[Exterior view of Mount Pleasant Mansion built 1761-1765 for Captain John Macpherson after the designs of Thomas Nevil in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa.] [graphic].
Title
[Exterior view of Mount Pleasant Mansion built 1761-1765 for Captain John Macpherson after the designs of Thomas Nevil in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa.]
Description
Exterior view of Mount Pleasant Mansion built 1761-1765 for Captain John Macpherson after the designs of Thomas Nevil in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa. Shows the Georgian mansion, outbuildings, and surrounding grounds of the estate that was a working plantation 1762-1765. The two-story mansion is designed with several windows; stairs leading to a front entrance adorned with a lunette window and a pediment supported by Doric columns; and a roof with a balustrade that has dormers and two large chimneys. Flanking the mansion are two smaller, symmetrical outbuildings of an office and a summer kitchen. Smaller out-buildings flank the office and kitchen. In the right of the view, a structure, possibly a covered, water-pump, is visible. In the foreground, several park benches line the lawn in front of the mansion. Several trees, without foliage, stand in-between the buildings. Macpherson, a privateer during the Seven Years’ War, purchased the estate with profits from these operations. Free white and Black laborers, indentured servants, and at least four enslaved people of African descent, whose names are unknown, worked on the plantation. In 1779, General Benedict Arnold purchased Mount Pleasant for his wife Peggy Shippen, but they never occupied the house. In 1792, General Jonathan Williams purchased the mansion. The City of Philadelphia purchased the property from the Williams family in 1869. On behalf of the city, the Philadelphia Museum of Art restored the house in 1926., Title supplied by cataloger., Date from manuscript note on verso: “Mount Pleasant” built by Macpherson and once owned and occupied by Benedict Arnold, but [?] now called the “Dairy” in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia 1892., Purchase 1989., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited.
Date
[1892]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - unidentified - residence [P.9260.472]
Photographs [graphic] / John C. Browne.
Title
Photographs
Description
Album of predominantly landscape photographs of the Delaware Valley and upstate New York taken by Philadelphia amateur photographer John C. Browne. Contents include views of Tacony, Cobb’s, Chester, and Pennypack Creeks; Germantown; Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon; Media, Dauphin, and Hamburg, Pa.; and Dutchess County and Newburgh, N.Y. Views also show estates, including S. H. Lloyd Garden on School House Lane and the W.C. Kent residence (Germantown), Mount Pleasant (Fairmount Park), Henry W. Sargent’s estate (Wodenthe) in Fishkill on the Hudson, and Presqu’ile (built 1813, Dutchess County, N.Y.); churches, including St. Timothy’s (built 1862, Roxborough) and St. Luke’s (Matteawan, Beacon, N.Y.); bridges, including the Norristown Railroad Bridge, Ridge Avenue Bridge, and the P.R.R. Bridge over Hamburg; Humphrey Yearsley’s Mill (built 1792, near Media); Delaware Water Gap; Glen Mills; St. Denning’s Point; waterfalls; cascades; wooded paths; woodlands; creek beds; and posed male and female figures in entryways, gardens, and near trees and waterfalls. Album also contains images of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Spring House and Croton Aqueduct near Tarrytown, the Washington Oak at Denning’s Point, and the Old Swedes Church (i.e., Holy Trinity Church), including cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware. St. Luke's image also shows parishioners entering the church., Mount Pleasant Mansion was built 1761-1765 for Captain John Macpherson after the designs of Thomas Nevil in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa. Macpherson, a privateer during the Seven Years’ War, purchased the estate with profits from these operations. Free white and Black laborers, indentured servants, and at least four enslaved people of African descent, whose names are unknown, worked on the plantation. In 1779, General Benedict Arnold purchased Mount Pleasant for his wife Peggy Shippen, but they never occupied the house. In 1792, General Jonathan Williams purchased the mansion. The City of Philadelphia purchased the property from the Williams family in 1869. On behalf of the city, the Philadelphia Museum of Art restored the house in 1926., Title from title page written in ink manuscript: Photographs by John C. Browne., Photographs contain titles in ink manuscript below the images. Signed J.C. Browne Photo. or J.C. Browne., Several photographs removed before acquisition., Includes "Index" of titles numbered 1-73. Titles for 61-69 are blank., Gift of Harvey S. Shipley Miller and Jon Randall Plummer, 2010., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Image "Tacony Creek" (#4) published as frontispiece in Philadelphia Photographer (April 1865)., Image "On the Pennypack" (#36) published as frontispiece in Philadelphia Photographer (October 1866)., One of missing photographs (#13) located and acquired through auction. See "Red Bridge on the Wissahickon" [*photo -Browne (P.2011.57)], LCP holds loose duplicate of photograph of Pennsylvania Hospital (#9). See photo - Browne (P.9260.485)., Housed in phase box.
Creator
Browne, John C. (John Coates), 1838-1918, photographer
Date
ca. 1862-ca. 1866
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2010.38.44]