During the nineteenth century more attention was given to newels in ironwork, and elaborate square posts combining cast and wrought pieces were constructed, such as that at Fourth and Liberty streets. In the accompanying balustrade are to be seen motives much employed in the other examples here illustrated. Scroll work is conspicuous, as are rosettes, but a touch of individuality is given by a Grecian band instead of the more common evolute spiral above the diaper pattern. The pineapple, emblem of hospitality, was attractive in cast iron and as utilized at Number 1107 Walnut Street provided a distinctive newel.



The roads on the outskirts of all Colonial cities were very bad, and many of the less important streets of Philadelphia had neither pavements nor sidewalks. After rains shoes were bemired in walking, and as rubbers were then unknown it was necessary to remove the mud from the shoes before entering a house. Foot scrapers on the doorstep or at the foot of the front steps were a necessity and became ornamental adjuncts of the doorways of early Colonial homes. For the most part of wrought iron, some of the later ones were cast in molds, that at Wyck being a particularly interesting example. It consists of two grotesque griffins back to back, their wings joined tip to tip forming the scraper edge, and the whole being mounted in a large tray with turned-up edges. This scraper can thus be moved about as desired, and the tray catches the scrapings, which can be emptied occasionally without sweeping the entire doorstep.

Some of the earlier and simpler scrapers, such as that at Third and Spruce streets, consisted merely of two upright standards with a sharp-edged horizontal bar between them to provide the scraper proper. This horizontal part was made quite broad to take care of anticipated wear, which in this particular instance has been great during the intervening years.

Similar to this, except for the well-wrought tops of the standards and the curved supplementary supports, is the scraper of the Dirck Keyser doorway, Number 6205 Germantown Avenue, Germantown. Regarded as a whole this design suggests nothing so much as the back and arms of an early English armchair.

On the same page with these is shown another strange Philadelphia scraper. Apart from its outline it has no decoration, and what the origin of the design may be it is difficult to determine. To a degree, however, it resembles two crude, ancient battle-axes, the handles forming the scraper bar.

A favorite design consisted of a sort of inverted oxbow with the curved part at the top and the scraper bar taking some ornamental pattern across the bottom from side to side. At the top, both outside and inside the bow, and sometimes down the sides, spiral ornaments were applied in the Florentine manner. Accompanying illustrations show two scrapers of this type at Number 320 South Third Street and another one elsewhere on the same street. The use of a little urn-shaped ornament at the top of the latter scraper is most effective.

At Number 239 Pine Street is seen a scraper employing two large spirals themselves as supports for the scraper bar. The turn of the spiral is here outward as contrasted with the inward turn of the scrapers at Upsala.

A scraper of quaint simplicity standing on one central standard at Vernon, Germantown, suggests the heart as its motive, although having outward as well as inward curling spirals at the top.

Another clever device of Philadelphia ironworkers was to make the foot scraper a part of the iron stair rail. Usually in such a scheme it was also made part of the newel treatment on the lower step of the stoop, but at Seventh and Locust streets, for example, it stands on the second step beside and above the ornate round newel with its surmounting pineapple. Here, as in the case of the simpler handrail in South Seventh Street, one of the iron spindles of the rail is split about a foot from the bottom, and the two halves bent respectively to the right and left until they meet the next spindle on each side, the scraper bar of ornamental outline being fastened across from one to the other of these spindles below. The principal charm of the South Seventh Street rail lies in its extreme simplicity, the twisted section of the spindles near the bottom being a clever expedient. The pleasing effect of the design at Seventh and Locust streets is largely due to appropriate use of the evolute spiral band. Only a little more ornate than the South Seventh Street stair rail is that in South Fourth Street. A special spiral design above the foot scraper, however, virtually becomes a newel in this instance. The same is true of another much more elaborate stair rail at Seventh and Locust streets with its attractive diaper pattern between an upper and lower Grecian band, the whole grille being supported by a graceful three-point bracket.



CHAPTER VIII

WINDOWS AND SHUTTERS

Philadelphia windows and window frames during the Colonial period were not so much a development as a perpetuation of the initial types, although of course some minor changes and improvements were made with passing years. From the very beginning sliding Georgian sashes were the rule. Penn's house has them and so have all the other historic homes and buildings of this vicinity now remaining. There are none of the diamond paned casement sashes, such as were employed in the first New England homes half a century earlier, for builders in both the mother country and the colonies had ceased to work in the Elizabethan and Jacobean manner and were completely under the influence of the Renaissance. In the earlier houses the upper sash was let into the frame permanently, only the lower sash being movable and sliding upward, but in later years double-hung sashes with weights began to be adopted. Stiles, rails and sash bars were all put together with mortise and tenon joints and even the sash bars were pegged together with wood. The glass was set in rabbeted edges and held in place by putty according to the method still in use.



At first the panes were very small, and many were required in large windows, but as glass making advanced, the prevailing size was successively enlarged from about five by seven inches to six by eight, seven by nine, eight by ten, and nine by twelve. As the size of individual panes of glass was increased, their number in each sash was in some instances correspondingly decreased, although oftener larger sashes with the same number of panes resulted. Philadelphia architects always manifested a keen appreciation of the value of scale imparted by the sash bar divisions of their windows, and for that reason small-paned sashes never ceased to be popular.

Although numerous variations exist, the custom of having an equal number of panes in both upper and lower sashes predominated. Six, nine and twelve-paned sashes forming twelve, eighteen and twenty-four paned windows were all common throughout the Colonial period. Twelve-paned sashes were used chiefly in public buildings and the larger private mansions, six-paned sashes in houses of moderate size. While there are several notable instances of nine-paned upper and lower sashes, particularly Hope Lodge, Cedar Grove in Harrowgate, Northern Liberties, and the Wharton house at Number 336 Spruce Street, this arrangement frequently, although not always, resulted in a window rather too high and narrow to be pleasing in proportion. A comparison of the accompanying photographs of the window of a Combes Alley house with that of a house at Number 128 Race Street well illustrates the point. Sometimes, where used on the lower story, six-paned upper and lower sashes are found in the windows of the second story.

Waynesborough, in Easttown Township, Chester County, not far from Philadelphia, is a well-known case in point. Grumblethorpe presents the anomalous reverse arrangement of six-paned sashes on the first story and nine-paned sashes on the second story. Still oftener six-and nine-paned sashes were combined in the same window, the larger sash being sometimes the upper and again the lower. Bartram House and the Johnson house are instances of nine-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story and nine-paned lower and six-paned upper sashes on the second story. Greame Park in Horsham, Montgomery County, not far from Philadelphia, has nine-paned upper and lower sashes on the lower story and twelve-paned lower and nine-paned upper on the second floor. Penn's house in Fairmount Park and Glen Fern are instances of nine-paned lower and six-paned upper sashes on the first story and six-paned upper and lower sashes on the second story. Solitude and the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street, exemplify the reverse arrangement of nine-paned upper and six-paned lower sashes on both stories.

Six-paned upper and lower sashes on both the first and second floors were, perhaps, more common on houses of moderate size and some large mansions throughout the Colonial period than any other window arrangement. Notable instances are The Highlands; Upsala; Vernon; Wynnestay in Wynnefield, West Philadelphia; Carlton in Germantown; the Powell house, Number 244 South Third Street; the Evans house, Number 322 De Lancy Street; and the Wistar house, Fourth and Locust streets.

Among the more pretentious countryseats and city residences having twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on both the first and second stories may be mentioned Cliveden, Stenton, Loudoun, Woodford, Whitby Hall, the Morris house, the Perot-Morris house, Chalkley Hall and Port Royal House in Frankford.

Twelve-paned sashes were also used in various ways in combination with six, eight and nine paned sashes. For example, the Waln house, Number 254 South Second Street, has twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story with six-paned upper and lower sashes on the second story, whereas Mount Pleasant has the reverse arrangement. Laurel Hill, in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, has twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story and eight-paned upper and lower sashes on the second story, whereas the Billmeyer house has all twelve-paned sashes except the lower ones on the second story, which are eight-paned. Wyck, consisting as it does of two buildings joined together, probably has the most heterogeneous fenestration of any house in Philadelphia. On the first floor are windows having nine-paned lower and six-paned upper sashes, while on the second story are windows having twelve-paned lower and eight-paned upper sashes and others having six-paned upper and lower sashes. The Free Quakers' Meeting House at Fifth and Arch streets has twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story and eight-paned upper and twelve-paned lower sashes on the second floor.



