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Footnotes to The President's House in Philadelphia
I am indebted to John Alviti, Penelope Hartshorne Batcheler, George Brightbill, Mr. & Mrs. Nathaniel Burt, Jeffrey A. Cohen, William Creech, David Dashiell, Scott DeHaven, Susan Drinan, Kenneth Finkel, Jeffrey Flaherty, Marsha Fritz, Kristen Froehlich, Roy Harker, Sharon Ann Holt, Sue Keeler, Roger G. Kennedy, Bruce Laverty, Edward Lawler, Sr., Jack and Alice-Mary Lawler, Joann Lawler, Andrea Ashby Lerarif, Mark Frazier Lloyd, Barbara A. McMillan, Jefferson M. Moak, Howell T. Morgan, Gene Morris, Roger W. Moss, C. Ford Peatross, Charles E. Peterson, Ian Quimby, Joan Roberts, George and Jacqui Shambaugh, Carol W. Smith, Karen Stevens, Doris Z. Taylor, Suzanne Snell Tesh, George E. Thomas, Mary V. Thompson, Anna Coxe Toogood, Dee-Dee Wanamaker, James Wheatley, Quincy Williams, Rebecca Yamin, William Allen Zulker, and the research staff of HSP for their assistance with this article.
1 The WPA model of the President's House (hereafter, PH) was on display at the Atwater Kent Museum, the history museum of the City of Philadelphia, from 1939 until about 1981. It still exists, although it is greatly deteriorated, and is now in storage.
2 The old right-of-way of 6th Street (the sum of the widths of the roadway and both sidewalks) had been 50 feet. The current right-of-way (November 2001) is about 84 feet.
3 Throughout this article twentieth-century street numbers will be used to identify the various plots of land which made up the PH property and the surrounding properties.
4 Nicholas B. Wainwright, Colonial Grandeur in Philadelphia: The House and Furniture of General John Cadwalader (Philadelphia, 1964), 64-65, 149-150.
5 Harold Donaldson Eberlein, "190 High Street; The Home of Washington and Adams," in Historic Philadelphia, ed. Luther P. Eisenhart (Philadelphia, 1953), 161-178.
6 Constance M. Greiff, Independence: The Creation of a National Park (Philadelphia, 1987), 53, 56.
7 Thompson Westcott, The Historic Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1877), 250-271.
8 This Birch view can also be viewed at Places in Time: Historical Documentation of Place in Greater Philadelphia: www.brynmawr.edu/ iconog/birch/ Bhpus.jpeg
9 Adams also may have wanted to discourage Philadelphia's efforts to keep the national capital. His modest circumstances did not prevent him (three and a half years later) from moving into a building 50 percent larger than the Presidential Mansion on 9th Street—the White House.
10 From 1768 until the building of the Bingham Mansion (ca. 1787), the house which became the PH probably had been the largest private residence in Philadelphia. It was larger than most of the villas in the Libertylands and Germantown, which were then outside the city limits.
11 Diarist Jacob Hiltzheimer called the house occupied by Washington and Adams "the President's house on Market Street, and the never-occupied mansion, "the President's house on Ninth Street." Jacob Cox Parsons, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer (Philadelphia, 1893), 171, 213.
12 William Masters Camac, Memoirs of the Camacs of County Down (Philadelphia, 1913), 236. I am grateful to Jeffrey A. Cohen for suggesting this source.
13 See Martin P. Snyder, City of Independence; Views of Philadelphia Before 1800 (New York, 1975), 63.
14 "Philadelphia Tax Records–1756," Lower Delaware Ward, 37. Microfilm reel XR 696, HSP.
15 "Watch and Lamp Tax 1765," 9; "Pavement Tax–1765," 59; "Poor Tax — 1767," [no page numbers]; all on microfilm reel XR 696, HSP; and "Proprietary Tax — 1767," 210b. Ms. Coll. 84, University of Pennsylvania Library (UPa).
16 "Proprietary Tax–1767," 210b. Ms. Coll. 84. U of P.; "Proprietary Tax–1769," Middle Ward, Pennsylvania Archives (3d ser., 27 vols., Harrisburg, 1894-97), 14:160.
17 In December, 1767, the tax valuation of Mrs. Masters's "new" house was only one third that of Alexander Stedman's (smaller) house next door. "Proprietary Tax–1767," 176. Ms. Coll. 84, UPa. Five years later, the tax valuation of Mrs. Masters's house (with the addition of the lot at 524 Market Street) would be 60 percent more than the Stedman house. "Provincial Tax-1772," Middle Ward, 64. Microfilm reel XR 697, HSP.
18 Philadelphia Deed Book I-14, 459, May 19, 1772. Philadelphia City Archives.
19 Philadelphia Contributionship, Survey Nos. 167-71, March 1, 1773. Philadelphia Contributionship.
20 Norris of Fairhill Manuscripts, Misc., Folio 71, HSP. Detail in Wainwright, Colonial Grandeur, 9. Jeffrey A. Cohen attributes most of the drawings in this folio to members of the Norris family rather than to Rhoads (only one drawing is signed by him) in James F. O'Gorman et al., Drawing Toward Building: Philadelphia Architectural Graphics, 1732-1986 (Philadelphia, 1986), 36
21 A 14-inch wall was three bricks thick, and a 9-inch wall was two bricks thick. In this case, "party wall" refers to the interior brick wall down the middle of the house which divided the two halves, rather than to an exterior wall shared with an adjacent building.
22 Thanks to Carol W. Smith, historian at the Philadelphia Contributionship, for her help with this survey, and for providing copies of the minutes of the Contributionship relating to the house.
23 D. Logan to Watson (no date), in "[Notes for] Annals of Philadelphia," 1829, 2:402-03, John Fanning Watson Papers, HSP.
24 In 1790, Gurney's house (to be combined into a single dwelling with the Allen house beside it at 155 Chestnut) was an early choice for Washington's official residence. When Gurney's tenant, a Mrs. (Oliver?) Pollock, refused to give up her lease, Robert Morris was approached about lending his house on Market Street to serve as the PH. See George Washington to Tobias Lear, September 20, 1790. Jared Sparks, ed., Letters and Recollections of George Washington (Cambridge, MA, 1852; reprint Garden City, NY, 1932), 10.See also "Report of the Committee for the Accommodation of the President," November 22, 1790. Etting Coll., Independence Hall catalogued items, HSP.
