Harriton House, Bryn Mawr, PA - Philatelic Photographs on Waymarking.com

This house was built in 1704 by Welsh emigrant Rowland Ellis on a large tract of land west of Philadelphia. He had purchased the land directly from William Penn in the late seventeenth century and named the estate “Bryn Mawr” after his former estate in Wales. When Ellis could no longer maintain the estate, it was sold to a Maryland tobacco farmer by the name of Richard Harrison who renamed it “Harriton,” the name by which it is known to this day.

The most famous resident of Harriton House was patriot and founding father, Charles Thomson. Thomson is credited with designing the Great Seal of the United States (both sides) but, more importantly, he was secretary for the Continental Congress throughout its entire existence. This means that he was there for the first meeting of the Continental Congress at Carpenter’s Hall in 1774, the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, through all the drama of the Revolutionary War, the signing of the Articles of Confederation right up through the Constitutional Convention (though not as a delegate) and its subsequent ratification.

Charles Thomson, perhaps more than anyone, was intimate with all the goings on surrounding the formation of the new nation. He also knew all the personalities involved together with their strengths and weaknesses. You’d think that a man in his position could have written quite a book about these events, but Charles Thomson opted not to do so. According to Benjamin Rush, when Thomson was approached about writing a history of what he had witnessed, he refused, because he didn’t want to “contradict all the histories of the great events of the revolution, and shew by my account of men, motives and measures, that we are wholly indebted to the agency of Providence for its successful issue.”

Charles Thomson retired from public service at the same time George Washington was elected President of the new United States. He devoted the rest of his life to agricultural research, beekeeping and translating the Greek Septuagint bible into English. He maintained a correspondence with Thomas Jefferson throughout his remaining years in which he made the uncanny prediction that the slavery issue would lead to bloodshed if not resolved by religion, philosophy or reason.

The image on the postal card is from an 1828 watercolor by William L. Breton who painted many scenes of buildings and houses in and around the Philadelphia area at that time.

The name Bryn Mawr made a come back toward the end of the nineteenth century. When the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the rail line that ran west out of Philadelphia in 1857, they renamed some of the stations along the route. One of these small towns, colloquially known as Humphreyville, was renamed Bryn Mawr because it was near the original estate owned by Rowland Ellis. Harriton House lies outside the boundary of present-day Bryn Mawr, PA but its address is still listed as Bryn Mawr because it’s in the same ZIP code.

Stamp Issuing Country: United States Date of Issue: 10-Jun-2004 Denomination: 23c Color: multicolored Stamp Type: Single Stamp Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]

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