The Slate-Roof House was sold in the latter part of 1703 to William Trent, the Iverness miller, who founded and gave his name to Trenton, N. J.
Trent paid £850 for the property. In 1709 he sold it for £900 Pennsylvania currency to Isaac Norris, who occupied it until his removal to Fairhill in 1717.
Logan was very desirous that Penn should buy the house when Trent offered it for sale, and said that it was hard that the Governor did not have the money to spare. “I would give twenty to thirty pounds out of my own pocket, that it were thine, nobody’s but thine,” said honest James.
The Slate-Roof House remained in possession of the Norris family until 1807, when it was bought by the Chamber of Commerce and torn down.
From 1717 onward it seems to have been used as a boarding and lodging house, being in the hands of Mrs. Howell and then of Mrs. Graydon.
General John Forbes, successor to General Edward Braddock, died in the Slate-Roof House in 1759, at which time the house was kept by Mrs. Howell. Baron de Kalb lodged there in 1768–69, when he was the secret agent of France. Sir William Draper, the target of Junius’ sarcasm, lodged there during his visit to the colonies. James Rivington, the Tory printer and publisher, ate and slept there.
It is also reported that John Hancock and George Washington lodged there during the first sessions of the Continental Congress. Baron Steuben, Peter S. Duponceau and others lodged there after the British evacuated Philadelphia.
The Slate-Roof House then became the seat of a boarding school, kept by Madame Berdeau, reputed to be the widow of Dr. Dodd, hanged in London for forgery in 1777.
Then this historic old mansion became a workshop, a general place of business, a tenement house, with shops on the ground floor, which were occupied by tailors, engravers, watch-makers, silversmiths, etc. Under one of the “bastions,” a notable oyster cellar was opened, the resort of the merchants and bankers doing business in that vicinity.