Woodford Celebrates the Bicentennial

“All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate I give for furnishing, equipping and maintaining a house as an illustration of household gear during Colonial years (which) shall be open for public inspection on certain specified days.”

So wrote Miss Naomi Wood in 1925. The Bicentennial year of 1976 was also the fiftieth anniversary of that of her death. In those five decades the permanent house museum she envisioned grew constantly in stature until it was seen by thousands last summer.

Miss Wood was a world traveler and an avid collector. From her trips she brought to her large home in Paoli­ – twenty miles west of Philadelphia – a profusion and variety of objects which had sparked her interest. Not only were these of the English heritage; they included French and Spanish furnishings, manuscript and printed volumes, special collections of snuff boxes, jewels and glass, and even medallic (east) Indian religious pilgrim badges from earlier centuries worked in silver.

But when the time arrived for final arrangements disposing of all her treasures, it was the enormous change in the way of life in her United States which she wished to have future generations witness-and with the witnessing, realize that our privileges and responsibilities in government under law had nurtured, not merely permitted, the kinds of lives visitors to her collection were enabled to enjoy and could reasonably anticipate would continue for their children’s children. Here, then, was the kernel of her planning for a house displaying to the public “an illustration of household gear in Colonial years.”

Miss Wood’s companion of many foreign pilgrimages, Daniel T. V. Huntoon, shared her enthusiasm. In an unusual, perhaps unique, plan, she provided that a trust com­pany should function in perpetuity as her corporate trustee, but that the collection should be managed by an individual trustee – each such individual to have the right to appoint his successor in office by his will. It was but natural that Mr. Huntoon was named as her first such individual trustee.

Although she specified that a substantial sum should be devoted to acquiring a home for her collection in Philadelphia, the trustees, after a careful search, determined that nothing suitable for the purpose lay at hand in the city itself. They suggested to the Fairmount Park Commission that one of the already famous “Colonial Chain” of Park mansion houses be devoted to fulfillment of her purpose, and they offered to restore it. The houses lay ready at hand and were both structurally sound and little changed from their early period of everyday use. With the erection of the Fairmount Dam in 1818 the Schuylkill River had been backed up to form a placid stream whose quiet backwaters bred malarial mosquitos. Unaware of the cause of numerous deaths by “river fever” among those living at the time in the mansion houses or “country seats” scattered along the river, the owners and tenants knew only that this was no place for them any longer. The homes had been abandoned and boarded up, escaping in this way the fever for modernization which swept the Victorians.

One such mansion – and a true mansion it is – lay on the Ridge Ro.ad within today’s Fairmount Park, four miles from the city. Its fortune after disuse was to serve as the home of the Superintendent of Fairmount Park, and later, as the site of the court at which offenders against Park rules – such as speeding by automobile more than seven miles per hour – ­appeared and were fined. Its extremely fine 1756 drawing room overmantle boarded over, Woodford survived a new usage in its long history as a home of distinction and later a more or less public building. It was finally Park Headquarters.

Miss Wood’s trustees selected Woodford as providing a house of the quality and period best fitting the display of her collection. It included much from the William and Mary and Chippendale periods, for the display of which the architecture and interior finish of the house is especially adapted.

Woodford has been continuously occupied under agreement with the Park Commissioners dated July 20, 1927. “Woodford Guard House” no more, the sign to that effect on the front of the oldest part of the mansion, near the “Tuscan” doors nine feet high and under the formal and splendid Palladian window, was removed. In 1930 Woodford was reopened as the home of the Naomi Wood Collection of Colonial household gear.

A wise provision in Naomi Wood’s will was that directing her trustees to upgrade the Collection as opportunity might afford. The first response to this instruction came when Mr. Huntoon added his own collection, by his will, to become a part of that of Miss Wood. In his tenure sales of inappropriate and inferior items took place, the proceeds being used for new acquisitions. Huntoon was followed as individual trustee by John Penn Brock Sinkler, former City Architect of Philadelphia who had restored Woodford to its original aspect. Through the years have come new antique furnishings important, even basic to the display, and choice examples of the decorative arts so important to a homelike atmosphere. Woodford is completely furnished. Its original paint colors grace the walls and fine woodwork. Its fabrics have been entirely renewed since 1959 by the third and current trustee with replacement of the dark plums and drab browns by golds, blues, greens and apricots. He has also as­sembled an important collection of polychrome and blue­-and-white English Delftware which lends cheer and a slight informality to the house. For the Bicentennial, the city re­stored Woodford’s tenant house (one of the original com­plex of three buildings, the third being a stable). set the compound off by a new white fencing surround, and re­stored its captain’s walk, as shown in an old oil painting of the property, to its original Chippendale design. Both the structure and the Collection were in the best condition ever to greet the 1976 summer visitors.

In late spring 1976, with the introduction of the Fairmount Park Trolley Buses (a bus with the chassis of an old trolley) running from center city every half hour to the Art Museum, the Zoo and the mansions in the Park, we at Woodford had a chance to feel the pulse of a cross-section of our country.

