American Material Culture Commons^™

Three Centuries On The South Campus, James A. Butler

Local History Essays

(Reprinted from La Salle: A Quarterly La Salle University Magazine, Fall 1998)

The story of the south campus begins, as any settlement of a new country must, with the land itself. Early in the eighteenth century, the horseback rider exploring his 500-acre "plantation" acutely felt what we in our cars scarcely notice: La Salle’s property, approached from the south, rises as a formidable hill. And the rider observed, as we no longer can, two pristine and swift-moving creeks--one following the line of present-day Belfield Avenue and the other that of Ogontz Avenue.

Charles Willson Peale At Belfield: "Your Garden Must Be A Museum", Kateryna A. Rudnytzky

Local History Essays

Famous colonial portrait painter Charles Willson Peale ("second only to Benjamin Franklin as Philadelphia’s 18^th century Renaissance man") lived at Belfield Mansion—still standing—from 1810 until 1821. Belfield Mansion, partly dating from 1708, is one of the oldest university buildings in use in the country.

Home Where "The Mansion" Was, James A. Butler

Local History Essays

(Reprinted from La Salle: A Quarterly La Salle University Magazine, Spring 1994)

The Wister Family owned four homes on the Belfield estate. Two buildings survive: "Belfield"--or "Peale House"--itself, and the "Mary and Frances Wister Fine Arts Studio" (built by the William Rotch Wisters in 1868). The William Rotch Wisters' stunning second house, "Wister," was built in 1876 on the side of Clarkson Avenue opposite from the Arts Studio; "Wister" was donated to Fairmount Park in 1949 and demolished in 1956.

The Remarkable Wisters At Belfield, James A. Butler

Local History Essays

Reprinted from La Salle: A Quarterly La Salle University Magazine, Spring 1994

The history of the nineteenth-century Wisters at "Belfield" encompasses three adjoining properties--and begins (perhaps appropriately for a future university campus) with a teenager who defied her father.