To reduce their apparent height, three-story houses were foreshortened with square windows. Two-piece sashes were used, and the number of panes differed considerably. While a like number in both upper and lower sashes was the rule, the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street, and the Powel house, Number 244 South Third Street, are notable instances of foreshortened windows having three-paned upper and six-paned lower sashes. The Wharton house, Number 336 Spruce Street, and the Evans house, Number 322 De Lancy Street, have foreshortened windows with six-paned upper and lower sashes. The Waln house, Number 254 South Second Street, the Stocker house, Number 404 South Front Street, and Pen Rhyn in Bensalem Township, Bucks County, have foreshortened windows with three-paned upper and lower sashes. Such foreshortened windows as all the above were usually employed with six-and nine-paned sashes on the stories below. Where eight-and twelve-paned sashes were used for the principal windows of the house, the foreshortened windows of the third story usually had eight-paned upper and lower sashes, as on the Morris house, the Wistar house at Fourth and Locust streets, Whitby Hall and Chalkley Hall in Frankford.

Most Philadelphia houses, whether gable or hip-roofed, have dormers to light the attic. Two or three on a side were the rule, although a few small houses have only one. For the most part they were pedimental or gable-roofed. Segmental topped dormers were rare, although a row of them is to be seen in Camac Street, "the street of little clubs", and occasional individual instances are to be found elsewhere. Lean-to or shed-roof dormers never found favor, the only notable instances about Philadelphia being at Glen Fern, Cedar Grove in Harrowgate, Northern Liberties, and Greame Park in Horsham, Montgomery County.

An accompanying illustration of a dormer on the Witherill house, Number 130 North Front Street, shows the simplest type of gable-roof dormer with square-headed window and six-paned upper and lower sashes. Similar dormers, differing chiefly in the detail of the moldings employed, are features of the Morris house; Wistar house, Fourth and Locust streets; Wynnestay, Wynnefield, West Philadelphia; Wyck; the Johnson house; Carlton, Germantown; and Chalkley Hall, Frankford. Grumblethorpe and Bartram House have dormers of this sort with a segmental topped upper window sash. Solitude has this sort of dormer with three-paned upper and six-paned lower sashes, while Stenton and the Evans house, Number 322 De Lancy Street, have eight-paned upper and lower sashes.

Houses usually of somewhat later date and notable for greater refinement of detail had gable-roof dormers with round-headed Palladian windows extending up into the pediment. As in the accompanying illustration showing a dormer on the house at Number 6105 Germantown Avenue, Germantown, the casings usually take the form of fluted pilasters, supporting the pediment with its nicely molded cornice, often, as in this instance, with a prominent denticulated molding. Narrower supplementary pilasters supported a molded and keyed arch, forming the frame within which the window is set. The lower sash is six-paned, while the upper one has six rectangular panes above which six ornamental shaped panes form a semicircle.

Similar dormers, differing chiefly in ornamental detail, are features of Loudoun, Vernon, Upsala, Hope Lodge, Port Royal House, the Perot-Morris house, the Billmeyer house, the Wharton house, Number 336 Spruce Street; the Powel house, Number 244 South Third Street; and the Stocker house, Number 404 South Front Street. The dormers of Cliveden and Mount Pleasant are of this type but further elaborated by projecting ornamental scrolls at the sides.

As the architecture of Philadelphia is almost exclusively in brick and stone, there were none of the architrave casings and ornamental heads consisting of a cornice above the architrave and often of a complete entablature which characterized much contemporary New England work in wood. Brick and stone construction require solid rather than cased wood frames let into the reveals of the brick wall and have no projections other than a molded sill, as on the Morris house, while a stone lintel or brick arch must replace the ornamental head, often such a pleasing feature of wood construction. The frames were of heavy construction held together at the corners by large dowel pins and were ornamented by suitable moldings broken around the reveals of the masonry and by molded sash guides in the frame. In the earlier brick houses the square-headed window openings had either gauged arches, as at Hope Lodge, or relieving arches of alternate headers and stretchers with a brick core, as at Stenton. Later, as in the case of hewn stonework, prominent stone lintels and window sills were adopted. Marble was much favored for this purpose because it harmonizes with the white-painted woodwork, brightens the facade and emphasizes the fenestration. Most of the lintels take the shape of a flat, gauged arch with flutings simulating mortar joints that radiate from an imaginary center below and mark off voussoirs and a keystone. Usually there is no surface ornamentation, the shape of the parts being depended upon to form a decorative pattern, the shallow vertical and horizontal scorings on the lintels of the Morris house being exceptional. These, the lintels of Cliveden and of the Free Quakers' Meeting House, exemplify the three most common types.



Unquestionably the most distinctive feature of the window treatment of this neighborhood was the outside shutters. Colonial times were troublous, and glass was expensive. In the city, protection was wanted against lawlessness at night, and in the country there was for many years the ever-present possibility of an Indian attack, despite the generally friendly relations of the Quakers with the tribes of the vicinity. There were also some British soldiers not above making improper use of unshuttered windows at night. Except for a relatively few country houses which had neither outside shutters nor blinds—notably Stenton, Solitude, Mount Pleasant, Bartram House and The Woodlands—the use of shutters on the first story was the rule. Above that the custom varied greatly. Where outside shutters were totally absent, inside hinged, folding and sometimes boxed shutters were almost invariably present. Only a few important instances of old Colonial houses having blinds on the lower story now remain. Port Royal House, for example, two and a half stories high, has blinds on the first story and none above. The Highlands has blinds on both the first and second stories, while Chalkley Hall in Frankford has blinds on all three of its stories.

Often there are shutters on the lower story and none above. Three-story instances of this are the Waln house, Number 254 South Second Street; the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street; and the Wistar house, Fourth and Locust streets. Two and a half story instances are Cliveden, Hope Lodge, Vernon, Woodford, the Johnson house and Laurel Hill in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park.

Less common are three-story houses having shutters on the first and second stories and none on the third. Whitby Hall, the Morris house and the Wharton house, Number 336 Spruce Street, are examples. Rare are two and a half story houses having shutters on both the principal stories. Wyck, Cedar Grove in Harrowgate, Northern Liberties, and Wynnestay in Wynnefield, West Philadelphia, are good examples. Most two and a half story houses have shutters on the first story and blinds on the second, as instanced by Upsala, Grumblethorpe, Loudoun, Glen Fern and the Perot-Morris house. The Powel house, Number 244 South Third Street, is a rare instance of shutters on all three stories, while the Evans house, Number 322 De Lancy Street, and Pen Rhyn in Bensalem Township, Bucks County, are rare instances of shutters on the first story and blinds on the second and third stories.



These outside shutters are of heavy construction like doors, the stiles and rails having mortise and tenon joints held together by dowel pins and the panels being molded and raised. Usually frieze and lock rails divide the shutter into three panels, the two lower ones being the same height and the upper one square. Accompanying illustrations show eighteen-paned windows having shutters arranged in this manner at Number 128 Race Street and in Combes Alley. At Cliveden the upper panel is not quite high enough to be square, and the same is true of the Morris house shutters, which are also notable for the fact that the lower panel is not quite so high as the middle one. Sometimes an opening of ornamental shape was cut through the top panel to admit a little light, as for instance the crescent in the shutters at Wynnestay, Wynnefield, West Philadelphia. On a relatively few houses the shutters had four panels, the most common arrangement being a small and a large panel in alternation from the top downward. Such shutters were features of Loudoun, the Wistar house, Fourth and Locust streets; the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street; the Powel house, Number 244 South Third Street; the Evans house, Number 322 Spruce Street; and the Wharton house, Number 336 Spruce Street. An accompanying illustration shows an unusual four-panel arrangement on the Witherill house, Number 130 North Front Street, the three upper almost square panels being of the same size and the lowest one being about twice as high as one of the small ones. Top, frieze and lock rails are usually the same width as the stiles, and the bottom rail is about double width. The meeting stiles and sometimes those on the opposite side have rabbeted joints, the latter fitting the jambs of the window frame.

As indicated by an accompanying illustration showing the typical treatment of a second-floor twelve-paned window at Number 6105 Germantown Avenue, Germantown, most blinds were strengthened by a lock rail about midway of the height, or slightly below, dividing the blind into an upper and lower section. Blinds of this sort are to be seen at Loudoun, Grumblethorpe, Upsala, The Highlands and Port Royal House. At Waynesborough in Easttown Township, Chester County, this division is considerably below the middle, making the upper section much the larger. Less common are blinds divided into three sections by two lock rails, such as those of the Perot-Morris house. The Evans house, Number 322 De Lancy Street, has two-section blinds on the third story and three-section blinds on the second story. Unusual indeed are blinds having only top and bottom rails. They are found now and then on small upper windows, as at Glen Fern. Chalkley Hall in Frankford is a rare instance of such blinds on all three stories of a large countryseat.

All of these blinds are of heavy construction, having top and lock rails about the same width as the stiles, and bottom rails about double width. Except for heavy louvers instead of panels, they are much like shutters. The frame is of the same thickness, with mortise and tenon joints doweled together.

