e earliest instances of side lights in
American architecture. The severely simple entrance with its high narrow
paneled doors without either knob or latch is reached from a brick-paved
walk about the house by three semicircular stone steps such as were
common in England at the time, the various nicely hewn pieces fastened
securely together with iron bands.

The front door opens into a large square hall with a brick-paved floor
and walls wainscoted to the ceiling with white-painted wood paneling.
There is a fireplace on the right, and beyond an archway in the rear a
staircase ascends to the second floor. To the right of the hall is the
parlor, also with paneled walls, and a fireplace surrounded by pink
tiles. In the wainscoted room back of this the sliding top of a closet
offers opportunity for a person to conceal himself and listen through a
small hole to the conversation in the adjoining hall. To the left of
the hall is the dining room, beautifully wainscoted and having a
built-in cupboard for china and a fireplace faced with blue tiles. The
iron fireback bears the inscription "J. L. 1728." Back of this through a
passageway is a small breakfast room, whence an underground passage for
use during storms or sieges leads from a trap door in the floor to the
barns.

The second-story floor plan is most unusual. The library, a great long
room, extends entirely across the front of the house, with its range of
six windows and two fireplaces on the opposite wall, one faced with blue
tiles and the other with white. Here, with the finest private collection
of books in America at that time, the scholarly owner spent his
declining years, the library going to the city of Philadelphia on his
death. Two small bedrooms, each with a fireplace, were occupied by his
daughters. A little back staircase leads to the third floor, where the
woodwork of the chambers was unpainted.

[Illustration: PLATE XII.--The Woodlands, Blockley Township, West
Philadelphia. Erected in 1770 by William Hamilton; Stable at The
Woodlands.]

[Illustration: PLATE XIII.--Wyck, Germantown Avenue and Walnut Lane,
Germantown. Erected by Hans Millan about 1690; Hall and Entrance
Doorways, Wyck.]

Stenton was erected in 1728 by James Logan, a scholar, philosopher, man
of affairs, the secretary and later the personal representative of
William Penn, the founder, and afterwards chief justice of the colony.
Descended from a noble Scottish family, his father a clergyman