Fatland (Audubon, Pennsylvania)

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"Fatland," from the northwest, in 1917.

Fatland (Audubon, Pennsylvania) – also known as "Fatland Farm," "Vaux Hill" and "Fatland Ford" – is a Greek Revival mansion and estate in Audubon, Pennsylvania. Located on the north side of the Schuylkill River, opposite Valley Forge, the property was part of the 1777-78 Continental Army's encampment. On consecutive days in September 1777, its original farmhouse served as headquarters for General George Washington and British General Sir William Howe. The farmhouse was demolished about 1843. The current mansion was completed about 1845.

Fatland Farm

The Perkiomen Creek empties in to the Schuylkill River just north of Valley Forge. The river curves in an oxbow and forms a peninsula with the creek. Early settlers called the area the "Fatlands of Egypt" because of its frequent flooding and rich alluvial soil.

James Morgan dammed the creek and built a grist mill and miller's house on the north side of the peninsula in 1749. He built the country seat "Mill Grove" in 1762. In a February 28, 1771 advertisement in The Pennsylvania Gazette, he announced the upcoming auction of two adjacent properties, Fatland Farm and Mill Grove Farm:

To be sold at public venue on the 4th day of March, upon the premises, if not sold before at private sale, by the subscriber, in Providence township, Philadelphia county, two valuable plantations, one of which consisting of 300 acres (Fatland farm), bounding near a mile on the Schuylkill river, whereas a good shad fishery; it also bounds the lands of Henry Pawling, Esq., and extends along the same to the Perkiomen; there are about 150 acres cleared, 20 whereof are good watered meadow and a great quantity more may be made; the woodland well timbered and the whole well watered, with the conveniency of watering every field on the plantation; there is a good stone dwelling house, brew house, with a large frame barn, three good bearing apple orchards, with a large peach orchard bearing plentifully. The other contains 250 acres [Mill Grove Farm] ..."

This auction took place, but neither property sold. Instead, James Vaux (1748–1842) purchased Fatland Farm by private sale more than a year later, on June 18, 1772.

Vaux Hill

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Schuylkill River at Valley Forge, looking east, circa 1910. Fatland Island and Fatland Ford is in the background, center.

Vaux renamed the property "Vaux Hill." The 300-acre (121.4 hectares) farm spanned the middle of the peninsula. Part of its western boundary, shared with Henry Pawling's farm, was the road south to Fatland Ford, a shallow crossing of the Schuylkill River, opposite Valley Forge.

Vaux was an English farmer and Quaker, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1771. He expanded the existing stone farmhouse in 1776, and constructed its stone barn. The following year he married Susanna Warder (1749–1812) of Philadelphia, also a Quaker.

Vaux took no side in the Revolutionary War. On September 21, 1777, General George Washington, accompanied by aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman and a detachment of his guard, surveilled British troops at Valley Forge from the north side of the river. The river was swollen, which prevented the British from crossing. At Washington's direction, his aide urgently wrote to General Alexander McDougall—"... the River has fallen and is fordable at almost any place, the Enemy can have no Reason to delay passing much longer. He would have wrote you personally, but is employed in viewing the ground and making disposition of the Army which arrived yesterday." Vaux invited Washington to dine and stay the night—a contingent of troops guarded Fatland Ford overnight. Washington and the troops departed early the following morning.

That same morning, British Captain John Montroser recorded in his journal: "[September] 22nd. — At 5 this morning ... the Light Infantry and Grenadiers passed over the Schuylkill at Fatland Ford without a single shot and took post." Early that evening, General Howe crossed the ford and made Vaux Hill his headquarters. Vaux dined with Howe, who asked about the rebel officer who had been spotted the previous day. When informed that it had been Washington himself, Howe reportedly replied: "Oh, I wish I had known that. I would have tried to catch him!" The opposing commanders-in-chief probably slept in the same bed on consecutive nights. As Howe slept, the British Army began a night crossing from Valley Forge. Montroser: "[September] 23rd. — Just after 12 o'clock this night the whole army moved to the opposite side, on the north side of the river Schuylkill by the way of Fatland Ford, and by 10 a. m. the whole baggage and all had happily passed it. After the principal body had got on the north side of the Schuylkill about one mile the army halted to dry themselves and rest."

