Cliveden (Benjamin Chew House)
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Cliveden
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Location | 6401 Germantown Avenue Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
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Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
Area | 5.4 acres (2.2 ha) |
Built | 1763–1767 |
Architect | William Peters |
Architectural style | Georgian colonial |
NRHP Reference # | 66000677[1] |
Added to NRHP | 1966 |
Cliveden /ˈklɪvdən/,[2] also known as the Benjamin Chew House, is a historic mansion in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the Battle of Germantown, fought in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War.
Built between 1763 to 1767, by Benjamin Chew, the mansion was inhabited from colonial times by seven generations of the Chew family, until 1972.[3] Chew was head of the Pennsylvania Judiciary System under both Colony and Commonwealth, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania. From his legal mentor, Andrew Hamilton, he inherited Hamilton's lifelong clients, the descendants of William Penn.
For Chew's safety, the Executive Committee of the Continental Congress forcibly removed him and his family from Cliveden, as his close friend, George Washington, was ordering his troops to move towards Philadelphia. British Colonel Musgrave then quickly occupied the sturdily built mansion and fought off the attack from within with muskets and bayonets. Washington's army was repelled and driven back down Germantown Avenue in defeat.
House and property
In 1966, Cliveden was designated a National Historic Landmark, part of the Colonial Germantown Historic District.[4] The National Trust for Historic Preservation operates Cliveden as a historic house museum and offers tours from April through December. Significance:
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Cliveden is an outstanding example of Philadelphia Georgian architecture. Probably designed by Chew and Jacob Knor, a master carpenter, the stone masonry house has particularly fine interior woodwork.
— Historic American Buildings Survey[5]
The original estate included a number of other structures, including a stable and coach house, a smoke house, hen house, and summer house. The landscaping features statuary and gardens with over 200 varieties of trees and scrubs. In 1868, a two-story addition was added in the original courtyard. A window on the second-floor stair landing in the main house was converted into a hidden doorway to create an entrance to the addition.
The Chew Family Papers, containing an extensive collection of correspondence, documents, financial records and other materials, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
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Cliveden main hall colonnade.jpg
Colonnade in main hallway
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Cliveden southeast room.jpg
Southeast room
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Cliveden front roof.jpg
Urns, dormers and chimneys on the front roof
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Cliveden-Chew-Front3.JPG
View from the driveway
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Cliveden-Chew-Front1.JPG
Right front of the house
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Cliveden-Chew-Front2.JPG
Left front on the house, showing servants' entrance at left
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Cliveden-Chew-Back1.JPG
Rear entrance of the house
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Cliveden-Chew-Back2.JPG
Rear of the house with outbuildings
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ US dict: klĭv′·dən
- ↑ Marion, John Francis. Bicentennial City: Walking Tours of Historic Philadelphia. Princeton: The Pyne Press, 1974.
- ↑ Jenkins, Charles F. The Guide Book to Historic Germantown. Germantown Historical Society, 1973.
- ↑ Listing, drawings, and photographs at the Historic American Buildings Survey
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cliveden (Germantown, Pennsylvania). |
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- Cliveden at USHistory.org
- Cliveden's summary listing as a National Historic Landmark
- Cliveden (Chew House), National Historic Landmark Nomination. 2014 update.
- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. PA-1184, "Cliveden", 87 photos, 14 color transparencies, 17 measured drawings, 12 data pages, 7 photo caption pages
- Exterior view of the building at the Library of Congress
- YouTube, Growing Up at Cliveden
- Benjamin Chew, Esq. A site dedicated to emerging research on Benjamin Chew, Esq.
- Pages with broken file links
- Commons category link is locally defined
- Official website missing URL
- Historic house museums in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Germantown, Philadelphia
- American Revolutionary War museums in Pennsylvania
- Biographical museums in Pennsylvania
- Houses completed in 1767
- Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania
- Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania
- Reportedly haunted locations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Historic American Buildings Survey in Pennsylvania
- National Trust for Historic Preservation
- British colonial architecture in the United States
- Georgian architecture in Pennsylvania
- 1767 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies