AMERICAN 
October, 1912 
“Mount Pleasant 
HOMES 
AND GARDENS | ae 
The lawn front of “Mount Pleasant,” one of Philadelphia’s most noted Colonial manor-houses 
on the Schuylkill 
A Famous Old Philadelphia Home Now Preserved Within the Precincts of Fairmount Park 
By Harold Donaldson Eberlein 
Photographs by T. C. Turner 
OUNT PLEASANT” is fitly so named. 
Surely no pleasanter place for habitation 
j4|| could be found than the spot where this 
4) stately Eighteenth Century house rears its 
balustraded roof above a sea of surround- 
ing greenery. On the crest of an eminence 
at a bend of the river, the site commands a broad view up- 
stream and down and over the wooded slopes of the farther 
shore. Though in Summer the density of the foliage some- 
what obscures the prospect, at other 
seasons, when the trees are less fully 
clad, the eye sweeps the valley for miles. 
Then it is, as once noble country-seats 
are seen crowning every hill, that one 
feels how ample and almost’ princely 
must have been the manner of life that 
prevailed there in the long-past days 
when the city was still far distant from 
these sylvan fastnesses. Society was 
gayer, more polished and wealthier 
hereabouts than in most other parts of 
the Colonies, and the affluence and cul- 
ture of persons of substance and quality 
were reflected by the houses in which 
they chose to spend their Summers or 
where, sometimes, they lived the year 
round. The high, rolling lands on both 
banks of the Schuylkill invited the 
establishment of plantations by the 
foremost citizens, the unsurpassed love- 
liness of the scene was an ever-present 
The entrance facade is one of the finest early 
architectural examples in America 
joy, while the waters of the stream supplied an agreeable 
element of life and, at the same time, yielded an abundance 
of the best of fish to grace the boards of gentry notoriously 
addicted to the pleasures of the table. 
In one of the choicest spots of this fair paradise of peace 
and plenty, Captain John Macpherson bought land in Sep- 
tember, 1761, and set to building a great house of almost 
baronial aspect that commands consideration by its architec- 
tural presence alone, quite apart from the rich historic 
glamour that hangs over it. From the 
west or river front of the house the 
land falls away rapidly so that the ap- 
proach by the driveway leads to the 
east front. ast and west fronts are 
alike of imposing mien. A high founda- 
tion of carefully squared stones is 
pierced by iron-barred basement win- 
dows set in stone frames. Above this 
massive grisly base the thick walls 
of stone are coated with yellow-gray 
rough cast. Heavy quoins of brick at 
the corners and, at the north and south 
ends of the building, great quadruple 
brick chimneys, joined into one by 
arches at the top, give the structure an 
air of more than usual solidity. <A 
broad flight of stone steps, whose iron 
balustrades are overgrown with a bushy 
mass of honeysuckle, leads up to a 
doorway of generous breadth. The 
pillars at each side of the door and the 
