New Yorker who had served his country well in the Continental
Army and filled several civil commissions after the conclusion of peace
with England. He it was who rented the house to Washington for a short
period in the early winter of 1793 and again for six weeks in the
following summer because of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.
Here met the President's cabinet--Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox and
Randolph--to discuss the President's message to Congress and the
difficulties with England, France and Spain. Aside from Mount Vernon, it
is the only dwelling now standing in which Washington lived for any
considerable time.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.--Doorway, 224 South Eighth Street; Doorway,
Stenton.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.--Doorway and Ironwork, Southeast Corner of
Eighth and Spruce Streets]

In 1804 the property was purchased by Elliston and John Perot, two
Frenchmen who conducted a prosperous mercantile business in
Philadelphia. On the death of the former in 1834, the place was
purchased by his son-in-law, Samuel B. Morris, of the shipping firm of
Waln and Morris, in whose family it has since remained. The interiors
remain as in Washington's time, and much of the furniture, silver and
china used by him are still preserved, together with his letter thanking
Captain Samuel Morris for the valuable services of the First City Troop
during the Revolution.

Although not erected until a few years after the treaty of peace
following the Revolution, Vernon is so thoroughly Colonial in
architecture and of such merit as to warrant mention here. It stands in
extensive grounds on the west side of Germantown Avenue, Germantown,
above Chelton Avenue. The main house is a hip-roofed structure two and a
half stories in height of rubble masonry, the front being plastered and
lined off to simulate dressed stone and the other walls being pebble
dashed. A wing in the rear connects the main house with a semi-detached
gable-roof structure in which were located the kitchen and servants'
rooms. The principal features of the symmetrical facade with its ranging
twelve-paned windows, shuttered on the lower story, are the central
pediment with exquisite fanlight between flanking chimneys and
handsomely detailed dormers, and a splendid doorway alluded to later in
these pages. A fine-scale denticulated molding in the cornice, repeated
elsewhere in the exterior wood trim, lends an air of exceptional
richness and refinement.

Vernon was