Many visitors to Philadelphia in the Bicentennial year were doing more than looking at externals. Temporarily immersed there in the old way of life, they were reexamining the American approach to particular questions important from their individual experience, trying to find workable answers. From all parts of the country came men and women fed up with standing by while a few tried to turn the American Dream into a nightmare. Those who came east to Philadelphia liked what they found here and enjoyed our curiosity about their home states. One woman who drove across the continent from Oregon couldn’t get over “how many wonderful people” she met. And the Birthday Party encouraged Americans to talk with each other and compare notes – with good humor, even as part of a crowd. Some of the trolley-buses drew up to Woodford with people hanging on the straps. The house wasn’t air-conditioned. It was easy to spot southerners, even before they said a word. They didn’t wilt with heat!

Come behind the ropes, guide with us and meet the ’76ers as they come by.

Each morning at ten, the high entrance doors of this brick country house in East Fairmount Park swung open.

WELCOME TO WOODFORD – AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. LEAVE YOUR RIDING CROP BY THE DOOR AND WASH THE HORSE FROM YOUR HANDS IN THAT PORCELAIN BOWL ON THE MAHOGANY BASIN STAND. THERE’S ROSE WATER IN THE JUG BELOW AND POWDER FOR YOUR WIG. A FRESH FACE PATCH AND YOU’RE READY FOR A WORLD OF CANDLELIGHT AND FIREPLACE HEAT.

Usually they look back at the guide for an instant before they enter into the game of changing centuries, some with a sheepish smile. One man from Maine responded immediately. “Don’t worry about the floors. I’ll carry my spurs.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CROSSED THAT THRES-HOLD MANY TIMES. WILLIAM COLEMAN, WHO BUILT WOODFORD, WAS HIS INTIMATE FRIEND.

“Franklin walked through that door? That’s one guy I’d like to have met.”

“That’s like being in the middle of history. Nothing like this back home.” The guest book revealed Wyoming.

“Did they really have Venetian blinds like I see here?” The answer was affirmative.

A Minnesota woman and her son were visiting her married daughter, “We were in the old city yesterday. You know, Franklin had a way of making ideas easy to understand. We’ve got to get back to clear wording,” she told us. “We ought to begin with tax forms! It’s ridiculous to have to pay someone to fill out a tax form because you’re not sure what it means. Our town is small. We can talk to our mayor. That’s communication!”

Americans are a good-natured lot. They’re patient with restless young ones who say, “Gee, look at that!” “Look at it with your eyes,” a parent cautions. “Don’t touch.”

One Alabama woman enjoyed the wrong turn an early trolley-bus took to the Schuylkill expressway. “I’d never have seen Manayunk otherwise,” she told us. “It’s as beautiful as any Italian hill town.”

The more a guide knows, the less compulsion she has to “tell all.” Capsuled ideas let the visitor appreciate the treasures before him in the atmosphere his forbears lived in so long ago – and recapture something of the breathing men and women who, like him, struggled with their world as they found it.

Men and women alike were intrigued with REBECCA FRANKS. Woodford’s eighteen year-old TORY BELLE. They smiled at Becky. writing to a friend the week after the British left our city, “I’M AFRAID THE BEAUX HAVE QUITE DESERTED THIS ROAD. I HAN’T SEEN A BEAU SINCE THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY – WHERE CAN THE WRETCHES KEEP?”

In training our guides, we strove for excellence, to be prepared for knowledgeable visitors. to offer more than one language. But the visitors who really “put it to the guides” were those with no knowledge at all. They came to see the sights armed with a healthy curiosity. “Where was the john in those days? When did it move inside?” “Where did they take a bath?” “Could everybody vote?” “Did our ances­tors wash clothes?” “Did that long-handled clay pipe give a good draw?” “What did a girl wear under a hoop skirt?” “What did colonists drink? How much?” “Were there conscientious objectors to the Revolution?” “What did they use as rain gear?” Don’t sell Americans short. The strength of our country may be her melting pot but the common denominator is vitality, curiosity and enthusiasm.

MANY OF THE WORKERS WHO MADE TH IS FURNI­TURE FLED PERSECUTION IN EUROPE. IN THE NEW WORLD, THEY FOUND NOT ONLY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM – BUT THEY FOUND THEMSELVES FREE TO BE SOMEONE IN THEIR OWN RIGHT.

“That’s true today,” a Californian affirmed. “I came as a boy of seven and my brother and I have a company that grew out of the small business Dad started.”

“There aren’t many places you can come with nothing – not even the language, and make it today.”

“The men who made this furniture brought skill with them in their hands and their heads,” a master carpenter announced. He had a field day identifying different woods and explaining why they were used.

EUROPEANS FIRST BROUGHT BACK CHINA AS BALLAST IN SMALL SHIPS THEY SAILED TO THE ORIENT FOR SPICES, TEA AND SILK. BY WOOD­FORD’S TIME, SEA CAPTAINS WOULD PICK UP FINISHED PORCELAIN THEY HAD ORDERED ON AN EARLIER VOYAGE. FORTUNES WERE MADE FROM THE TRADE BY YOUNG MEN.

“I see. Men tough enough to forge this country put their minds on things beyond themselves and were willing to take a chance.”

