GEORGIAN COUNTRY HOUSES OF BRICK
Throughout the Colonial period, and to a degree during the early years
of the American nation, Philadelphia clung to the manners and customs of
the mother country as did few other communities in the new world. In
architecture, therefore, it is not surprising to find the oldest houses
and public buildings of the American metropolis of those days reflecting
the tendencies of the times across the water. Wood had already ceased to
be a cheap building material in England, and although it was abundantly
available in America, brick and stone were thought necessary for the
better homes, despite the fact that for some years, until sources of
clay and limestone were found, bricks and lime for making mortar had to
be brought at great expense from overseas. So we find that in 1683, the
year following the founding of the "City of Brotherly Love", William
Penn erected for his daughter Letitia the first brick house in the town,
which was for several years occupied by Penn and his family. It was
located in Letitia Court, a small street running from Market to
Chestnut streets between Front and Second streets. Although of little
architectural value, it was of great historic interest, and when in 1883
the encroachments of the wholesale district threatened to destroy it,
the house was removed to Fairmount Park by the city and rebuilt on
Lansdowne Drive west of the Girard Avenue bridge. It is open to the
public and contains numerous Penn relics.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--Port Royal House, Frankford. Erected in 1762
by Edward Stiles.]
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--Blackwell House, 224 Pine Street. Erected
about 1765 by John Stamper; Wharton House, 336 Spruce Street. Erected
prior to 1796 by Samuel Pancoast.]
Thus from the very outset brick construction has been favored in
preference to wood in Philadelphia. Homes in the city proper were built
of it chiefly, and likewise many of the elegant countryseats in the
neighboring townships, now part of the greater Philadelphia of to-day.
The wealthier residents very early set the fashion of both city and
country living, following in this custom the example of William Penn,
the founder, who not only had his house in town, but a country place, a
veritable mansion, long since gone, on an island in the Delaware River
above Bristol.
British builders had forsaken the Jacobean manner of the early
Renaissance and come completely under the spell of the English Classic
or so-called Georgian style. Correspondingly, American men of means were
erecting country houses of brick, with ornamental trim classic in
detail, and of marble and white-painted wood. Marked by solidity,
spaciousness and quiet dignity, they are thoroughly Georgian in
conception, and as such reminiscent of the manorial seats of Virginia,
yet less stately and in various respects peculiar to this section of the
colonies. Like the bricks, the elaborate interior woodwork was at first
brought from overseas, but later produced by resident artisans of whom
there was an ever increasing number of no mean order.
Almost without exception the Colonial brickwork of Philadelphia was laid
up with wide mortar joints in Flemish bond, red stretcher and black
header bricks alternating in the same course. The arrangement not only
imparts a delightful warmth and pleasing texture, but the headers
provide frequent transverse ties, giving great strength to the wall.
With this rich background the enlivening contrast of marble lintels and
sills and white-painted wood trim, in which paneled shutters play a
prominent part, form a picture of rare charm, rendered all the more
satisfying by an appearance of obvious comfort, permanence and intrinsic
worth which wood construction, however good, cannot convey.
Many of the splendid old pre-Revolutionary country houses of brick no
longer remain to us. Some are gone altogether; others are remodeled
almost beyond recognition; a few, hedged around by the growing city,
have been allowed to fall into a state of hopeless decay. Woodford,
however, located in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, at York and
Thirty-third streets, is fairly representative of the type of Georgian
countryseat of brick, so many of which were erected in the suburbs of
Philadelphia about the middle of the eighteenth century.
It is a large square structure, two and a half stories in height, with a
hipped roof rising above a handsome cornice with prominent modillions
and surmounted by a balustraded belvedere. Two large chimneys, much
nearer together than is ordinarily the case, emerge within the inclosed
area of the belvedere deck. A heavy pediment springs from the cornice
above the pedimental doorway, and this repetition of the motive imparts
a pleasing interest and emphasis to the facade. The subordinate cornice
at the second-floor level is most unusual and may perhaps reflect the
influence of the penthouse roof which became such a characteristic
feature of the ledge stone work of the neighborhood. Few houses have the
brick pilaster treatment at the corners with corresponding cornice
projections which enrich the ornamental trim. Six broad soapstone steps
with a simple wrought-iron handrail at either side lead up to a fine
doorway, Tuscan in spirit, with high narrow doors. Above, a beautiful
Palladian window is one of the best features of the facade. An
interesting fenestration scheme, with paneled shutters at the lower
windows only, is enhanced by the pleasing scale of twelve-paned upper
and lower window sashes having broad white muntins throughout.
