President's House

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The first real US President's House was when Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the United States, 1790-1800, while Washington D.C. was under construction, and the President's House in Philadelphia served as the nation's executive mansion for the lion's share of Washington's and Adams's presidencies. Washington had spent the previous 16 months in New York City, the first national capital under the Constitution; and John Adams moved to the District of Columbia in November 1800.

Located one block north of Independence Hall (then the Pennsylvania Statehouse), the mansion was the seat of the Executive Branch of the federal government for 10 years. It housed the President, his family and staff, contained the private and public business offices of the President, and was the site of Cabinet meetings, State dinners and public celebrations.

Washington initially had a household staff of about 24, including 8 enslaved Africans he brought from Mount Vernon. Adams's staff was smaller, and he never owned a slave.

A national design competition is currently (October 2006) underway to commemorate the President's House and all its residents.

Contents 1 Built in 1767 2 The Penns 3 September 1777 4 Benedict Arnold 5 Robert Morris 6 George Washington 7 Slaves in the President's House 8 Seat of the Executive Branch 9 President John Adams 10 After the Removal of the Capital 11 Recent Events 12 External links

[edit] Built in 1767

The house which became the President's House was built by Mary Lawrence Masters, a young widow with two daughters, in the late 1760s. According to tax records, the house was under construction in December 1767, although the family is not recorded as definitely living there until 1769. Mrs. Masters was one of the richest people in Philadelphia, and her new house was probably the largest in the city. In 1772, her older daughter, Polly, married Richard Penn, the lieutenant-governor of the Colony, and a grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn. Mrs. Masters gave them the house as a wedding present.

[edit] The Penns

The Penns lived in the house for only about three years. Relations between Great Britain and her American colonies were strained, and some sort of conflict seemed inevitable. The First Continental Congress met at Carpenters' Hall, and Richard Penn entertained many of the delegates at the house, including George Washington. Penn was asked to present the grievances of the colonists to King George III, and he traveled to London in 1775 to deliver the "Olive Branch Petition." The Penns and Mrs. Masters spent the Revolutionary War in England.

[edit] September 1777

In September 1777, Philadelphia was under siege. General Sir William Howe, the commander-in-chief of British forces in America, sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, and marched his troops toward the city. Washington's soldiers tried to head them off at Brandywine Creek, but were repulsed. The British Army occupied Philadelphia, and Washington's surprise attack at Germantown, north of the city, was unsuccessful. General Howe made the comfortable Masters-Penn House his residence and headquarters for the winter, while Washington and his troops suffered twenty miles away, at Valley Forge.

Waging a long-distance war was expensive, especially with mercenaries. General Howe was recalled to London, and his successor was ordered to abandon Philadelphia and consolidate forces in New York City. The British evacuated on June 18, 1778.

[edit] Benedict Arnold

Continental soldiers swept into Philadelphia under the command of the newly-named military governor, Major-General Benedict Arnold. Arnold made the Masters-Penn House his residence and headquarters within about a week of his arrival. Arnold lived like a rich man in Philadelphia, which was curious since he had only a modest army salary, greatly diminished in value by rampant inflation. It is difficult to separate what Arnold actually did from the many things he was later accused of doing, but it seems certain that his lavish lifestyle was supported by graft and profiteering, and possibly outright theft.

While living in the house, he met and married Peggy Shippen, and bought one of the grandest suburban villas, Mount Pleasant, although the Arnolds never lived there. His reckless spending raised questions about the source of his wealth and his boorish behavior alienated his supporters, and in March 1779, he was forced to resign his post. Two months later, while still living in the house, Arnold began his treasonous correspondence with the British.

[edit] Robert Morris

French Consul John Holker rented the house in late 1779, and on January 2, 1780, it had a major fire. Robert Morris contracted to buy the fire-damaged building the following year, although he did not obtain title to the property until 1785. It seems likely that Morris had the house rebuilt in 1781, since he is taxed at this location in August of that year, and he is reportedly living here in spring 1782.

