The Age and Style of Our House (Part I, How Old Is It?)

Whenever I meet another old house person, two questions always come up about our house. “What style is our house?” and “How old is our house?”. Answering one of these turned out to be far easier than the other for me, but once I had one answer, I was able to back into the other one. Having grown up on the west coast, I was familiar with the various period styles going back to the late 19th century, but I wasn’t as familiar with older houses dating back to the middle of the 19th century and older. When we first visited Philadelphia, I knew houses in the Society Hill neighborhood to the north of us dated back to the late 1700s, but I wasn’t well versed in their individual styles. That’s what made our house such a puzzle for me.

 

The first time we toured the house in early January of 2017, the first thing I noticed was the simplicity of the interior. Other than the vestibule tile and the over the top (and obviously Victorian era) fireplace mantel, there was almost nothing fancy at all in the house. This of course was part of the draw, because my instinct told me that the majority of the house retained original detail. The staircase is beautiful in form, but not terribly decorative, and the newel post has a charming simplicity about it. The woodwork in the entry and parlor are most definitely the stars of the show, while the woodwork throughout the rest of the house is very simple. But even the fanciest millwork in the parlor wasn’t very over the top at all.

 

Back home in New York, the day after we saw the house I began my online journey to see if I could find out more about our house and the area. That’s when I discovered Greater Philadelphia Geo History Network, an amazing online resource for old maps and directories of the city. Going back in time, I was able to find a map which showed our house being on our block in 1875. So, I knew it was at least 140+ years old. Then I discovered city directories. City directories (also on philageohistory.org) were a list of residents, home addresses, and occupations before the phone book took its place. Amazingly, the directories have been digitally scanned and for the most part are searchable using OCR technology.

Using city directories, I discovered that Horace Hill (occupation: Paymaster US Navy) lived in our house in 1866. Then I dug further and found our house on a map from 1862 followed by a directory listing of a Martin M Cox (Liquor Merchant) living in our house. Wow, our house existed in 1862! This is amazing!

 

A few weeks later (after we were under contract to buy it) we got to see the interior for the second time when we came for the inspection. With the inspection going on, we had just under two hours inside the house looking it over top to bottom. It was a bit surreal, but walking around with the inspector, it became more and more clear to me that our house was older than I had suspected. My curiosity about everything the inspector was doing had me so focused on the inspection that I didn’t take any interior photos at all (so unlike me).

 

After returning from our house inspection, I was compelled to dig even further back. I found a map from 1849 which showed most of the surrounding blocks as being built out, but our block was still completely vacant. So, this told me that our house was constructed sometime between 1849 and 1862. Of course, I had to keep digging…. I went back to the directories, but due to limitations of the OCR and the fact that the books were printed so long ago, I kept running into dead ends on my searches. Then through a fluke, I stumbled on the right search terms and found an entry for Daniel N. Smith (lumber merchant) living in our house in the 1858 directory. That’s where things seemed to stop. I couldn’t find anything before the 1858 directory. So, was Daniel N. Smith the first occupant of our house?

 

The third time we got to see the inside of the house was two months later on settlement day. Before we handed over a fat check and signed a few pieces of paper, we did the routine walk-through. It was brief, just a quick check to make sure the house was as we expected. It wasn’t until a few hours later, keys in hand, we finally got to take a hard look at the inside of what was now our house. I shot this video of the house (in which I state that we think it was built in 1858) moments after arriving with the keys for the first time. I finally got to really spend time exploring and discovering our house, both the good and the bad.

Even though I had been able to ascertain that our house existed in 1858, I struggled with the style. Parts of it felt downright colonial, but my knowledge of architectural styles from before the Civil War was limited to the early Victorian era styles such as Italianate, Gothic Revival, and Second Empire, none of which applied to our house. It occurred to me that I really needed to determine when our house was built before I could definitively determine the style. Then I learned a key bit of knowledge.

I had already learned that in 1854, the Act of Consolidation combined the city of Philadelphia with all of the adjacent boroughs, townships, and districts contained within the boundaries of Philadelphia County into a single city. The city and the county of Philadelphia essentially became one and the same. That means that our block was originally part of the township of Southwark. What I didn’t know is that in 1856, as part of the consolidation, the streets addresses were renumbered to their present state. That means, our house could be older! If only I knew the previous address.

 

This is when the analyst in me came out…. I was determined to figure out what our original address was before the renumbering. I set up a spreadsheet and using the directory from 1858 (which was 1857 data), I looked up all of the addresses on my block as well as the block on either side of ours, and copied the names down with the corresponding addresses. There were several missing, but I managed to get about half of them.

Using the names, I went back to the 1856 directory (1855 data) and tracked down their prior addresses before the renumbering. Woo Hoo! I have confirmed that there were houses on our block in 1855! Then I plotted out what each address was by filling in the blanks and determined that our address was 104 Federal Street!

Of course, you know I was then searching the 1856 directory for 104 Federal Street, and sure enough, I found out Nicholas Toy Jr. (occupation: Carver) lived at the house. Then I went back a year to the 1855 directory and discovered that Englebert Ovenshine (Omnibus Proprieter) lived in our house. 1854 directory results were confusing as they listed an Engle Devonshire, but I quickly ascertained that directory was wrong when I found E. Ovenshine at our address in the 1853 directory.

 

I continued to go backwards and came up with nothing at our house. I then searched other houses on the block prior to 1853 directory and also came up with nothing. I already knew the block was empty in 1849, so that informed me that our house was completed in 1852 (because the directories are printed in January the following year). With that knowledge, I settled on Englebert Ovenshine as the first occupant of our house in 1852.

I sat on this knowledge until this past spring when I was determined to not just confirm that Englebert was the first occupant, but when he took possession of the house. That’s when delved into available online records for the city. I was able to discover that there was a recorded property transfer from a Martha M Johnson to Englebert Ovenshine recorded on October 1, 1852. Included with that recording was the book number and page number of the full recording of deed. But to get that cost money.

 

Out of my endless need to know facts, I splurged on an annual membership to obtain a copy of the original deed to our house. On September 27th, 1852, Englebert Ovenshine took possession of our house and he and his family became the first occupants. I have since learned more about the Ovenshines, but will post about that in the future. As for the deed…. Well, I have it in .pdf, but there is one problem. Aside from the very formal language, it is entirely handwritten (as was the norm back then) in a very fanciful script. It’s beautiful in it’s own way, but I can’t read most of it. (You’re more than welcome to have a crack at it.)

 

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EDIT (Aug 12): Commenter Joe raised a good question about Martha M Johnson being the Grantor in the sale of the property to Englebert, would that not maker her the prior owner?  My response is as follows: I do not know any of the details (yet), but what I do know is that she was the Grantor for multiple property transfers on our block in the fall of 1852, which leads me to believe that she was somehow involved with the builder. Martha M Johnson herself is listed in the directories as residing at 282 Filbert Street from 1850 to 1854.

The 12 houses in the middle of our block were built at approximately the same time with all having identical exteriors (originally). Inside, they have one of three floor-plans (ranging from 2,016-2,592 sq ft) and use the same interior fittings including the same marble fireplace mantels (ours was replaced). And with the exception of some variances in the reception hall and parlor, they all have the same mill-work throughout the house.

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So that’s it! Our house was built in 1852!
Now, I hope this didn’t bore the hell out of you, and I hope you will come back to find out how I determined what architectural style our house is in Part II which I will post later this week as soon as I find the time to get it done (hopefully next week).

Bonus parting image….