A picturesque feature of Philadelphia window treatment is the quaint wrought-iron fixtures with which shutters and blinds are hung and fastened. As clearly shown by the accompanying detail photograph of a window of the Morris house, outside shutters are generally hung by means of hinges to the frame of the window. As these frames are set back in the reveal of the masonry, these hinges are necessarily of special shape, being of large projection to enable the shutters to fold back against the face of the wall. They were strap hinges tapering slightly in width, corresponding in length to the width of the shutter and fastened to it by means of two or three bolts. Small pendant rings on the inside of the meeting stiles were provided for pulling the shutters together and closing them. They were fastened together by a long wrought-iron strap, usually bolted to the left-hand shutter, that projects to overlap the opposite shutter five or six inches when the shutters are closed. Near the projecting end of the strap a pin at right angles to it sticks through a hole in an escutcheon plate in the lock rail of the opposite shutter, and an iron pin, suspended by a short length of chain to prevent loss, is inserted through a vertical drilling in the pin. Later, sliding bolts were used, as seen on the shutters at Number 128 Race Street and the blinds at Number 6105 Germantown Avenue, Germantown.

Shutters and blinds were held back against the face of the wall in an open position by quaint wrought-iron turn buckles or gravitating catches and other simple fasteners. That on the shutters of the Perot-Morris house is the most prevalent pattern. The scroll at the bottom is longer and heavier than the round, flattened, upper portion, so that the fixture is kept in position by gravity. In this instance it is placed in the masonry wall near the meeting stile of the shutter. A similar fastener on the Chew house is placed in the window sill near the outer stile of the shutter. Another type of turning fastener that was quite popular is seen at Number 6043 Germantown Avenue, Germantown. It is held in place by a long iron strap screwed to the window sill, and the weight of the gravitating catch consists of a casting representing a bunch of grapes. More primitive and less satisfactory in use and appearance is the spring fastener bearing against the edge of the shutter seen at Wyck. Crude as these fixtures were, they have hardly been improved upon in principle, and similar designs of more finished workmanship are still used in modern work.

Twelve appears to be the largest number of panes employed in a sliding sash in Philadelphia architecture, even in public buildings, except a few churches. There are such sashes in Independence Hall, Congress Hall, Carpenters' Hall, the Free Quakers' Meeting House at Fifth and Arch streets and the main building of the Pennsylvania Hospital. In Congress Hall and Carpenters' Hall there are also round-topped windows with twelve-paned lower sashes and upper sashes having ten small ornamental panes to make up the semicircle above twelve rectangular panes. A few similar windows with seven ornamental panes in the round top are to be seen in Christ Church.



The Old Swedes' Church has a few rectangular windows with fifteen-and sixteen-paned upper and lower sashes, while over the front entrance there is a window having a twelve-paned upper and a sixteen-paned lower sash. In Christ Church are to be seen two windows having ten-paned upper and fifteen-paned lower sashes set in a recessed round brick arch. For the most part, however, the church windows of this period were round-topped, the upper sash being higher than the lower. Most of the windows of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church have fifteen-paned lower sashes, the upper sashes consisting of twenty rectangular panes above which twelve keystone-shaped panes and one semicircular pane form the round top.

The windows of Christ Church are larger still and particularly interesting because of the heavy central muntin to strengthen the sash. On the first story the lower sashes have twenty-four panes and the upper ones eighteen rectangular panes with sixteen keystone-shaped and two quarter-round panes to form the semicircular top. On the second floor the windows are the same except for the eighteen-paned lower sashes. Each side of the steeple on the lower story is a window of this size, notable for the ornamental spacing of twenty-one sash bar divisions, the sweeping curves of which form spaces for glass reminiscent of the Gothic arch.

These windows slide in molded frames set in the reveals of the brickwork under plain arches with marble or other stone imposts, keystone and sill. The imposts and keystone were often molded and otherwise hand-tooled, as on Christ's Church, and the sills were sometimes supported by a console at each end, as on St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church. Some of the windows of both of these churches illustrate the frequent employment of slightly projecting brick arches and pilaster casings at the sides.

The great Palladian chancel windows of Renaissance churches were often much larger. Usually they were stationary, especially the central section, although sometimes, as in Christ's Church, the two side windows had sliding sashes. The central section of this window has ninety-six rectangular panes with twenty-four keystone-shaped and two quarter-round panes forming the round top. The narrow side windows have fifteen-paned upper and twelve-paned lower sashes. The treatment of this chancel end with heavy brick piers and pilasters, stone entablature, projecting brick spandrels and the bust of George II, King of England, between them, above the arch of the Palladian window, is most interesting.

The chancel window of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church has one hundred and eight rectangular panes in its central section with twenty-eight keystone-shaped panes and a semicircular pane forming the round top. Each side of this end of the church, with four smaller round-headed windows ranged about the chancel window and a circular window in the pediment above, is a superb example of symmetrical arrangement.

Although large and more ornate, the Palladian window above the entrance to Independence Hall on the Independence Square side is more like that found in domestic architecture. All three of its lower sashes are sliding. The central window consists of a twenty-four-paned lower sash and an upper sash with twenty-one ornamental-shaped panes forming the round top above twenty-four rectangular panes. The narrow side windows have six-paned upper and twelve-paned lower sashes. Owing to its good proportion, the chaste simplicity of the detail and the pleasing combination of brick pilasters with wood trim, this has been referred to by architects as the best Palladian window in America. The use of such a window in the Ionic order above a Doric doorway adds another to the many notable instances of free use of the orders by Colonial builders.

In domestic architecture Palladian windows were employed chiefly to light the stairway landing, as at Whitby Hall; to light the upper hall, as at Mount Pleasant; and rarely to light the principal rooms each side of the front entrance, as at The Woodlands. They not only charm the eye as interior features, but when viewed outdoors relieve the severity of many ranging square-headed windows and provide a center of interest in the fenestration, lending grace and distinction to the entire facade. No Palladian windows in Philadelphia so thoroughly please the eye or so convincingly indicate the delightful accord that may exist between gray ledge-stone masonry and white woodwork as those set within recessed arches at The Woodlands. The proportion and simple, clean-cut detail throughout are exquisite. The engaged colonnettes of the mullions contrast pleasingly with the pilasters of the frame, each of the two supporting an entablature notable for its fine-scale dentil course, and these two in turn supporting a keyed, molded arch. The central window has twelve-paned upper and lower sliding sashes with an attractively spaced fanlight above. The narrow ten-paned side windows are stationary. Unusual as is the use of these Palladian windows, their charm is undeniable, and they are among the chief distinctions of the house.



CHAPTER IX

HALLS AND STAIRCASES

The hall is of particular moment in the design of a house. There guests are welcomed to the fireside, and there their first impressions of the home are formed. The architectural treatment of the hall sets the keynote of the entire home interior, so to speak. Its doorways and open arches frame vistas of the principal adjoining rooms, and its staircase, usually winding, affords a more or less complete survey of the whole house from various altitudes and angles. It is the place where the master puts his best foot foremost, as the expression goes, and happily the recognized utilitarian features of the typical Colonial hall permit a notable degree of elaboration at once consistent and beautiful.

Throughout the feudal period of the Middle Ages the hall was the main and often the only living, reception and banquet room of castles, palaces and manor houses. It was the common center of home activities. There the lord and family retainers, servants and visitors were accommodated, and all the common life of the household was carried on. In early times there were, besides the hall, only a few sleeping rooms, even in the greatest establishments. Later, more retired rooms were added, and gradually the hall became more and more an entranceway or passageway in the house, communicating with its different parts.

When houses began to be built more than a single story in height, the staircase became an important feature of the hall, and balconies were also introduced overlooking this great room, which was often the full height of the building. In fact, balconies were for a time more conspicuous than staircases, which were frequently located in any convenient secluded place. However, as builders came to appreciate more fully the attractiveness of this utilitarian structure, when embellished with suitable ornament, the staircase was accorded a more prominent position. Eventually it became the most important architectural feature of the hall, for the most part supplanting the balcony, which was in a measure replaced by the broad landings of broken, winding and wing flights.

Throughout the Georgian period of English architecture, the hall of the better houses retained something of the size and aspect of the great halls of feudal days, while at the same time accommodating the staircase and serving as a passageway leading to the principal rooms on the various floors. In the more pretentious houses of the period they were the scene of dancing and banqueting on special occasions, and for that reason were of spacious size, often running entirely through the building from front to back with the staircase located in a smaller side hall adjoining. Where space or expense were considerations, or where spacious parlors and drawing-rooms rendered the use of the hall for social purposes unnecessary, the staircase ascended in various ways at the rear of the main hall, usually beyond a flat or elliptical arch, where it added very materially to the effectiveness of the apartment without detracting at all from the use of the front portion as a reception room.

