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Butler Place (Philadelphia) was a suburban villa and working farm in the Branchtown section of North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From 1810 to 1916, it served as a country retreat for five generations of the Butler family, including actress Fanny Kemble and author Owen Wister. The buildings were demolished in 1925, and 500 rowhouses were built on the Butler Place property.

Fanny Kemble, Abolitionist, Memorial Park, at North 17th Street and West Olney Avenue, was part of the former farm.

Battle of Germantown
In 1731, Mathew Ingram purchased a 10 acre (4 hectare) farm at the northwest corner of York Road and Thorpe's Lane (now West Olney Avenue), and stretching west to Mill Creek. York Road was the major north-south route into Philadelphia, and the farm was located about 6.5 miles (10.5 k) north of the city. The Ingram farm (later part of Butler Place) was the site of a major skirmish in the American Revolutionary War.

The British Army captured Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, and occupied it until June 1778. Anticipating attacks by the Continental Army, General Sir William Howe stationed the bulk of his troops several miles outside the city, forming a cordon sanitaire, that stretched from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River. General Washington broke through the cordon in the October 4, 1777 Battle of Germantown, but was routed, and forced to retreat.

Part of the British cordon was a barricade built across York Road, just north of Thorpe's Lane. The barricade stretched from the Ingram farmhouse, on the west, to the Nedro farmhouse, on the east. British officers were quartered in the Nedro house, and Scottish troops on nearby farms within the cordon. On the morning of Germantown, American militiamen under General Adam Stephen were late to arrive at the Ingram farm. Instead of positioning themselves under cover of darkness, they arrived after dawn, but luckily a heavy fog obscured the enemy's view.

The British were positioned south of Thorpe's Lane, on what are now the campuses of the Widener Memorial School and La Salle University. The engagement was brief, and Stephen's militiamen, heavily outgunned, were repulsed. Joseph Megargee owned a farm north of Ingram's: "A great deal of fighting must have occurred in Joseph Megargee's field near Branchtown (probably with Stephens' division,) ascertained from the great number of leaden bullets found in his ten acre field, for years afterwards."

Boulanger
Frederick Boulanger was a French merchant who arrived in Philadelphia by 1780, to manage medical supplies for the French army. He remained in the city after the war, married a woman named Susanna P., and their four-month-old son Joseph was baptized at Old St. Joseph's Church on September 5, 1784.

Boulanger purchased a 107 acre (43.3 hectare) tract bounded by Thorpe's Lane (West Olney Avenue) to the south, the meandering Mill Creek and Branchtown Turnpike (now North 20th Street) to the west, Church Lane to the north, and York Road to the east. (North Broad Street, which traced much of the route of York Road, was not extended into the area until after the Civil War. ) Upstream on Mill Creek and just beyond the northwest corner of the property, was the Roberts' Mill, a grist mill erected in the 1680s. Along the south end was the Ingram farmhouse, where Boulanger and his family may have initially resided. He erected a suburban villa on the property in 1791.

"The grounds of Butler Place are undulating and picturesque. One of its most unique and attractive features is the beautiful avenue of broad-spreading maple trees, whose interlacing branches form a complete archway, casting a deep shade over the drive of several hundred yards from Thorp's Lane to the mansion. The Autumnal coloring of these trees surpasses anything in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and elicits the admiration of all whose eyes may rest upon it. A dell on the same lane through which courses a babbling stream, winding round the foot of a wooded hill, and finding its way, ultimately, into Thorp's dam is another attraction, which is much enhanced by being, in consequence of its cool, moist air, and perfect seclusion, the favorite haunt of the wood robin. Here its plaintive, melodious note ... is almost unceasing, even in the noon-day heats of mid-summer. An old Fashioned, walled garden, rare in this country, though usually attached to venerable country-houses of England, may also be found on the place, where figs, and other semi-tropical trees flourish, and mature their fruit in perfection, defended by the impenetrable barrier of stone from the frosts and icy blasts of stern winter. The unmistakable evidences of age, though not of decay, are observable everywhere. There is not a shadow of tinsel or tawriness to be found about Butler Place; dignified repose being its predominant characteristic."

