I. INTRODUCTION

II. MAJOR HISTORIC THEMES FOR STENTON

III. INTERPRETIVE PHILOSOPHY

IV. SITE INTERPRETATION

V. RECOMMENDATIONS

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

VII. 18TH-CENTURY IMAGES

PROJECT TEAM

REPORTS

• Create a well-developed interpretive plan that ties history of the site to major historical themes and common human experiences. Interpretive theme incorporates core values of organization's mission statement.
  
• Provide interpreters with training that is updated regularly to include recent site research
  
• Use visitor evaluations to improve current interpretation and develop future programs
• Expand public access and audience input regarding its interpretation and presentation

With these goals in mind, the project team (consultants, Stenton staff, and volunteers) embarked on an intensive review of existing interpretive material in order to enhance what visitors learn about the site. This included determining those overarching themes that offer the best framework for telling "the story of Stenton"in a way that emphasizes the unique strengths of the site's history and physical survival and that challenges the public. The project has focused on those stories that could be addressed at Stenton more effectively than at other historic sites in the Philadelphia region.

Four major historic themes developed from meetings, discussions, consultant essays, and staff research. The themes focus the interpretation on the most important and/or most salient ideas that Stenton as an historic house museum can address in the context of the Philadelphia region and Colonial and Early National American history.

1) The Stenton network: A Center of Colonial Power

Stenton, the country house of James Logan (1674-1751), was at the center of a complex web of relationships – with Great Britain, with the backcountry, with Native Americans, with Quakers, with commercial interests in Pennsylvania, with servants, and with eminent figures of science and philosophy. Completed by 1730, Stenton was a private house that functioned in a very public way. The house was a conscious expression of James Logan's high economic, social and political position in Colonial Pennsylvania and American society. The building served as a center of political and diplomatic negotiations, scientific inquiry, intellectual debate and discourse, and economic trade and commerce. While living at Stenton, James Logan served as President of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, one of the most important posts in Pennsylvania, and regularly corresponded with the Penn family in England about political issues in North America. He participated actively in the culture of the Atlantic World, exchanging goods in the 18th-century version of the global trade network, and ideas with some of the great minds of Enlightenment Europe. With the Pennsylvania frontier (the Susquehanna River) less than one hundred miles distant, Stenton was a convenient and important threshold between what 18th –century European settlers would have thought of as the "savage" back country and "civilized" city of Philadelphia. On at least two occasions large groups of Native Americans stayed at Stenton where Logan hosted them. The very architecture of Stenton and its situation in the landscape at the juncture of two major 18th-century roads and five miles from Philadelphia contributes to this sense of the house as a crossroads of people and ideas and as a gateway both to Philadelphia and the interior of Pennsylvania. Stenton can be "read" as a house designed for significant occasions – diplomatic negotiations, grand entertaining, social and intellectual conversation, and the service functions that support such gatherings of people. As such, politeness and civility were important concepts that defined Stenton for the Logans.

2) James Logan: The Central Figure in Stenton's History

James Logan dominated the political, scientific, commercial and intellectual landscape of Colonial Pennsylvania in the first half of the 18th century, and his house was a physical expression of that power, wealth and influence. Logan was raised a member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and this network of relationships remained important to him throughout his life. Quakers have been noted for their simplicity of lifestyle and their commitment to non-violence. Logan, however, did not always reflect what we most often think of as Quaker beliefs, displaying a marked taste for fine furnishings, intellectual discourse, and the cut and thrust of politics, including defensive war. As the Penn family’s agent, he represented the business interests of the Proprietors of Pennsylvania, and served in various official positions: Provincial Councilor, Clerk of the Council, Secretary of the Province, a Commissioner of Property, Receiver-General, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and finally - as President of the Council - acting Governor. At Stenton, surrounded by his magnificent library, he welcomed and mentored visitors such as Benjamin Franklin and John Bartram. He was a self-made man in many respects, representing one early – although sometimes manipulative and unsightly - version of the "American Dream." His story remains the central and most compelling among a range of stories about real people at Stenton.

Later generations of the Logan family sought to live up to and preserve his reputation. His son William, although active in public affairs, never achieved the same heights of influence or importance. His grandson George, and George's wife Deborah Norris, succeeded in returning Stenton to some of the "glory" of its early days. Although later generations of the Logan family are an important part of the story of Stenton, James Logan, who purchased the land and built the house as a physical statement of his personal power, remains the strong central figure that defines this historic property.