Such halls as the latter are as typical of the better Provincial mansions of Philadelphia, especially its countryseats, as of the plantation houses of Virginia and the early settled communities farther south. In the city residences of Philadelphia, built in blocks as elsewhere, the halls were of necessity narrower, mere passageways notable chiefly for their well-designed staircases, which consisted for the most part of a long straight run along one side with a single turn near the top to the second-floor passageway directly above that to the rear of the house on the floor below. In a few of the earlier country houses there are, however, halls reminiscent of medieval times, for the influences of the mother country were very strong in Philadelphia, and its Colonial architecture displays marked Georgian tendencies, some of it the very earliest Georgian characteristics still somewhat influenced by the life and manners of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

At Stenton, the countryseat of James Logan, to which detailed reference has been made in a previous chapter, there is a hall and staircase arrangement such as can be found only in some of the earliest eighteenth-century country houses. This great brick-paved room wainscoted to the ceiling, with a fireplace across the right-hand corner, reflects the hall of the English manor house, which was a gathering place for the family and for the reception of guests, as instanced by the reception tendered to LaFayette in the great hall at Wyck on July 20, 1825.



Admirable bolection molded wood paneling of the dado and wall space above, a heavy molded cornice and high, fluted and slightly tapering pilasters standing on pedestals flanking the entrances on all four sides indicate more eloquently than words the charm of white-painted interior woodwork. As in many houses of equally early date, the absence of a mantel over the fireplace is characteristic, yet it seems a distinct omission in beauty and usefulness. Through the high arched opening in the rear, with its narrow double doors, is seen the winding staircase in a smaller stair hall beyond. In this hallway stands an iron chest to hold the family silver, the cumbrous old lock having fourteen tumblers. Above there are wooden pegs in the wall on which to hang hats. The broad staircase with its plain rectangular box stair ends is one of unusually simple stateliness, yet typical of the sturdy lines of Philadelphia construction, the window with its built-in seat on the landing being an ever pleasing arrangement. Severely plain square newels support an exceptionally broad and heavy handrail capped with dark wood, while attractive turned balusters of distinctive pattern complete a balustrade of more than ordinarily substantial character. A nicely paneled dado with dark-capped surbase along the opposite wall greatly enriches the effect.

About the middle of the eighteenth century wide halls leading entirely through the center of the house from front to back were common in large American houses. Where country houses had entrance and garden fronts of almost equal importance, with a large doorway at each end of the hall, the staircase was usually located in a small stair hall to one side of the main hall and at the front or back, as happened to be most convenient with respect to the desired floor plan. Where a small door at the rear opened into a secluded garden, the staircase was located at the rear of the main hall with the door under the staircase. In either case the staircase took the form of a broken flight, with a straight run along one wall rising about two-thirds of the total height to a broad landing across the hall where the direction of the flight reversed. The landing was usually lighted by a large round-topped Palladian window which provided one of the most charming features of the interior as well as the exterior of the house. Inside it was often graced by the "clock on the stairs", a handsome mahogany chair or a tip-table with candlesticks for lighting guests to their rooms.

Whitby Hall at Fifty-eighth Street and Florence Avenue, Kingsessing, West Philadelphia, offers a notable instance of this latter type of hall and staircase. The wide hall extends entirely through the western wing, the main entrance being on the flag-paved piazza of the south front. On the north front there is a tower-like projection in which the staircase ascends with a broad landing across the rear wall and a low outside door beneath. This unusual arrangement permits side windows on the landing in addition to the great Palladian window in the middle, so that both the upper and lower halls are flooded with light.

A great beam architecturally embellished with a complete entablature with pulvinated frieze, the soffit of the architrave consisting of small square molded panels, spans the hall over the foot of the stairs along the line of the rear wall of the western wing. It is supported on opposite sides by well-proportioned fluted pilasters with nicely tooled Ionic capitals and heavy molded bases. Thus the staircase vista from the front end of the hall is framed by an architectural setting of rare beauty. The heavy cornice of the beam, with its molded and jig-sawed modillions, continues all around the hall ceiling, the turned and molded drops of the newels on the floor above tying into it very pleasingly over the stairs. A molded surbase and skirting, with a broad expanse of plastered wall between, provides an effective dado all around the hall. Where it follows up the stairs, it corresponds to the handrail of the balustrade opposite. The molding is the same; there is the same upward sweep of the ramped rail, and it is also capped with dark wood. On the landing dainty little fluted pilasters support the surbase, their fine scale lending much grace and refinement. One notices there also the beautiful beveled paneling of the window embrasures, the paneled soffit of the Palladian window and its built-in seat. The balustrade is of sturdy conventional type characteristic of the period. Two attractively turned balusters grace each stair, their bases alike and otherwise differing only in the length of their tapering shafts. The newel treatment is especially appropriate, inasmuch as it reflects the Ionic order, the balustrade winding scroll-fashion about a slender fluted colonnette, and the first stair tread taking the outline of the rail above. Graceful scroll brackets adorn the stair ends beneath the molded projections of the treads. Altogether this is one of the most notable halls of this type in Philadelphia.

The oldest part of Whitby Hall as it now stands was erected in 1754 by James Coultas, wealthy merchant, shipowner, soldier and enthusiastic promoter of many public and philanthropic enterprises. In 1741 he established himself in a house then existing on the plantation that corresponds to the present east wing, which was reconstructed with rare fidelity in 1842 to match the western wing erected by Colonel Coultas. The walls of the entire present house all around are of nicely squared and dressed native gray stone, and to afford extra protection against prevailing winds a penthouse with coved cornice runs along the northern and western ends at the second-floor level. The gables of the west wing face north and south with quaint oval windows to light the attic. A flag-paved piazza extends across the south front, forming part of the main entrance, while in a tower projection on the north front is located the staircase already described. Both the hall doorway and windows in this tower have brick trim, an unusual feature, while the bull's-eye light in the tower pediment, also set in brick trim, was a porthole glass from one of Colonel Coultas' ships.



As a merchant and in numerous other private enterprises, Colonel Coultas amassed a substantial fortune. From 1744 to 1755 he was the lessee of the Middle Ferry, where Market Street bridge now stands, and it was chiefly due to his initiative that steps were first taken to make the Schuylkill River navigable. He was one of the commissioners who surveyed the stream and the first to demonstrate that large boats could be taken above the falls. In 1748 he was a captain of the Associates, a battery for the defense of Philadelphia against French insolence, and in 1756 during the Indian uprisings he became lieutenant-colonel of the county regiment. He was repeatedly justice of the peace, high sheriff of the county from 1755 to 1758, and in 1765 was appointed judge of the Orphans' Court, Quarter Sessions, and Common Pleas. He carried on a farm in Blockley, operated a sawmill on Cobb's Creek north of the Blue Bell Inn, was a devout vestryman and enthusiastic huntsman. He it was who laid the corner stone of the Church of St. James in 1762, and as a member of the Colony in Schuylkill and the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club he was also prominently identified with the more convivial activities of the community.

On Colonel Coultas' death in 1768, Whitby Hall was inherited by his niece, Martha Ibbetson Gray, and later passed by inheritance to her great-great-grandchildren in the Thomas family, in whose hands it still remains.

Eloquently typical of the broad hall running entirely through the house from front to back, with the staircase located in a smaller side hall, is the arrangement at Mount Pleasant to which reference has already been made in a previous chapter. It is one which affords delightful vistas through the outside doorways at each end and an ample open space for dancing on occasion. Handsome doorways along the sides open into the principal rooms and are notable for their beautifully molded architrave casings and nicely worked pedimental doorheads. In fact, the woodwork here, as well as that throughout the house, is heavier and richer in elaboration of detail than usual in Georgian houses of the North, the classic details of the fluted pilasters and heavy, intricately carved complete entablature being pure mutulary Doric and more ornate than the Ionic detail of Whitby Hall. However, this was quite in keeping with the larger and more pretentious character of the former. The entablature is a positive triumph in cornice, frieze and architrave. The moldings are of good design and carefully worked; the guttae of the mutules, the triglyphs with paneled metopes between, and the guttae of the architrave all closely follow the classic order and exemplify the finest hand tooling of the period.

So similar as a whole yet so different in detail are the staircase hall of Mount Pleasant and the staircase end of the main hall at Whitby Hall that they invite comparison. In general arrangement they are much the same, except that the staircases are reversed, left for right. As at Whitby Hall a flat arch frames the staircase vista, a great beam bearing the entablature surrounds the hall at the ceiling, spanning the entrance to the staircase hall and being supported by square, fluted columns. In this smaller hall a simple, though only a molded cornice in harmony with that of the main hall suffices. Unlike the plain dado of the main hall, however, elaborated only by a molded surbase and skirting, a handsome paneled wainscot runs around the staircase hall and up the stairs. The spacing and workmanship displayed in this heavily beveled and molded paneling could hardly be better. At the foot of the flight, on the landing and at the head of the stairs, the ramped surbase with its dark wood cap, corresponding to the handrail opposite, is supported by slender fluted pilasters which materially enrich the effect. The space under the lower run of the staircase is entirely paneled up with a small diagonal topped door opening into the little closet thus afforded. The scroll-pattern stair ends, balustrade and spiral newel treatment are much the same as at Whitby Hall. Although similar in pattern the balusters are more slender and placed three instead of two on each stair.