The driveway ended in a circle before the main house, which faced west. The two-and-a-half-story house was built of stone covered with stucco, and featured a five-bay two-story porch across its façade. A Butler descendant later described it as "a rather unimpressive, middle-sized, owner's dwelling, but with splendid barns and outbuildings." The main house was located just north of what is now the intersection of 15th Street and West Grange Avenue.

Major Butler
Major Pierce Butler (1744–1822) purchased the property from Boulanger in 1810, and named it "Butler Place." Two years later, he purchased the 62 acre (25 hectare) York Farm, on the opposite side of York Road.

Major Butler had been an officier in the British Army when he came to Charleston, South Carolina in 1767. He married Mary Middleton, heiress to a slaveholding fortune, in 1771, and retired from the army. In 1773, he sold his military commission, investing the money in a 1,700 acre (688 hectare) cotton plantation on St. Simon's Island, Georgia. He took the American side in the Revolutionary War, serving as adjutant-general of the South Carolina militia. He was one of South Carolina's four delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, at which he ardently argued in defense of slavery. Following his wife's 1790 death, he purchased an 1,600 acre (647.5 hectare) island in the Altamaha River Delta, that he named Butler Island and developed into a rice plantation.

Philadelphia served as the temporary national capital, 1790-1800, while Washington, D.C. was under construction. Major Butler represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1789 to 1796, and returned to fill out an unexpired term, 1803-1804. He liked Philadelphia, and bought a large city house and garden at the northwest corner of 8th & Chestnut Streets in 1804.

Major Butler and Mary Middleton had eight children, four sons and four daughters, but three of their sons died young. Thomas Butler, the surviving son, was often estranged from his father, and Thomas and his French wife received only a modest sum in the Major's will. Only one of Major Butler's daughters, Sarah Butler Mease, had married and borne children. He made his Mease grandsons his heirs, with the provision that they legally change their surname to "Butler." At his death in 1822, Major Butler held "almost six hundred slaves," and left an estate valued at over $1,000,000.

Sarah Butler Mease
Major Butler's eldest daughter, Sarah (1772?-1831), married Dr. James Mease of Philadelphia in 1800. He was a physician, scientist, horticulturalist, and author, and published the first recipe for tomato ketchup. Major Butler doted on the couple's first child, Pierce Butler Mease, born 1801, and determined to make this grandson heir to his financial empire. When the boy died at age 9, Major Butler looked to the three younger brothers. The next-oldest son, Thomas, died a year after Major Butler, and before reaching age 21. The remaining two sons, John A. Mease (1806-1847) and the second-named Pierce Butler Mease (1810-1867), both changed their surnames to "Butler" in 1831, and each inherited half of their grandfather's fortune.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society described Butler Place in 1830: "Butler Place" is a beautiful place 6 miles from town, on the Old York Road. On viewing this estate, our attention was immediately drawn to the handsome hedges of Hornbeam and Prunus Canadensis. These hedges are trimmed periodically and kept in excellent order. The refreshing shade of the numerous walks, all swept as clean as a parlour floor, add to the charms of this place. Many of the walks are tastefully ornamented with orange, lemon, shaddock, neriums and other exotics; among which we observed a myrtle 10 years old, raised from seed. Here is likewise a lemon of the Saint Helena variety, raised from seed. The fruit grows large, of a high colour, and much warted. The greenhouse is 45 feet long, the framing ample for early vegetables and flowers. Nothing in these grounds pleased us more than the perfect order of the kitchen garden. It contains about two acres, and is indeed a picture of culinary horticulture. There are 4 walks in the length and 9 in the breadth; all interestingly at right angles, and making 24 divisions, besides borders; and these divisions are cropt with vegetables in the finest order; each division having its own crop (not intermixed as we see in most gardens) which is through every stage attended with the utmost regularity. The walks graveled and edged with box-wood neatly clipped; and all exhibiting a lovely specimen of art. A half acre of other ground is devoted to flowers and decorative shrubs. On the whole we can safely assert that there is not a finer kept or better regulated kitchen garden on this continent. Indeed it will bear comparison with European gardens of the highest cultivation, according to its size; and what is exceedingly gratifying, is, that its gardener [James Leddy] is a native American, and has superintended the place for 14 years, which shows at once capacity and constancy. We are glad to see those born among us, begin to relish the minute and orderly labor of the garden and pleasure grounds.

