Joseph Priestley House

Abstract

On a hillside in Northumberland, a white Federal-style mansion with symmetrical wings perches a quarter mile above the Susquehanna River. Crowned with a diamond-patterned balustrade on its slate roof, the house boasts a commanding view of the river's north branch. Before the canal and the railroad cut across the expansive lawn, travelers arriving at the riverfront reached the house by following a semicircular carriage drive that echoed the arched fanlight above the pedimented entrance. Sparsely ornamented with a frieze board of triglyphs and a Palladian window centered on the second story of the façade fronting the street, the five-bay residence was the eighteenth-century American version of an English gentleman's country house. In this case, the English gentleman was the famous—some would say notorious—Joseph Priestley: pioneering chemist, political philosopher, and dissenting theologian.
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