This document provides a guide to Stenton mansion, highlighting several rooms and features: 1) The entry hall has a brick-paved floor and double doors, and may have been used for storage and gatherings. 2) The office has simple finishes, globes representing Logan's interests, and shutters with light holes. 3) The back dining room was multi-purpose, hosting both family and servants, and had furnishings like tables and pewter. 4) The grand staircase rises along three walls to the third floor and former cupola observatory.

1. STENTONGUIDEBOOK
PRESERVED BY
The National Society
of The Colonial Dames of America
in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
since 1899
A Visitor’s Guide
to the Site, History, and Collections
STENTONSTENTONSTENTON

2. 1 0 S T E N T O N G U I D E B O O K 1 1
Opposite page: A vaulted cold and beverage cellar below
supports the herringbone brick paving in the Stenton Entry.
The entry is Stenton’s public reception space with double
doors controlling all movement in and out of the room. The
only truly arched doors frame a view of the double-wide
stair. The pendant drops with carved hearts may be a quiet
allusion to the Logan family coat of arms and is a common
decorative motif that appears on Philadelphia case furni-
ture of the c.1730-1750 period. Entry photo by Geoffrey Gross.
Pendant drop detail by Will Brown.
Above: Stenton Ground Floor Plan,
adapted from Historic American
Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.
Ground Floor Plan
Back Dining Room
First Floor
Lodging Room
Office
Entry
Parlor
1693 James Logan replaced his father as Master of Friar Meetinghouse School in Bristol, England
ENTRY
The brick-paved hall functioned variously as a waiting room, a gathering room,
and a storage room for tables and chairs that might be moved to adjacent par-
lors as visiting company warranted. A vaulted cellar below supports the herring-
bone brick paving. The Entry is Stenton’s most public space with double doors
controlling all movement in and out of the room. A pair of arched doors frames
a view of the double-wide staircase.
Logan Family Coat of Arms
probably drawn by Deborah
Norris Logan, c.1815, pasted
inside the cover of her Re-
cords of the Logan and Norris
Families Commonplace Book.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State
Archives, Harrisburg; Manuscript
Group 247, Algernon Sydney Logan
and Robert Restalrig Logan Papers.
1699 James Logan traveled to Pennsylvania with William Penn to serve as Secretary of the Province

3. 1 6 S T E N T O N G U I D E B O O K 1 7
Above: This slip-decorated redware bowl or pan excavated in 1982 represents Stenton’s only
artifact associated with Native Americans. Likely Philadelphia made, the bowl depicts Sa Ga Qua
Pieth Tow, an Iroquois Mohawk, one of four “Indian Kings” who traveled to London to pledge
allegiance to Queen Anne in 1710. As a provincial councilor, James Logan likely owned a set of
prints issued of the Four Indian Kings based on paintings by Verelst. Perhaps the pan played a
ceremonial role in Logan’s meetings with Natives at Stenton in 1738 and 1742 prior to Treaty
negotiations in Philadelphia. Bowl photo by Gavin Ashworth; print courtesy of Winterthur Museum.
Left: The folding screen door, the simple panelled fireplace wall, and light-hole shutters define
James Logan’s office.
OFFICE
This smaller front room is less finely finished than the front parlor, with plas-
ter walls above the chair rail, simple raised paneling on the fireplace wall, and
surface nails in the floor. Called the office since the late 1960s, this space is the
least well documented, as it represents a room missing from the Logan invento-
ries. The Logans furnished secondary rooms with older imported English cane
chairs, while the leather bottom chairs in the hall and entry were the most fash-
ionable Queen Anne form. The pair of 18th-century globes represents those
known to have been owned by Logan, highlighting his scientific interests. Note
the light holes in the shutters, which emitted enough light to prevent a servant
stumbling into the room to open it in the morning. The extra cut at the middle
of the left shutter is unique to this room and allowed for greater light control in
this bright southeastern exposure.
England; “The Four Indian Kings” Iroquois traveled to England from Boston 1714 James Logan married Sarah Read

