Thomas Massey House
| Thomas Massey House | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The Massey House today |
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| location | Broomall , Delaware County , Pennsylvania | ||
| Coordinates | 39 ° 57 '55 " N , 75 ° 21' 5" W | ||
| Built | 1696 | ||
| Architectural style | Colonial style | ||
| NRHP number | 70000904 | ||
| The NRHP added | November 16, 1970 | ||
The Thomas Massey House (often also 1696 Thomas Massey House ) is a historic building on Lawrence Road in Broomall in Delaware County in the US state of Pennsylvania . It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 16, 1970 , the official directory of American cultural monuments . The two-story house, built in 1696, is now considered unique as it has largely been preserved in its original state.
history
In 1696, the then new landowner, the Quaker Thomas Massey, added the bricks that were still in existence today to an already existing but unfinished log house , of which until then only the frame structure stood. In 1731 his son, Mordecai Massey, replaced the wooden parts of the house with stone and built a kitchen. The latter was expanded around 1860 by adding a room above the kitchen. During the restoration in the 1960s, evidence was found of a furnace that existed in the early 18th century, as well as a beehive, which were restored in the course of the restoration according to historical models.
The family owned the Massey House until 1925. In the 1930s the building was used as a farmhouse. Heating pipes and electricity were introduced. Was used as the surrounding land cultivated, the associated land instead of the original size comprised of 100 acres , only one acre.
In 1964 a descendant of Masseys, Lawrence MC Smith, bought the house and left it to the Marple Township for restoration, which would take ten years and was carried out by the architect John Milner. Since then, the house has been furnished with preserved furniture from the late 17th and 18th centuries. The architectural style is called the colonial style.
museum
The Thomas Massey House is now open to the public as a museum . From April to October, the building can be visited on Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. outside of school holidays. It is seasonally decorated and outfitted with authentic elements from the 17th and 18th centuries, including some of the home's original fixtures and fittings, such as cabinets, furniture, cookware, tableware, books, and tools.
Special events such as lectures, demonstrations, dinners, cooking courses, gardening presentations and rental for social gatherings are possible all year round. At dinner, a meal from the American colonial era is prepared in the original kitchen and served in the house.
Thomas Massey and the Massey family
The Englishman Thomas Massey was born in 1663 in Marpoole (Marple) in the county of Cheshire . He was a Quaker.
Massey is considered to be the progenitor of the American branch of the Massey family. He left his homeland as a young man from York and reached the New World with the ship Endeavor on September 29, 1683 at the age of 20 as one of eight servants of Francis Stanfield, who made the crossing possible for them. The ship of the crossing, a so-called Ketch , was called Endeavor and is one of numerous ships with this name, but not to be confused with the famous Endeavor of James Cook . He reached what would later become the United States in what is now Chester County across the Delaware River . Phoebe Taylor, who was seven years younger than her, was on board with her mother, five siblings and her uncle Daniel Williamson. Her father, Robert Taylor, had previously set out for the New World. Thomas Massey and Phoebe Taylor married in 1692. Massey previously served with Francis Stanfield and then received the contractually promised 50 acres of land, as well as another 50 acres from William Penn in what is now Broomall , then part of Marple Township . In 1696 he was able to buy another 300 acres of land from James Stanfield, the son of his former master. He had seven children with his wife: Esther (1693), Mordecai (1695), James (1697), Hannah (1699), Thomas (1701), Phoebe (1705) and Mary (1707). Massey works as a juror, policeman, and street commissioner. He died on November 18, 1707 in Chester County. He now owned 800 acres of land. In 1708 his last will was carried out, in which his eldest son, Mordecai Massey inherited his house and property, on the condition that his wife was allowed to keep a room of her own, as well as a cow and a horse. This was recorded in the so-called Will Book of Philadelphia. In 1709 she married the widower Bartholomew Coppock, who had two children.
Mordecai Massey married Rebecca Rhoads in 1731.
Later residents of Massey House included Henry and Hannah Massey Lawrence.
literature
- Burke's American Families with British Ancestry, McAllister-Myers, by Sir John Bernard Burke, (1975), ISBN 978-0-8063-0662-9