On the second floor, as below, the hall extends entirely through the house, and following a frequent custom of the time was finished in a different order of architecture, the pulvinated Ionic being chosen, no doubt, for its lighter grace and greater propriety adjoining bedchambers. In furtherance of this thought, only the cornice with its jig-sawed modillions was employed at the ceiling and the flat dado was paneled off by the application of moldings to give it a lighter scale. The complete entablature was used only over the archway at the head of the stairs, where it was supported by square, fluted columns with beautifully carved capitals. Another mannerism of the time is the variation in the treatment of the doorways, the pedimental doorheads on one side being broken, whereas the others are not.

But the handsomest features of this upper hall are the Palladian windows, admitting a flood of light at each end, with their rectangular sashes each side of a higher, round-arched central window and a delightful arrangement of curved sash bars at the top. The many small panes lend a pleasing sense of scale, while the architectural treatment of the frames adds to the charm of the interior woodwork quite as materially as to the exterior facade. In working out the scheme, the entire Ionic order is utilized on a small scale. Both the casings and the mullions take the form of fluted square columns with typical carved capitals. These support two complete entablatures forming the lintels of the rectangular windows and being carried around into the embrasure of the central window, the keyed arch of which springs from the entablatures. It is a design which has never been improved upon.



The hall and staircase at Cliveden combine distinctive characteristics of the halls at Stenton and Mount Pleasant. As at Stenton, the hall itself consists of a large reception room centrally located, and about which the other principal rooms of the house are grouped. Through an archway at the rear is a slightly narrower though spacious staircase hall extending through to the back of the house, where the broken staircase rises to a broad landing and the direction of the run reverses. The architecture is as pure Doric as at Mount Pleasant, but of the denticulated rather than the mutulary order, and altogether more satisfactory for interior trim in wood. The cornice only is carried around the room at the ceiling, and in the staircase hall only the cymatium and corona of the cornice; but over the archway, supported by a colonnade of four fluted round columns, a complete entablature with nicely worked classic detail is employed and given added emphasis by several inches' projection into the reception hall. The columns are spaced so as to form a wide central archway flanked by two narrow ones, the effect being a staircase vista unexcelled in the domestic architecture of Philadelphia. The picture is enriched by a heavily paneled wainscot and handsome, deeply embrasured doorways with architrave casings, paneled jambs and soffits.

Except for the single, simple turned newel, the staircase is much like that at Mount Pleasant. There is the similar ramped balustrade and paneled wainscot with ramped surbase and dark wood cap rail along the wall opposite. Little pilasters likewise support this rail, but they are paneled rather than fluted. There are similar scroll-pattern stair ends and paneling under the stairs. In this instance the under side of the upper run is paneled in wood rather than plastered. The turned balusters are slightly more elaborate than at Mount Pleasant, but are used in the same manner, three to the stair.

Not built until nearly the dawn of the nineteenth century, Upsala belongs to a later period than most of the notable houses in Philadelphia. The lighter grace of Adam design had begun to dominate American building and is to be seen in the staircase as well as in the mantels and other interior woodwork at Upsala. The staircase combines features of the broken flight with a midway landing, such as the foregoing examples, and of the later development in long halls where the direction of the flight was reversed by a curved portion of the run instead of a landing. The breadth and length of the hall made landings possible and desirable, but instead of one wide midway landing between the upper and lower runs of the flight, there were two square landings separated by three steps, the stair stringers, balustrade and wainscot swinging upward in broad-sweeping curves. The wainscot consists of a charmingly varied paneling, while the balustrade is lighter in treatment than was usually the case. A simple dark wood handrail, slender, square molded balusters and stairs having a low rise and broad treads lend grace of appearance rarely equaled. Jig-sawed outline brackets of unusually harmonious scroll pattern placed under the molded overhang of the treads provide additional ornamentation of a refined character. The spiral newel is but a simpler form of those already alluded to. Altogether it is a staircase that charms the eye through its unaffected simplicity, a quality that never loses its power of appeal whether found inside the house or out.

Two other stairways with balustrades of slender grace are worthy of note, especially as instances of a single, small turned newel on the lower step, the handrail terminating in a round cap on the top. The simpler of these is at Roxborough and has balusters of unique contour standing not on the stair treads but on the cased-up stair stringer. The staircase in the Gowen house, Mount Airy, has a balustrade with three slender, but more or less conventional, balusters on each step, the treads, like the handrail and newel, being painted dark. A graceful jig-sawed bracket of scroll pattern adorns each stair end under the overhang of the tread, and the space under the stairs is closed in by well-spaced molded and raised paneling.

Another distinctive scroll outline bracket for stair ends forms the principal feature of a graceful staircase in the Carpenter house, Third and Spruce streets. The pattern manifests great refinement and has excellent proportion. In contrast with these lighter designs for domestic architecture, it is interesting to examine the stair-end treatment in Independence Hall, which is equally pleasing as an example of heavier, richer detail for public work. The brackets are solid, of evolute spiral outline and beautifully hand carved.



CHAPTER X

MANTELS AND CHIMNEY PIECES

In Colonial times fireplaces were a necessity. They supplied the only means of heating the house, and much of the cooking was done by them also. Indeed, the hanging of the crane was regarded as a signal event in establishing a new home, and often a cast-iron fireback bore the date of erection of the house and the name or initials of its owner. Each of the principal rooms had its fireplace and often a large parlor, drawing-room or library had two fireplaces, usually at opposite ends or sides, though rarely on the same side, as in the library at Stenton. The hearthstone was the center of family life, and architects, therefore, very properly made the mantels and chimney pieces with which they embellished the fireplace the architectural center of each room,—the gem in a setting of nicely wrought interior woodwork.

Then came the Franklin stove, throwing more heat out into the room and less up the chimney. Fireplaces were accordingly bricked up to accommodate it, a pipe was run into it, and presently the air-tight stove supplanted Franklin's open grate. Later central heating plants for hot air, steam and hot water were developed in the basement and connected by pipes with registers and radiators in the various rooms above. They gave greater and more even heat, consumed less fuel and were more easily taken care of than several fires in various parts of the house. For a time houses were built for the most part without fireplaces, but gradually a sense of loss began to be generally felt. These registers and radiators warmed the flesh, but they left the spirit cold; there was no poetry or sentiment whatever about them.

The outcome was obvious. The central heating plant has of course remained, but recent years have witnessed the general reopening of bricked-up fireplaces in old houses large and small, and to-day few new houses are built without a fireplace in the living room at least. To a degree it is a luxury, perhaps, though not a very expensive one, yet it is something for which all able to do so are very glad to pay. Besides, on chilly spring and autumn days and rainy summer evenings it provides a cheap and convenient auxiliary heating plant. But an open fire warms more than the hands and feet; it reaches the heart. Its appeal goes back to the tribal camp-fire and stirs some primitive instinct in man. "Hearth and home" are synonymous; there is a whole ritual of domestic worship which centers around an open fire. A blaze on a hearth is more than a luxury, more than a comfort; it is an altar fire.



And so in building the modern Colonial home we find ourselves ever going back to study the creations of the master builders of provincial times in America, when fireplaces meant even more than they do to-day, and finding in their achievements ideas and inspiration of great beauty and practical value. The neighborhood of Philadelphia is as rich in its collection of fine old mantels and chimney pieces as in its splendid interior woodwork generally. Like the latter they are for the most part of the early Georgian period, mostly chimney pieces, many without shelves, and usually somewhat heavy in scale and detail.

As in other important architectural features the development of mantels and chimney pieces in America followed to a degree the prevailing mode in the mother country. For many years after the Italian classic orders were brought to England by Inigo Jones, early in the seventeenth century, chimney pieces usually consisted merely of a mantel shelf and classic architraves or bolection moldings about the fireplace opening, the chimney breast above being paneled like the rest of the room. Toward the end of that century, and for several decades following, the shelf was omitted and the paneling on the chimney breast took the form of two horizontally disposed oblongs, the upper broader than the lower.

Such an arrangement in its simplest form is to be seen in the great hall at Stenton, where a fireplace is located across one corner. The elliptical arch of the white pilastered brickwork and the height of the horizontal architrave above this arch impart a touch of quaint distinction. One notices with admiration the beautiful brass andirons and fire set, and with interest the floreated cast-iron fireback.

