Caleb Pusey House
The Caleb Pusey House, built in 1683 near Chester Creek in Upland, Pennsylvania in the United States, is the oldest English-built house in Pennsylvania. It is the only remaining house that William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, is known to have visited. Caleb Pusey was a friend and business partner of Penn's. They came over together in 1682 along with prefabricated mills intended for grinding flour and cutting lumber. Pusey served as manager of the mills until his retirement in 1717.
Since about 1960, the building and grounds have been owned by the Friends of the Caleb Pusey House, Inc. The house was in very poor condition, but was restored and the property has since been operated as a historic house museum. Per The Friends of the Caleb Pusey House site and “A View From 1963” The Caleb Pusey Plantation in Upland, Pa. “ Townsend built the original part of the Pusey house, now known to be the left side, after his arrival on the Welcome with Penn in 1682.”
Caleb Pusey
Caleb Pusey was a Quaker last maker and a friend and business partner of William Penn, the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania. A native of the parish of Lambourn, England, Pusey came to Pennsylvania from England in 1682 with his wife, Anne Worley, and her two sons from her first marriage, Francis and Henry. They traveled with Penn on his ship The Welcome, and brought with them prefabricated grist and saw mills which they planned to erect in the province and Pusey was to be the manager. Many of the passengers were Quakers who were leaving to escape religious persecution. Anne's first husband died while in prison for refusal to attend the Church of England.The voyage of the Welcome was tragic; there was small pox aboard and 30 of the 100 passengers died. Pusey had 250 acres of land, sold and deeded to him by Penn, which he would use to cultivate crops, 100 acres of which was adjacent to Chester Creek, near the intended site for the mill. It was near the small Swedish settlement of Upland. Pusey's land was called the Landingford Plantation.
File:Caleb_Pusey_Land_Holme_1687_Map.jpg|upright=0.9|thumb|Pusey's land in Thomas Holme's 1687 map. Pusey's land is near center, adjacent to Chester Creek which empties into the Delaware River at the bottom. Note the usage of the long s in Pusey's name.
Pusey served in many official positions at various times. These include Chester County Sheriff, Pennsylvania assemblyman for Chester County, Chester County Tax Collector, and justice of the provincial supreme court. He was also involved with the local Quaker community, and wrote a number of pamphlets, several in defense of William Penn. Pusey retired in 1717, and the Pusey family moved to Marlborough Township, near present day Longwood Gardens, where he died in 1727.
The name Pusey actually refers to a village that was formerly part of Berkshire County, England. It became common practice, in Pusey's time and earlier, to use the place of family origin as a surname. Caleb's father and grandfather both wrote "alias Pusey" following their names when they signed their wills, indicating that they had adopted that name.
Caleb Pusey House
There was not much time between their arrival in 1682 and the onset of winter, and they were only able to complete the construction of a pit-house, which they used as a residence. The pit house was half below ground and half above ground, and was similar to ones built elsewhere in the area. It was common at that time to refer to such a dwelling as a "cave." Pusey's cave had a fireplace, a wooden floor, and one or two small windows. In 1683 the main above-ground house was built using native stone. It was attached to the pit-house, which then became the east wing of the house and came to be used as a workshop. The initial construction of the main house consisted of a single room which had a large attic or loft that was used for storage and sleeping and had a gable roof. There was a fireplace in the western wall which contained a large brick baking oven.At a later date, another room was constructed which shared that western wall, so that the chimney was then in the center of the house. The new room is known as the west room, the original above ground room is known as the east room, and the pit-house room is referred to as the east wing.
The west room encloses a well which was previously outside. It also contains a large iron basin called a stand-kettle on the back side of the east room's fireplace. The stand-kettle can be heated from below with a fire, so that it can be used for various purposes such as heating water and scalding poultry. There is a small access door on the front of the house to the space below the stand-kettle where the fire is set. The west room is similar in size to the east room and they initially shared a common roof. The west room did not have its own fireplace.