25 "...I look out & saw ye Contemptable sight there was eighty two Men drawn Up before the generals & our house on ye opposeite side of the street . . . & when they alighted at the Generals there was thirteen cannon fired." "Diary of Grace Growdon Galloway," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (hereafter, PMHB) 55 (1931), 39.
26 See letters between Arnold and his sister Hannah, as quoted in Isaac N. Arnold, The Life of Benedict Arnold; His Patriotism and His Treason (Chicago, 1880), 234. Trying to resolve the question of where the Arnolds lived during their last year in Philadelphia may have led historians to the logical (but erroneous) assumption that they moved to Mount Pleasant.
27 Parsons, Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, 42.
28 Henry D. Biddle, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Elizabeth Drinker (Philadelphia, 1889), 123.
29 The Pennsylvania Packet, January 4, 1780.
30 Minutes of the Philadelphia Contributionship, Jan. 5, 1780.
31 Unfortunately, this irresponsible and erroneous claim was made by one of Morris's earliest and seemingly most authoritative biographers: "The house in which Morris lived was not that which had belonged to Richard Penn. That house was burned down in January, 1780. Morris bought the ground and built a new house upon it." William Graham Sumner, Robert Morris (New York, 1892), 128.
32 "Letter of Attorney–Book 1," RD 1408, 271-74. Philadelphia City Archives.
33 "...Whereas the Capital Messuage erected on the said Lot was on or about the second day of January one thousand seven hundred and eighty for the most part consumed by fire and rendered uninhabitable whereupon the said Richard Penn by Letters under his Hand directed the said Tench Francis (whom he had instituted his Attorney whith Power to sell and Convey all his Real Estate in America) to sell the Ruins of the said Messuage together with all and Singular the Lots of Ground . . . and thereupon the said Tench Francis as Attorney to the said Richard Penn contracted with the said Robert Morris for the absolute sale and conveyance of the said Messuage and Lots of Ground for the price of three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds Sterling Money of Great Britain which Sum the said Robert Morris secured to be paid to the said Richard Penn upon the perfecting the title to the said Robert Morris and thereupon the said Robert Morris received possession of the said ruins and Lots of Ground ... And Whereas in persuance of the said Contract so made by the said Tench Francis and in Order to carry the same into execution an Indenture Tripartaite was drawn and executed in England bearing the date the eight[h] day of June one thousand seven hundred and eighty one . . . the said Indenture recorded at Philadelphia in Letter of Attorney No. 1. Page 215 &c fully appears which said recitals are not sufficiently comprehensive or certain to assure the same to the said Robert Morris in the full extent of the Contract Wherefore it has been advised by the Council learned in the Law of the said Robert Morris to cause and procure a Deed describing the premises with more certainty to be executed by all the said Parties..." Philadelphia Deed Book D-15, 118, August 25, 1785. Philadelphia City Archives.
34 Pennsylvania Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, August 8, 1781; Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser, August 8, 1781; and August 11, 1781.
35 Philadelphia Deed Book D-25, 449, October 25, 1781. Philadelphia City Archives. It is also possible that Morris bought one or both lots at the auction in August, but the sale was not recorded in the deed books until two months later.
36 Philadelphia Deed Book D-18, 128; and D-39, 520, September 23, 1784. Philadelphia City Archives.
37 Philadelphia Deed Book D-18, 300, December 15, 1786. Philadelphia City Archives. This property included a building of some sort, possibly the small, one-story structure seen in the Breton views (see fig. 1).
38 Philadelphia Deed Book D-54, 20, January 4, 1794. Philadelphia City Archives.
39 The lawn of the first block of Independence Mall essentially duplicates the acre-and-a-half or more of open space at the center of the block from Market to Chestnut Streets that existed until the mid-1790s. The only major building on the land was the inn at the south end—built of stone (ca. 1690), two stories tall, approximately 25 x 18 feet—set amid a grove of walnut trees that pre-dated William Penn's arrival. See Hannah Benner Roach, Historical Report: First Block, Independence Mall(n.p., 1952 [Harbeson, Hough, Livingston and Larson, Architects, for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission]), 67.
40 Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 3, 15:199. The £120,000 assessment would have been for all of Richard Penn's (or his wife's) Philadelphia County landholdings.
43 Some Philadelphia historians have erroneously claimed that Washington had made his headquarters at the Market Street house. See Joseph Jackson, "Washington in Philadelphia," PMHB 56 (1932), 133; and J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1884), 1:414. It is likely that the source of this misinformation was George Grieve's translation of the Marquis de Chastellux's journal. See below, n.44.
44 Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in America, ed. Howard C. Rice, Jr., (Chapel Hill, NC, 1963), 30-31, 300 n. 24. According to Rice, Grieve probably arrived in Philadelphia in December 1781 or January 1782, and stayed until May. Grieve's claim that Morris's icehouse was the first in America is almost certainly wrong, although it may have been the most elaborate and the best designed on the continent.
45 Parsons, Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, 48. The octagonal stone pit of this icehouse was discovered by archaeologists in November 2000 while preparing for the changes to Independence Mall.
46 "We went and agreed with Mr. Jacob Barge at £350 per Annum for his building at Market Street Corner and the House next to it in Fifth Street." April 9, 1782, diary entry. The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781-1784 ed. E. James Ferguson et al. (9 vols to date, Pittsburgh, 1975), 4:551.
47 I am grateful to Anna Coxe Toogood, historian at Independence National Historical Park, for providing a copy of the original of this groundplan, and for generously sharing her notes on the PH.
48 The "Coach house & Stable" may have been built by Mrs. Masters. There is no mention of a stable in the 1773 insurance survey, but that is not unusual since such buildings were often left uninsured. In 1774, Mrs. Masters was listed in the tax records as owning five horses, and her son-in-law Richard Penn, seven. "Provincial Tax List—1774," Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 3, 14:253. According to the 1785 groundplan, the "Coach House & Stable" had a combined frontage on Minor Street of 51 feet, with the former building having a depth of 30 feet and the latter a depth of 38 feet. All of the 524-30 Market Street property was insured in 1798 (during Adams's tenancy), and the policies list a compound building of "fifty feet by thirty four feet and two stories high." Mutual Assurance Company, policies nos. 891-95, June 19, 1798. Copy in the 500 Market Street/Washington Mansion file, Philadelphia Historical Commission (hereafter, 1798 policies). It is possible that this describes a different coach house/stable than the one shown on the ground plan, but a more likely explanation may be that it was the same structure and the writer of the insurance policies, being chiefly concerned with its replacement cost, averaged the depths of the two parts of the building.
