Dr. William Brown. From a miniature.
(Courtesy Mrs. Bessie Wilmarth Gahn)
Chapter 9
[405 Prince Street. Owners: The Moore Family.]
This house is completely surprising. Many years ago the owners put on a new pressed-brick front and changed the sash from the usual small lights to two single lights of large dimensions. The transition from this 1890 front to an eighteenth century interior in a perfect state of preservation, produces upon one crossing the threshold the sensation of walking straight through the looking glass. And whither does the looking glass lead? Right into the parlors of Mr. William Sewell!
The stairway rises on the far side of a fine arch in the entrance hall. Halfway up, it becomes obscured from view, leaving one gazing at a paneled ceiling, as it makes an abrupt about-face. The rooms on the second floor are quaint. Low-pitched, sloping ceilings, off-center mantels with odd panels and chimney closets and six-paneled doors with H&L hinges, are amusing as well as charming.
Two parlors on the ground floor, opening off the hall, are formal and elegant. Fine paneled chimney breasts dominate these rooms. Dentils and fret trim cornices and mantels. Chair rails, six-panel doors, wide board pine floors, and double doors opening flat against the walls, making the two rooms into one, are found here. In the front room the interesting feature is a Franklin stove set in the fireplace—quite the last word in comfort in the 1780s.
On July 14, 1749 the Reverend John Moncure bought lot No. 61 for £5 9s. On March 28, 1752, the deed for this property was filed at Fairfax Court House and described as lot No. 61, a half acre of land on Royal and Prince Streets, as surveyed and platted by John West. Two years later, June 15, 1754, the Reverend John Moncure, along with other gentlemen of prominence in the colony, lost his lot for having failed to comply with the directions of the assembly to build thereon within three years. The following September there took place an auction of these forfeited lots, and No. 61 passed to William Sewell for £5 7s. 6d.