Going to the other extreme we find in the parlor at Whitby Hall a magnificently ornate example of the chimney piece without a mantel shelf which, as in many Colonial houses, has been made the central feature of one side of the room, symmetrically arranged and architecturally treated with wood paneling throughout. A heavy cornice with prominent double denticulated string course or crenelated molding runs entirely around the room, tying the fireplace end of the room into the general scheme. The chimney piece projects slightly, lending greater emphasis, and at each side the wall space is given over to high round-topped double doors of closets divided into upper and lower parts, beautifully flush-paneled and hung with quaint iron H hinges. Like those of the other doors and windows, the casings are of architrave pattern and in the center of the round arch is a keystone-shaped ornament hand-tooled in wood. The fireplace opening is faced beautifully with cut black marble brought from Scotland and outlined with a nicely chiseled ovolo molding in wood similar to the familiar egg and dart pattern, but incorporating the richer Lesbian leaf instead of the dart, a closely related reed-like motive replacing the conventional bead and reel. Two handsomely carved consoles resting on the fillet of this ovolo molding support the superb molded panel of the overmantel some three by five feet, in which to this day not a joint is to be seen. A band of exquisite floreated carving in high relief fills the long, narrow, horizontal panel between the consoles. The precision of the tooling in this intricate tracery is indeed remarkable. Nicely worked but simple parallel moldings with the favorite Grecian fret sharply delineated between them and Lesbian leaf ornaments in the square projections at the corners compose a frame of exceptional grace of detail and proportion. Rarely is an ensemble so elaborate accompanied by such a marked degree of good taste and restraint.

In the great chamber on the second floor, which is believed to have been the boudoir of the mistress of Mount Vernon, there is a very similar, though even more elaborate, architectural treatment of the fireplace and of the room. Closets with round-topped doors again occupy the spaces each side of the fireplace; the cornice surrounding the entire room with its conspicuous Grecian fret motive again ties the paneled end of the room into the general scheme, and in this instance the relation is made closer by the paneled wainscot which is carried about all four walls. In this wainscot two panel sections under each closet are hung as double doors opening into small supplementary closets. Owing to the loftiness of the room, the closet doors have been elaborated by ornate broken pedimental heads repeating the cornice on a smaller scale, and which are supported by paneled pilasters and large consoles superbly carved with an acanthus leaf decoration.

Beautiful as these doorways are in themselves, they are so much heavier in treatment than the overmantel as to detract from it; they do not occupy an unobtrusive subordinate position, as do the closet doors of the parlor at Whitby Hall. Moreover, the trim of each door occupies such a breadth of wall space that the fireplace and overmantel are narrowed, the latter taking the form of a vertical rather than a horizontal oblong. In fact, the dominant lines throughout are here vertical as contrasted with the dominant horizontal lines at Whitby Hall. The loftiness and stateliness of the room are thereby emphasized, but the effect is less restful.



In architectural detail the fireplace and overmantel recall that of the Whitby Hall chimney piece. There are similar black marble facings about the fireplace opening outlined by a hand-tooled molding, and similar elaborately carved consoles supporting a handsomely molded panel with projecting ornamental corners, but in this instance the panel is surmounted by a highly ornamental top, consisting of a swag or broken pediment with an exquisitely hand-carved floreated design in high relief between the volutes which imparts a charming lightness and grace to the ensemble. Pilaster projections bearing nicely delineated leaf ornaments above the corners of the overmantel panel tie into corresponding projections in the cornice and unify the whole construction. Otherwise the chimney piece differs from that of Whitby Hall chiefly in its moldings, in which the Lesbian leaf is prominent. The ovolo about the marble facings of the fireplace bears the conventional bead and reel and egg and dart motives, the latter having a leaf design in alternation with the egg. The ogee molding outlining the overmantel panel is enriched with a larger and a smaller leaf motive in alternation, while the torus of the inner molding of this panel bears a little conventionalized flower in alternation with crossed flat fillets.

Altogether more pleasing is the chimney piece in the parlor at Mount Pleasant. In fact, it is regarded as one of the handsomest chimney pieces without a mantel shelf in America. Its excellence is due not to superiority of detail, but to better proportion, the breadth of the chimney breast being sufficient to make the overmantel panel practically square. This great fireplace construction for burning four-foot logs projects into the room some eighteen inches, with wood-paneled sides, the adjoining walls being plastered. Around it are carried the chaste Ionic cornice with its prominent dentil course; and the paneled wainscot below corresponds to the pedestal of the order. In the general arrangement of the design, this chimney piece follows closely that of the one above, except that top, sides and bottom of the overmantel panel frame are alike. As at Whitby Hall the familiar Grecian fret very acceptably occupies the space between the inner and outer moldings of this frame and obviates the need of any elaborate carved decoration above the panel. Contrasting pleasingly with this fret and on opposite sides of it are a plain molded ovolo outlining the panel and a small floreated torus supplemented by a molded cymatium within. The pilaster projections tying the panel treatment to the cornice bear three nicely tooled vertical flower designs in a row, an unusual conception. An ovolo of conventional egg and dart motive with the customary bead and reel astragal outlines the black marble facings of the fireplace opening. The console ornamentation is strongly reminiscent of that at Whitby Hall.

The mantel shelf proper was far too practical and attractive a feature of the fireplace to be long abandoned, however. It furnished a convenient place for clocks, candlesticks, china and other ornaments, and it appealed to the eye because of the homelike, livable appearance these articles of decoration gave to the room. About the middle of the eighteenth century the shelf of former times was reinstated and the overmantel was developed into a single large and elaborately framed panel over the chimney breast in which often hung a family portrait, a gilt-framed mirror or girandole.

Such a chimney piece is to be seen in the parlor at Cliveden, its fireplace opening partly closed up to convert it for use with the coal grate shown by the accompanying illustration. In this instance the carved consoles support the shelf rather than the panel of the overmantel, which engages neither the shelf nor the cornice with its prominent double denticulated molding. Otherwise, the chimney piece is essentially the same in arrangement as that in the parlor at Mount Pleasant. It has the same pleasing breadth and generally good proportions, but is severely simple in detail, the conventional ovolo of egg and dart motive without the astragal which outlines the black marble fireplace facings being the only enriched molding. As was customary, the shelf takes the form of a cymatium, and the projections above the consoles and central panel are characteristic details.

Much like this, though simpler in the absence of any enriched moldings and having less projection, is the chimney piece on the second floor of an old Spruce Street house shown by an accompanying illustration. It has substantially the same overmantel frame and mantel treatment. Incidentally it furnishes an excellent example of the complete paneling of one end of a room with the familiar six-panel ordinary inside doors each side of the fireplace. The architrave casings of the doors with their horizontal projections over the lintel are in pleasing accord with the corresponding projections of the overmantel frame and of the facing of the fireplace opening.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century and for some years thereafter, mantels with a shelf, but without any overmantel treatment of the chimney breast, became the rule. The whole construction was usually projected from twelve to eighteen inches into the room, however, and as the surbase and skirting or a paneled wainscot and the cornice above was carried around it, the effect was much like that of a chimney piece, especially when a large, ornamental framed mantel mirror occupied the space over the chimney breast.

The mantel itself took the form of a complete entablature above the fireplace opening, supported by pilasters at each side, the pilasters usually being carried up through the entablature by projections in architrave, frieze and cornice respectively, and the cymatium of the cornice forming the mantel shelf. The classic orders supplied much of the ornamental detail with which these mantels were embellished, and the work gave full scope to the genius of English and American wood-carvers, of whom there were many of marked ability in America.

The thriving condition of the ship-building industry in the colonies was instrumental in attracting and developing skilled wood-carvers. Many of them became apt students of architecture and proficient in executing hand-tooled enriched moldings and other ornament for mantels and chimney pieces. Not content with the conventional detail of the classic orders, they varied it considerably to suit their purposes, using familiar motives in new ways, securing classic effects with detail of their own conception, and at times departing far from all precedent. For the most part their achievements displayed that good taste and restraint combined with a novelty and an ingenuity which have given our best Colonial architecture its principal charm and distinction.

Numerous examples of this sort of hand-carved mantels are to be found in Philadelphia, but none elicits greater admiration than those in two rooms at Upsala which are shown by accompanying illustrations. Enriched with a wealth of intricate, fine-scale hand-tooling of daintiness and precision, they indicate the influence of Adam design and detail, although quite unlike the typical Adam mantel. They form an especially interesting study for comparison because of the marked similarity of the general scheme in all three and the difference in effect resulting from variations in detail.

The simplest of the three is a mantel for an iron hob grate with dark marble facings outlined by simple moldings. Familiar fluted pilasters support a mantel board entablature of rare beauty. Beneath a conventional cymatium and corona, with projections above the pilasters and central panel of the frieze, is a nicely worked dentil course,—a band of vertical flutes with a drilled tooth in the upper half of each alternate flute. The pilaster projections of the frieze are fluted in dots and dashes arranged in vertical lines, while a similar treatment of the central panel is so arranged that a pattern suggesting four festoons and five straight hanging garlands is produced. The upper fascia is enriched with groups of five vertical flutes in alternation with an incised conventionalized flower.