Opening the front door, one finds himself in a wide hall with doorways
giving entrance to large front rooms on each side. Beyond, a beautifully
detailed arch supported by pilasters spans the hall. The stairway is
located near the center of the house in a hall to one side of the main
hall and reached from it through a side door. Interior woodwork of good
design and workmanship everywhere greets the eye, especially noticeable
features being the rounding cornices, heavy wainscots and the floors an
inch and a half in thickness and doweled together. Each room has a
fireplace with ornamental iron back, a hearth of square bricks and a
well-designed wood mantel. In the south front room blue tiles depicting
Elizabethan knights and their ladies surround the fireplace opening.
Brass handles instead of door knobs lend distinction to the hardware.
Woodford was erected in 1766 by William Coleman, a successful merchant,
eminent jurist and a friend of Franklin. He was a member of the Common
Council in 1739, justice of the peace and judge of the county courts in
1751 and judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1759 until his
death ten years later.
Coleman's executors sold the place to Alexander Barclay, comptroller of
His Majesty's Customs at Philadelphia, and the grandson of Robert
Barclay of Ury, the noted Quaker theologian and "Apologist."
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--Morris House, 225 South Eighth Street.
Erected in 1786 by John Reynolds.]
[Illustration: PLATE IX.--Wistar House, Fourth and Locust Streets.
Erected about 1750; Betsy Ross House, 239 Arch Street.]
On Barclay's death in 1771, Woodford became the home of David Franks,
a wealthy Jewish merchant and one of the signers of the Non-Importation
Resolutions of 1765 by which a large body of leading American merchants
agreed "not to have any goods shipped from Great Britain until after the
repeal of the Stamp Act." He was prominent both socially and
politically, a member of the Provincial Assembly in 1748 and the
register of wills. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, he was the
agent of the Crown in Philadelphia and was then made commissary of the
British prisoners in the American lines. In 1778, however, he was
arrested by General Benedict Arnold for attempting to transmit a letter
harmful to the American cause, deprived of his commission and property,
and obliged to remove to New York two years later.
One of Franks' daughters, Abigail, married Andrew Hamilton of The
Woodlands, afterwards attorney-general of Pennsylvania. Another
daughter, Rebecca, married General Sir Henry Johnson, who was defeated
and captured by General Anthony Wayne at Stony Point. Rebecca Franks was
one of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her day. Well educated,
a gifted writer and fascinating conversationalist, witty and winsome,
she was popular in society and one of the belles of the celebrated
"Mischianza", which was given May 18, 1778, by the British officers in
honor of General Lord Howe upon his departure for England. This was a
feast of gayety with a tournament somewhat like those common in the age
of chivalry, and was planned largely by Major John Andre, who was later
hanged by order of an American military commission for his connection
with the treason of General Benedict Arnold.
Following the confiscation of Franks' property in 1780, Woodford was
sold to Thomas Paschall, a friend of Franklin. Later it was occupied for
a time by William Lewis, a noted advocate, and in 1793 was bought by
Isaac Wharton, son of Joseph Wharton, owner of Walnut Grove in Southwark
at about Fifth Street and Walnut Avenue, where the "Mischianza" was
held. A son, Francis Rawle Wharton, inherited the place on his father's
death in 1798 and was the last private owner. In 1868 the estate was
made part of Fairmount Park, and since 1887 it has been used as a
guardhouse.
A country house typical of the time, though unlike most other
contemporary buildings in the details of its construction, is Hope Lodge
in Whitemarsh Valley on the Bethlehem Pike just north of its junction
with the Skippack Pike. It is thoroughly Georgian in conception, and
most of the materials, including all of the wood finish, were brought
from England. The place reached a deplorable state of decay several
years ago, yet the accompanying photograph shows enough remaining to be
of considerable architectural interest.
It is a large, square house two and a half stories high, its hipped roof
broken by handsome pedimental dormers with round-topped windows. The
front is of brick laid up in characteristic Flemish bond, while the
other walls are of plastered rubble stone masonry, the brickwork and
stonework being quoined together at the front corners. A broad plaster
coving is the principal feature of the simple molded cornice, and one
notes the much used double belt formed by two projecting courses of
brick at the second-floor level. The fenestration differs in several
respects from that of similar houses erected a quarter century later.
