John Penn, “The American,” Born in Slate-Roof House January 29, 1700

When William Penn crossed the ocean in the Canterbury to visit his province in 1699, he came up to Chester, December 1. Two days later Penn reached Philadelphia, and made a formal call upon his deputy, Governor William Markham, and other dignitaries of the town and province.

From Markham’s house Penn proceeded to the Friends’ meeting house at Second and High Streets, and took part in the afternoon meeting, offering a prayer and delivering one of those short incisive addresses in which he was so happy.

Penn was very well received by all classes, says James Logan, who had come out with the Governor and was in constant attendance upon him.

After the meeting was over and the Friends had dispersed to their homes, Penn and his suite went to the house of Edward Shippen, and lived there for a month. About January 14 he took up his residence in the “Slate-Roof House,” which was his home during his sojourn in his province.

On January 29, his son John, known as “The American,” was born. John was the only one of William Penn’s children born in his province.

This old mansion when first built was the largest house in Philadelphia, and better known than any other, not excepting the “Letitia House,” of any place of historic interest connected with William Penn and the city he founded.

76The Slate-Roof House was built on the southeast corner of Second Street and Norris Alley, the site for many years of the Chamber of Commerce. The house was built by Samuel Carpenter, and it stood until 1867.

Besides being the residence of Penn in 1699, James Logan entertained Lord Cornbury there in 1702 and Governor James Hamilton, Mrs. Howell and Mrs. Graydon were successively its occupants, the ladies using it for a boarding house.

Alexander Graydon, who lived there and whose mother was the Desdemona of the pert British officers of the day and kept the place as a boarding house just before the Revolution, describes the old house, “as a singular old-fashioned structure, laid out in the style of a fortification, with abundance of angles, both salient and re-entering. Its two wings projected to the street in the manner of bastions, to which the main building, retreating from sixteen to eighteen feet, served for a curtain. Within it was cut up into a number of apartments and on that account was exceedingly well adapted to the purpose of a lodging house, to which it had long been appropriated.”

The yard or garden was graced with a row of venerable pine trees, and the association of the place gave it a substantial historic interest. It bore much less the look of a fortress than Captain Graydon’s military eye conceived.

The back building was as peaceful looking as the culinary offices should be and the neat little chambers in the so-called bastions were cozy nooks, with chimney places in the corners. The kitchen had a giant pile of chimney, with a great fireplace and the garrets were high and roomy.

This house was built for Samuel Carpenter by James Portens. It was erected about 1698, and William Penn was probably its first occupant.

Samuel Carpenter had built in 1684–85 a house on Front Street, near his wharf and warehouses, and it is likely he lived there after the Slate-Roof House was completed.

Carpenter was a man of great ability and enterprise, accumulating wealth rapidly and doing much to build up the city of his adoption. He married Hannah Hardiman, a Welsh Quakeress and preacher, in 1684, and held many important positions, member of the Assembly, treasurer of the province, etc. He bought large tracts of land, owned numerous vessels, mines, quarries and mill seats, so much property, in fact, that it impoverished him and threw him into serious pecuniary embarrassment, though he was ranked as the richest man in the province.

Samuel Carpenter died in his house on King Street (now Water Street) between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, April 10, 1714, and the Friends Meeting, after his death, said of him that “he was a pattern of humility, patience and self-denial; a man fearing God and 77hating covetousness; much given to hospitality and good works. He was a loving, affectionate husband, tender father, and a faithful friend and brother.”

When Carpenter leased his Slate-Roof House to Penn it was furnished and so occupied until his departure for England, when James Logan moved into it.

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.

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