Joseph Priestley House
The Joseph Priestley House was the American home of 18th-century British theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist. The Priestleys emigrated to the United States in 1794 seeking a peaceful life. The house, which was designed by Priestley’s wife Mary, is Georgian with Federalist accents. It was first carefully restored by the PHMC and designated a National Historic Landmark in the 1960s.
About Joseph Priestley House in brief
The Joseph Priestley House was the American home of 18th-century British theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist. Fleeing religious persecution and political turmoil in Britain, the Priestleys emigrated to the United States in 1794 seeking a peaceful life. The house, which was designed by Priestley’s wife Mary, is Georgian with Federalist accents. It was first carefully restored by the PHMC and designated a National Historic Landmark in the 1960s. The home has been a frequent place of celebration for the American Chemical Society; they commemorated the centennial and bicentennial of the discovery of oxygen gas by priestley. The Priestleys’ home, Joseph’s church, and many other religious Dissenters’ homes were burned at the beginning of the Samson’s War in 1791. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission operated it as a museum dedicated to Priestley from 1970 to August 2009, when it closed due to low visitation and budget cuts. The house reopened in October 2009, still owned by thePHMC but operated by the Friends of Joseph Priestleys House. The house and grounds occupy 1 acre at 472 Priestley Avenue. The confluence of the West Branch Susquehanna River with the main branch of the SusqueHanna is a short distance southwest of the property, which is at an elevation of 456 feet. The property’s original area was 2 acres, but this was reduced by about half around 1830 when the Pennsylvania Canal was dug through the house’s front yard, between the house and river.
On May 31, 1860, the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad opened with a train from Danville. This was the second railroad track in Northumberland, and ran behind the house. The modern railroad line approximates the canal’s course through the front yard; the track no longer exists. Beyond the railroad line is a baseball field, and beyond that lies the original southeastern boundary of theproperty. The property, purchased in 17 94 at a total cost of £500, comprised four lots of the original village plan. In 1794, when the Priestley moved there, it included Quaker and Wesleyan meeting houses, a brewery, two potteries, a potash manufacturer, a clock maker, a printer, several stores, and approximately one hundred houses. The village was laid out around a central village green in 1772, on land originally purchased from the Iroquois by the Province of Pennsylvania in 1768, as part of the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix. In 1784, the village was evacuated as part the Big Runaway in 1778, and only finally resettled in 1784. The current boundaries are Hanover Avenue to the northeast, Wallis Street to the southwest, and the North Shore Railroad to the southeast. In the 1990s, a second renovation was undertaken to return the home to the way it looked during Priestley’s time.
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This page is based on the article Joseph Priestley House published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