49 Morris purchased it at a public sale on May 3, 1786 for £14,100. "Minutes of the Supreme Executive Council," Colonial Records (16 vols., Harrisburg, 1852-533), 15:151. "With the acquisition of this sixty feet, Morris owned a total of 255 feet on High Street [514-36 Market Street]." Roach, Historical Report: First Block, Independence Mall, 42.
50 See Washington to Lear, September 9, 1790. Sparks, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, 7.
51 Washington to Tobias Lear, September 5, 1790. Ibid., 3-4, 6.
52 The city advanced Morris £500 Pennsylvania currency (Pa) (about $1,333) for construction costs, and it also bought out the lease of Morris's tenant in the Stedman-Galloway House (General Walter Stewart) for £300 Pa ($800). When construction went over budget, the city advanced Morris an additional £300 Pa ($800), which brought the up-front cost of the President's House to £1100 Pa (about $2,933). See Lear to Washington, November 21, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: ser. 4, General Correspondence. Manuscript Division. Library of Congress. These papers are searchable online through the Library of Congress website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html The city had intended to provide the house to Washington rent-free, but he would not allow it. The president paid an annual rent of £500 Pa ($1,333). The rent was not increased during Washington's presidency. Morris is often unjustly accused of gouging the public on the rent, and charging $3,000 per year for the house. This erroneous claim seems to have first appeared in Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Republican Court (New York, 1854), 242; and may be the result of Griswold mistaking the up-front cost for the annual rent.
53 Probably Burton Wallace, who was listed in the 1790 Pennsylvania Census as living on North 5th Street, between Market and Race Streets, west side. Wallace also made Morris's alterations to the Stedman-Galloway House. See Lear to Washington, November 4, November 7, and November 14, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
54 Bows added to other Philadelphia eighteenth-century brick buildings tended to have semi-octagonal or faceted exteriors (perhaps because of the difficulty of laying brick in a curve). In the conjectural plans below, the bow of the President's House has been drawn in this way.
55 "There can be little doubt that in Washington's bow can be found the seed that was later to flower in the oval shape of the Blue Room." William Seale, The President's House, A History (Washington, D. C., 1986), 8.
56 The 1773 insurance survey and the 1785 groundplan agree that the depth of the house was 52 feet. The 1798 insurance policies put the depth as 51 feet. The dimensions recorded in the 1798 policies are slightly smaller than those in the other two sources, and may reflect estimates based on interior measurements, and the other two, based on exterior measurements.
57 There is less unanimity about the frontage of the main house. The 1773 insurance survey puts it at 45 feet; the 1785 groundplan, 45 feet 6 inches; and the 1798 insurance policies, 44 feet. For the plans below, the writer has used a dimension of 45 feet 8½ inches, based on measurements of the foundations taken in 1952. If the party wall between the halves were in the exact center, this would have made the width of the rooms about 21-1/4 feet east-west from brick wall to brick wall, minus the thickness of any interior paneling or plastering.
58 Lear to Washington, October 17, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
59 Household Account Book, December 1, 1790. See Stephen Decatur, Jr., Private Affairs of George Washington, from the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esquire, His Secretary (Boston, 1933), 170. After his presidency, Washington wrote to Clement Biddle that "I am in want of an open stove" for Mount Vernon similar in "the kind and size" to the one which was in "my private study (over the bathing room) in the house I occupied in Philadelphia," with "[a]n Iron hearth and a fender to suit the same..." Washington to Clement Biddle, August 21, 1797. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 2, Letterbooks. The antique stove now installed in Martha Washington's third-floor bedroom at Mount Vernon was bought in the 1980s. It matches Washington's written description, but it is not original to that house.
60 Household Account Book, June 16, 1792; in Decatur, Private Affairs, 272.
61 Abigail Adams to her sister Mary Cranch, March 15, 1800; in Stewart Mitchell, ed., New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801 (Westport, CT, 1947), 238-39.
62 See Tobias Lear to Mrs. Samuel Powel, March 9, 1797. Society Coll., HSP.
63 "[President Washington] made me a very friendly visit yesterday, which I returned to-day, and had two hours' conversation with him alone in his cabinet." John Adams to Abigail Adams, January 9, 1794; as quoted in William Spohn Baker, Washington after the Revolution(Philadelphia, 1898), 271.
64 Lear to Washington, October 31, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
65 See these Biographical sketches of the initial eight enslaved Africans — Christopher Sheels (Washington's body servant), Moll (Mrs. Washington's maid), Austin (a stablehand and/or waiter), Hercules (the cook), Richmond (a scullion), Paris and Giles (stablehands and postillions), and Oney Judge (Mrs. Washington's body servant) — along with that of the ninth enslaved African, Joe Richardson (a stablehand).
66 "[T]he Society in this city for the abolition of slavery had determined to give no advice and take no measures for liberating those slaves which belonged to the Officers of the general Government or members of Congress." Lear to Washington, April 24, 1791. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
67 New York had been the first national capital under the Constitution, and Washington had lived in two houses there: the Franklin House at 3 Cherry Street, from April 1789 to February 1790; and the Macomb House at 39-41 Broadway, from February to August 1790. Both buildings were demolished in the nineteenth century.
68 The dimensions of the backbuildings come from the 1785 groundplan and the 1798 insurance policies, but the locations of the windows and doors in them are conjectural. The writer has taken minor liberties with two of the backbuildings: (1) the piazza has been widened by 18 inches from the dimension listed in the 1785 groundplan to accommodate the addition of the back stairs (explained in detail below); and (2) the servants' hall has been lengthened by 1 foot from the dimension listed in the 1798 insurance policies to coincide with the length of the kitchen ell listed in the 1785 groundplan. The one major assumption made is that Robert Morris rebuilt the upper stories of the main house after theJanuary 1780 fire to essentially the same plan as before it—that the decoration of the major rooms may have changed, but their dimensions and locations did not. No evidence has been found which challenges or is in any way inconsistent with this assumption.
