The Twaddell farm once stretched from about 43rd Street to 53rd; Baltimore Avenue to Market Street; but now, the ghost of the once-proud Twaddell mansion lies somewhere on the north side of Baltimore Avenue between 45th and 46th street – perhaps where Melville Street is today – and its neighborhood story is long forgotten.
The memory disappeared disheartningly quickly. In April 1893, when the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on “How a Beautiful Suburb Has Grown Up In a Few Years” around 49th Street in West Philadelphia, it also casually mentioned the area’s vanishing history: “Standing on an eminence some fifty feet back from Forty-sixth street and Baltimore avenue is one of the few interesting remaining landmarks of this locality. It is the picturesque and historic old house of Dr. L.H. Twaddell.” Sadly, nobody seemed anxious to save it.
The newspaper noted its historical significance several times over the next two decades as the neighborhood continued to develop around it. The core of the building — with thirty-inch thick solid masonry walls, and floors “supported by hewn beams, held together by huge wooden pegs” — was said to date back to 1644,“almost 40 years before William Penn settled on the present site of Philadelphia.” The Twaddell family claimed to have a document in which Swedish merchant, Peter Jonason, deeded that house to his son John Jonason in 1761.
In 1796, the sturdy little cottage was purchased by a wealthy Frenchman, John de la Roche, fleeing the French Revolution. He kept the original structure, but connected it to a large addition, which he designed “after a celebrated chateau in France.” The Inquirer reported that, at that time,
“… the house was surrounded by a 43-acre tract which occupied the north side of Baltimore Avenue between Forty-third and Fifty-third streets. The French refugee improved the property with a large addition to the house and for the remaining seven years of the eighteenth century it became a meeting place for political refugees from France… He called his house “La Place” and he bestowed such care upon the surrounding grounds that it soon became one of the show places of the vicinity. Rose trees imported from France were planted artistically about the house, and one bush which continues to grow near the old dwelling today is declared to be one of the original ones planted. The present owners declare that there must be thousands of rose bushes in and about Philadelphia which owe their origins to the original importation which was brought to this country by the Frenchman more than 125 years ago.
Constructed before the American Revolution and improved by a refugee from the French Revolution, the house still had another role to play in history. The paper continued:
“For the past 120 years or more the house has been in the possession of the Twaddell family, which for more than a century, has been prominent in this city. During the Civil War, the building was turned over to the Satterlee Hospital for wounded soldiers by Dr. L. Henry Twaddell, the owner at the time. The ground became a resting place for convalescent soldiers…”
Almost the entire Satterlee Hospital was, in fact, on Twaddell land, and when the description was written in the 1890s, there were those in the neighborhood who could still “remember hearing the heavy army vans and supply wagons as they rolled along the hard macadamized pike during the war times” and “only recently, a party of G.A.R. veterans visited the place, who had enjoyed its hospitality during the days of the rebellion.”
What happened to the estate in the end?
Frank H. Taylor described the last days of a beautiful mansion and an idyllic country lifestyle:
“Its appearance has always seemed to me more Virginian than any other about the city, and the idea has been enforced by the frequent appearance of its owner, often with his daughter, both excellent riders, upon mettlesome horses, coming down the private lane.. But an April 1893 article notes that “civilization has crowded so fast, that Dr. Twaddell, who has lived in quiet for a generation the life of a country gentleman, looking after his fine cattle and rare breeds of dogs, finds he must give up his property to the home seekers, who have used all the available property in the neighborhood but his. This must now go also.”
Dr. Twaddell, age 64, offered his land for development that year, and in 1894, he sold several parcels on 47th Street.
In January 1895, the pace of change accelerated when the Electric Traction Company established a trolley car route on Baltimore Avenue. Easy quick transportation made the area attractive to commuters — and to builders. For those who already lived in the neighborhood, The Inquirer reported that “at first the horses, which have known this old street for years as an old country road, were altogether unable to understand the new power…” The trolley cars sped along at a heady speed of about thirty miles per hour, and pedestrians and animals had to get used to the new traffic: Dr. Twaddell’s twenty-four-year-old son Horace was saddened, that March, when his dachshund was killed by a trolley.
August of that year brought another change to the farm, when the Inquirer noted that Dr. Twaddell,
“is mourning the loss of two Jersey cows which died Sunday night. They were the last of the herd he established on his estate in 1856, when it was a farm…Dr. Twaddell imported Europa and Peerless in 1846 and increased the head largely in a few years by importation and breeding. Many of the finest cattle in the country come from this herd. The Twaddell “farm” is now cut up into building lots, and Dr. Twaddell will not replace the cows he has just lost and which he has kept as a matter of pride. He was once president of the Jersey Cattle Breeders’ Association of America.”
The age of farming was ending in this region. In November 1895, under the heading “Great Improvements Made in A Beautiful Part of West Philadelphia,” the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Horace Twaddell, the Doctor’s son, with modern ideas, had started to develop a piece of the family property at 46th and Cedar:
“Where a portion of the old Twaddell homestead lands extended, fronting on Cedar Street, which branches off just at the intersection of Forty-Sixth street and Baltimore avenue, six unique dwellings have been erected by H.G. Twaddell. Red brick and buff brick; hipped roofs and peaked roofs; pebble-dashed gables and porches are cleverly interspersed, giving a picturesque effect, which is added to by the two rows of trees which line the sidewalk and border the lawns in front…The houses contain all the latest improvements and it is evident they are thoroughly up to date when it is known that a bicycle closet is included in the reception hall…”
“Bicycle” was a “trendy buzz word” at the time: the 1880s invention of the “Safety Bicycle” with equal-sized tires, followed shortly by the introduction of rubber wheels, created a safe and fun pastime, enthusiastically embraced by multitudes. American Heritage Magazine notes that during the brief years of the “craze,” in the 1890s, “a large part of the advertising in leading magazines had to do with bicycles and accessories…. Wide-ranging repercussions included the shortening of women’s skirts, and popular support for road improvements. Horace was right in embracing its advertising potential: his first venture was a success, and in 1896, at the other end of the block, he “outlined eight fine dwellings which will shortly be started, and will be of the same high-class as those he built last year.”
When old Dr. L. Henry Twaddell died, his two unmarried daughters remained on the quickly shrinking estate. At that time, Frank H. Taylor reported that “Already a part of the farm has been covered with buildings, including the site of the studio long occupied by Harry Poore, the well-known painter of animal life, which was removed only last year. Miss Twaddell still has the studio in the field behind the house. This will doubtless soon go.”
Times continued to change, the neighborhood continued to develop, and on October 3, 1921, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that “yesterday, the present occupants, Miss Mollie and Miss Nellie Twaddell, descendants of a family which lived in it for more than one hundred years, made preparations to leave….They will take up their residence with their brother, H.G. (Horace) Twaddell of Westtown…’ The original 1644 part of the Twaddell house “was built to withstand possible attack by hostile Indians, and it is expected to resist, with some degree of success, the attack of the workmen’s picks, when the come to level it for the ground.” The paper reported that “after the house is torn down, the eight acre plot which still surrounds it will be divided into building lots and sold.”
Today, the remains of its foundations lie buried beneath the newer houses we now treasure as historic.
Street of History Philadelphia 