For much of the historic data the authors acknowledge their indebtedness
to the authors of previous Philadelphia books, notably "Philadelphia,
the City and Its People" and "The Literary History of Philadelphia",
Ellis Paxon Oberholtzer; "Old Roads Out of Philadelphia" and "The
Romance of Old Philadelphia", John Thomson Faris; "The History of
Philadelphia" and "Historic Mansions of Philadelphia", T. Westcott; "The
Colonial Homes of Philadelphia and Its Neighborhood", Harold Donaldson
Eberlein and Horace Mather Lippincott; "Colonial Mansions ", Thomas
Allen Glenn; "The Guide Book to Historic Germantown", Charles Francis
Jenkens; "Germantown Road and Its Associations", Townsend Ward. Ph. B.
Wallace, of Philadelphia, photographed some of the best subjects.
The original boundaries of Philadelphia remained unchanged for one
hundred and seventy-five years after the founding of the city, the
adjoining territory, as it became populated, being erected into
corporated districts in the following order: Southwark, 1762; Northern
Liberties, 1771; Moyamensing, 1812; Spring Garden, 1813; Kensington,
1820; Penn, 1844; Richmond, 1847; West Philadelphia, 1851; and Belmont,
1853. In 1854 all these districts, together with the boroughs of
Germantown, Frankford, Manayunk, White Hall, Bridesburg and Aramingo,
and the townships of Passyunk, Blockley, Kingsessing, Roxborough,
Germantown, Bristol, Oxford, Lower Dublin, Moreland, Byberry, Delaware
and Penn were abolished by an act of the State legislature, and the
boundaries of the city of Philadelphia were extended to the Philadelphia
county lines.
Such of these outlying communities as had been settled prior to the
Revolution were closely related to Philadelphia by common interests, a
common provincial government and a common architecture. For these
reasons, therefore, it seems more logical that this treatise devoted to
the Colonial architecture of the first capitol of the United States
should embrace the greater city of the present day rather than confine
itself to the city proper of Colonial times. Otherwise it would be a
problem where to draw the line, and much of value would be omitted. The
wealth of material thus comprehended is so great, however, that it is
impossible in a single book of ordinary size to include more than a
fractional part of it. An attempt has therefore been made to present an
adequate number of representative types chosen with careful regard,
first, to their architectural merit, and second, to their historic
interest. Exigencies of space are thus the only reason for the omission
of numerous excellent houses without historic association and others
rich in history but deficient in architecture.
FRANK COUSINS AND PHIL M. RILEY.
APRIL 1, 1920
_Contents_
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD v
I. PHILADELPHIA ARCHITECTURE 1
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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