69 Richard Switzer, trans., Chateaubriand's Travels in America (Lexington, KY, 1969), 14.
70 Robert Morris, Select Architecture: Being Regular Designs of Plans and Elevations Well Suited to both Town and Country (London: 1757) pls. 5, 13, 20, 39. Helen Park List, A55, Reel 9. Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Thanks to Roger W. Moss for suggesting this source.
71 Washington to Lear, November 14, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 2, Letterbooks.
72 Thomas Twining, Travels in India a Hundred Years Ago with a Visit to the United States (London, 1893), 419.
73 Diary of John Quincy Adams, July 11, 1794; as quoted in Baker, Washington after the Revolution, 279.
74 Struthers Burt, Philadelphia, Holy Experiment (Philadelphia, 1945), 299 n. More about this fanlight in the second part of this article.
75 Entry for Oct. 19, 1796, "Washington's Household Account Books, 1793-1797," PMHB 31 (1907), 322.
76 Lear to Washington, October 31, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
77 "...the carved work in the [front] dining room cannot be made decent by washing, without the greatest risques, and almost certainty of breaking off all the finer parts — I therefore thought upon the whole that it might be best to have [it] gone over with a coat of paint . . ." Lear to Washington, October 2, 1791. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
78 See Helen Maggs Fede, Washington Furniture at Mount Vernon (Mount Vernon, VA, 1966), 41.
79 Marion Sadtler Carson, "Washington's American Carpet at Mount Vernon," Antiques 51 (1947), 118-19. Sprague made a similar carpet for the Senate Chamber in Congress Hall in Philadelphia, but this does not survive.
80 See Susan H. Anderson, The Most Splendid Carpet (Philadelphia, 1978). Anderson argues that the manufacture of the Mount Vernon carpet is inconsistent with Sprague's presumed method of work, that stylistically it appears to be of early-nineteenth-century French origin, and that the seventeen arrows in the talon of the eagle and the seventeen stripes on the shield suggest that it may have been made during a period in which the United States had seventeen states, i.e. between 1802 and 1812. Ibid., 38. Anderson's conjectures about the layout of the PH, including that the State Dining Room "was located on the second floor of 190 High Street" and that its carpet (hence, the room itself) "must have measured nearly thirty feet square," are incorrect. Ibid., 34-5.
81 [William Sullivan], Familiar Letters on Public Characters and Public Events (Boston, 1834), 89-90. Some corrections: Washington generally held his levees every Tuesday, the PH stood on Market (or High) Street, and the State Dining Room was 34 feet in length.
82 According to Senator William Maclay, Washington did stand in front of a fireplace for the levees held in New York in the Franklin House. See The Journal of William Maclay, ed. Charles A. Beard (New York, 1965), 40.
83 Judge John B. Wallace, as quoted in PMHB 2 (1878), 175. This account has sometimes been misinterpreted to mean that Washington held his levees on the second story of the PH.
84 Edward Thornton to Sir James Bland Burges, Bart., March 5, 1793; as quoted in Baker, Washington after the Revolution, 252.
85 See Mitchell, New Letters of Abigail Adams, 247-48.
86 An account of a New Year's Day open house during Adams's administration can be found in Robert C. Smith, "A Portuguese Naturalist in Philadelphia, 1799," PMHB 78 (1954), 81-82.
87 Mitchell, New Letters of Abigail Adams, 199. A description of a Fourth of July reception hosted by Washington can be found in G. W. Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, ed. Benson J. Lossing, (Philadelphia, 1859), 429-30.
88 Burt II, Washington Mansion, 34. There seems to be no reason to doubt the Burt family tradition that the mantel and the front door locks came from the President's House. The material of the mantel is "Apparently entirely pine," and "all the ornamentation appears to be hand-carved from the wood itself rather than molded [from gesso or composition material] and applied." "Appraisal—An American Federal Carved and Painted Fireplace Mantel of American Historical Interest." Frisk & Borodin, Appraisers, Ltd., Dec. 29, 1998, 31, HSP. Coll., Atwater Kent Museum. The fact that the 1773 insurance survey makes no special notation of so uncommon and expensive a mantel would argue for its being added by Morris when he rebuilt the house in 1781. The proportions of the mantel are also more Federal than Georgian, and its high-style ornamentation is more often associated with the Chesapeake Bay region than Philadelphia. Both Morris and his wife had family ties to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
89 A photograph and a measured drawing of the doorway from The Solitude can be seen in Phillip B. Wallace, Colonial Houses, Philadelphia, Pre-Revolutionary Period (New York, 1931), 204-05. John Penn "of Stoke" is presumed to have been the designer of The Solitude based on plans in his commonplace book at HSP. He was a close friend of the Morrises, and it is not unreasonable to think that he could have copied the decoration of their city house for the library of his villa. Penn later became Morris's tenant and next-door neighbor when he rented the Stedman-Galloway House. See Edmund Physick to John Penn "of Stoke," October 24, 1788. Penn-Physick Papers, 3:240, HSP. The Solitude has been preserved, although the house is not open to the public. Its grounds became the Philadelphia Zoo.
90 Household Account Books, March 7, 1791; as quoted in Decatur, Private Affairs, 206.
91 Lossing, Private Memoirs of Washington, 409.
92 Twining, Travels in India, 419. The absence of pictures on the walls and ornaments on the mantle seems curious.
93 For a description of the etiquette of and refreshments for a Friday evening "drawingroom," see Mitchell, New Letters of Abigail Adams, 19. The number of guests attending was usually several dozen. On December 27, 1799, the first "drawingroom" following the news of George Washington's death reaching Philadelphia, Abigail Adams estimated that almost 200 people attended in mourning. Ibid., 225.
94 The Government Furniture was taken on to Washington, D. C. in 1800, and became part of the original furnishings of the White House. This would have been destroyed when the British burned the capital in 1814.
95 George Washington, February 1797. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
96 See Wendell Garrett, ed., George Washington's Mount Vernon (New York, 1998), 162, 180-81.
97 See William MacPherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book of Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington (Philadelphia, 1935), 99, 152.
