To Edward Stiles in 1775 befell the opportunity to carry relief to the people of Bermuda, then in dire distress because their supplies from America had been cut off by the Non-Importation Agreement among the American colonies. In response to their petition to the Continental Congress, permission was granted to send Stiles' ship, the Sea Nymph (Samuel Stobel, master), laden with provisions to be paid for by the people of Bermuda either in gold or arms, ammunition, saltpeter, sulphur and fieldpieces.
During the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1777 and 1778, Frankford became the middle ground between the opposing armies and subject to the depredations of both. Port Royal House, like many other estates of the vicinity, was robbed of its fine furniture, horses, slaves and provisions.
Under the will of Edward Stiles his slaves were freed and educated at the expense of his estate.[37] In 1853 the Lukens family bought Port Royal House and for several years a boarding school was conducted there. As the manufacturing about Frankford grew, the locality lost its desirability as a place of residence. The house was abandoned to chance tenants and allowed to fall into an exceedingly delapidated condition. The accompanying photograph, however, depicts enough of its former state to indicate that in its day it was among the best brick country residences of the vicinity.[38]
CHAPTER III
CITY RESIDENCES OF BRICK
As the city of Philadelphia grew and became more densely populated, land values increased greatly, and the custom developed of building brick residences in blocks fronting directly on the street, the party walls being located on the side property lines. Like the country houses already described, these were laid up in Flemish bond with alternating red stretcher and black header bricks, and thus an entire block presented a straight, continuous wall, broken only by a remarkably regular scheme of doorways and fenestration, and varied only by slight differences in the detail of doors and windows, lintels, cornices and dormers. These plain two-or three-story brick dwellings in long rows, in street after street, with white marble steps and trimmings, green or white shutters, each intended for one family, have been perpetuated through the intervening years, and now as then form the dominant feature of the domestic architecture of the city proper.
For the most part these were single-front houses, that is to say, the doorway was located to the right[39] or left with two windows at one side, while on the stories above windows ranged with the doorway, making three windows across each story. There were exceptions, however, the so-called Morris house at Number 225 South Eighth Street being a notable example of a characteristic double-front house of the locality and period. They were gable-roof structures with high chimneys in the party walls, foreshortened, third-story windows and from one to three dormers piercing the roof.
At the end of the block the wall was often carried up above the ridge between a pair of chimneys and terminated in a horizontal line, imparting greater stability to the chimney construction and lending an air of distinction to the whole house, which was further enhanced by locating the entrance directly beneath in the end wall rather than in the side of the building. The famous old Wistar house at the southeast corner of Fourth and Locust streets is a case in point.
Pedimental dormers were the rule, sometimes with round-headed windows. Elaborate molded wood cornices were a feature, often with prominent, even hand-tooled modillions. Slightly projecting belts of brick courses, marble or other stone marked the floor levels, and keyed stone lintels were customary, although in some of the plainer houses the window frames were set between ordinary courses of brickwork, without decoration of any sort. Most of[40] the windows had either six-or nine-paned upper and lower sashes with third-story windows foreshortened in various ways. There were paneled shutters at the first-story windows and often on the second story as well, although blinds were sometimes used on the second story and rarely on the third. The high, deeply recessed doorways, with engaged columns or fluted pilasters supporting handsome entablatures or pediments, and beautifully paneled doors, often with a semicircular fanlight above, were characteristic of most Philadelphia entrances. Before them, occupying part of the sidewalk, was a single broad stone step, or at times a stoop consisting of a flight of three or four steps with a simple wrought-iron handrail, sometimes on both sides, but often on only one side. Other common obstructions in the sidewalk were areaways at one or two basement windows and a rolling way with inclined double doors giving entrance from the street to the basement.
