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Through its educational programs – designed for all ages – and its research library, the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion serves a wide constituency, encouraging historic preservation and the study of Victorian culture, architecture, and design during the time of the American Industrial Revolution.<div> </div>

The Case of the Cursed Doll - A walking murder mystery

Upstairs Downstairs - 
An award-winning, docent-led tour focusing on Victorian women

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What's Happening at the Mansion?
Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion hosts a variety of Workshops, Docent Led Tours and Live Victorian Theatre Events. 

The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion is Philadelphia's only authentically-restored Victorian house museum and garden.

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

Matt Johnson's _Loving Day_ is set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. It is about a bi-racial protagonist working to raise a teenage daughter whom he left behind when he was a teen himself. It deals with issues of racial identity that have been part of Philadelphia's landscape, white flight and gentrification, and segregation. A central part of the novel's plot surrounds a decaying mansion along Germantown Avenue that Johnson inherits when his father dies.

The Concord School sits on a corner of the Upper Burying Ground of Germantown, which was established at the beginning of the settlement in 1693. The construction of the stone schoolhouse, originally one story, took place under the supervision of a group of residents, one of whom was Jacob Knor, the builder of Germantown Academy, between March and October 1775. The second story and the bell tower were added to the building around 1818. The first minute book of the school, in use from the school’s early decades through the early twentieth century, is held by The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. According to these minutes, inhabitants of upper Germantown (122 subscribers) collected funds to build the schoolhouse because of “the Distance and particular Inconveniance [sic] through the Winter Seasons of sending their Children to the Lower School and Seeing the number of Children Continually Increasing . . . .” Concord was established as an English-only school, although this probably suggests not that residents of German origin were excluded, but rather that assimilation of German speakers to English-language culture had largely taken place.

The Concord Schoolhouse , open from 1775-1892,  was Germantown's first English language school. The school is sited on a lot set aside in 1692 to serve as a civic burial ground.

Concord School and Upper Burial Ground

The Johnson family, who inhabited the house from 1770-1908 were peace-loving Quakers. Prior to their anti-slavery efforts in the 1800s, they also weathered fierce fighting in the Revolutionary War.&nbsp; John Johnson, Sr.,&nbsp;and his wife, hid in the cellar of their home during the Battle of Germantown, in 1777.&nbsp; While their home was invaded and food and goods were taken, their religious&nbsp;beliefs kept them from defending what was theirs.&nbsp; The house suffered damage from both muskets and cannon-fire, which can still be seen today.Later, in the 1800s, Samuel Johnson and his wife Jennet Rowland Johnson moved into the ancestral home. The couple, along with extended family, were abolitionists, belonging to groups like the American Anti-slavery Society and the local group, the Germantown Freedman's Aid Association. As members of these groups, the Johnson family was instrumental in the workings of the Underground Railroad.&nbsp; With the Johnson's help, many runaway slaves were given safe passage, food and shelter, and the chance to seek freedom and a new life. The family home was built in 1768, of dark stone, and now sits on less than an acre of land, however at its construction, the Johnson family owned much more land in Germantown.&nbsp; The architect of the structure was Jacob Norr.&nbsp; Much of the original building material can still be seen in the house today- Dutch doors, as well as original woodwork, hardwood floors, cabinets and glass.&nbsp;&nbsp;Upon visiting, one can expect to see many objects belonging to the family on display. The Johnson's family artifacts, as well as anti-slavery objects like shackles, and educational materials are all on display in the museum, and the stone exterior still displays the signs of the Battle of Germantown in 1777.

Built in 1768 and located in Philadelphia, the John Johnson House is a reminder of the struggle that many runaway slaves faced before the Civil War. The Colonial Georgian-style home was built by Dirck Jansen as a wedding gift to his son, John Johnson, Sr. The home is one of the only remaining structures affiliated with the Underground Railroad in the city. Harriet Tubman and other abolitionists led escaped slaves to the doors of this residence in the years leading up to the Civil War. The home is now a National Historic Landmark and also serves as a museum that preserves and interprets the history of the Underground Railroad. 

John Johnson House

The Germantown White House was originally built by David Deshler in 1752 as a summer getaway, having only four rooms. In 1772, however, Deshler expanded the house upward and outward, adding 9 full rooms and expanding the height to three stories. When Deshler passed away in 1792, his family sold the now-luxury home to Isaac Franks, a Colonel and veteran of the Revolutionary War. Isaac Franks was in ownership of the house when President George Washington, on a trip back from his home, Mount Vernon, in Virginia, received news of a quarantine in Philadelphia and turned aside to stay in Germantown until the quarantine cleared. This event would come to be known as the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and would claim the lives of over 5000 Philadelphians. Doctors at the time did not understand the treatment or the spread of Yellow Fever (which is spread by mosquitos, generally among very dense areas of population.)In order to facilitate continued meetings of his cabinet, President Washington chose to rent the Germantown home that Isaac Franks had purchased a year earlier. He had first stayed in a different home, known then as the Dove House, but then decided that Franks’ Germantown home would be a more suitable temporary residence. While, at first, he stayed there with only a few enslaved servants at his side, his wife, family members, and more slaves arrived later in the stay to accompany him. Washington’s first stay at the house lasted less than a month but won his approval strongly. He later returned to the house, in the summer months of 1794, to enjoy what he called a “fine airy place” outside of the heat of Philadelphia. During this stay, he brought Martha Washington, his wife, Oney Judge, Austin, Moll, and Hercules, who were enslaved servants he kept close, and two of his grandchildren. A few years after the Washingtons’ stay in the house, in 1804, Elliston and John Perot purchased the house and maintained it until Elliston died in 1834. Upon his passing, the Deshler house was sold to Samuel B. Morris, who had married into the Perot family. As of the publication of Keyser, Kain, Garber, and McCann’s History of Old Germantown in 1907, the Morris family was still living in and preserving the historicity of the home. According to Keyser, Kain, Garber, and McCann, even after Samuel Morris’ death in 1859, “great care has been taken to preserve the original appearance of the interior of this stately and interesting old mansion” including the maintenance of “the old sofas and tables, [of which] none have been in the family for less than a century.” Samuel Morris’ son, Elliston P. Morris, inherited the home and was caring for the home at the time that History of Old Germantown was published. The Morris family donated the home to the National Park Service in 1948, and it has been preserved as a historic home ever since.

The Germantown White House, also known as the Deshler-Morris House, of Germantown, Pennsylvania is one of the oldest and best-preserved presidential residences in the United States.  It is most famous for being the retreat of First President and decorated general George Washington on two separate occasions, once in 1793 and once in 1794.  It was also the primary residence of British General Sir William Howe following the bloody Battle of Germantown in the American Revolutionary War.

Mat Johnson, _Loving Day_ Tour of Germantown, Philadelphia

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

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Backstory and Context

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