98 Entry for March 15, 1797, "Washington's Household Account Book, 1793-1797," PMHB 31 (1907), 3:348. See also Lear to Washington, March 15, 1797. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4. General Correspondence.
99 See Garrett, George Washington's Mount Vernon, 177.
100 Ibid. Three of these four Winstanley paintings are at Mount Vernon.
101 See Lear to Washington, October 31, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence. Lear noted that each of the divided rooms could "conveniently hold 3 beds if necefsary."
102 Lear calls the steward's room "the thorough-fare to the Cellar and back stairs." Ibid.
103 A recently-discovered August 1782 letter by a Morris houseguest mentions a bath house. Catharine Livingston to John Jay, Aug. 12, 1782, John Jay Papers, ID #13076, Columbia University.
104 Burt II, Washington Mansion, 32.
105 Bill of Lading, The Salem, Joshua Elkins, master; March 1797; as quoted in Eberlein, "190 High Street," 176.
106 Mitchell, New Letters of Abigail Adams, 196.
107 See Lear to Washington, October 31, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence. There is a possibility that when Mrs. Masters lived in the house the well was located to the east of the piazza, and that Morris's building of the bath house necessitated the digging of a new well near the northwest corner of the kitchen ell (possibly as early as 1781). This well by the kitchen was abandoned in November 1790 when the bow addition was built, and a second well was dug in the middle of the paved yard for Washington. The evidence for this will be presented in the second part of this article.
108 Washington to Lear, October 27, 1790. Sparks, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, 19. Lear describes this as "[the closet] adjoining the Kitchen." Lear to Washington, October 31, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
109 Nathaniel Burt II (whose father had demolished most of the PH in 1832) stated that the building had had "large water reservoirs, then a feature of Philadelphia buildings, one of which still exists." Nathaniel Burt [II], Historical Society of Pennsylvania Address of . . . on the Washington Mansion in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1875), 13. See below, n. 105. Nathaniel Burt V, author of The Perennial Philadelphians, is the great-great-grandson of the Nathaniel Burt who demolished the PH. I thank him and his wife for their assistance with this article.
110 See Decatur, Private Affairs, 36, 207-08. See also above, n.51.
112 The parrot may have been a Christmas present from Washington to his wife. See entry for Dec. 24, 1794, "Washington's Household Account Books," PMHB 30 (1906), 3:330; and entry for June 25, 1795, op. cit., PMHB 31 (1907), 1:56. See also Washington to Lear, March 9, 1797, Sparks, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, 115.
113 An anonymous letter which appeared in Dunlap's Daily Advertiser on March 4, 1791, complained: "[T]he President is to continue in a noisy house in Market Street, much too small for his family, serenaded every morning with the music of waggoners..."
114 See Decatur, Private Affairs, 328-32.
115 John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia . . . (1823 extra-illustrated manuscript), facing p.236 1/2, Library Company of Philadelphia.
116 Watson later described his early drawings as, "Generally rough sketches, made before it was determined to make accurate drawings." John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia . . . (3d ed., 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1857, reprinted 1900), 2:504. The importance of this sketch is that it served as a model for Breton's watercolors and lithographs, drawn five to seven years later. Watson's sketch most varies from the 1773 insurance survey of the house in the details of the windows of the first story. It most varies from subsequent views of the President's House in the details of the roof.
117 John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (1st ed., Philadelphia, 1830), 205.
118 Philadelphia Deed Book D-46, 298, March 18, 1795. Philadelphia City Archives.
119 1798 Federal Direct Tax ledger. Copy in the 500 Market Street/Washington Mansion file. Philadelphia Historical Commission.
120 Philadelphia Deed Book D-45, 422, December 22, 1794. Philadelphia City Archives. Kid's deed gave him the right to use "the Westernmost Wall of the Messuage occupied by the President" as a party wall, "and to Break holes and lay Joists therein and to build thereon Respectively without any Compensation therefor . . .," so long as a 4-foot alleyway between the properties was kept at ground level.
121 Dr. William Thornton, the physician and gentleman-architect best known as the designer of the U. S. Capitol building, joked about the owner of the new house: "Kid has built a fine house too. Cooks and barbers make a great display. I could not but remember when Kid was building his house the passage in the Bible 'and the Kid shall lie down between the Lion [Washington] and the Wolf [Robert Morris].' The Millenium must be near at hand." Thornton to Alexander White. ca. March 7, 1796. The Papers of William Thornton, 1781-1802, ed. C. M. Harris, (1 vol. to date, Charlottesville, VA, 1995), 1:388-89.
122 The best study of the 9th Street Presidential Mansion is Dennis C. Kurjack's "The 'President's House' in Philadelphia," Pennsylvania History 20 (1953), 380-94.
123 Governor Thomas Mifflin to President-elect John Adams, March 3, 1797. Pennsylvania Archives (9th ser., 10 vols., Harrisburg, 1931-35) 2:1228.
124 Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (10 vols., Boston, 1850-56), 8:531.\
125 Mitchell, New Letters of Abigail Adams, 254-55.
126 Cornelius William Stafford, The Philadelphia Directory for 1801 (Philadelphia, 1801), 15. Microfiche XMF Wa O1, HSP. Note that the street number of the PH has changed back to 190 High, and that Kid's house is now 192 High Street.
127 "The last addition [to the market sheds] from Fourth to Sixth streets, was made in 1810." James Mease, The Picture of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1811), 117.
128 The best study of Breton is still Martin P. Snyder's "William L. Breton, Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Artist," (PMHB) 85 (1961), 178-209.
129 The AKM watercolor is illustrated in Richard M. Ketchum's The World of George Washington (New York, 1974), 228. The HSP and Athenaeum watercolors can be viewed at "Places in Time": www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/HSP/bre/br9.jpg
130 Snyder, "William L. Breton," 194.
131 Mary Selden Kennedy, The Seldens of Virginia and Varied and Allied Families (New York, 1911), 1:392.
132 In February 1856, a number of letters-to-the-editor were published in a Philadelphia newspaper debating exactly where on Market Street the PH had stood. One of the correspondents, "Lang Syne, Jr.," (a.k.a. Charles A. Poulson, see below), mentions that the building at 524 Market Street has the date "1804" imprinted on the rain head of its downspout. "Washington's Mansion," Sunday Dispatch, Feb. 24, 1856, 2. Microfilm XN 35:3, HSP.