Resembling the foregoing, but more elaborate, is the mantel in the parlor with its richer moldings and intricate carving. An astragal with the customary bead and reel separates the cymatium and the corona, while a drilled rope supplies the bed molding above the dentil course. The latter consists of a continuous pattern of vertical and shorter horizontal flutes, the alternate vertical half spaces above and below the cross line of the H being cut out flat and deeper. The pilaster projections of the frieze, the central panel and the pilasters at each side of the fireplace opening supporting the entablature are vertical fluted in short sections which break joints like running bond in brickwork. In both the pilaster projections and the central panel the carving has been done in such a manner as to leave four-sided decorative figures with segmental sides in slender outline flush with the surface. The upper fascia of the architrave is adorned by shallow drillings suggesting tiny festoons and straight hanging garlands with a conventionalized flower above each festoon. A cavetto molding, enriched with a bead and reel astragal and another drilled rope torus, outlines the dark marble facings about the fireplace opening. Handsome brass andirons, fender and fire set, together with the large gilt-framed mirror above, combine with the mantel to make this one of the most beautiful fireplaces in Philadelphia.

The third example in another room at Upsala is virtually the same as the mantel just described, except for the greater elaboration of the pilasters, pilaster projections of the frieze and central panel. Apart from these three features, the only essential differences are a dentil course in the cornice like that of the first Upsala mantel described and a vertical fluted belt in the capital of the pilasters and associated moldings. In the pilaster projections of the frieze there are flush outline ornaments taking the form of a shield, while other graceful outline patterns running through the flutings adorn the upper half of the pilasters proper. The lower half is fluted in the short running bond sections. The central panel of the frieze retains and elaborates the motive of festoons and straight hanging garlands, the space above the festoons in this instance being left flush except for an incised conventionalized flower design in each of the three sections.

Rarely are three mantels of such attractive design, good proportion, distinctive detail and dainty appearance to be found in a single house. Seldom are three mantels to be found which are so similar and yet so different. They present an eloquent illustration of the infinite possibilities of minor variation in architectural design.

The same influences were at work elsewhere, however, and two other mantels shown by accompanying illustrations, one in a house at Third and DeLancy streets and another in the Rex house, Mount Airy, show numerous variations of similar motives. In both, vertical flutings are depended upon chiefly for decoration, ornamental patterns being formed by flush sections where the cutting of the flutes is interrupted. In both instances the original fireplace opening has been partially closed up, in one case for a Franklin stove, and in the other for a hob grate, both for burning coal.

The mantel at Number 312 Cypress Street, with its well-proportioned entablature and paneled pilasters, displays a central panel in the frieze similar to the foregoing examples, but possesses a more distinct Adam character in the human figures in composition applied to the pilaster projections of the frieze, and in the drillings of the upper fascia of the architrave, simulating festoons. A reeded ovolo and deeply cut and drilled denticulated member lend sufficient emphasis to the string course of the cornice.

At Number 729 Walnut Street is to be seen a typically Adam mantel of exceptional grace and beauty. Instead of the usual pilasters the entablature is supported by two pairs of slender reeded colonnettes, and the fireplace opening is framed by moldings in which a torus enriched with a rope motive is prominent. The shelf or cymatium of the entablature has round corners and is supported by pilaster projections above the colonnettes at each end and by a projecting central panel, all of these projections being vertical fluted in the frieze portion. Both the central panel and the sunken panels each side of it bear graceful festoons and straight hanging garlands suspended from flower ornaments, the central space of both sunken panels being occupied by a small, sharply delineated medallion in white, suggestive of wedgewood. This composition work was nicely detailed and is still well preserved. Below, the upper fascia of the architrave is enriched in accord with the Adam spirit. Drillings forming festoons with a tiny ornament above alternate with groups of seven vertical dotted lines. The fireplace opening has been closed up with stone slabs to inclose a Franklin stove for burning coal, the effect being much the same as a hob grate. In terms of dainty grace and chaste simplicity this is one of the best mantels in Philadelphia.



CHAPTER XI

INTERIOR WOOD FINISH

Mantels and staircases, the most important architectural features of interiors, were very properly elaborated considerably beyond the somewhat negative character of background accessories by the builders of Colonial times. Virtually furnishings as well as necessary parts of the house, the application of tasteful ornamentation to them seems amply justified. Each is a subject in itself, as indicated by the fact that stair building and mantel construction still remain independent trades quite apart from ordinary joinery. For that reason two separate chapters of this book have been devoted to these important subjects, the present chapter being devoted to interior woodwork in general.

What the interior wood trim of the average eighteenth-century Philadelphia house consists of is shown by accompanying photographs, especially those in Stenton, Mount Pleasant and Whitby Hall. It is found that the principal rooms of pretentious mansions, such as the hall, parlor and reception room at Stenton, were sometimes entirely paneled up on all sides. About this time, however, hand-blocked wall paper began to be brought to America, and a favorite treatment of Colonial interiors, including halls, parlors, dining rooms and even the principal bedrooms of large houses, combined a cornice, or often a cornice and frieze, and sometimes a complete entablature, with a paneled wainscot or a flat dado with surbase and skirting, the wall between being papered. Sometimes a dado effect was secured by means of a surbase above the skirting, the plaster space between being left white as in the parlor at Cliveden or in the hall and dining room at Whitby Hall, or papered like the wall above, as in the parlor at Whitby Hall and in some of the chambers at Upsala. Later the skirting only was frequently employed with a simple cornice or picture mold, even in the principal rooms of the better houses, as in the dining room at Whitby Hall. Several accompanying illustrations show it with the dado, while a few interiors of Mount Pleasant, Upsala and Cliveden show it with the paneled wainscot. This general scheme constitutes a pleasing and consistent application of the classic orders to interior walls, the dado, the wall above it and whatever portion of the entablature happens to be employed corresponding to the pedestal, shaft and entablature of the complete order respectively. In a room so treated the dado becomes virtually a continuous pedestal with a base or skirting and a surbase above the die or plane face of the pedestal. Usually this surbase is molded to resemble the upper fascia or the complete architrave of the various orders. Again it may be hand-carved with vertical flutings, continuous, as in the parlor at Upsala, or in groups of three or more in alternation with an incised flower pattern, as in the Rex house.

For the most part the surmounting cornice and frieze of the room was of wood, beautifully molded and often hand-carved, the architrave usually being omitted. In the library at Solitude, however, is to be seen a handsome cornice and frieze entirely of plaster or composition work in the Adam manner, including familiar classic detail in which enriched cavetto and ogee moldings, festoons, flower ornaments and draped human figures are prominent. When chandeliers for candles began to be used in private houses they were hung from ornamental centerpieces of plaster on the ceiling, the motives usually being circles, ovals, festooned garlands and acanthus leaves. Such a centerpiece and ornamental treatment of the ceiling is also a feature of this room.

In most of the better houses during the Provincial period, important rooms had paneled wainscots, papered walls and molded cornices, as in the parlor and second-story hall at Mount Pleasant and in the parlor at Upsala. Sometimes the plaster walls were left white or painted, as in the hall at Cliveden and the library at Stenton. A fireplace with paneled chimney piece was an important feature of most rooms, and the entire wall including it was often completely paneled up, closely relating the fireplace, doors or windows in a definite architectural scheme, as already shown by examples in Stenton, Whitby Hall and Mount Pleasant. Embrasured windows with two-part paneled folding shutters and seats jutting somewhat into the room were customary in early brick and stone houses, as at Stenton. These were fastened by bars of wood thrust across from side to side and fitting into slots in the jambs. Later, outside shutters came into vogue, and the jambs and soffit of the embrasures were paneled, as at Whitby Hall, the treatment of the Palladian window on the staircase landing in this house being an especially fine example.

The parlor at Stenton is among the most notable instances in Philadelphia of this architectural treatment of the fireplace in a room with wood paneling throughout. Along Georgian lines and decidedly substantial in character, it is essentially simple in conception and graceful in form and proportion, the spacing of the large bolection molded raised panels being excellent. First attention properly goes to the wide chimney piece with its unusual, but attractive overmantel paneling, low arched and marble-faced fireplace opening, beautiful brass fender and andirons. The symmetrical arrangement of two flanking china closets, with round-headed double doors recalling those shown at Whitby Hall and Mount Pleasant, is most effective. The work is executed in a masterly manner, the proportions being well calculated and the precision of the hand tooling remarkably well maintained. Both the doors and embrasured windows of this room merit careful study.

Of more modest, but generally similar treatment, is the paneling of the reception room at Stenton, the fireplace opening here having been closed for installation of a Franklin stove.

At Whitby Hall there are two interesting and characteristic examples of embrasured windows with paneled jambs and soffits, and molded architrave casings. In the dining room the embrasures are cased down to the window seats, while in the parlor the casings with their broader sections at top and bottom do not extend below the surbase, although the embrasure continues to the floor. In this latter room one of the Colonial builder's favorite motives, ever recurring with minor variations throughout many houses, occupies the string course of the cornice. This double denticulated member or Grecian fret band is formed by vertical cross cuttings, alternately from top and bottom of a square molding, the plain ogee molding beneath giving it just the proper emphasis.

