Historic Shrines of America

Paul Revere's house, Faneuil Hall, the Craigie House where Longfellow wrote, a hundred more — an American pilgrimage told building by building, when many of these places were still fighting to survive.

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Sweetbrier-On-The-Schuylkill, Philadelphia

THE HOME OF THE FATHER OF THE FREE SCHOOLS OF PENNSYLVANIA When Samuel Breck was fifty-eight years and six months old-on January 17, 1830-he wrote: "My residence has been ... for more than thirty years... on an estate belonging to me, situated on the right bank of the Schuylkill, in the township of Blockley, county of Philadelphia, and two miles from the western part of the city. The mansion on this estate I built in 1797. It is a fine stone house, rough cast, fifty-three feet long, thirty-eight broad, and three stories high, having out-buildings of every kind suitable for elegance and comfort. The prospect consists of the river, animated by its great trade, carried on in boats of about thirty tons, drawn by horses; of a beautiful sloping lawn, terminating at that river, now nearly four hundred yards wide opposite the portico; of side-screen woods; of gardens, green-house, etc. Sweetbrier is the name of my villa."

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