133 Philadelphia Deed Book D-46, 298; March 18, 1795. Philadelphia City Archives.
134 Philadelphia Directories. Microfiche XMF Wa O1, HSP
135 James Reynolds, The Philadelphia Directory for 1805 (Philadelphia, 1805). Note that the PH property now has three street numbers -- the wood yard and each half of the main house now have separate addresses.
136 Philadelphia Deed Book AM-25, 202, April 12, 1832. Philadelphia City Archives.
137 One of the two Breton lithographs shows the house without dormers. It is the writer's conjecture that this lithograph was the second one drawn for the Annals (after the first lithographic stone cracked), that the dormers and other details missing from it may have been the result of its having been a rush job, and that these minor differences are more likely to have been mistakes than corrections.
138 John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (2d ed., 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1844), 2:498. Note that the street numbers of the property (as of 1844) have changed again.
139 Burt II, Washington Mansion, 33.
140 The insurance survey for Nathaniel Burt's newly-built stores, which replaced the PH on the site, is dated September 9, 1832. Franklin Fire Insurance, Survey No. 578. HSP (hereafter, 1832 insurance survey).
141 "[Nathaniel Burt] bought the presidential mansion . . . where Washington spent eight [sic, six and one-half] years of his life as head of the nation. Mr. Burt transformed the building into . . . stores, leaving only the side walls standing . . ." John W. Jordan, ed., Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography (32 vols., New York, 1914-67), 13:162.
142 The Burt deed seems to formalize the ownership of half of the thickness of the wall between 530 and 532 Market Street by each side. The overall frontage of the main house was 45 feet 8-1/2 inches. Subtracting the 4-1/2 inches of the eastern wall of the PH deeded to 524, and the 44-foot 9-inch frontage described in the Burt deed, leaves 7 inches of the western wall of the PH not included in the property bought by Burt. See Burt deed.
143 See Philadelphia Deed Book EF-19, 202, September 28, 1804. Philadelphia City Archives.
144 See Philadelphia Deed Book AM-24, 417-20, February 3, 1832. Philadelphia City Archives.
146 Struthers Burt, Philadelphia: Holy Experiment (New York, 1945), 299 n. Nathaniel Burt V, the son of Struthers, remembers the 1203 Walnut Street house as having had two fanlights -- one over the front door, and the other over the door of an interior vestibule. He believes that both were probably destroyed when this house was demolished in the 1930s.
147 An 1850 photograph looking north from the tower of Independence Hall shows the rear facades of Henry's stores and Burt's stores, with no alley between the buildings. See Robert F. Looney, Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, 1839-1914 (New York, 1976), iv, pl. 3. The most complete mid-nineteenth-century view of the block comes from the 1859 Baxter's Panoramic Business Directory, which can be viewed at "Places in Time": http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/baxter/MS5-6B.jpg
148 Griswold, The Republican Court, 240.
149 Jordan (erroneously) states that the address of the President's House had been "Nos. 528-30 Market street." Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography, 13:162.
150 Richard Rush, "A Sketch, in Part from Memory," quoted in Griswold, The Republican Court, 242-43.
151 Hampton L. Carson, A History of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1940), 1:237-38.
152 See "Mr. Edward Everett's Oration -- Addresses by Messrs. Ingersoll and Rush." Cumming's Evening Bulletin (a.k.a. Evening Bulletin), April 5, 1856, 1.
153 Carson, History, 1:216. Dozens of volumes of Charles A. Poulson's notes, writings, newspaper clippings, and his own illustrations are in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
154 "The Eastern portion of this house is still standing (although altered in front), and occupied as a Store by Messrs Conover and Co. It was the former No. 190 - now No. 524 Market Street. C.A.P." Inscription on the verso of a watercolor sketch by Poulson entitled "Washington's Mansion, 190 High Street," and dated "April 1850." "Drawings & Watercolors -- Poulson, Charles A." Print Department,Library Company of Philadelphia.
155 The Macomb House at 39-41 Broadway in New York City (where President Washington lived from February to August 1790) reportedly had had a frontage of 56 feet, which may have contributed to the confusion about the Philadelphia house. See Decatur, Private Affairs of George Washington, 148.
156 Poulson's theory about the PH and his erroneous "proof" were published in letters to a Philadelphia newspaper several weeks before Everett's address. All the other correspondents (and the editor) disagreed with Poulson, and claimed (correctly) that the house had stood at what is now 526-30 Market Street. The question of four bays versus five bays was not discussed. See "Washington's Mansion," Sunday Dispatch, February 24, 1856; and March 9, 1856.
157 Poulson's theory is also outlined in the preface of the 1865 book: "It is proper to say here that part of the house which shown is here as the one where Washington lived, is still standing, and forms part of the store which is now erected on its former site." William Brotherhead, ed., Sanderson's Biography of the Signers (1820; reprint, Philadelphia, 1865), xiii.
158 An 1879 engraving of the block by Baxter showing the expanded Oak Hall store can be viewed at "Places in Time": http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/baxter/dr/MS5-6.jpg
159 It is unlikely that the western wall of the PH was torn down and a new six-story wall built in its place since this would have meant the gutting of both Burt's store at 530 Market and the section of Wanamaker's store contained in 532 (the party wall supported half of the floors and roofs of each). The eastern wall of Oak Hall does not seem to have been built side by side with the western wall of the PH. A photograph of Oak Hall from 1936, after the top three stories of 530 had been removed, shows a single wall between the properties, rather than two walls side-by-side. Philadelphia Inquirer, June 21, 1936. Figure 17 (below) also seems to show the remnants of a single wall between the buildings.
160 Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores (Philadelphia, 1911), 35.
161 The writer has found five examples of Wanamaker store advertisements using the Poulson sketch in the Wanamaker Papers at HSP, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, most of these items are undated.
162 Councilors of HSP to Nathaniel Burt II, January 6, 1875. See Burt II, Washington Mansion, 5.
163 In the clippings collections at HSP, there are almost equal numbers of Poulson- and Watson-based illustrations.
164 Westcott, Historic Mansions, 251.
165 Scharf & Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1:351.
166 Charles Henry Hart, "Mary White -- Mrs. Robert Morris," PMHB 2 (1878), 2:173-75.
167 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 17, 1887; 65:1670.
