Album containing eight pencil sketched, titled views of prominent sites at Fairmount Park. Includes Belmont Mansion from the East; Mount Pleasant; Tom Moore's Cottage above Columbia Bridge; Belmont Mansion from the West; Gen. Grant's Headquarters; the Elevator, (i.e. observatory) at Lemon Hill; Penna. R.R. Bridge (i.e., Connecting Railway Bridge); and Rockland Landing from Columbia Bridge., Drawing of Mount Pleasant depicts an exterior view of the Mount Pleasant Mansion built 1761-1765 for Captain John Macpherson after the designs of Thomas Nevil in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa. View shows the front entrance with a large tree in the left. 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., Red leather binding stamped S. Lewis Jones., Purchase 2004., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Date
[1884]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2004.32]