Mercer Museum | |
Location | 84 S. Pine St., Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°18′28″N75°7′38″W / 40.30778°N 75.12722°W |
Built | 1904 |
Architect | Dr. Henry Mercer |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
Part of | Fonthill, Mercer Museum, and Moravian Pottery and Tile Works (ID85002366) |
NRHP reference No. | 72001097 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | March 16, 1972 [1] |
Designated NHLDCP | February 4, 1985 [2] |
The Mercer Museum is a museum located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The Bucks County Historical Society operates the Mercer Museum, the Research Library, and Fonthill Castle, the former home of the museum's founder, archeologist Henry Chapman Mercer.
The museum was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, [1] and was later included in a National Historic Landmark District along with the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works and Fonthill. These three structures are the only poured-in-place concrete structures built by Mercer. [2]
Henry Mercer was a gentleman anthropologist. On a cruise up the Ruhr in early adulthood, Mercer was impressed by the eclipse of artisanal culture by industrial production, and resolved himself to preserving artifacts of preindustrial life.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mercer collected pre-industrial hand tools and other implements of the past. He believed that the story of human progress and accomplishments was told by the tools and objects that people used and saw these time-honored crafts slowly disappearing from memory.
Mercer personally designed plans for a museum to house his collection, six stories tall and cast of poured-in-place concrete. Mercer's museum was completed in 1916.
In addition to tools, it displays furnishings of early America, carriages, stove plates, a gallows, antique fire engines, a whaleboat, and the Lenape Stone. The Spruance Library, which houses the Bucks County Historical Society's archive of historical research materials, is located on its third floor.
In June 2011, construction was completed on a new, extensive visitors center at the front of the museum.
The museum is one of three poured-in-place concrete structures built by Mercer. The others include his home Fonthill and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, both of which are located one mile from the museum.
Mercer decided to build with concrete after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed his aunt's prized collection of medieval armor, which had been stored in wooden structures. He did not want his own collections to suffer the same fate.
Locals mocked his choice of building materials, but on completion of the museum, he lit a bonfire on its roof to prove that it was fireproof. [3] Mercer's museum was an early demonstration of rebar-reinforced concrete as a structural material.
Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English county of Buckinghamshire.
Doylestown is a borough and the county seat of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the borough population was 8,300.
Henry Chapman Mercer was an American archeologist, artifact collector, tile-maker, and designer of three distinctive poured concrete structures: Fonthill, his home; the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works; and the Mercer Museum.
Pewabic Pottery is a ceramic studio and school in Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1903, the studio is known for its iridescent glazes, some of which grace notable buildings such as the Shedd Aquarium and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The pottery continues in operation today, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.
Fonthill, also known as Fonthill Castle, was the home of the American archeologist and tile maker Henry Chapman Mercer, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works (MPTW) is a history museum which is located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It is owned by the County of Bucks, and operated by TileWorks of Bucks County, a 501c3 non-profit organization.
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Henry Chapman was an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district from 1857 to 1859.
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Mercer House, Mercer Hall, and variations, may refer to:
Cement City Historic District is a historic district in Donora, Pennsylvania. The district includes 80 Prairie School concrete residences built in 1916–17. The homes served as housing for employees of the American Steel and Wire Company. Poured-in-place concrete houses had become popular in large-scale housing developments at the time, partly thanks to promotion by Thomas Edison; the homes built in Donora used a newly patented construction method from the Lambie Concrete House Corporation. Building the houses required a combined 10,000 barrels of Portland cement.
The Doylestown Historic District is a national historic district located in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The district is composed of one thousand fifty-five contributing buildings in the central business district and surrounding residential areas of Doylestown, including a variety of residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings and notable examples of Late Victorian and Federal style architecture.
Fonthill, Mercer Museum and Moravian Pottery and Tile Works is a National Historic Landmark District located at Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It consists of three properties built by Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) in a distinctive application of the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, which are also notable for the early use of poured concrete: Fonthill, the Mercer Museum, and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. All three are now museum properties of the Bucks County Historical Society. The landmark designation for the group was made in 1985; each property is also individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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