Sarah Butler Mease died at Butler Place in February 1831. Her widowed husband lived there until his death in 1845.

Pierce Mease Butler
Fanny Kemble received Butler Place as part of her divorce settlement: Your letter reached me at this place, the home of my very sad married life, and I am writing to you now in the room where my children were born&mdash;my room, as it is once more called. It is full twenty-six years since I last inhabited it. When my children ceased to be among the richest girls in America (which they once were), and we had to leave this place, to which we were extremely attached, to go and live in a Philadelphia boarding-house, this place was let for a term of years, to people who took no care of it, let it go completely out of order, and neglected even to keep the pleasure-grounds tidy or house in repair; and so it remained, getting more and more dilapidated and desolate, and passing through a succession of equally careless and dishonest hands until last April, when the lease of the last tenant who had taken it up expired. I have spent a very peaceful and happy week here in this my former purgatory, and leave it with infinite reluctance to-morrow, to start on a three month's tour of the West, reading as I run, as far as Niagara, the great lakes, and the Mississippi. I hope to be home again, that is, with my children, the last week of November, and to spend the winter and spring quietly in Philadelphia. &mdash; Fanny Kemble to Arthur Malkin, August 30, 1868.

Sarah Butler Wister
"The Wisters continued living at 5253 Main street [Germantown Avenue] until 1870, when they removed to Butler place, on the York Road."

Mrs. Sarah Butler Wister, a member of the South Carolina Historical Society, died at her home, Butler Place, Philadelphia, Pa., Tuesday morning, June 9, 1908. She was born in 1835, at Branchtown, Philadelphia, and was the daughter of Pierce Butler and Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble, the noted actress. She was married in 1859 to Dr. Owen Jones Wister. She translated Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Alfred de Musset (New York, 1872), and edited with Miss Agnes Irwin, Worthy Women of Our First Century (Philadelphia, 1877).

Owen Wister
Butler Place demolished by the Fern Rock Land Development Company, 1925. "We became an affluent family, owing to the million dollars from the sale of Butler Place, and so we owe our fortune to Fanny Kemble, who had demanded the mortgage from Pierce in the divorce settlement. And to Major Butler who bought it in 1810."

2017
 Modernist,

'''I wish you the best this holiday season.

May the new year bring you nearer to your dreams.

BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 23:40, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Mourning Victory
Mourning Victory is a bas relief sculpture by Daniel Chester French. The marble original (1906-1908) is the centerpiece of the Melvin Memorial, at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. The marble replica (1912-1915)&mdash;a mirror image of the original&mdash;was carved for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Melvin Memorial
The Melvin Memorial honors three brothers who died in the Civil War&mdash;Private Asa Heald Melvin (1834–1864), Private John Heald Melvin (1841–1863), and Private Samuel Melvin (1844–1864). The memorial was commissioned by the youngest and only surviving brother, Private James Crombie Melvin (1848–1915). All four were members of Company K, First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery.

James C. Melvin and Daniel Chester French met as young men, after French's parents moved their family to Concord in 1867. Thirty years later, Melvin, now a successful Boston businessman, commissioned French, now a prominent sculptor, to create a memorial to his late brothers. French was in charge of the project, and collaborated with architect Henry Bacon. Bacon and French would later collaborate on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Melvin Memorial is in the form of a rectangular exedra, with a central stele "about 20 feet high, on which is carved in sunken relief the figure of a Mourning Victory, of heroic size, the whole of Knoxville marble."

Other versions
A plaster example of Mourning Victory is in the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

French's Study for the Head of Mourning Victory has been reproduced in bronze and plaster.