4. 1 8 S T E N T O N G U I D E B O O K 1 91 81 81 88881 881 888811 S T ES T ES T ES T E N T ON T ON T ON T OTT N GN GN GN GGN U I DU I DU I DU I DDD E B OE B OE B OE B OB OB OB O O KO KO KO KKO KO KO KKK
Top: The Back Dining Room fireplace wall,
c.1890 with horse-riding paraphernalia hung on nails.
Above left: English pewter platter engraved with the cipher ‘SL’ for Sarah Logan. In 1752, the
Pewter Press in the Back Dining Room contained 60 pewter plates. The use of pewter indicated
the lower status of the Back Dining Room compared to the “China” listed in the Parlour. The
remarkable quantity of pewter tells us that Stenton was equipped to host large gatherings.
Above right: The flat rather than raised paneling, the lack of cornice molding on three walls of
the room, the grooved mantle shelf, and the proximity to the cellar bulkhead, the kitchen and the
service stair (through the paired narrow doors), reflect the work-a-day nature of the Back Dining
Room. There is no evidence of a crane or trammel, either of which was required for heavy hearth
cooking. This indicates that the fireplace was likely a warming hearth, with a curious grill inside the
left cheek of the fireplace and mystery vents in the flue at the back.
BACK DINING ROOM
The furnishings in Stenton’s Back Dining Room reflected the multi-purpose
nature of the space, typical for rooms in this period: tables, chairs, desk, daybed
or “couch,” pewter press, tea table, corner cupboard, and armchair. Servants
and family mixed in this back realm of the house, which the Logans used for ev-
eryday dining. James Logan might have relaxed on the couch while dictating to
his clerk or plantation manager at the desk. House servants may have polished
the brass candlesticks in preparation for evening hours, while Sarah Logan and
the cook consulted on food stores and meal plans.
Stenton’s original kitchen stood beyond a shed or roofed open structure attached
to the back door from this room. Heavy cooking would have been completed
in the kitchen, with warming and serving preparations completed in the Back
Dining Room.
The furnishings in the Back Dining Room closely follow the
items listed on James Logan’s 1752 inventory. The door in the
corner originally opened onto a shed or small porch where
servants could sit on benches to be called into the house or
kitchen beyond.
Logan family hanging corner
cupboard, Philadelphia or
region, c.1730. Gift of
Mr. Charles Satterthwaite, Jr. and
Dr. Arnold Satterthwaite
1714, 1717, & 1720 James Logan purchased land for his plantation 1720 James Logan purchased

5. 2 2 S T E N T O N G U I D E B O O K 2 3
MAIN STAIR
Stenton’s primary stair is a luxurious devotion of space to circulation. Its broad
width continues the public, double-wide thresholds of the entry. The low risers
and deep treads ease the climb to the second floor. The notable symmetry of the
square-headed doors at the second floor landing disguises a hierarchy. The true
pair of doors to the right opens to the best chamber, the Yellow Lodging Room,
while the left opening to the Blue Lodging Room is a single door paired with a
false panel, making it a more private passage.
Above: The second floor landing, where the
pair of doors at right aligns with the stair and
continues the double-wide path of procession
from the entry and front room on the ground
floor.
Right: Looking down through the center of
the staircase from the third floor landing.
Opposite page: The beautiful and grand
staircase wraps along three wainscotted walls
all the way to the third floor and led to the
lost cupola used as an observatory. Photo by
Geoffrey Gross.
Mingoe, Diana and Ben 1722-1723 James Logan served as Mayor of Philadelphia

6. 2 8 S T E N T O N G U I D E B O O K 2 9
Above: Beds with their accompanying “furniture” or textile
hangings were status objects in the 18th-century. All the
chambers on the second floor at Stenton feature hooks in
the ceilings for supporting the tester or frame to which bed
curtains were attached. The bed chambers were all named
for the colors of their texile hangings. Photo by Laura Keim.
Left: Commode or Necessary Chair, Philadelphia, c.1740-
60. Such a comfortable arm chair fitted with a chamber pot
in the seat concealed behind the deeply scalloped apron was
a comfort in the night. Gift of Deborah Paul and Sally Smith in
memory of Christopher Greene Lutman. Photo by Will Brown.
Right: The original blue-and-white Delft Biblical tiles
surrounding the fireplace in the Yellow Lodging Room
are laid closely with little mortar between them. This tile
depicts the story of
Christ on the Road to
Emmaus and comes
from the Biblical book
of Luke, verses 13-27.
Photo by Jeff Story.
1730 Stenton built; Logan, his wife and four children, Sarah, William, Hannah and James, moved to Stenton
2 99
BLUE LODGING ROOM
Until 1751, Stenton’s Blue Lodging Room chiefly housed James Logan’s nearly
3000-volume library and served as a second-best bedchamber. As presented to-
day, the assembly of furniture represents life for the third generation of the fam-
ily. James Logan’s grandson, Dr. George Logan (1753-1821), and his wife Debo-
rah Norris Logan (1761-1839) resided at Stenton after their 1781 marriage. The
couple lived with a combination of newer Chippendale-style furniture and in-
herited pieces such as a high chest and stools of the 1750s. In Deborah Logan’s
Above: Franklin Stove installed in Office by
George and Deborah Logan. Photo by Will Brown.
Left: The blue “furniture check” double festoon
curtains are reproductions of original linen and
cotton indigo-dyed panels that survive in Sten-
ton’s collection. The diary of an 18th-century
Polish visitor reported that the Logans hung
these curtains in their parlour. The detail of an
original panel at left shows the tiny gathers at the
tops which created fullness in the drapery. Photo
by Carol Spacht.