168 Figure 12 shows the facades of the three narrow stores built by Nathaniel Burt in 1832; 524 Market Street (built in 1804) is to the left, Oak Hall (expanded in 1871) is to the right. The plaque is visible just to the left of the fire escape between the second-story windows of 528. Thanks to Mark Frazier Lloyd, President, Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution, for providing background information on the plaque.
169 Leila Herbert, The First American, His Homes and His Households (New York, 1899), facing p. 78.
170 John T. Faris, The Romance of Old Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1918), 306.
171 Hart, "Mary White," 173. Hart was quoting the measurement from the 1785 groundplan of the house.
172 Final Report to the United States Congress by the Philadelphia National Shrines Park Commission (8 vols., Philadelphia, 1947), 1:262.
173 Lillian Ione Rhoades, The Story of Philadelphia (New York, 1900), 284. Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier (New York, 1903), facing p. 226. Oberholtzer, Philadelphia: A History of the City and Its People (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1911), 1: facing p. 342. Oberholtzer, Official Pictorial and Descriptive Souvenir Book of the Historical Pageant (Philadelphia, 1912), facing p. 69. William W. Matos, Official Historical Souvenir -- Philadelphia, Its Founding and Development, 1683-1908 (Philadelphia, 1908), 383. Horace Mather Lippincott, Early Philadelphia, It's People Life & Progress (Philadelphia, 1917), facing p. 46. Joseph Jackson, Market Street, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1918), facing p. 104. Strangely, this book is illustrated with the five-bay Poulson sketch even though Jackson argues in the text in favor of the four-bay Watson view. J. St. George Joyce, Story of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1919), 83. Francis Burke Brandt & Henry Volkmar Gumere, Byways and Boulevards in and about Historic Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1925), 101.
174 Golden Book of Wanamaker Stores, facing p. 42.
175 The theory is outlined in a November 13, 1952 letter from David H. Morgan to Harold Donaldson Eberlein in the 500 Market Street/Washington Mansion file at the Philadelphia Historical Commission. The rest is extrapolation by this writer. Although the originator of the "comprehensive theory" has not been identified, Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer seems to have been the first major historian to abandon the Watson-based four-bay views and adopt the five-bay Poulson sketch.
176 History of the George Washington Bicentennial Celebration (5 vols., Washington, D. C., 1932), 2:195. This several-thousand-page work included a summation of all the scholarship on Washington, and was considered definitive.
177 Sarah D. Lowrie and Mabel Stewart Ludlum, The Book of the Street, "High Street" Old Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1926), 29.
178 In 1801, the Kennedy brothers (the owners of the PH) rented the building at 518 Market Street for their store, while the PH was occupied by Francis's Union Hotel. Murphy interpreted this Kennedy listing in the 1801 Philadelphia Directory to mean that the PH had stood at 518 Market Street. See above, n. 126.
179 See Catholic Standard and Times, July 17, 1936; and Evening Bulletin, July 23, 1936.
180 See David H. Morgan, 190 High Street, Philadelphia, Research Data 1937-1938, Works Progress Administration Project #13341. Manuscript Dept., American Philosophical Society. This volume contains 234 of the progress reports. The writer has written an annotated summary and an introduction to the WPA notes, which have been added to the volume.
181 WPA Project Application, August 18, 1936. Records of the WPA, RG 69, box 10, entry 764. National Archives. Washington, D. C. This was for twenty workers (plus the project head and an assistant) to build models of six buildings in three months. The budget included no money for researchers.
182 WPA Project Proposal, September 9, 1937. WPA Project Folders, OP #465-23-3-415, microfilm reel 3264, National Archives. Washington, D. C. This was for thirty-nine workers (plus the project head and an assistant) to build models of four buildings in six months. The budget included money for researchers and office staff.
183 See "Women Organize to Effect 'Greenbelt Memorial' Hope," Evening Public Ledger, July 13, 1939, 18 (hereafter, Murphy article).
184 "Checked dimensions then taken revealed that the frontage of the original house (prior to enlargement by Morris) had a foundation dimension of 31' . . ." Morgan letter. Morgan took this measurement from the 1767 western stone foundation wall of the house to Burt's 1832 brick wall separating 526 and 528 Market Street.
186 See 1798 insurance policies.
187 Morgan, 190 High Street, sheets 196-214.
191 Morgan to Murphy, Aug. 13, 1938. 500 Market Street/Washington Mansion file, Philadelphia Historical Commission.
192 "Architects O. K. Project to Restore Morris House," Evening Bulletin, October 18, 1937.
193 Morgan's son was not born until the 1940s. He has no memory of the President's House model ever being discussed by his family. I thank him for his assistance.
194 The elevations shown in figure 16 are presented in the order in which the conjectural views or descriptions of the PH were drawn or published. Watson's 1823 sketch comes the closest to getting the major details right -- the location, the size of the house, and the four-bay facade. It is the writer's belief that Griswold's theory, published in 1854, that the house had been 32 feet wide (and had taken up two of Burt's stores), probably had been in circulation several years earlier. Poulson's watercolor sketch (dated April 1850) at the Library Company of Philadelphia, which grafted two of Burt's stores onto 524 Market Street to form an enormous PH, would seem to have been a reaction (or over-reaction) to the small PH described by Griswold (and perhaps by others). If this is true, then Poulson's fantasy of a five-bay PH was the result of his ham-handed efforts to correct Griswold's misinformation -- efforts which, ironically, themselves produced one hundred years more of misinformation. To give a sense of the scale of all of these buildings, the Stedman-Galloway House (which was about the same size as the Powel House) is included at the southeast corner of 6th and Market Streets. The conjectural sketch of this house is based on the one-third of the building's Market Street facade visible in Breton's watercolor sketches of the PH (ca. 1828-30), drawn when the Stedman-Galloway House was still standing, and Poulson's watercolor sketch of it (dated April 30, 1860) at LCP, drawn after it had been demolished. The long garden wall to the east of the PH shows the extent of Morris's property on Market Street: 514-22 was the walled garden, 524 the wood yard, 526-30 the PH, 532-34 the alley and side yard, and 536 the Stedman-Galloway House. The centerline of the block is marked under 518.