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Valley Forge Park and Vicinity (1908). Fatland Ford is marked at the center top.

General Washington and the Continental Army returned to the area in December 1777 for the six month Valley Forge encampment. The majority of troops encamped south of the river, but Vaux's farm was the site of troop encampments and support facilities. General John Sullivan supervised construction of a floating-log bridge slightly downstream from Fatland Ford. This bridge provided a river crossing in times of high water, and an escape route in the event of a British attack. The floating bridge was destroyed by ice in 1779.

The British army, in September, 1777, passed from Valley Forge to the left bank of the Schuylkill by the Fatland Ford; not many months later [June 19, 1778], when the American forces evacuated Valley Forge, they crossed at the same place, as just mentioned. Both armies swarmed over the Vaux Hill plantation like devastating clouds of locusts. Tearing down fences, destroying trees and doing thousands of pounds' worth of damage in various ways, they wrought such havoc that Mr. Vaux's estate was seriously embarrassed in consequence.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid £1,000 to Vaux in compensation for damage done to his property during the war. "In the 1785 assessment of Providence township, James Vaux is recorded as a farmer, owning a farm of 300 acres of land, dwelling, four horses, six cows, one servant (colored), and one riding chair." He later served in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Vaux sold Vaux Hill to John Echline Allen, about 1794.

There are no known images of the "good stone dwelling house" described in 1771, or of the house as expanded by Vaux.

Fatland Ford

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William and Lucy Green Bakewell

By 1803, the farm was owned by James S. Ewing, who advertised it for sale in September. He listed its buildings: "... a dwelling-house 45x35 feet, built of stone, ... Smith's house and Shop, Ice house, spring house, poultry house, smoke house, large stone barn with stables for 40 head of horses and cows ..."

Ewing sold the property to Englishman William Woodhouse Bakewell (1759–1821) who, with his wife, 4 daughters and 2 sons, occupied it in January 1804. Bakewell's wife, Lucy Green Bakewell (1765–1804), died during their first year living there. Their eldest daughter, also name Lucy (1787–1874), took on the duties of hostess.

Bakewell renamed the property "Fatland Ford," and operated it as a gentleman's farm. A relative, author Robert Sutcliff, visited in August 1804:

This plantation, consists of 300 acres of good land, 200 of which are cleared, and 100 covered with wood. On the estate is a well finished square stone house, about 15 yards [13.7 m] in length, with a wide boarded floor piazza, both in back and front. These afford excellent accommodation during the summer season ... Besides the dwelling house, there is an excellent kitchen, and offices adjoining; with a large barn, and stables sufficient to accommodate 40 horses and cows; all well built of stone. The estate extends the whole breadth betwixt the Schuylkill and Perkiomen. On the former river there is a Shad Fishery which is of considerable value ... This estate, with all its appendages, cost about 3600£ sterling, which is but 12£ per acre, the buildings included. The house is so situated that it commands one of the finest prospects in Pennsylvania, and, being on a rising ground, is dry and healthy. The whole together forms one of the most beautiful spots I have seen in the United States.

Sutcliff also visited Mill Grove, then owned by Jean Audubon, a retired French sea captain living in Nantes, France. Lead deposits had been discovered on the farm, and Captain Audubon formed a partnership with French businessman Francis Dacosta to mine the ore. Sutcliff wrote: "In the plantation adjoining to my relation's, we visited a lead mine on the banks of the Perkiomin [sic], which was then worked by a Frenchman. He invited us to go down into it, where, at the depth of about 12 feet, I saw a vein of lead ore 18 inches in thickness; and as it is wrought at a very easy expense, there was a great probability of its being a very valuable acquisition."

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Lucy Bakewell Audubon, in 1835.