The arrangement of the ranging windows is quite conventional, but
instead of marble lintels above them there are nicely gauged flat brick
arches, while the basement windows are set in openings beneath segmental
relieving arches with brick cores. The latter are reflected in effect by
the recessed elliptical arches above all the windows in the walls of
plastered rubble masonry. The windows themselves, with nine-paned upper
and lower sashes having unusually heavy muntins, likewise the shutters
on the lower story and the heavy paneled doors, are higher and narrower
than was the rule a few years later. The entrance, with its
characteristic double doors, is reached by a porch and four stone steps,
its low hip roof with molded cornice being supported by two curious,
square, tapering columns. Porches were an unusual circumstance in the
neighborhood, and this one is so unlike any others of Colonial times
which are worthy of note as to suggest its having been a subsequent
addition. Above, a round-arched recess with projecting brick sill
replaces the conventional Palladian window.
Indoors, an exceptionally wide hall extends entirely through the house
from front to back, opening into spacious rooms on both sides through
round-topped doorways with narrow double doors heavily paneled. An
elliptical arch supported by fluted pilasters spans the hall about
midway of its length, and a handsome staircase ascends laterally from
the rear part after the common English manner of that day. Throughout
the house the woodwork is of good design and execution, the paneled
wainscots, molded cornices, door and window casings all being very
heavy, and the broad fireplaces and massive chimney pieces in complete
accord. Deep paneled window seats, very common in contemporary houses,
are a feature of the first-floor rooms. The kitchens and the servants'
quarters are located in a separate building to the rear, a brick-paved
porch connecting the two. This custom, as in the South, was
characteristic of the locality and period.
[Illustration: PLATE X.--Glen Fern, on Wissahickon Creek, Germantown.
Erected about 1747 by Thomas Shoemaker; Grumblethorpe, 5261 Germantown
Avenue, Germantown. Erected in 1744 by John Wister.]
[Illustration: PLATE XI.--Upsala, Germantown Avenue and Upsala Streets,
Germantown. Erected in 1798 by John Johnson; End Perspective of Upsala.]
Hope Lodge was erected in 1723 by Samuel Morris, a Quaker of Welsh
descent, who was a justice of the peace in Whitemarsh and an overseer of
Plymouth Meeting. Morris built it expecting to marry a young
Englishwoman to whom he had become affianced while on a visit to England
with his mother, Susanna Heath, who was a prominent minister among the
Friends. The wedding did not occur, however, and Samuel Morris died a
bachelor in 1772, leaving his estate to his brother Joshua, who sold
Hope Lodge in 1776 to William West. In 1784 West's executors conveyed it
to the life interest of Colonel James Horatio Watmough with a reversion
to his guardian, Henry Hope, a banker. It was Colonel Watmough who named
the place Hope Lodge as a compliment to his guardian. One of his
daughters married Joseph Reed, son of General Joseph Reed, and another
married John Sargent, the famous lawyer. Both the Reeds and Sargents
occupied Hope Lodge at various times, and it eventually passed into the
Wentz family.
No other Colonial country house of brick that now remains holds an
interest, either architectural or historic, quite equal to that of
Stenton, which stands among fine old oaks, pines and hemlocks in a
six-acre park, all that now remains of an estate of five hundred acres
located on Germantown Avenue on the outskirts of Germantown near the
Wayne Junction railroad station. One of the earliest and most
pretentious countryseats of the neighborhood, it combines heavy
construction and substantial appearance with a picturesque charm that is
rare in buildings of such early origin. This is due in part to the
brightening effect of the fenestration, with many small-paned windows
set in white-painted molded frames, and quite as much to the slender
trellises between the lower-story windows supporting vines which have
spread over the brickwork above in the most fascinating manner. Both
features impart a lighter sense of scale, while the profusion of white
wood trim emphasizes more noticeably the delightful color and texture of
the brickwork.
The house is a great, square, hip-roofed structure two and a half
stories high with two large square chimneys and severely plain
pedimental dormers. Servants' quarters, kitchens and greenhouses are
located in a separate gable-roof structure a story and a half high,
extending back more than a hundred feet from the main house, and
connected with it by a covered porch along the back. In the kitchen the
brick oven, the copper boiler and the fireplace with its crane still
remain.
