Richard Wall house
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Richard Wall house
OR:
Richard Wall house on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

The Richard Wall house, built 1682, is a historic home in
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania Elkins Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is split between Cheltenham and Abington Townships in the northern suburbs outside of Philadelphia, which it borders along Cheltenham Avenue roughly from Cent ...
. It had continuous Wall family residency for over 150 years, having been in the Wall family and its descendants through 1847. It is listed in the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
as "Wall House" also known as "The Ivy". The home has undergone numerous renovations, with a section of basement wall being the only original construction remaining. The site of religious meetings and weddings, it is also among the earliest places of
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
worship still standing in the United States. It is now a museum located at Church Road and Wall Park Drive in Elkins Park.


History

Richard Wall was a founder of
Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania Cheltenham Township is a Home Rule Municipality (Pennsylvania), home rule township (Pennsylvania), township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. Cheltenham's population density ranges from over 10,000 per square mile (25,900 per squa ...
. He arrived with
William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
's group of Quakers in 1682. He and fourteen others pooled their land purchases to create the township. They named the township for the main town in
Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...
, England, where they apparently originated. The Wall family was joined in marriage by the Shoemaker family. The families owned a corn grist mill on Tacony Creek. Descendants of the Walls lived in the house until 1847, followed by the Bosler family. In 1932 the township acquired the house and surrounding lands for "Wall Park." The house was rented from 1932 to 1979. Harold C. Pike, (township manager) moved in 1941 and resided there until his death in 1978. Since 1980 the house has been managed by the Cheltenham Township Historical Commission, which opened the museum and orientation center in 1993. An original section of wall can be seen in the current basement. The house was redesigned in 1730, 1760, and 1805. Later renovations added running water and electricity. The permanent exhibits display elements of life during more than two hundred years of residence. Highlights include a fully furnished and electrified, doll house created before 1920;Hirsch, Lois. "The Doll House Lady and Her Doll House", an information sheet provided to visitors of the museum. Collected July 3, 2006. and a collection of over 100 antique tools. Image:Wall house rear.JPG, The Wall House from the rear Image:Mile marker at wall house.JPG, A mile marker on the Wall House grounds Image:Beehive oven and pump at wall house.JPG, A
beehive oven A beehive oven is a type of oven in use since the Middle Ages in Europe. It gets its name from its domed shape, which resembles that of a skep, an old-fashioned type of beehive. Its apex of popularity occurred in the Americas and Europe all ...
and a water pump on the side porch of the Wall House


See also

*
List of the oldest buildings in Pennsylvania This article lists the oldest buildings in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States, including the oldest houses in the state and certain other extant structures. Some dates are approximate, based upon dendrochronology, architectural stud ...
*
List of the oldest buildings in the United States This article lists the oldest buildings in the United States and its territories. The list includes sites in current states and territories which were not part of the original Thirteen Colonies when the United States of America was founded in 1776 ...


References


Further reading

* Rothschild, Elaine W., ''A History of Cheltenham Township''. Pennsylvania: Cheltenham Township Historical Commission, 1976.


External links


Richard Wall House Museum
at CheltenhamTownship.org
Slideshow of The Richard Wall House
by Russell Heimlich {{Authority control Houses completed in 1682 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Museums in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Historic house museums in Pennsylvania Houses in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania state historical marker significations Elkins Park, Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania 1682 establishments in Pennsylvania