Morris rebuilt the main house to essentially the same plan as before. His major changes were to the backbuildings: an icehouse was added at the southwest corner of the property (the icehouse's pit was discovered by archaeologist in November 2000), a second story was added to the kitchen ell, and a two-story bath house addition was built off the east wall of the piazza. The expanded house had at least six bedrooms and four servant rooms, space for the Morrises' six children (another child came later) and nine servants.

[edit] George Washington

Washington was intimately acquainted with the house. After the Revolution, he visited Philadelphia regularly and stayed with the Morrises, and he lodged in the house from May to September 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. In 1790, Philadelphia was named the temporary national capital for a ten-year period while the Federal City (now Washington, D. C.) was under construction. Morris volunteered his house to serve as President Washington's residence.

Many Philadelphians were convinced that once the Federal Government moved from New York to their city, it would never leave. Why build a new capital on the banks of the Potomac when the largest and most cosmopolitan city in America was here? An enormous mansion for the President (about two-thirds the size of the White House) was begun on Ninth Street in Philadelphia, although Washington showed his preference for a Potomac capital by arranging to be away on the day of the groundbreaking. He quietly worked behind the scenes to bring the permanent capital of the United States to Virginia. The President insisted on paying rent for Morris's house, and the initial lease was for a 2-year period. As it turned out, except for trips and stays in Germantown to avoid yellow fever, Washington occupied the Market Street House from November 1790 to March 1797.

Even Morris's Market Street residence was not large enough for Washington and his household staff. The President visited Morris in September 1790, on his way to Mount Vernon, and planned the additions to the house: a large two-story bow to be added to south side of the main house making the rooms at the rear thirty-four feet in length, a long one-story servants' hall to be built on the east side of the kitchen ell, the bathtubs to be removed from the second floor of the bath house and the bathingroom turned into Washington's private office, additional servant rooms to be constructed, and an expansion of the stables.

When Washington moved into the house in November, there were up to thirty people living on the premises: Washington, his wife, Martha, and her grandchildren, Nelly and G. W. Parke Custis; Chief Secretary Tobias Lear, his wife, and the three male secretaries; eight black slaves from Mount Vernon; and about fifteen white servants.

[edit] Slaves in the President's House

Pennsylvania's was the first government in the Western Hemisphere to begin an abolition of slavery, but it applied only to the future children of the enslaved. The 1780 Gradual Abolition law freed only those children born in the state after March 1, 1780. All others remained enslaved for life, provided masters registered them with the state. Slave-holders from other states could hold enslaved Africans in Pennsylvania for up to 6 months, at which point those enslaved were legally empowered to free themselves. A 1788 amendment closed a loophole in the 1780 law by prohibiting non-resident slave-holders from rotating enslaved Africans in and out of Pennsylvania to prevent their establishing this 6-month legal residency. Members of Congress and their personal slaves were specifically exempted from the state law (Congress had been the only branch of the federal government in 1780 when it went into effect).

Washington brought 8 enslaved Africans to Philadelphia in November 1790 to staff the President's House: Moll, Hercules, Richmond, Austin, Oney Judge, Giles, Paris and Christopher Sheels. The President was unsure whether the Pennsylvania law would apply to him, or whether, like members of Congress, he would be exempt. (Six of the 8 enslaved Africans were owned by the estate of Martha Washington's first husband, the other 2 were Washington's.) Rather than making a legal challenge to the law, on the advice of his attorney general, Edmund Randolph, he rotated the enslaved Africans in and out of the state. Under the 1788 amendment, those enslaved who had been rotated out-of-state had the legal power to demand their immediate freedom upon being brought back into Pennsylvania. That none of the President's House enslaved Africans exercised this right, and that Oney Judge and Hercules instead escaped to freedom indicates that the state law either was misunderstood or that the enslaved Africans did not have confidence that it would be enforced for the President of the United States. Gradually, Washington replaced most of the enslaved Africans with white indentured servants.

Austin died in December 1794, and a 9th enslaved African, Postilion Joe, appears in the President's House documentary record in October 1795.