The walls of the house consist of characteristic brickwork of red
stretchers and black headers laid up in Flemish bond, with square piers
at the front corners and on each side of the entrance, and there is the
more or less customary projecting belt at the second-floor level. On the
second story the windows are set close up under the heavy overhanging
cornice, with its prominent modillions, while on the lower story there
are relieving arches with cores of brick instead of stone lintels so
common on houses a few decades later. There are similar arches over the
barred basement windows set in brick-lined areaways. Interesting indeed
is the scheme of fenestration. Although formal and symmetrical on the
front, the windows piercing the other walls frankly correspond to the
interior floor plan, although ranging for the most part. Unlike the
usual arrangement, there are two widely spaced windows above the
entrance, while the narrow flanking windows either side of the doorway
may be regarded as one of the earliest instances of side lights in
American architecture. The severely simple entrance with its high narrow
paneled doors without either knob or latch is reached from a brick-paved
walk about the house by three semicircular stone steps such as were
common in England at the time, the various nicely hewn pieces fastened
securely together with iron bands.
The front door opens into a large square hall with a brick-paved floor
and walls wainscoted to the ceiling with white-painted wood paneling.
There is a fireplace on the right, and beyond an archway in the rear a
staircase ascends to the second floor. To the right of the hall is the
parlor, also with paneled walls, and a fireplace surrounded by pink
tiles. In the wainscoted room back of this the sliding top of a closet
offers opportunity for a person to conceal himself and listen through a
small hole to the conversation in the adjoining hall. To the left of
the hall is the dining room, beautifully wainscoted and having a
built-in cupboard for china and a fireplace faced with blue tiles. The
iron fireback bears the inscription "J. L. 1728." Back of this through a
passageway is a small breakfast room, whence an underground passage for
use during storms or sieges leads from a trap door in the floor to the
barns.
The second-story floor plan is most unusual. The library, a great long
room, extends entirely across the front of the house, with its range of
six windows and two fireplaces on the opposite wall, one faced with blue
tiles and the other with white. Here, with the finest private collection
of books in America at that time, the scholarly owner spent his
declining years, the library going to the city of Philadelphia on his
death. Two small bedrooms, each with a fireplace, were occupied by his
daughters. A little back staircase leads to the third floor, where the
woodwork of the chambers was unpainted.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.--The Woodlands, Blockley Township, West
Philadelphia. Erected in 1770 by William Hamilton; Stable at The
Woodlands.]
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.--Wyck, Germantown Avenue and Walnut Lane,
Germantown. Erected by Hans Millan about 1690; Hall and Entrance
Doorways, Wyck.]
Stenton was erected in 1728 by James Logan, a scholar, philosopher, man
of affairs, the secretary and later the personal representative of
William Penn, the founder, and afterwards chief justice of the colony.
Descended from a noble Scottish family, his father a clergyman and
teacher who joined the Society of Friends in 1761, James Logan himself
was for a time a teacher in London, but soon engaged in the shipping
trade. In 1699 he came to America with William Penn as his secretary,
and on Penn's return to England he was left in charge of the province.
Thereafter Logan became a very important personage, much liked and fully
trusted by all who knew him, including the Indians, with whom he
maintained friendly relations. For half a century he was a mighty factor
in provincial affairs, and to read his life is to read the history of
Pennsylvania for that period, for he was chief justice, provincial
secretary, commissioner of property, surveyor-general and president of
the council. His ample fortune, amassed in commerce with Edward Shippen,
in trade with the Indians, and by the purchase and sale of lands,
enabled him to live and entertain at Stenton in a princely manner many
distinguished American and European personages of that day.
When Logan died in 1751, he was succeeded by his son William, who
continued faithful to the proprietary interests and carried on the
Indian work. His son, Doctor George Logan, was the next proprietor
during the Revolutionary period. Educated in England and Scotland, he
traveled extensively in Europe; after his return to America he became a
member of the Agricultural and Philosophical Societies and was elected a
senator from Pennsylvania from 1801 to 1807.
During Doctor Logan's occupancy Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and many
other distinguished American and European personages were entertained
at Stenton. It was Washington's headquarters on August 23, 1777, while
he was on his way to the Brandywine from Hartsville. Ten years later, on
July 8, 1787, he came again as President of the Constitutional
Convention, then sitting in Philadelphia, to see a demonstration of land
plaster on grass land that had been made by Doctor Logan.
