Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-05-14
JOHN PENIS HOUSE.
The Quaint Old Structure Pre-.
served at the Quaker City.
One OF the Wonders of Philadelphia's
Geological Gardens-An Ancient Man
sion and Its Subterranean Passages
An Historical Structure.
philadelphia Times.I

IL Ahhbucipula tiIueS-I
One of the handsomest and best pre-
served of the scores of historic mansions
in and around Philadelphia is the old Penn
homestead, in the Geological gardens. 1t
was erected in 1774 by John Penn, a greats
grandchild of William Penn. John Penn
occupied the mansion for many years. The
front windows overlook the Schuylkill
where the river gracefully bends to the
southeast, below Girard avenue bridge. II
is a square, rigid, quaint looking old
structure on the exterior. There are sturdy,
severe looking little pillars front and back
that give an aristocratic and, at the same
time, a repellant appearance to the house.
The exterior of the house is severely rect
an ular. There are no breaks, LIS or off,
sets. 1t is built squarely up from the
ground to the height of two stories and q
garret. The roof runs up to a point from
the four corners and quaint little windows
bulge out on each side of the roof Just
above the caves, like searching eyes watch
ing every avenue Of approach. The thick
brick walls are covered with plaster and
painted bright yellow. According to
tradition the inhospitable external appear
ance of the mansion did an injustice to the
natures of its first occupants.
One thing is sure, and that is that it did
grave injustice to the interior arrange
ments. The inside is perfect illustration
of ones idea of an old colonial or English
mansion of the last century. 1t is full of
unexpected hooks and corners, deep, dark
closets and pantries, and mysterious pass
age-ways, some leading to adjoining
rooms and some leading nowhere. AL
though the exterior is rectangular, there
is not a room on the inside that is not
broken up with corners and angles The
only room on the ground floor is the salon
or parlor, the windows of which look over
the Schuykill and north and south. The
rest of the space on this floor is devoted
to wide hallway and ante chamber,
from which an antique iron stairway leads
to the upper stories. The house has under
gone no alterations since it was built in
the last century. Even the old andirons,
Tenders, tongs and pokers are the same
that were used when the mansion was &C.
cupied by the descendants of William
Penn.
The upper stories are q veritable maze
OF quaint little sleeping apartments, cav
ernous closets and lumber rooms" All
of the rooms are connected either by doors
man of ordinary size would have to crawl
on his hands and knees. There are doz-.
en- little hooks and closets under the caves
in which a person might hide without any
fear of discovery. All these places are
piastered and as snug and perfectly fin
ished as any room in the house. The OBJ
ject of these little cubby holes and mys-
terious passages is a matter of conjecture
or very faint tradition. The tradition is
that they were used as places of conceal
ment, and their positions and construction
seem to bear out the theory of the tradi-
ton. 1t is supposed that the entrances to
them were originally concealed in the walls
and were only known TO members OF the
household.
The same tradition that explains the
presence OF these passages and chambers
declares that in the old time a secret pas
sage extended between two walls from
the upper story to "a subterranean passage
that ran to the river. The passage be-
tween the walls has never been discovered.
although many believe in its existence.
and the entrance to the subterranean pas
sage has been covered up, and its exact
location is not now known.
There l. little doubt of its existence.
however, as it has been seen within tho
memory of a score of the "oldestv in
hahtants. This is only one and the least
interesting of the two subterranean pas
sage-ways that lead from the cellar of tho
old mansion. The cellar is a big, roomy
vault, walled up with heavy masonry. Its
superficial area is the same as that of the
house, but the distance between floor and
ceiling is fully foot higher than in the
saloon. AT the western side of the cellar
is little opening in the masonry. 1t i,
now almost entirely choked up with lot
of wood and rubbish, and it is evident that
even when it was built it was not intended
to be conspicuous. In fact, the opening e is
very cunningly made, so that it could
easily be concealed by a rough, whit
washed door or a few armfuls of wood.
Head keeper Byrne and a reporter crawled
through the aperture on their hands and
knees yesterday. After they had proceed
ed n few feet in this way they brushed tho
cobwebs out of their eyes, lighted tallov
dips and found themselves in a highly
arched passage way.
The arch was fully seven feet above tbs
cement floor. The sides of the passage
were of heavy masonry and the arches
were of brick. The passage was about
forty feet long and led to a chamber abolss
twelve by twenty five feet in dimensions
AT one end of the chamber was an arch
way that communicated with another
chamber of the same size. The apexes
of the roofs in both chambers were
about eight feet from the floors.
The roofs are arched and are of brick.
while the walls are of stone. At the
side of the first chamber is a place that
looks as though it might have been used
as fireplace, but there is no chimney
and no aperature by which smoke might
escape.
The object for which these subterranean
chambers were intended is not definitely
known. One practical person has sug-
gested that they were used for wine
vaults. but this theory has been de-
clared untenable for the reason that
there would have been no necessity of
placing them forty feet beyond the man.
sion and incurring the expense of building
the passage-way. They are also too
large for the needs of any private family.
Their capacity is great enough to have
held all the wine and liquor necessary to
have supplied the Continental army DUR
ing their campaign around Philadelphia.
Besides, the cellar under the house was
large enough to hold all the wines and
liquors that even a colonial family would
require. The accepted and most plausible
theory is that the chambers were built
at the breaking out of the revolution and
were designed as place of refuge if nec-
essary, but more especially as place for
storing arms and ammunition for the
Continental army. Some antjquarians
are now endeavoring to settle this point
definitely.
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