[edit] Seat of the Executive Branch

The President's House was where the business of the Executive Branch was conducted. The business office, the equivalent of the West Wing, was a single room on the third floor. The official entertaining of the nation was conducted at the house. Washington held public audiences or "levees" on Tuesday afternoons, and regular State dinners on Thursdays. Mrs. Washington held receptions or "drawingrooms" on Friday evenings, and there were open houses on New Year's Day and the Fourth of July. In addition to this heavy schedule of regular entertaining, there were smaller dinners during the week, and Washington often conducted business over breakfast.

Historically, two of the most important areas of the main house were the bow window which Washington created as a ceremonial space in which the President would meet the public; and the private office (the former bathingroom) which was the equivalent of the Oval Office, and where Washington and Adams each met with their Cabinets. The slave quarters site, located between the kitchen ell and the stables, is the only part of the house's footprint that can be expressly associated with enslaved Africans.

The yellow fever epidemic which ravaged Philadelphia in 1793 and killed more than 10 percent of the population pretty much dashed the hopes for the city remaining the national (or even the state) capital. It was thought that there was something about Philadelphia's water or climate that was unhealthy, and the disease reappeared several times in the 1790s.

[edit] President John Adams

Adams succeeded Washington as President, and, after declining the newly completed mansion on Ninth Street, he moved into the Market Street house in March 1797.

Washington died on December 14, 1799, and a huge ceremonial funeral procession and church service were held in Philadelphia on the day after Christmas. This was where "Light Horse Harry" Lee eulogized Washington as "First in War, first in Peace, and first in the Hearts of his Countrymen." The following evening a couple hundred people attended Mrs. Adams's "drawingroom" at the President's House, in mourning.

The Residence Act of 1790 called for the District of Columbia to become the national capital on the first Monday in December, 1800. Adams left Philadelphia in late May, and spent several months on his farm in Massachusetts before moving into the White House on November 1. The Philadelphia house was converted into Francis's Union Hotel in July 1800, and Mrs. Adams stayed there on her way south from Massachusetts to the new capital.

[edit] After the Removal of the Capital

The hotel was not a success, and the former President's House was stripped of much of its architectural ornament converted into a boardinghouse and put to other commercial uses. In 1832, the building was thoroughly gutted leaving only the side walls and foundations, and three narrow stores were built within the same Market Street frontage. The side walls survived as party walls shared with adjoining buildings, but no one recognized them for what they were. The 1832 stores were demolished in 1935, exposing the four-story side walls. Most of the house's western wall was removed by 1941, and what remained of it along with the eastern wall was demolished in 1951 during the construction of Independence Mall.

[edit] Recent Events

The President's House site lies directly across Market Street from the Independence Visitor Center. The main house's foundations were measured in January 1952 before being truncated, their remnants lie beneath the Market Street sidewalk and Independence Mall. A public toilet, built in 1954, stood squarely atop the main house's footprint until its removal on May 27, 2003. Three wells served the property at different times, and two of these have been located. The stone pit of the icehouse was discovered by archaeologists in November 2000, but it was reburied and the Liberty Bell Center built over it. Archaeological work on the President's House itself is planned for the winter of 2006-07.

The site of the slave quarters for Washington's stableworkers lies just outside the Liberty Bell Center's main entrance. When this was revealed in the press in March 2002, it caused a public uproar. The Pennsylania State Legislature and the Philadelphia City Council called on the National Park Service to commemorate the house and its residents, especially the enslaved African Americans. In July 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives added an amendment to the 2003 budget for the Department of the Interior requiring the NPS to do the same. In January 2003, preliminary designs were unveiled for a $4.5 million commemoration of the house and its residents, but these designs were abandoned due to protests over lack of community involvement. At the Liberty Bell Center's October 9, 2003 opening Philadelphia Mayor John Street pledged $1.5 million toward making the President's House commemoration happen. Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah secured $3.6 million in federal funds for the project in September 2005, and a national design competition for the site is currently (October 2006) underway.

[edit] External links

• President's House from ushistory.org