3) The Logan "Plantation": A Diverse Community

Although James Logan called Stenton his "plantation" it was different from common visitor ideas about southern plantations. It was in close proximity to a major city, and served as much as a retirement estate as a source of agricultural income. By "plantation" Logan meant a large working colonial estate, which indicated a multi-layered community comprising the Logan family, slaves, indentured and hired servants, and tenant farmers. The Stenton landscape set the stage for this community, offering a backdrop for the human interaction that comprised the life of its inhabitants. Stenton, as a 500-acre property, was a focus for agriculture and scientific experimentation, as well as the home to various families. The plantation was a diverse community. The Logans, not unusually for Quakers in the first half of the 18th century, owned enslaved Africans, whose stories are central components of Stenton's history. As an example, Dinah, the slave famous in family accounts for having saved Stenton, has a much richer story to tell, one that intertwines religious attitudes, family and enslavement. Documentary research has shown that the Logans also relied on the labor of both hired and indentured servants. Other servants were temporary like Barbara, who came from the Norris family plantation, Fairhill. Travelers, like William Black of Virginia or Hannah Logan's suitor, John Smith, visited the household. Over time, life changed at Stenton, the plantation became a gentleman’s farm, but the community remained strong. People lived and died here; they ate, worked, prayed and played. They had children, and several generations grew to adulthood on the plantation. The Logans were closely bound to their Quaker beliefs and community, with women playing an important role in the life of the plantation. Stenton can tell the story not only of the public face of the Logans but also their of private pursuits, offering multiple perspectives on what life was like as part of a Quaker plantation community.

 Women at Stenton played important roles in saving and making history as well as forming identity. According to family legend, Dinah, a freed slave, literally spared the mansion from being burned by the British during the American Revolution. Dinah also went to great lengths to keep her family intact despite the conditions of slavery. Deborah Logan became a well-known literary figure and historian, especially in her circle of women writers in and around Philadelphia in the late 18th century. Her remarkable diaries offer many insights into life at Stenton. In them she detailed her painstaking preservation of the house, right down to her care for panes of glass that had been etched with "graffiti" by members of the Logan family. Deborah also preserved and made history by transcribing James Logan's papers and sharing her experiences and stories about Stenton with Philadelphia historian John Fanning Watson. Deborah's diary tells us how moved she was in 1776, hearing Charles Thomson’s reading of the Declaration of Independence and of her feelings on the day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. Deborah also connected to the past by furnishing Stenton with old furniture or heirlooms from her own family as well as those from the Logans. She even went so far as to dress a bed in the old-fashioned style of 1731 (Barbara Jones, Deborah Logan, p. 36)

Deborah and others who lived through the Revolution began to celebrate their American identity by documenting the events of their time and glorifying the past. As a larger and later 19th-century design movement, the Colonial Revival swept America by storm in the post-Centennial (1876) era. The Colonial Revival manifested itself in myriad ways, one of which was the founding of patriotic societies like The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1891. Architecturally, interest in the Colonial Revival spurred the restoration of Colonial buildings as well as the building of new structures that visually connected with Colonial architecture. The primary way that The NSCDA/PA works to meet its objectives "to collect and preserve manuscripts, traditions and artifacts of the Colonial period; to preserve and restore buildings with the early history of our country," is through the Society’s work at Stenton. The NSCDA/PA followed Deborah Logan in taking on Stenton as a preservation project, recognizing its importance as the former home of William Penn's distinguished Secretary. As Americans, we continue to look to the past to understand ourselves. By visiting sites like Stenton, we connect with each other and learn about where we have been as a society and culture.

 

Stenton will rely on a material culture approach, treating its buildings, landscape, furnishings and archeological collections as objects that can tell us a great deal about the experiences of people, and the Logan family in particular, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The objects are evidence of how life was lived at Stenton. Guided tours will be object focused, linking objects with the broader themes outlined in this Interpretive Plan. This interpretive methodology will be supported by the extensive documentation that exists related to Stenton and the Logans. The exceptionally well-preserved nature of the site, particularly the mansion, is key to the visitor experience. At the same time, the urban setting presents challenges in conveying the context of a 500-acre estate. Still, visitors are impressed by the authenticity of the site, and this helps to develop a sense of connection with the past. This authenticity "makes abstract ideas concrete, the past immediate, human and visceral." (Herman).

© 2007, Stenton