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The Woodlands
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Woodlands Mansion
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| Location: | 4000 Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
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| Area: | 53 acres (210,000 m2) |
| Built: | 1770; rebuilt 1786-92 |
| Architect: | William Hamilton |
| Architectural style: | Neoclassical; Robert Adam Style |
| Governing body: | Woodlands Cemetery Company of Philadelphia |
| NRHP Reference#: | 67000022[1] |
| Added to NRHP: | 1967 |
The Woodlands is a National Historic Landmark District on the western banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It includes a magnificent federal style mansion, a matching carriage house and stable, and a garden landscape that in 1840 was transformed into a Victorian rural cemetery with an arboretum of over 1,000 trees. The site was once part of Blockley Township.
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The Woodlands was originally purchased in 1735 as a 250-acre (1.0 km2) tract on the west bank of the Schuylkill River by the famous Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. When he died in 1741, he willed his lands to his son, also named Andrew, who survived his father by only six years. He devised what became a 300 acres (1.2 km2) estate to his son, William (1745–1813), who acquired it at the age of twenty-one. He built a Georgian-style mansion with a grand, two-storied portico overlooking the river above Gray's Ferry Bridge. Following a trip to England after the American Revolution, Hamilton doubled the size of the dwelling into a 16-room manor with kitchens and service rooms in a windowed ground floor. The rebuilt Woodlands mansion became one of the greatest domestic American architectural achievements of the 18th century, recognized as a leading example of English taste and presaging architectural trends in the following century.
Hamilton was an active botanist, and his estate and greenhouses grew to contain more than 10,000 different species of plants including the first specimens introduced into America of the Ginkgo biloba, Paper Mulberry, Sycamore Maple, Ailanthus, Caucasian Zelkova, and Lombardy Poplar as well as plants grown from seeds harvested during Lewis and Clark’s expeditions—especially the Osage Orange or Maclura pomifera. Hamilton also collected and exchanged numerous native plants with his friends and neighbors, the Bartram family of botanists from nearby Bartram's Garden.
At one point the estate covered 600 acres (2.4 km2) and stretched from the Schuylkill River to what is now Market Street on the north and 42nd Street on the west and incorporated Hamilton Village.
Following Hamilton's death in 1813, his heirs sold off much of the Woodlands estate for institutional and residential development. By the first quarter of the 19th Century, the West Philadelphia district was becoming a fashionable suburb. In order to save the core of Hamilton's estate, in 1840, The Woodlands Cemetery Company of Philadelphia purchased the last 92 acres (370,000 m2), which included the mansion, carriage house, greenhouse and hot houses, as well as extensive plantings. The founders concluded The Woodlands' isolated location, its array of exotic trees and its commanding view of the Schuylkill River provided an ideal site for a rural cemetery. During this period the "Garden" or rural cemetery was becoming a popular alternative to crowded and unhygienic urban burying grounds. Rural cemeteries were usually non-sectarian and were distinguished for their use of diverse and elaborate landscaping and architecture. An early advertisement touted their wholesome atmosphere where "... the decaying bodies of the dead may securely moulder into kindred dust, with an abundant vegetation and free winds to absorb and dissipate all noxious effluvia."
As with its rival to the north, Laurel Hill Cemetery, trustees of the Woodlands spurred the cemetery's early growth by interring the remains of a celebrity, Commodore David Porter. His remains, originally buried at the Philadelphia Naval Asylum cemetery, were moved and reburied at Woodlands in 1845. By mid-century, The Woodlands was thriving and attracted many of Philadelphia's renowned industrialists, medical professionals, artists, writers, and veterans.[2]
The Woodlands Cemetery Company of Philadelphia continues today as a non-profit cemetery corporation that promotes both traditional and current burial practices on its 54 acres (220,000 m2) of land in University City. The Cemetery Company is supported by The Woodlands Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit corporation, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the cemetery, mansion, and arboretum as a cultural landscape between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
The Woodlands estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1967. In 2006, the cemetery and other structures on the site were added to form a National Historic Landmark District.[3] The site is also designated as The Woodlands National Recreation Trail by the National Park Service. The cemetery also hosts a community garden and apiary and is a popular recreation destination for local residents, dog-walkers and runners. The Woodlands grounds are open to the public daily from dawn to dusk.
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The pathways and avenues of the cemetery and mansion make up the Woodlands Heritage National Recreation Trail, part of the National Recreation Trail program. The cemetery includes a looped road system emanating from a central paved circle [5] with infrequent motor vehicle traffic, making the grounds a safe and quiet place for biking, running and walking. There is also an unpaved path that encircles the perimeter of the grounds that is a popular circuit for University City dog-walkers and runners. Leashed dogs are permitted on the grounds, which are free and open to the public from dawn to dusk.
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