The "Frenchman" Sutcliff met may have been Dacosta, or it may have been the captain's 19-year-old son (and future naturalist) John James Audubon—they had arrived in America together the year before. Audubon and 17-year-old Lucy Bakewell fell in love, although her father thought both of them too young to marry. Informed by letter of his son's intentions, Captain Audubon initially opposed the marriage. With money borrowed from the Bakewells, Audubon sailed for France in January 1805 to sort out what to do about Mill Grove and the lead mine, and to obtain his father's permission to marry. He returned to the United States in May 1806 having attained his majority and his father's blessing. Bakewell also consented to the engagement. Audubon sold Mill Grove and his father's interest in the lead mine to Dacosta in September 1806, and moved to New York City to work as a clerk in the counting house of Bakewell's brother. In August 1807, he and a partner opened a pioneer store in Louisville, Kentucky. On April 8, 1808, John James Audubon and Lucy Bakewell were married at "Fatland Ford." The next morning, the newlyweds departed for Louisville, where Audubon continued his short-lived career as a merchant.

When Bakewell advertised the property for sale in 1813, he listed "a [steam] threshing-mill, which threshes 12 bushels of barley in an hour," and livestock of "200 Sheep of the English Morena breeds, span of oxen and other cattle, 4 asses, 7 horses, ... 30 pigs of the English Berkshire breed." The sale appears not to have been successful; Bakewell died at "Fatland Ford" in 1821.

Mrs. Bakewell was buried at "Fatland Ford." Bakewell remarried, and was initially buried in Philadelphia. His descendants had him reinterred beside his first wife.

Fatland

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"Fatland," from the south, in the 1890s.

The lead mine proved a failure, with costs too great to compete with imported lead from England. The War of 1812 caused imports to be cut off, and the price of lead in the United States to soar. Samuel Wetherill, Jr., a Philadelphia white lead importer and paint manufacturer, purchased Mill Grove for $7,000 in 1813. Wetherill & Son reopened the mine, and "mined and smelted over 100 tons from small veins on Perkiomen Creek in Montgomery County, Pa., on Mill Grove farm." The mine was closed again in the 1820s.

Samuel Wetherill 3rd (1764–1829) purchased "Fatland Ford" in 1825, and changed its name to just "Fatland." He had been his father's partner, and inherited the family business. He and his wife, Rachel Price (1766–1844), had 5 sons and a daughter. Wetherill inherited Mill Grove, bought up farms owned by the Bakewells and the Pawlings, and became the great landowner of the peninsula. He subsequently bequeathed the properties to his children and grandchildren. "These properties were improved with stately mansions and outbuildings with beautiful lawns and surroundings. (Also erected were summer residences on some of the properties.)"

Dr. William Wetherill (1804–1872), inherited Fatland. He was a Philadelphia physician, and partner – with his brother John, who inherited Mill Grove – in the Wetherill White Lead Works. He and his wife Isabella Macomb (1807–1871) had 16 children, 12 of whom lived to adulthood. Dr. Wetherill demolished Fatland's stone farmhouse, about 1843, and replaced it with a Greek Revival mansion designed by architect John Haviland. "Fatland Hall," built on the foundations of the old house, was completed about 1845. A stone tablet in the mansion's south gable reads: "J. Vaux, 1776; rebuilt by William Wetherill, 1843." The arrangement of the formal rooms was similar to the old house, but the 20-room mansion was on a larger scale. Its most notable features were the great marble Ionic-columned porticoes on its front and rear facades. "Bayard Taylor, the historian and traveler, claimed [the view from the piazza] was the most beautiful view along the beautiful Schuylkill river."

Fatland was inherited by their son, Col. John Macomb Wetherill (1828–1895), a Civil War veteran who managed the family's Pennsylvania coal lands, and never married. He gave permission for William Bakewell's remains to be reinterred at Fatland, and directed that he be buried there himself. In his will, Col. Wetherill deeded the private cemetery to a trust, directed that it be expanded and improved, and established an endowment for its maintenance.

Ownership of Fatland passed to the colonel's younger brother, William H. Wetherill, Jr. (1838–1927) and wife Elizabeth Proctor (1842–1914), under whom the property was "greatly beautified." He carried out the improvements to the private cemetery, and had Wetherill ancestors and others reburied there. (See below.)

