Historic Quaker Houses in Bucks County, PA
The Burroughs Homestead
A Pennsylvania Additive House:
This stone farmhouse has telescoping additions and is a beautiful example of a Pennsylvania additive house. Successive generations added additional rooms to the original central block. Image source: Lee J. Stoltzfus
Above: John and Lydia (Baker) Burroughs built the first form of this farmhouse. Their descendants enlarged the house to meet the needs of their extended families. Image source: Lee J. Stoltzfus. Floorplan: National Register of Historic Places, Jeffrey Marshall, Lillie D. Zierau.
An Additive Bucks County Farmhouse
Painted by Daniel Garber in 1937:
Above: Daniel Garber painted this anonymous farmhouse near Kintnersville, Bucks County, ca. 1937. The house’s multiple sections suggest a classic Pennsylvania farmhouse of additive design. Image source: Christie’s.
Another Additive Farmhouse
The Bucks County Bye Homestead:
Additive stone farmhouses are historic houses that telescope outward as successive family generations enlarge the home. These distinctive forms survive throughout Southeast Pennsylvania.
At Byecroft, above, the Bye family enlarged their farmhouse for more than 200 years. Historian / artist Arthur E. Bye restored his ancestral farmhouse, here, beginning in the 1930s.
John and Lydia Burrough
In Arthur Bye’s History of Local Families:
Above: Historian Arthur Edwin Bye explained the history of the Quaker families who lived in this house in his 1959 book A Friendly Heritage along the Delaware. He researched and wrote this book while living nearby at Byecroft. Text image source: Internet Archive
The Burroughs House
National Register of Historic Places:
This 1983 photo of the Burroughs farmhouse is by architecture historian Jeffrey Marshall who co-authored the property’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. Image source: National Register of Historic Places.
1930s: Farmhouse Restored by Frank Jewett Mather
A Princeton University Art Historian:
Above: Dr. Mather retired to the Burroughs Homestead in the 1930s. He was a highly respected advocate for the New Hope art colony, centered nearby at Phillips Mill, New Hope. Image source: Dr. Mather portrait: American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum, Internet Archive. New York Times article: TimesMachine
Bucks County has a long and colorful history of attracting East Coast artists and writers to the region’s impressionistic landscapes. The New Hope art colony was an internationally acclaimed hub for this creative community. Picturesque Quaker farmhouses have been both muse and home for these creative residents of Bucks County.
In the 1930s art historian Frank Jewett Mather Jr. purchased the Burroughs Homestead and restored it for his home in his retirement, with his wife Ellen Mather. Professor Mather had an illustrious career at Princeton University as head of the art department and director of the art museum. He was one of the leading American art historians and critics of his era.
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