File:The official guide book to Philadelphia.. (1876) (14760138631).jpg

Identifier: officialguideboo00west (find matches)
Title: The official guide book to Philadelphia..
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Westcott, Thompson
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia, Porter and Coates
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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property in1735, devised it in 1741 to his son Andrew. The latter de-vised it in 1747 to his son William. The estate was threehundred and fifty-six acres. The original mansion at Wood-lands was built 1747-8. It was succeeded by the presentbuilding, which was erected about the time of the Eevolution.The principal front looks toward the south, and has a fineportico of six stately Tuscan columns twenty-four feet inheight. The north front of the building is ornamented bysix Ionic pilasters. Pavilions are on each side of the mainfront. The interior reveals traces of the old style. Thesemi-circular vestibule, sixteen feet in diameter, opens upona corridor which led to the dining-room, which was of anoval form, thirty feet in length by twenty-two in breadth.The square east room, with two bow-windows, was once thelibrary, and contained the family portraits, by the best Britishand American artists. Two smaller rooms which connectedwith this were used as picture-galleries, and contained French,
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336 WOODLANDS—FAIRHILL. Dutch and Italian paintings and sculpture. The adjoininggrounds were beautifully laid out with indigenous and exotictrees and plants. There was a conservatory, greenhouse andhothouse, which was one hundred and foiiy feet in front, andcontained, when the family occupied the mansion, as many asten thousand plants. FAIRHILL. At the east side of the Germantown road, north of Somer-set street, is the old Fairhill mansion, long the seat of theNorris family. It was built by Isaac Norris, speaker of theassembly, before the year 1732. The celebrated John Dick-inson, author of the Farmers Letters, who had marriedone of the daughters of Isaac Norris, resided there before theRevolution, and was represented to have had a very fine li-brary in tlie mansion. During the British occupation of thecity they set fire to Fairhill and destroyed it, nothing but thewalls being left standing. The house was rebuilt in the orig-inal style, and occupied by Dickinson and the Norrises for

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