Stenton

Philadelphia (Germantown)
PA

Stenton in Germantown

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Erected 1723 - 30 by James Logan, secretary to William Penn, Stenton is a finely preserved Georgian home and may be the most important piece of architecture in Philadelphia from the early 18th century. General Sir William Howe used it as his headquarters during the Battle of Germantown (1777). George Washington stayed there six weeks earlier (23-Aug-1777) prior to the Battle of Brandywine. Originally sitting on 511 acres with extensive gardens, the property is now 3 acres, with gardens still surrounding the house and an elegant but simple interior.
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Mocking idleness and turning labor [in the North] into a badge of honor made the South, with its leisured aristocracy supported by slavery, seem even more anomalous than it had been at the time of the Revolution, thus aggravating the growing sectional split in the country. Many Southern aristocrats began emphasizing their cavalier status in contrast to the money-grubbing northern Yankees. They were fond of saying that they were real gentlemen, a rare thing in America.

Gordon S. Wood
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)