley, Philadelphia Atlas, 1910 (Athenaeum of Philadelphia)

Figure 19: Geo. Bromley, Philadelphia Wards 23 and 41, 1929 (Athenaeum of Philadelphia)

Figure 20: Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 2006 (Free Library of Phila.)

Criterion C: Reflects the environment in an era characterized by a distinctive architectural style.

In a city replete with well-preserved examples of high-style Colonial architecture, the Wilmerton House provides a particularly early example of a relatively modest dwelling from the city‟s hinterlands. The earliest picture of Philadelphia architecture is a Peter Cooper painting circa 1720, showing a city built almost entirely of brick (fig. 21).37 By contrast, outside the city and throughout the Delaware Valley was a comparably strong tradition of settlers constructing houses out of local fieldstone utilizing building traditions from their respective homelands. While settlers initially constructed fast, temporary shelter out of wooden logs and sod, as soon as they were able they utilized material sourced from their property, most typically fieldstone or limestone, to build themselves their permanent home.38 The Wilmerton House lacks many of the defining features of very early Philadelphia high-style construction—there was probably never a straight door hood on carved brackets, as seen in the Letitia Street House (fig. 22), nor a

37 Smith 289, 292. 38 Bye 9-10.

24 wooden balcony on a façade of patterned bricks.39 It is exemplary not of early Philadelphia town architecture but rather of early Pennsylvania rural architecture found, today, within city limits.

Figure 21 (left): Peter Cooper, “South East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia” (detail), c. 1720 Figure 22 (right): Letitia Street House, c. 1703-15 both in R.C. Smith, “Two Centuries of Philadelphia Architecture: 1700-1900,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 43, 1 (1953), 290-91.

Figure 23 (left): Wilmerton House, 2011 (Historical Society of Frankford) Figure 24 (right): Parson-Taylor House, 1980 (National Park Service)

39 Smith 290-291.

Figure 25: Parson-Taylor House, 2010 (Flickr: G Waugh)

The Parsons-Taylor House of Easton, PA (figs. 24, 25), constructed by Easton founder William Parsons between 1753 and 1757, affords a comparison with the Wilmerton House and provides a glimpse of what the Wilmerton House may once have looked like. Originally from England, William Parsons was a shoemaker by trade and later served as Surveyor General of the Province from 1741 to 1748 before leading in the settlement of the new Northampton County in the 1750s. The National Register nomination of the Parsons-Taylor House describes it as “a fine survivor of the „Delaware Valley‟ architectural variation of the Georgian style that once predominated in the rural areas of the colony‟s eastern margin and also in adjacent New Jersey.”40

Noted scholar of folklore and vernacular architecture Henry Glassie has elaborated on this variation as an amalgam of English and German architectural influences:

The farmhouses most usual in the Mid-Atlantic region… combine Georgian with earlier folk features—old Rhineland peasant interiors stuffed into stylish eighteenth century shells. They are two rooms deep, have internal gable-end chimneys, a placement of windows and doors which approximates symmetry, and a low pitched roof like the Georgian houses, but they lack most of the stylish trim, the broad open stair has been replaced by a narrow boxed-in medieval stair which curls up in one corner, the hallway is absent, and the house has a three or four-room Continental plan and often two front doors. … Porches skirting the front, sides and rear, and

40 Metz 3.

26 kitchen wings off to one end or the rear, which often have built-in porches and shed roofs, are common appendages of the usual Mid-Atlantic folk house.41

Glassie concludes, “the diverse early dwelling traditions of the groups which settled in southeastern Pennsylvania gave way to a new house type less than a century after the colony was founded.”42 Architectural historian Smith points out that while features of Colonial architecture—fieldstone construction, corner fireplaces, etc.—are sometimes attributed specifically to Germany, England, or Sweden, to a certain extent, similar building practices were found throughout northern Europe.43 The point is that relatively simple, folk interiors were increasingly refined with cosmetic, exterior Georgian touches.

The Parsons-Taylor House exemplifies the rural Delaware Valley Georgian type, and the Wilmerton House, by architectural and historical evidence, appears to be an early manifestation. The National Register nomination of the Parsons-Taylor House provides its description. 44 It has two front doors, both opening up to the main room of the first floor, which has no central hallway. A winder staircase runs from the basement to the attic, placed near the twin chimneys on one of the gable ends. The second floor is divided into two rooms and a small hallway. The doorways, set several inches into the building walls, are simply adorned, each with a four-light transom window, painted wood frame, and three-paneled door. The gable-end doorway is capped with a hood while a similar pent roof spans the front façade (both reproductions of original elements), and the molding and shingles on both mimic the simple cornice molding along the front façade and the shingled roof. The first and second floors have 9-over-6 sash windows while the attic floor has 6-over-6 sash windows; three-panel shutters surround the first- floor windows. The random-cut stone comprising the exterior of the house was obtained from a nearby quarry.

