The Birthplace of Edward Hicks - Langhorne, PA
N 40° 10.566 W 074° 55.206
18T E 506802 N 4447305
The blue plaque is attached to the brick wall of this historic house and contributing structure to the historic district. The building is located at an intersection and the plaque is on the W. Maple Side.
Waymark Code: WM8V83
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 05/15/2010
Views: 4
The plaque reads:
The Birthplace Of
EDWARD HICKS
1780 - 1849
Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom
- - - - -
Plaque Presented By
Historic Langhorne Association
1988
Langhorne, once known as Attleboro, has strong Quaker influences and foundations. The Hicks were important Quakers in this village during their time as well. Edward Hicks, son of Isaac, was an American folk painter, a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, and he also became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. He was very famous during his day.
Interesting contributing structure across from and next to NRHP sites. There have been several expansion over the last few hundred years. The single family home is now a huge "mall". I love this brick building. There is a couple of huge chimneys on the ends and two dormers on the right side.
Besides being known as the Gilbert Hicks house, this building is also known as the Isaac Hicks house and the Parry Building, as it was originally a much smaller single family dwelling which has since been enormously expanded to accommodate several businesses. One can assume the expansion was completed around 1912. The Langhorne Coffee House occupies the original portion of this structure.
William Parry lived in the Langhorne area all his life and worked with his father in a coal and lumber business at the foot of Langhorne Hill, near the train station. By 1901 he was well established in a prosperous fire insurance business and purchased the Hicks House from which he ran his business. He moved with his wife and two children into a new three-story stone house at Station and Prospect Avenues in Langhorne Manor. Parry constructed the first telephone line and organized the Langhorne trolley company. Before moving his insurance business into the Parry building, he remodeled it, adding a wing parallel to Bellevue Ave. and store windows facing Maple Avenue. This is the source of the 1912 dated stone.
SOURCE
The nomination form and contributing structure narratives were mailed to me by Christine Messing who works at the NR/NHL Archives in Washington, D.C. I have included an image below of the excerpt for this site.
Rather than copy and paste, I have included the link HERE provided by the Historic Langhorne Association which offers a complete and comprehensive history of the hotel.