“It’s exciting to stand in a room with these old plates. It makes history real.”

One man said slowly, “This house has stood over two hundred years.”

THE OWNERS OF WOODFORD KEPT CARRIAGES TO RIDE THE FOUR MILES TO TOWN. THE ORIGINAL STABLE STANDS IN BACK. A CENSUS SHOWED SIXTY-EIGHT CARRIAGE OWNERS OUT OF A POPULATION OF TWENTY THOUSAND.

“That was pretty high society,” observed an appreciative Texan. He looked around with interest. “Where did they get ice for that wine cooler?” “From the river, didn’t they?” a woman suggested. “I remember those low stone ice houses with sawdust when I was a child.” As we left the dining room, the Texan said with pride, “We have a mahogany knife box a lot like that one. My grandmother brought it with her.”

MOST FOOD WAS COOKED IN THREE-LEGGED IRON POTS OVER LITTLE FIRES BUILT OUT ON THE HEARTH. MEAT TURNED ON THE SPIT WITH A LARGE PAN BELOW TO CATCH DRIPPINGS. SUGAR NIPPERS WERE USED TO BREAK THE LARGE HARD CONES OF ISLAND SUGAR.

Visitors often stopped to inspect different kitchen ob­jects. “Remember, Mother had a scoop like that?”

“This beat-up pottery colander has the same star design our metal one has.”

There was another reaction: “Our ancestors had a hard life but they were free – freer than we are now. There wasn’t so much violence.”

The guide usually pointed out the ever-present rifle and powder horn, the cuff or muff pistol. THE FRONTIER WAS ONLY A HARD HORSEBACK RIDE AWAY FROM MANSIONS ALONG THE COAST. EVEN AS COLO­NISTS, WE WERE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, WITH IN­TERESTS WORLDS APART. OF COURSE, PENN’S FAIR DEALINGS AVOIDED INDIAN TROUBLE HERE.

“There were scalpings where we come from in western New York,” one man reported. “I’ve often thought being scalped could be worse than the atom bomb.” It was interesting to watch how his thought was received. One nervous chuckle, then a thin woman smiled as she agreed. “I sup­pose it would. It’s more personal.”

An Ohio couple’s questions asked about our city, then and now, made it clear how involved they were with their own. Active disciples of COMMON CAUSE, they seemed to have made an art of continual learning. Their interests extended to silver, ceramics, furniture and prints. Others, though, went through the great old house on a dead run, courting mental indigestion from assimilating too much too fast. Guides sensed: “That’s one more thing I’ve seen!” as they pulled back the heavy iron bolt to let them out the door.

One of the rare celebrities to visit us, Katherine Hep­burn, brought a friend early in the year. She’d been to Woodford before and asked to see specific things. Just to see and hear her, made the guide’s day!

Occasionally, visitors lingered to compare colonial life with ours today. Any reference to Watergate prompted the guide’s reminder that BENEDICT ARNOLD, WHO OWNED MOUNT PLEASANT DOWN THE ROAD, CREATED SUCH A SCANDAL WHEN HE TURNED TRAITOR THAT HE WAS BURNED IN EFFIGY IN PHILADELPHIA. YET THERE’S A STATUE TO HIS LEG, WOUNDED FOR THE AMERICAN CAUSE, AT SARATOGA.

“Benedict Arnold’s leg! I don’t believe it!”

“If he hadn’t been such a ladies’ man, perhaps he wouldn’t have rated that,” suggested one practical girl from Kansas.

Our visitor with the most questions had three alert women with him. What he didn’t inquire about, they did. When they signed the guest book, he thanked us and explained, “My wife is mayor of our town in Arizona. We needed some changes and she thinks she can bring them in. She’s here with the state women’s clubs convention. Yesterday she became state president. There was so much she wanted to see in Philadelphia, she made a list. But she’s swamped with meetings so we’re covering the ground for her and telling her about it.” The three women purchased postcards while he took pictures outside. “Isn’t he wonderful?” one demanded. Another added, “She couldn’t do it without him!”

Today’s Americans on the move, like our G.I.s or Alice-in-Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, left a smile behind them – and a sense of their determination that our “Bi-Cen” should result in some changes in their scene. The realists are work­ing in their own back yards.

Our forebears had faith in their own abilities and a firm belief that a man who told truth as he saw it and stood up and was counted, could change his world. It worked two hundred years ago. The frequent remark “People believed in ideals then” was well answered by another visitor from Mississippi who said simply, “A lot of us still do.”

Naomi Wood’s mandate fifty years ago was to recreate the spirit of early America by displaying at Woodford a top­notch collection of “household gear during Colonial years.” Her collection stirred positive chords in Bicentennial visitors working for a better America.

June Avery Snyder is a free lance writer who has published articles and poetry in national magazines. She has administered Woodford Mansion for some years.

Martin P. Snyder is a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. He is Trustee of The Naomi Wood Collection and Woodford Mansion, a member of the Board of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and author of City of Independence, published by Praeger and winner of the distinguished Athenaeum Award for the best book of 1975 by a Philadelphia author.

Both June and Martin Snyder have served on many public service boards. He is a former member of the Valley Forge Park Commission.