Arts and Humanities 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.