Cedar Grove is an ancestral home of the Morris family. The house, which
stood for over two hundred years near Harrowgate station in Frankford,
in 1927 was removed stone by stone. It has been re-erected on Lansdowne
Drive near Memorial Hall, with its original contents, through the
generosity of Miss Lydia Thompson Morris. The land at Frankford was
bought in 1714 by Thomas Coates of High Street, the father of Elizabeth
Coates. In 1721 Elizabeth married Isaac Paschall, and it is from this
time that dates the oldest portion of the house. Isaac Paschall, a son
of Elizabeth, married Patience Mifflin in 1767. The house came to his
daughter Sarah, who married Isaac W. Morris in 1795.
Through the munificent gift of Miss Morris, Cedar Grove has retained its
heirlooms dating from 1720 to 1800. Within its walls may be seen
furniture from the simple William and Mary type to the elegant examples
of Heppelwhite and Sheraton.
One enters directly into the living room with the informality of
pre-Revolutionary times. The Chippendale sofa, upholstered in yellow
brocade, the pie-crust table and the six ball-and-claw foot chairs
combine easily with the earlier William and Mary highboy and lowboy.
In the dining room, the majority of pieces illustrate the formal
Heppelwhite style. The kitchen remains in a simple state, its large
fireplace adequately supplied with cranes and pots.
Passing upstairs one visits the several bedrooms, furnished mainly in
Heppelwhite style. The beds with their fluted posts and straight chintz
hangings illustrate the simplicity which followed Chippendale’s
exuberant curves. In the same style are mahogany chests of drawers with
bracket feet.
[Illustration: BELMONT, 1755 Shown on map as No. 3]