Sir William Howe occupied Stenton as his headquarters during the battle
of Germantown, October 4, 1777, and on November 22 ordered it destroyed,
along with the homes of other "obnoxious persons." The story of its
narrow escape is interesting. Two dragoons came to fire it. Meeting a
negro woman on their way to the barn for straw, they told her she might
remove the bedding and clothing. Meanwhile a British officer and several
men happened along, inquiring for deserters, whereupon the negro servant
with ready wit said that two were hiding in the barn. Despite their
protests, the men were carried away and the house was saved, as the
order to fire it was not repeated.
After Doctor Logan's death in 1821, Stenton was occupied by his widow,
Deborah Logan, until her death in 1839, when it passed to her son
Albanus, an agriculturalist and sportsman. His son Gustavus was the last
private owner, as the house was acquired by the city and occupied as
their headquarters by the Colonial Dames, the descendants of the Logan
family removing to Loudoun near by.
No account of the Colonial houses of Philadelphia would be reasonably
complete which failed to include the home of Stephen Girard. Although of
scant architectural distinction, it is of interest through its
association with one of the chief outstanding figures of a city noted
for its celebrated residents. It is a two-story hip-roofed structure,
rather narrow but of exceptional length, taking the form of two
plaster-walled wings on opposite sides of a central portion of brick
having a pediment springing from the main cornice and a circular,
ornamental window. As at Hope Lodge a broad plaster coving is the
principal feature of the simple cornice. The windows and chimneys differ
in various parts of the house, and the doors are strangely located, all
suggesting alterations and additions. The central part of the house has
casement sashes with blinds as contrasted with Georgian sashes with
paneled shutters elsewhere, and all second-story windows are
foreshortened.
Stephen Girard, a wealthy and eccentric Philadelphia merchant,
financier, philanthropist and the founder of Girard College, was born
near Bordeaux, France, in 1750, the son of a sea captain. He lost the
sight of his right eye when eight years old and had only a meager
education. Beginning a seafaring life as a cabin boy, he in time became
master and part owner of a small vessel trading between New York, New
Orleans and Port au Prince. In May, 1776, he was driven into the port of
Philadelphia by a British fleet and settled there as a merchant.
Gradually he built up a fleet of vessels trading with New Orleans and
the West Indies, and by the close of the Revolution, Girard was one of
the richest men of his time, and he used his wealth in numerous ways to
benefit the nation and humanity. In 1810 he utilized about a million
dollars deposited with the Barings of London to purchase shares of the
much depreciated stock of the Bank of the United States, which
materially assisted the government in bolstering European confidence in
its securities. When the bank was not rechartered, Girard bought the
building and cashier's house for a third of their original cost, and in
May, 1812, established the Bank of Stephen Girard. In 1814, when the
government needed money to bring the second conflict with England to a
successful conclusion, he subscribed for about ninety-five per cent of
the war loan of five million dollars, of which only twenty thousand
dollars besides had been taken, and he generously offered to the public
at par shares which, following his purchase, had gone to a premium.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--Mount Pleasant, Northern Liberties, Fairmount
Park. Erected in 1761 by Captain James Macpherson; The Main House, Mount
Pleasant.]
[Illustration: PLATE XV.--Deschler-Perot-Morris House, 5442 Germantown
Avenue, Germantown. Erected in 1772 by Daniel Deschler; Vernon, Vernon
Park, Germantown. Erected in 1803 by James Matthews.]
Girard showed his public spirit personally as well as financially.
During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 and in
1797-1798 he took the lead in relieving the poor and caring for the
sick. He volunteered to act as manager of the hospital at Bush Hill
and with the assistance of Peter Helm he cleansed the place and
systemized the work.
On his death in 1831, Girard's estate, the greatest private fortune in
America, was valued at about seven and a half million dollars, and his
philanthropy was again shown in his disposition of it. Being without
heirs, as his child had died soon after its birth and his beautiful wife
had died after many years in an insane asylum, his heart went out to
poor and orphan children. In his will he bequeathed $116,000 to various
Philadelphia charities; $500,000 to the city for improvement of the
Delaware River front, streets and buildings; $300,000 to Pennsylvania
for internal improvements, especially canals, and the bulk of the estate
to Philadelphia, chiefly for founding and maintaining a non-sectarian
school or college, but also for providing a better police system, making
municipal improvements and lessening taxation. The college was given for
the support and education of poor white male orphans, of legitimate
birth and character, between the ages of six and ten; and it was
specified that no boy was to be permitted to stay after his eighteenth
year, and that as regards admission, preference was to be shown, first
to orphans born in Philadelphia, second to orphans born in any other
part of Pennsylvania, third to orphans born in New York City, and fourth
to orphans born in New Orleans.
