President's House (Philadelphia)
President's House in Philadelphia was the third U.S. presidential mansion. New York City served as the first national capital under the U.S. Constitution, from April 1789 to August 1790, and
George Washington occupied a house on Cherry Street, then a house on Broadway. Washington occupied the Philadelphia President's House from November 27, 1790 to March 10, 1797; and John Adams occupied it from March 21, 1797 to May 30, 1800. John and Abigail Adams moved into the White House in November 1800.
The house was located on what is now Market Street, one block north of Independence Hall. It had been built by widow Mary Masters around 1767, who gave it as a wedding present to her daughter Mary, who married Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, Richard Penn. During the 1777–1778 British occupation of Philadelphia, the house was headquarters for General Sir William Howe, Commander of the British Army. The British abandoned the city in June 1778, and the house next became headquarters for the military governor of Philadelphia, American General Benedict Arnold.
Robert Morris, a financier of the Revolutionary War and a Founding Father, purchased the house following a January 1780 fire, and restored and expanded it. George Washington was his houseguest when in Philadelphia, and for the May-to-September 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention, which met at Independence Hall.
Philadelphia served as the temporary national capital from 1790 to 1800, while Washington, D.C. was under construction. Then U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Robert Morris gave up the house for use by President Washington, who insisted on paying rent. Morris also owned the house next door, to which he and his family moved.
In November 1790, Washington brought eight enslaved Africans from Mount Vernon to work in his presidential household: Moll, Oney Judge, Christoper Sheels, Austin, Giles, Paris, Hercules Posey, and Posey's son Richmond. A ninth enslaved African from Mount Vernon, "Postilion" Joe, joined the presidential household following Austin's December 20, 1794 death in Maryland.
The house also served as the executive mansion for the second U.S. president, John Adams. He spent most of his single term in Philadelphia, and moved into the not-yet-completed White House in Washington, D.C., on November 1, 1800. Later that month, Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams in the 1800 Presidential Election, although Jefferson was not inaugurated until March 1801.
In 1951, confusion over the exact location of the Philadelphia President's House led to its surviving walls being unknowingly demolished. Advocacy by historians and African American groups resulted in the 2010 commemoration of the site.
In 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order leading to the January 2026 removal of all exhibit panels at the site that commemorated the history of slavery in the United States.
History
The three-and-a-half-story brick mansion on the south side of Market Street was built in 1767 by widow Mary Lawrence Masters. In 1772, she gave it as a wedding gift to her elder daughter, Polly, who married Richard Penn, the lieutenant-governor of the colony and a grandson of William Penn. Richard Penn entertained delegates to the First Continental Congress, including George Washington, at the house. Penn was entrusted to deliver Congress' Olive Branch Petition to King George III in a last-ditch effort to avoid war between Great Britain and the colonies. Penn, his wife, and in-laws departed for England in July 1775.During the British occupation of Philadelphia from September 1777 to June 1778, the house was occupied by General Sir William Howe, who used it as the British Army's headquarters. Following the British evacuation, it housed the American military governor, Benedict Arnold. Arnold began a secret and treasonous correspondence with the British while living in the house. The next resident was John Holker, a purchasing agent for the French, who were American allies in the war. During Holker's residency, the house suffered a fire. Financier Robert Morris purchased the house from Richard Penn in 1781, although transfer of the deed was delayed because of the Revolutionary War.
Morris refurbished and expanded the house, and lived there while Superintendent of Finance. Washington lodged with Morris during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which he presided over at Independence Hall. In 1790, Philadelphia became the temporary national capital, and Morris gave up the house for Washington's use as the Executive Mansion. Morris moved to the house next door, that he also owned.
President Washington occupied the Philadelphia President's House from November 1790 to March 1797, and Washington's successor, President John Adams, occupied it from March 1797 to May 30, 1800. Adams then visited Washington, D.C., to oversee the transfer of the federal government and returned to his Peacefield home in Quincy, Massachusetts for the summer. He moved into the not yet completed White House on November 1, 1800, the first U.S. president to live there, and occupied it for just over four months. Thomas Jefferson won the 1800 presidential election, was inaugurated on March 4, 1801, and became the first U.S. president to occupy the White House for his entire presidential term. In the 1804 presidential election, Jefferson was reelected, and resided at the White House during his entire two terms, which lasted from 1801 to 1809.
Post-presidential
Following President Adams's 1800 departure, the house was converted into Francis's Union Hotel. Hardware merchant Nathaniel Burt purchased the property in 1832, and gutted the house, inserting three narrow stores between its exterior walls. He and his descendants owned these stores for just over a century.In 1861, merchant John Wanamaker opened his first clothing store, "Oak Hall," at 536 Market Street. He expanded into the stores at 532 and 534 Market, and eventually built up their height to six stories. The party wall between 530 and 532 Market was the four-story west wall of the President's House, and would have been incorporated into the expanded "Oak Hall." "Oak Hall" was demolished in 1936, leaving two stories of the party wall intact. The four-story east wall of the President's House was the party wall shared between 524 and 526 Market Street. This survived intact until 1951.
What was left of the Burt stores, along with the house's surviving walls, were demolished in 1951 for the creation of Independence Mall. A public toilet was built upon the house's footprint in 1954, later demolished, and replaced by a memorial site in 2010 after archeology studies. Advocacy by historians and African American groups resulted in the 2010 commemoration of the site. In 2026, the signs mentioning slavery were removed under the direction of the Executive Order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" during the second Trump administration.
President Washington in Philadelphia
The nation's first president, George Washington, along with First Lady Martha Washington and two of her grandchildren, "Wash" Custis and Nelly Custis, lived in President's House in Philadelphia. He had an initial household staff of about 24, eight of whom were enslaved Africans, plus an office staff of four or five, who also lived and worked there. The house was too small for the 30-plus occupants, so the President made additions:"...a large two-story bow to be added to south side of the main house making the rooms at the rear thirty-four feet in length, a long one-story servants' hall to be built on the east side of the kitchen ell, the bathtubs to be removed from the bath house's second floor and the bathingroom turned into the President's private office, additional servant rooms to be constructed, and an expansion of the stables."
Major actions as president
- Oversaw the establishment of the federal judiciary
- Oversaw the establishment, location and planning of the future District of Columbia.
- Quashed the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
Use of slave labor
Pennsylvania had begun a gradual abolition of slavery in 1780, freezing the number of slaves in the state and granting freedom to their future children. The law did not free anyone at once; its gradual abolition was to be accomplished over decades as the enslaved aged and died off. The law allowed slaveholders from other states to hold personal slaves in Pennsylvania for six months, but empowered those same enslaved to claim their freedom if held beyond that period.
Washington recognized that slavery was unpopular in Philadelphia, but argued that he remained a resident of Virginia and subject to its laws on slavery. He gradually replaced most of the President's House enslaved servants with German indentured servants, and rotated the others in and out of the state to prevent them from establishing an uninterrupted six-month residency. He was also careful that he himself never spent six continuous months in Pennsylvania. Joe was the only slave added to the presidential household. He was brought up from Virginia in 1795, following Austin's December 20, 1794, death in Maryland.