Isaac Meason House | |
Location | U.S. Route 119 North in Mount Braddock, Dunbar Township, Pennsylvania |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°57′14″N79°38′53″W / 39.95389°N 79.64806°W |
Area | 4 acres (1.6 ha) |
Built | 1802 |
Architect | Isaac Meason; Adam Wilson |
Architectural style | Georgian |
NRHP reference No. | 71000707 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | January 25, 1971 [1] |
Designated NHL | June 21, 1990 [2] |
Designated PHMC | November 22, 1946 [3] |
The Isaac Meason House, also known as Mount Braddock, is a historic house located in Dunbar Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Completed in 1802, it is one of only two surviving Palladian style stone mansions from the period in the United States. Isaac Meason, for whom it was built, was an American Revolutionary War hero and early political power broker in the area, becoming the richest person in Fayette County due to his interest in iron furnaces and possession of enslaved people. [4] [5] The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990 for its architecture. [2] [6]
The Isaac Meason House stands outside the hamlet of Mount Braddock, roughly midway between Connellsville and Uniontown at the southern end of Cellurale Drive off United States Route 119. It is prominently sited at the top of a local hill, with a circular stone wall with a gate at its center providing access to its front yard. It is a 2+1⁄2-story structure built out of locally quarried sandstone with an ashlar finish, and is built following a classical Palladian villa pattern. It has a central main block, flanked symmetrically by narrow hyphens connecting to single-story wings. Small outbuildings are then symmetrically placed beyond the outer wings, with the main driveway passing through the northern gap. The central bays of the center block on both the front and rear elevations are topped by a gabled pediment. [6]
Little is known about Isaac Meason, beyond his origins in Virginia and his success in the Pennsylvania iron industry; he established an iron foundry in Uniontown in 1791, believed to be the first commercially successful operation in the region. This house was built for him by Adam Wilson, a builder about whom little is also known, but is believed to have been brought to the United States from Scotland by Meason. It took about five years to build, and was completed in 1802. While there are a number of formal Palladian-style mansion houses built in the Federal period that survive, most only have a five-part plan, lacking the outbuildings, or have outbuildings built of wood if the main house is masonry. This house is, along with "Mount Airy" in Warsaw, Virginia, one of two that have the full suite of seven elements executed entirely in stone. [6]
The house remained in the Meason family until 1887. [6]
The National Road was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the 620-mile (1,000 km) road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was a main transport path to the West for thousands of settlers. When improved in the 1830s, it became the second U.S. road surfaced with the macadam process pioneered by Scotsman John Loudon McAdam.
Fayette County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in southwestern Pennsylvania, adjacent to Maryland and West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 128,804. Its county seat is Uniontown. The county was created on September 26, 1783, from part of Westmoreland County and named after the Marquis de Lafayette. The county is part of the Southwest Pennsylvania region of the state.
Dunbar Township is a township in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 6,671 at the 2020 census, a decline from the figure of 7,126 tabulated in 2010.
North Union Township is a township in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 11,829 at the 2020 census, a decline from the figure of 12,728 tabulated in 2010. The Laurel Highlands School District serves the township.
Uniontown is the largest city in and the county seat of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, 46 miles (74 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The population was 9,984 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.
Fort Necessity National Battlefield is a National Battlefield in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, which preserves the site of the Battle of Fort Necessity. The battle, which took place on July 3, 1754, was an early battle of the French and Indian War, and resulted in the surrender of British colonial forces under Colonel George Washington, to the French and Indians, under Louis Coulon de Villiers.
Drayton Hall is an 18th-century plantation house located on the Ashley River about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston, west of the Ashley in the Lowcountry. An example of Palladian architecture in North America and the only plantation house on the Ashley River to survive intact through both the Revolutionary and Civil wars, it is a National Historic Landmark.
Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed designer while William Buckland (architect) was the builder/architect. Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River. Mount Airy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark as well as on the Virginia Landmarks Register and is still privately owned by Tayloe's descendants.
Kentuck Knob, also known as the Hagan House, is a house designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in rural Stewart Township near the village of Chalk Hill, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, US, 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000 for the quality of its architecture.