Work upon the buildings was begun in 1833, and the college was opened
with five buildings in 1848. The central one, an imposing structure in
the Corinthian style of architecture designed by Thomas Ustick Walter,
has been called "the most perfect Greek temple in existence." To it in
1851 were removed the remains of Stephen Girard and placed in a
sarcophagus in the south vestibule. The college fund, originally
$5,260,000, has grown to more than thirty-five million dollars; likewise
the college has become virtually a village in itself. Some twenty
handsome buildings and residences, valued at about three and a half
million dollars, and more than forty acres of land accommodate about two
thousand students, teachers and employes.
Under the provisions of the Girard trust fund nearly five hundred
dwelling houses have been erected by the city in South Philadelphia, all
heated and lighted by a central plant operated by the trustees, and more
than seventy million tons of coal have been mined on property belonging
to his estate. Few philanthropists have left their money so wisely or
with such thoughtful provisions to meet changing conditions.
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.--Loudoun, Germantown Avenue and Apsley Street,
Germantown. Erected in 1801 by Thomas Armat; Solitude, Blockley
Township, Fairmount Park. Erected in 1785 by John Penn.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--Cliveden, Germantown Avenue and Johnson
Street, Germantown. Erected in 1781 by Benjamin Chew.]
Perhaps the brick mansion most thoroughly representative of the type of
Georgian country house, of which so many sprang up about Philadelphia
from 1760 to 1770, is Port Royal House on Tacony Street between Church
and Duncan streets in Frankford. This great square, hip-roofed
structure with its quoined corners and projecting stone belt at the
second-floor level; its surmounting belvedere, ornamental dormers and
great chimney stacks; its central pediment springing from a heavy
cornice above a projecting central portion of the facade in which are
located a handsome Palladian window and characteristic Doric doorway;
its large, ranging, twenty-four-paned windows with keyed stone lintels
and blinds on the lower story, is in brick substantially what Mount
Pleasant is in plastered stone, as will be seen in Chapter V. As in the
latter, a broad central hall extends entirely through the house, and the
staircase is located in a small side hall. The rooms throughout are
large and contain excellent woodwork and chimney pieces.
Port Royal House was erected in 1762 by Edward Stiles, a wealthy
merchant and shipowner, who like many others emigrated from Bermuda to
the Bahama island of New Providence and thence to Philadelphia about the
middle of the eighteenth century, to engage in American commerce. He was
the great-grandson of John Stiles, one of the first settlers of Bermuda
in 1635, and the son of Daniel Stiles, of Port Royal Parish, a vestryman
and warden of Port Royal Church and a member of the Assembly of Bermuda
in 1723. Commerce between the American colonies and Bermuda and the West
Indies was extensive, and Stiles' business prospered. He had a store in
Front Street between Market and Arch streets, and a town house in Walnut
Street between Third and Fourth streets. In summer, like other men of
his station and affluence, he lived at his countryseat, surrounded by
many slaves, on an extensive plantation in Oxford township, near
Frankford, that he had purchased from the Waln family. To it he gave the
name Port Royal after his birthplace in Bermuda.
To Edward Stiles in 1775 befell the opportunity to carry relief to the
people of Bermuda, then in dire distress because their supplies from
America had been cut off by the Non-Importation Agreement among the
American colonies. In response to their petition to the Continental
Congress, permission was granted to send Stiles' ship, the _Sea Nymph_
(Samuel Stobel, master), laden with provisions to be paid for by the
people of Bermuda either in gold or arms, ammunition, saltpeter, sulphur
and fieldpieces.
During the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1777 and 1778,
Frankford became the middle ground between the opposing armies and
subject to the depredations of both. Port Royal House, like many other
estates of the vicinity, was robbed of its fine furniture, horses,
slaves and provisions.
Under the will of Edward Stiles his slaves were freed and educated at
the expense of his estate. In 1853 the Lukens family bought Port Royal
House and for several years a boarding school was conducted there. As
the manufacturing about Frankford grew, the locality lost its
desirability as a place of residence. The house was abandoned to chance
tenants and allowed to fall into an exceedingly delapidated condition.
The accompanying photograph, however, depicts enough of its former state
to indicate that in its day it was among the best brick country
residences of the vicinity.