Dr. Henry Emerson Wetherill (1871–1946), eldest son of William H., was a U.S. Army surgeon and inventor. He was a member of Robert Peary's 1893-94 Greenland expedition, on which he collected plant specimens. He also delivered Mrs. Peary's daughter Marie, who became popularly known as the "Snow Baby." He was awarded the 1906 Longstreth Medal by the Franklin Institute for his diagnostic instruments. In addition to medical devices, he invented navigational devices for ships, and a musical instrument called a trombone flute. Dr. Wetherill never married, and was buried in the private cemetery. He was the last Wetherill to own Fatland.

Saint Gabriel's Hall

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Saint Gabriel's Hall from the Pottstown Expressway, in 2017.

On November 19, 1895, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia purchased a 185-acre tract of land adjacent to Fatland, to the west. Formerly part of Henry Pawling's farm, there the Archdiocese built the Philadelphia Protectory for Boys, an orphanage staffed by the Christian Brothers. Architects Wilson Brothers & Company designed its Italianate orange-brick-and-red-tile-roofed building, which included a tall campanile, or belltower. Archbishop Patrick John Ryan dedicated the building on May 8, 1898, with more than 3,000 in attendance. Its initial capacity was for housing 200 boys, but the capacity increased to 500 boys with additions that opened in September 1905. An additional 100 acres were purchased in 1902, which extended the property to the Schuylkill River and included Fatland Island (part of Fatland Ford). The name of the Reading Railroad passenger station opposite the west end of the peninsula was changed to Protectory Station, by 1898. The protectory was renamed Saint Gabriel's Hall in 1962.

Operated by the Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, St. Gabe's is now a juvenile detention facility. Its border with Fatland follows the old path of Fatland Ford Road.

Camiel

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The Pottstown Expressway (bottom right to top) makes two major curves.

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Pottstown Expressway curve around Saint Gabriel's Hall.

Antiquarian Harold Donaldson Eberlein wrote about Fatland in 1912. By the time he revisited the estate in 1939, the landscape had changed: "So closely is the house screened by great ancient trees that only in winter can you catch a glimpse from a distance of its stately white porticoes gleaming through the interlacing branches." Dr. Wetherill died at Fatland in 1946, and the property was purchased by the Philadelphia Democratic politician Peter J. Camiel (1910–1991).

Camiel was one of 12 children of Polish Jewish immigrants, a former boxer, longshoreman and union organizer. He made himself a millionaire as a wholesale beer distributor. Camiel served as a Pennsylvania State Senator from 1953 to 1964, and as chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic City Committee from 1970 to 1976. He was appointed one of five commissioners to the powerful Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission in 1975, and served until his death. Technically, he was suspended from the commission in May 1980, after being found guilty of federal corruption (putting "ghost employees" on the State payroll), and returned to it in 1983, after the verdict was reversed on appeal.

State Senator Vince Fumo: "Pete was a pilot. I used to listen for hours in amazement, when he would tell the stories about how he found Fatland Farm, flying over it in a plane, hidden behind so many trees. He bought it and pulled all those trees out and made it into a showcase right next to Valley Forge Park." Camiel and his wife Nina (1913–2007) spent several years renovating the mansion and rehabilitating the overgrown estate. About 1950, they sold off a section on the south side of Pawlings Road, between the mansion and St. Gabriel's Hall, for a housing development.