U.S. Route 40 enters Pennsylvania at West Alexander. It closely parallels Interstate 70 (I-70) from West Virginia until it reaches Washington, where it follows Jefferson Avenue and Maiden Street. In Washington, US 40 passes to the south of Washington & Jefferson College. Following Maiden Street out of town, the road turns southeast toward the town of California. A short limited access highway in California and West Brownsville provides an approach to the Lane Bane Bridge across the Monongahela River. From here, the road continues southeast to Uniontown.
The Searights Tollhouse of the National Road is a historic toll house on United States Route 40, the former route of the historic National Road, north of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Built in 1835, it is one of two surviving tollhouses built by the state of Pennsylvania to collect tolls along the portion of the road that passed through that state. It has been restored by the state and is now maintained by the local historical society. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
Mount Clare, also known as Mount Clare Mansion and generally known today as the Mount Clare Museum House, is the oldest Colonial-era structure in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The Georgian style of architecture plantation house exhibits a somewhat altered five-part plan. It was built on a Carroll family plantation beginning in 1763 by barrister Charles Carroll the Barrister, (1723–1783), a descendant of the last Gaelic Lords of Éile in Ireland and a distant relative of the much better-known Charles Carroll of Carrollton, (1737–1832), longest living signer of the Declaration of Independence and the richest man in America in his later years, also the layer of the First Stone of the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, just a short distance away in 1828.
Mount Hope Estate is a National Register of Historic Places-listed property in Rapho and Penn Townships, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The original estate was the center of operations of the Grubb Family Iron Dynasty during the 19th century and included over 2,500 acres (1,000 ha), a charcoal iron furnace, a grist mill, housing for employees and tenants, plus supporting structures such as a post office, a general store, a railroad station, a school and a church. The existing mansion and grounds remain from what was once a thriving industrial headquarters complex and small village.
Fort Gaddis is the oldest known building in Fayette County, Pennsylvania and the second oldest log cabin in Western Pennsylvania. It is located 300 yards (270 m) east of old U.S. Route 119, near the Route 857 intersection in South Union Township, Pennsylvania. Fort Gaddis was built about 1769-74 by Colonel Thomas Gaddis who was in charge of the defense of the region, and his home was probably designated as a site for community meetings and shelter in times of emergency, hence the term "Fort Gaddis," probably a 19th-century appellation. It is a 1 1/2-story, 1-room log structure measuring 26 feet long and 20 feet wide.
Hill's Tavern is a historic building in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania. It was heavily damaged by a fire that started shortly before midnight on August 17, 2015. For a period in the early 1900s, the inn was known as Central Hotel. Now called the Century Inn, it has been claimed to have been the oldest tavern in continuous use on the National Road, until the fire brought an end to its 221 years of continuous operation.
The Alliance Furnace, also known as Jacob's Creek Furnace and the Alliance Iron Works, is an historic iron furnace, which is located in Perry Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
John S. Douglas House, also known as Gates Funeral Home and Crematory LLC, is a historic home located at Uniontown, Pennsylvania Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1901, and is a large 2+1⁄2-story, brick dwelling with a two-story rear wing added in 1967. The house is in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with Chateauesque elements. It is five-bays wide and has a wraparound porch and porte cochere. The front facade features rounded arched windows with wide cut stone arches. Also on the property is a contributing carriage house.
Adam Clarke Nutt Mansion is a historic mansion located at Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1882, and is a large three-story, irregularly shaped brick dwelling in the Queen Anne style. A front porch and porte cochere were added sometime before 1912. It has a truncated hipped roof, four tall chimneys, and a centered tower section. The property includes a contributing fieldstone wall and a non-contributing two-story carriage house with a mansard roof in the Second Empire style.
Jacob's Creek Bridge was the first iron-chain suspension bridge built in the United States. Designed by James Finley, a local judge and inventor, it spanned Jacob's Creek, just south of Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Nothing of the bridge is thought to remain, but an area on the north side of Jacob's Creek – where Route 819 crosses – is still called "Iron Bridge."
The Reading Furnace Historic District is a national historic district that is located in Warwick Township and East Nantmeal Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
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(help) and Accompanying 10 photos, exterior and interior, from 1989. (3.00 MB)