Samuel Sloan (architect)

For other people named Samuel Sloan, see Samuel Sloan (disambiguation).
Samuel Sloan

"Longwood" (Haller Nutt mansion), Natchez, Mississippi (1859-62, unfinished).
Born March 7, 1815
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Died July 19, 1884 (1884-07-20) (aged 69)
Raleigh, North Carolina
Occupation Architect
Buildings -Kirkbride's Insane Asylum, Philadelphia
-Longwood, Natchez
-Bartram Hall, Philadelphia (demolished)

Samuel Sloan (March 7, 1815 – July 19, 1884)[1] was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century. He specialized in Italianate villas and country houses, churches, and institutional buildings. His most famous building—the octagonal mansion "Longwood" in Natchez, Mississippi—is unfinished; construction was abandoned during the American Civil War.

Biography

Born on March 7, 1815, in Honeybrook Township,[2] Chester County, Pennsylvania, the son of William Sloan and Mary Kirkwood, Sloan trained as a carpenter and came to Philadelphia in the mid-1830s. He is said to have worked with John Haviland on Eastern State Penitentiary and with Isaac Holden on the former Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.

Samuel Sloan married Mary Pennell in 1843. Their children were Ellwood Pennell, Howard L., Laura W., and Ada. He had three grandchildren by his eldest son, Ellwood. They were Maurice, Helen and Samuel A. Sloan.[3]

By 1851, Sloan had won a commission for the Delaware County, Pennsylvania, courthouse and jail, and designed Andrew Eastwick's villa "Bartram Hall" near the site of Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia. These successes prompted him to begin to list his vocation as "architect".

Clinton County Courthouse, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania (1869). Samuel Sloan & Addison Hutton, architects.

Sloan became a prolific author on architecture most notably for The Model Architect as well as City and Suburban Architecture and Sloan's Constructive Architecture (1859). In 1861, he wrote Sloan's Homestead Architecture and American Houses, and A Variety of Designs for Rural Buildings. Sloan also reached thousands of potential customers through the pages of Godey's Lady's Book, which began publishing his designs in 1852.

"The man who has a home," wrote Sloan in 1871, "feels a love for it a thankfulness for its possession and a proportionate determination to uphold and defend it against all invading influences. Such a man is, of necessity . . . a good citizen; for he has a stake in society."[4]

Economic downturns in the late 1850s as well as the American Civil War put a halt to his professional success and Sloan briefly left Philadelphia for New York in 1867. Important examples of his later work are found outside Pennsylvania, notably in Morganton, North Carolina's Western State Asylum for the Insane.[1] Sloan ended up building about 20 hospitals for the insane based on the "Kirkbride Plan System".[5]

Sloan enjoyed some later success in North Carolina, opening an office in Raleigh, where he died on July 19, 1884.[1] His body was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, Lot 11 Sec 20.[2]

Architects associated with Sloan include: Charles M. Autenrieth (1828–1906), Edward Collins (1821–1902), Willis G. Hale (1848–1907), Addison Hutton (18341916), John S. Stewart and Thomas Webb Richards (18361911), and Isaac Pursell (18531910).

Designated U.S. National Historic Landmarks:

Architectural work (partial listing)

Philadelphia buildings

Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Kirkbride's Insane Asylum)(1856-59)
Allison Mansion, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1860)

Other Pennsylvania buildings

Lancaster County Court House, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1852)
Forks of the Brandywine Presbyterian Church (1875)

New Jersey and Delaware buildings

George Allen house, Cape May, New Jersey (1863).

Buildings elsewhere

Winter Place, Montgomery, Alabama (1855)

Books

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samuel Sloan.
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Death of Mr. Samuel Sloan" (56). Raleigh News & Observer. 1884-07-20.
  2. 1 2 familysearch.org
  3. U. S. Census, 1880
  4. "Home Values are Down and Not Just at the Bank", an article by Alexander B. Hoffman, The Washington Post, July 2008.
  5. Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2007, 117
  6. http://www.bartramsgarden.org
  7. Church of the Savior
  8. Woodland Terrace at Historic American Buildings Survey
  9. "National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania" (Searchable database). CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System. Note: This includes George E. Thomas (June 1978). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Hamilton Family Estate" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-03.
  10. http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~sk645/652/tour3.html
  11. http://www.fandm.edu/x7220.xml
  12. http://www.thefulton.org/pages/index.php?pID=24
  13. http://www.albrightcare.org/slifer-house/
  14. http://www.fandm.edu/x6949.xml
  15. http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/greystonepark/
  16. http://www.members.aol.com/_ht_a/garyleitzell/lunaticasylum.html
  17. http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2014/06/10_endangered_alabama_plantati.html
  18. http://www.natchezpilgrimage.com/dailytour.htm
  19. http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/uptodate/ill9.html
  20. http://www.thepillars.info/2008%20Home%20Tour.htm
  21. Connecticut Valley Hospital, National Register of Historic Places application, August 29, 1985, http://www.middletownplanning.com/documents/CVH_NRHP_1985.pdf
  22. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/raleigh/exe.htm
  23. Seifert, Laura (October 1985). "Historic home filled with special touches". midAtlantic Antiques Magazine (hardcopy). II (10).
  24. The NCSU Libraries. "Sloan, Samuel (1815-1884) : NC Architects & Builders : NCSU Libraries". Retrieved 2011-01-22.
  25. "This Private Agency Stays Busy Rescuing Valuable Old Structures". We the people of North Carolina (hardcopy). XXXVII (6). June 1979. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  26. http://docsouth.unc.edu/unc/display_images/memorialhall.html
  27. websites for these buildings
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