A couple of theories were put forth regarding time of construction of the west room. There are records from a Quaker friends meeting at the house in 1696, in which men and women were in two separate rooms, suggesting that the west room was in existence at that time. It's also been suggested that the west room construction was necessitated by the destruction of the east wing in a fire, which likely happened in or after 1723, when Pusey no longer lived there.
After Pusey left in 1717, the Landingford property was owned by a succession of people, including industrialist John Price Crozer. The house was privately owned and occupied until roughly 1950.
Around 1752, The roof of the east room was changed from a gable roof to a gambrel roof.
The purpose was to increase the usable attic space to accommodate more storage and sleeping space..
The change in roof style can be seen as a line in the brickwork on the east wall of the house. The chimney of the main house was destroyed in a fire. The date is unknown and it's not clear if this was a different fire than the one that destroyed the east wing. The chimney was rebuilt at the back of the house, rather than the center, and used by two corner fireplaces, one in each room. The house was divided at this time and used by two families. The attic regions were also separate and were accessed by separate spiral staircases. The baking oven was moved outside, as it was considered a fire hazard. The chimney and fireplace were later returned to their original forms and locations during restoration of the house in the 1960s.
The house can be found at 15 Race Street, Upland, Pennsylvania, and is one of the oldest houses in the state. Viewed from Race Street, which runs past the front of the house, the original east room is on the right and the west room is on the left. The partially below-ground east wing was not restored, but would have been found to the right of the east room.
Excavations
Between 1962 and 1970, archaeological excavations were conducted at the Caleb Pusey House. It was discovered early on that there used to be a cellar below the east room of the house which had been filled in and forgotten, probably in 1899.This was fortunate from an archaeological perspective because the fill that was used was from a refuse pile containing a vast trove of artifacts that had been discarded over a period of many years. It contained numerous coins, broken pottery and other items of interest. It is thought that this was done because the rear wall was being forced inwards from the force earth behind it and so by filling in the cellar the owners hoped to prevent this problem from getting worse over time. The cellar was completely excavated and is currently empty except for a sump pump.
It is accessed via a spiral staircase, the lower part of which is stone and original. The stairs are accessed through a door in the floor at the north east corner of the east room.
Another discovery was the buried remains of the cave just to the east of the east room. It extended significantly further in the front than the other rooms and was accessed by a separate entrance with a stairway of 5 or 6 steps going down to the floor which was below ground. In the foundation plan, the steps are in the alcove in the front wall of the east wing, and the fireplace was in the alcove at the right rear. After construction of the main house, this below-ground room came to be used as a workshop for various projects. It was eventually destroyed by a fire and its chimney also collapsed at that time. After this, the pit was filled in so that the remnants of the room were all completely buried and soon forgotten.
A coin minted in 1723 was found during the excavation, indicating that the fire likely occurred after that date. Caleb was no longer living there at that time. Also found were glass panes that were lined in lead. Since all lead was collected during the revolutionary war for making bullets, this would suggest that the destruction of the east wing occurred between 1723 and 1776. It has been suggested that the fire was caused by a small copper still, the remains of which were found beneath the collapsed chimney. Presumably either the still itself exploded due to a blockage or ethanol vapors were produced which filled the room and then exploded. If sufficiently violent, such an explosion could have been responsible for the chimney collapse and also the deformation of the eastern wall of the main house. It was decided not to restore the cave, but instead to mark the outline with a low stone wall. The enclosed space has sometimes been used as a garden.
A filled in well was found inside the west room. The fill was carefully removed and the well restored. A newly minted coin from 1699 was found at the bottom, possibly dropped or thrown in by William Penn who returned from England in that year and visited with Pusey in December.
A cooling cellar was discovered in front of the west end of the house. It had been abandoned and filled in, probably sometime during the 1700s. It's labeled "west wing" on the foundation plan.
Artifacts were found from the entire time period that the house was occupied, although a large proportion were from 1752 to 1786. Artifacts include portions of dolls, doll dishes, various lead toys, hand made dominoes, marbles, ceramic material, earthenware, coins, pewter items, brass items, silver items, iron pulley wheel from the well, milk pan, pots, pitchers, knives, and a very large number of pipe stem and bowl fragments.