After 138 years of family ownership, Herbert Johnson Wetherill sold Mill Grove to Montgomery County in 1951, to create a bird sanctuary and house museum honoring John James Audubon. Twenty-five years later, the planned route for the Pottstown Expressway went through the Audubon property. Camiel was credited with/blamed for applying political pressure to reroute the superhighway around the bird sanctuary:

Central to the arguments concerning politicians appears to be the controversial "Camiel Loop." [Montgomery County Planning Commission associate director] Plutte said that the cost of rerouting the Pottstown Expressway around the home of Peter J. Camiel caused the price of the highway to jump from $5 million to $8 million, and most recently to more than $10 million in the past six months. As the highway leaves the connection with Betzwood Bridge and aims northwest toward Pottstown, it veers sharply south [sic west], down and around Camiel's farm, "Fatland." The parabolic dip in the road mean several miles of additional roadway, roadway that Pottstown was denied. Plutte said the Camiel loop was installed to avert a "potential challenge" arising out of an environmental study. Camiel's farm is near the Audubon Sanctuary, which according to original plans, would have had to surrender land to the highway crews. Federal funds, which pay for 70 per cent of the Pottstown Expressway, could be jeopardized by the taking of the park land, Plutte said.

Whether Camiel acted from selfish or selfless motives (or a combination of both), the expensive rerouting of the Pottstown Expressway spared Mill Grove and minimized the adverse effect on Fatland. The Camiels owned the property for 44 years, and returned it to being a working farm. They were buried together in its private cemetery.

Free Quaker - Wetherill Cemetery

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Free Quaker - Wetherill Cemetery, in 2017.

Samuel Wetherill, Jr. was "read out of meeting" (disowned) by the Society of Friends in 1779, for having provided supplies to the Continental Army at Valley Forge. He became a founder of Philadelphia's Free Quaker Meeting (chartered February 20, 1781), and served as its clerk and preacher. He and his brother-in-law, Timothy Matlack, another charter member, designed its meeting house (1783-84), at 5th and Arch Streets. The meeting established its own burying ground, on the south side of 5th Street between Locust and Spruce Streets. Membership dwindled as the Free Quakers died off, and their meeting house closed in 1836. As the turn of the 20th century approached, the tiny Free Quaker Burying Ground plot became attractive for commercial development. It was in anticipation of its sale that Col. John Macomb Wetherill directed in his 1895 will that the private cemetery at Fatland be expanded.

Sixty-one graves were removed from the Free Quaker Burying Ground and reinterred at Fatland in 1905. These included those of Samuel Wetherill, Jr. and his relatives, including Timothy Matlack, scribe of the Second Continental Congress—whose penmanship can be seen in the Declaration of Independence. Many of the tombstones had eroded to the point of being illegible. Some were completely unknown or identifiable only by initials. The remains of Ira Allen, one of the Vermont Green Mountain Boys, were lost with the closing of another Philadelphia cemetery, and his cenotaph was moved to Fatland.

Numerous Wetherill family members have been and continue to be buried in the private cemetery.

Vaux Hill (2)

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Selected Contents of Vaux Hill
Vaux Hill

Fatland's acreage was reduced by Camiel's housing development, and through major land sales for the Pottstown Expressway and to Valley Forge National Historical Park. On July 16, 1990, Robert Owen Safford (1934–2011) and his wife Barbara Harvey (dates) purchased the mansion on __ acres from Camiel for $2.1 million. They changed the property's name back to "Vaux Hill," the name James Vaux had given it in 1772.

The couple continued the property's operation as a working farm, remodeled the interior of the mansion, and filled it with sumptuous European furniture and decorative arts. Following Safford's death, his widow sold the decorative arts at Freeman's Auction House in Philadelphia. The September 25, 2013 auction "brought $3.9 million, more than three times the presale estimate." Its top lot was a hand-painted Russian urn made by Czar Nicholas I's imperial porcelain factory at St. Petersburg; estimated at $150,000 to $200,000, it sold for $494,500.

The following year, Mrs. Safford put the estate up for sale, with an asking price of $9 million for the 8,900-square-foot mansion on 15 acres, and the barn on 3 acres available in a separate sale. In February 2016, the asking price was reduced to $7 million. It is currently (July 2017) for sale for $3.95.

References

Further reading

• Jennifer Anne Stark, The Pawling Farmhouse at Walnut Hill: Valley Forge National Park, masters thesis, University of Pennsylvania, December 1992.[7]
• Rebecca Anne Hunt, Blessed Spot along the Perkiomen: An Historical Analysis of Mill Grove, dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.