Both the Parsons-Taylor House and the Wilmerton House were built by men of moderate means with artisan training in pioneering situations, though in the case of William Parsons, his social/political standing had grown. (Recall that while the Leeches were wealthy landowners and socially/politically prominent figures, they likely rented the Wilmerton House; it was originally constructed by shoemaker

41 Glassie (1968) 54-55. 42 Glassie (1968) 55. 43 Smith 292. 44 Metz 2.

27 Paul Wilmerton.) Archival evidence of the original interior layout was not found by the author and in all likelihood does not exist, however the Wilmerton House is strikingly similar to the Parsons-Taylor House in massing, proportion, material, fenestration, and, very possibly, original interior layout. It is notable that the Wilmerton House has a lower-pitched roof and more pronounced quoining, both Georgian hallmarks, despite being earlier than the Parsons-Taylor House. While ornamental detail has been lost from the Wilmerton House, much had been lost from the Parsons-Taylor House as well—its door hood and pent roof, for example, were reconstructed—and this comparison gives insight to the potential of the Wilmerton House for preservation treatment that combines restoration and reconstruction. More importantly, the comparison elucidates the architectural significance of the Wilmerton House, in spite of its current condition (which can give a false impression of insignificance), as an example of a notable early domestic building type of the Delaware Valley region. The fact that it is found within Philadelphia County, where fewer buildings of this age and type remain than in the surrounding counties, only augments its significance.

Criterion I: Has yielded, or may likely yield, information in pre-history or history.

Owing to its proximity to Frankford Creek, the property at 1548 Adams Avenue is likely to yield information related to pre-historical Native American activities in the area. Owing to its early development by settlers from Europe, the property at 1548 Adams Avenue is likely to contain privy pits and other subterranean features that are likely to yield information related to activities at the site in the late seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Conclusion The Wilmerton House stands today in fair-to-poor condition and vulnerable to structural damage. Particularly around the doorway area, due to the movement in the stone lintel, there is risk of collapse. The house deserves to be recognized for its age value, its architectural value, and its symbolic value (representative of the first fifty years of Frankford), and protected against poor maintenance and further damage or loss.

28 8. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Campbell, Joseph Andrew. Genealogical Account of the Ancestors in America of Joseph Andrew Kelly Campbell and Edith Eliza Deal. Privately printed by Joseph Andrew Campbell, 1921. Available: Google Books books.google.com/ (last accessed June 3, 2012). Clendenin, Malcolm, with Introduction by Emily T. Cooperman. "Thematic Context Statement: Building Industrial Philadelphia." (2009). Available: Preserve Philadelphia www.preservephiladelphia.org/wp-content/uploads/HCSIndustrial.pdf (last accessed June 3, 2012). Cooperman, Emily T. "Historic Context Statement: Cluster 1: Frankford, Tacony, Wissinoming, Bridesburg.” (2009). Available: Preserve Philadelphia www.preservephiladelphia.org/wp- content/uploads/HCSCluster1.pdf (last accessed June 3, 2012). Dunn, Mary Maples and Richard S. Dunn. “The Founding, 1681-1701.” In Philadelphia: A 300 Year History, edited by The Barra Foundation, 1-32. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1982. Glassie, Henry. “Eighteenth-Century Cultural Process in Delaware Valley Folk Building.” In Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, edited by Dell Upton and John Michael Vlach, 394-426. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986. ------. Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968. Hallowell, Guernsey A. “History of Frankford,” in Frankford: A Souvenir Booklet in Connection with the Historical and Industrial Celebration, October Twenty-Seventh to November Second, Nineteen-Hundred-and-Twelve. (1912). Available: Philly H2O www.phillyh2o.org/backpages/PDFs_Misc/ FF1912_HistoryOnly.pdf (last accessed June 3, 2012. Lanier, Gabrielle M. The Delaware Valley in the Early Republic: Architecture, Landscape, and Regional Identity. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Leach, Josiah Granville. Chronicle of the Yerkes Family: with Notes on the Leech and Rutter Families. Ann Arbor: General Library of the University of Michigan, 1904. Available: The Internet Archive archive.org/details/chronicleyerkes00leacgoog (last accessed June 3, 2012). Metz, Lance E. “Parsons-Taylor House.” National Register of Historic Places—Nomination Form, prepared 1980. Available: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System

29 www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H086699_01H.pdf (last accessed June 3, 2012). Mullins, Lisa C., ed. Colonial Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic. Harrisburg: National Historical Society, 1987. Nash, Gary B. “City Planning and Political Tension in the Seventeenth Century: The Case of Philadelphia.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 112, 1 (Feb. 15, 1968): 54- 73. Pindar, Peter Augustus. “Small Colonial Houses” (originally publ. 1931). In The Evolution of Colonial Architecture, edited by Lisa C. Mullins, 69-89. Harrisburg, PA: National Historical Society, 1987. Richie, Margaret Bye, John D. Milner and Gregory D. Huber. Stone Houses: Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania’s Bucks County and Brandywine Valley. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2005. Roach, Hannah Benner. “The Planting of Philadelphia: A Seventeenth-Century Real Estate Development” (part I). The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 92, 1 (January 1968): 3-47. ------. “The Planting of Philadelphia: A Seventeenth-Century Real Estate Development” (part II). The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 92, 2 (April, 1968): 143-194. Rush, Benjamin, with George. W. Corner, ed. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His "Travels through Life" together with his Commonplace Book for 1789-1813. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948. Smith, Robert C. “Two Centuries of Philadelphia Architecture: 1700-1900.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 43, 1 (1953): 289-303. Watson, John Fanning. Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, In the Olden Time. Vol. 2. Philadelphia: A. Hart, J. W. Moore, J. Pennington, U. Hunt, and H. F. Anners, 1850. Available: Google Books books.google.com/ (last accessed June 3, 2012).