Conforming to the characteristic panel arrangement of the time, most of the inside doors of Philadelphia have six panels, the upper pair being not quite square and the two lower pairs being oblong, the middle pair being longer than the lower. Like outside doors they were for the most part molded and raised with broad bevels, although occasionally, as on the second floor at Mount Pleasant, they were flat and bolection molded, giving the door a considerably different aspect. Generally speaking, the workmanship was excellent, the beveling of the panels and the molding of the stiles and rails manifesting the utmost painstaking. A simple knob and key-plate, usually of brass, completed the complement of hardware, apart from the H hinges of early years and the butts which soon followed. It will be noted that all of these six-panel doors have stiles and muntins of virtually equal width, any variation being slightly wider stiles. Top and frieze rails are alike and about the same width as the muntin, but the bottom rail is somewhat broader and the lock rail the broadest of the four. Moldings are very simple and confined to the edge of the panels, with the splayed or beveled panels of earlier years gradually being abandoned in favor of plain, flat surfaces.



Architrave casings were the rule, sometimes extending to the floor and often standing on heavy, square plinth blocks the height of the skirting beneath its molding. There are instances of both types at Mount Pleasant and Whitby Hall. The thickness of the walls in houses of brick and stone encouraged the custom of paneling the jambs and soffit of doorway openings to correspond with the paneling of the doors, the effect being rich and very pleasing. Generally the architrave casing was miter-joined across the lintel, as at Upsala, but in many of the better houses this horizontal part of the casing was given an overhang of an inch or two to form the doorhead. How pleasing this simple device was, especially when a rosette of stucco was applied to each jog of the casing, is well exemplified by the doors on the first floor at Whitby Hall. Very similar door trim without the rosette is to be seen at Cliveden and in numerous other houses.

At Mount Pleasant, and in several of the more pretentious old Colonial mansions of Philadelphia, this type of door trim was elaborated by a surmounting frieze and heavy pediment above the architrave casing. The first floor hall at Mount Pleasant presents the interesting combination of a pulvinated Ionic pediment with a mutulary Doric cornice and frieze about the ceiling. Here one notices the flat dado and doors with raised and molded panels as contrasted with the paneled wainscot and bolection-molded, flat-paneled doors of the second-story hall. In this latter, also, some of the pediments are complete, others broken, illustrating another whim of the early American builders. Here the cornice is also Ionic with jig-sawed modillions, and the ensemble is generally more pleasing. In proportion and precision of workmanship this woodwork is hardly excelled in Philadelphia. The simple, carefully wrought dentil course of the doorheads lends a refining influence and pleasing sense of scale that seems to lighten the design very materially.

Philadelphia has no handsomer example of the enriched pedimental doorhead than the interior treatment of the entrance doorway of the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street. Above the horizontal overhang of the architrave casing across the lintel two beautifully carved consoles, the width of the frieze in height, support a cornice which is the base of a broken pediment. The familiar Grecian band or double denticulated molding in the string course gives character to the cornice, while an attractive leaf decoration in applied composition adorns the recessed frieze panel. Projections of the cornice above the consoles lend an added touch of refinement. This elaboration of the white wood trim is further emphasized by the dark red-brown painting of the door to simulate old mahogany, which became a frequent feature of the houses of this period.

Round-headed doorways here and there, not only at the front entrance, but elsewhere, as in the hall at Hope Lodge, provided a welcome variation from the customary square-headed types and have been a pleasing feature of Colonial interiors since early times. As framing the glazed doorways of china closets already referred to, they were a charming feature of the interior wood finish. At the front entrance the round-headed doorway was utilized to provide an ornamental yet practical fanlight transom over the door which admitted considerable light to brighten the hall. As contrasted with this more graceful arrangement, the broad front entrance to Whitby Hall, with its severely plain unmolded four-panel double doors and wrought-iron strap hinges, bolts, latch and great rim lock, is of quaint interest. The accompanying photograph shows well the dado effect secured by a surbase and skirting, and one notes with interest the cornice with its prominent modillions and the heavy plinth blocks on which the architrave casings of the doors stand.

Round-headed windows were employed for landing windows in stair halls, as at Whitby Hall, and in the central part of the Palladian windows over entrances, as at Mount Pleasant, where they became decorative interior features of the front end of the second-floor halls.

Elliptical-headed openings are rare in Philadelphia, and in most instances were arches across the main hall, as at Hope Lodge. Sometimes they framed the staircase vista at the head or foot of the flight, where they became one of the most charming features of the best Colonial interiors.

The illustrations of interiors at Stenton accompanying this chapter, serve, as might many others, to show that white-painted interior woodwork, although one of the greatest charms of the Colonial house, finds its principal mission in providing the only architectural background that sets off satisfactorily the warmth of color and grace of line possessed by eighteenth-century furniture in mahogany and other dark woods. Bright and cheerful, chaste and beautiful, it emphasizes the beauties of everything before it, yet seldom forces itself into undue prominence. It is a scheme of interior treatment which has stood the test of time and indicates what excellent taste the Colonial builders manifested in resorting to its subtle influence to display their rare pieces of furniture brought from England and the Continent.

The admirable work of Philadelphia joiners indicates conclusively the many possibilities of white-painted soft woods. Unlike hardwood finish, the natural grain of the wood is concealed by painting, so that broad flat surfaces and simple moldings would be monotonous. Beauty of form is therefore substituted for the beauty of wood grain. Classic motives and detail are brought to bear upon the interior woodwork in such a manner as to delight the eye, yet not to detract unduly from the furnishings of the room. And the charm of much of the resulting woodwork indicates an early realization by American craftsmen of the fact that a nice balance between plain surface and decoration is as important as the decoration itself. It was by their facility in the design and execution of this woodwork that skilled wood-carvers were able to impart that lightness, grace and ingenuity of adaptation to which the Colonial style chiefly owes its charm.



CHAPTER XII

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

As in its domestic architecture of Colonial times, Philadelphia is so rich in its fine old public buildings that a readable and instructive book could be made about them alone. Intended for religious, political and commercial purposes, erected from one to two centuries ago and ranging from the frugal simplicity of the Mennonite Meeting House in Germantown to the stately beauty of Independence Hall, these noble edifices of bygone days were the scenes of momentous events in the most glorious and troublous period of the world's first republic. Their histories are inspiring and likewise their architecture. Exigencies of space in a book of this sort render it impossible to include all worthy examples, but an effort has been made to present a representative collection that does justice to the annals and building genius of this remarkable city.



Probably the most famous historical monument in the United States is Independence Hall, on Chestnut Street between Fifth and Sixth streets. Here the American nation really came into being and began to function, and here come thousands of visitors annually to view in awed admiration the greatest patriotic shrine of a free people. The building, designed by Andrew Hamilton, speaker of the Assembly, and built under his direction for the State House, was used for that purpose until 1799. The foundations were laid in 1731, and the main building was ready for occupancy in 1735, although the wings and steeple were not completed until 1751. The steeple was taken down in 1781, but was restored to its original condition by William Strickland in 1828, and further restorations of the building to its original condition were effected later by the city government. The east, or "Declaration" chamber, still appears substantially as it did when that famous document was signed, but the restoration of certain other rooms has been less satisfactory. The building has been set apart by the city, which purchased it from the State in 1816, as a museum of historical relics, and during the past century has been used by various public offices and societies.

Many famous buildings of Colonial times were the work of amateur architects, but this is without exception the finest contemporary administrative building in America; a noble building rich in glorious memories; nobler even than the Bulfinch State House at Boston or the Maryland State House at Annapolis. It is an enduring monument to Hamilton's versatility, showing that with his genius he might have won distinction as an architect no less than as a barrister. His sense of design, mass and proportion, his appreciation of the relative value and most effective uses of classic detail and his ability to harmonize the exigencies of the floor plan with attractive appearance were second to those of no professional architect of his time.

Independence Hall is a stately structure of exceptionally well-balanced symmetrical arrangement, beautiful alike in its general mass and minutest details, and presenting a delightful appearance from whatever viewpoint it is seen,—dignified, spacious and picturesque, a building that seems to typify the serenity of mind and steadfastness of purpose of those sturdy patriots who made it famous.

The structure comprises three parts; a large central building with hip-roofed wings for offices connected with the main building by open arcaded loggias. The present wings are restorations. Beyond the wings are two buildings erected after the close of the Revolution, but forming part of the group. That at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets was erected as the Philadelphia County Court House, while that at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets was the City Hall.

The entire group is of characteristic Philadelphia brick construction, delightfully mellowed by age, with marble and white-painted wood trim. The main building is two stories high with a decked gable roof, heavily balustraded between large, arched quadruple chimney stacks at each end, corners heavily quoined with marble and ends without fenestration other than a round bull's-eye window in each. Across the one hundred and seven feet of the Chestnut Street facade there is a range of nine broad, high, twenty-four-paned windows with flat gauged brick arches and high marble keystones, the central window being replaced by a simple, very high and deeply recessed doorway with a broad stone stoop before it. Tying into the keystones is a horizontal belt of marble across the entire front. A similar belt is located immediately beneath the window sills of the second story, and between the two belts and ranging with the windows are nine oblong marble panels set into the brickwork.