195 "First objective of the group is to rebuild the famous Robert Morris mansion which once stood at 528 High Street, now Market Street." Murphy article.
196 526 and 528 Market Street were razed to the ground, their foundations were filled in, and they became a parking lot. The upper 3 stories of 530 were removed, leaving a one-story building and cellar.
197 This photograph is dated November 1, 1951, and looks south from Market Street. The depression in the foreground is the cellar of Washington Hall (530 Market Street), the westernmost of Burt's 1832 stores. The wall at left is the eastern wall of Zorn's Store (524 Market). The eastern wall of the PH (the party wall shared with Zorn's Store) has just been demolished. The tower of Independence Hall is visible at the top.
198 Judge Edwin O. Lewis to Sydney E. Martin, January 23, 1945, as quoted in Anna Coxe Toogood et al., Cultural Landscape Report: Independence Mall (National Park Service, June 1994), 58.
199 See Ernest Howard Yardley to the editor of the Evening Bulletin, January 9, 1952. 500 Market Street/Washington House file, Philadelphia Historical Commission (hereafter, AIA letter).
200 The four-story wall at the center of the photograph is the eastern wall of the President's House. The one-story party wall between 530 and 532-36 Market Street at right is what was left of the western wall of the house after the demolition of Oak Hall. This photograph was taken in 1947, but ten years earlier when the WPA studied the President's House, three stories of the western wall had probably still been intact, incorporated into the six-story eastern wall of Oak Hall.
201 Morgan, 190 High Street, sheet 97.
202 Lear to Washington, November 14, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence. See above, n. 52 for the url of the website which is searchable online.
203 See Franklin Fire Insurance, Survey No. 24262, June 9, 1856. HSP. See also Ernest Hexamer and William Locher, Maps of the City of Philadelphia (7 vols., Philadelphia, 1858-62), 1:12.
204 These are Morgan's corrected measurements, made in 1952. See below, n. 217.
205 Lear to Washington, November 4, 1790. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
206 Lear to Washington, November 21, 1790. Ibid.
207 See Morgan, 190 High Street, sheet 98.
208 Ibid., sheet 117. Morgan mistakenly recorded that he was in the cellar of 528 Market Street (which was the street number of the parking lot next door) instead of 530.
209 Morgan's map of the foundations and his notes can be found in the 500 Market Street/Washington House file at the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
210 See Looney, Old Philadelphia, 44. The panes of the windows of the Stamper-Blackwell House were slightly smaller than those of the PH -- 11 x 14 inches. See Philadelphia Contributionship, survey no. 415, Dec. 17, 1845.
211 Philadelphia Contributionship, survey no. 10.224, May 14, 1859.
212 Other plausible staircase solutions such as twenty-four steps, each 7 inches tall, for a total floor-to-floor of 168 inches; twenty-six steps, each 6-1/2 inches tall, for a total floor-to-floor of 169 inches; and twenty-seven steps, each 6-1/4 inches tall, for a total floor-to-floor of (coincidentally, again) 168-3/4 inches are so close to this that all four of them must be considered equally probable.
213 Washington to Lear, September 23, 1791. Sparks, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, 49.
214 Lear to Washington, September 27, 1791. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence. This may be the first time that this letter has been transcribed.
215 Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (1857 ed.; reprint, 1900), 2: facing p. 619.
216 See Eberlein, "190 High Street," 162. This may be the only Eberlein conjecture with which this writer heartily agrees.
217 See Morgan, 190 High Street, sheet 12. This writer has been unable to locate this document. Flemish bond alternates bricks laid lengthwise (stretchers) with those laid widthwise (headers). Glazed headers are fired, and are bluish-black in color. See Looney, Old Philadelphia, 44.
218 Griswold, The Republican Court, 242.
219 The only surviving eighteenth-century Philadelphia buildings with this decorative feature are the north façades of Independence Hall and Carpenters' Hall, although it can be seen on several long-demolished Philadelphia buildings in "Birch's Views."
220 Carpenters' Hall (1770-74) is the only extant eighteenth-century Philadelphia building with similar (though smaller) ornamental windowframes which feature entablatures with pulvinated friezes. (They are on the second story of the central portion of its south façade.) These frames are of wood with stone sills. It is likely that the ornamental windowframes of the PH also were of wood with stone sills.
221 Based on the known 45-foot 8-1/2-inch width of the house, the Mason sketch shows the top of the cornice as being just over 50 feet above the sidewalk. From Lear, we know that this measurement was 41 feet 6 inches.
222 Roach, Historical Report: First Block, Independence Mall, 23-24.
223 "It is most unfortunate that the Poulson picture has been so long and widely publicised, and labelled as the house in which General Washington lived during his Presidency. For years past -- and they are still doing it -- books, leaflets, advertisements and what not have set forth the Poulson picture as a true representation of Washington's Philadelphia domicile from 1790 to 1797 -- which it most certainly is not." Eberlein, "190 High Street," 162 n. 9.
225 Wainwright, Colonial Grandeur, 149.
226 This photograph looks east from 532-34 Market Street. The wall at the top is in the same location as the western wall of the Brick Stable in the 1785 groundplan, but none of this building seems to have been incorporated into these foundations. Minor Street is to the right.
227 Robert Morris to Washington, June 15, 1784. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress: ser. 4, General Correspondence.
228 The notation on a 1952 map of the first block reads: "All buildings within this block were demolished during 1950-52 and entire area filled with rubble topped with six inches of earth to elevations shown. Building walls and piers removed to elevations 4 feet below adjacent curb elevations. Temporary wood fence and temporary sidewalk were erected under demolition contract." Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larson, Architects, Project P-1409, Survey of Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA, sheet GC-1, October 17, 1952. National Park Service, INHP Archives, Maps, Plans & Drawings Coll.; Unacc., Drawer 36, Folder 7.
229 See Greiff, Independence, 229.
230 Figure 22 is based on maps in the Cultural Landscape Report: Independence Mall, along with measurements of the site taken by the writer. The tree by the northwest corner of the public toilet has since been removed.
231 Robert H. Wilson, ed., Philadelphia -- Official Handbook for Visitors (Maplewood, NJ, 1964), 5, 90.
233 James R. George, "Bulldozers Trample Site Where Washington Slept," Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 22, 1952.