Research : Conservation

The history of Mount Pleasant has most often been told through the lives of the Macphersons. But how closely do the majority of visitors to historic house museums relate to the elegant eighteenth-century lifestyle of the “wealthy colonial elite,” with their vast purchasing power and taste for sumptuous country estates. The building and use of Mount Pleasant is characterized by the complex social relations of the diverse group of people who lived and worked there. What is lost if the full pattern of social interactions of these great estates is left unexplored? Are there stories of other lives through which museum houses of the affluent can resonate with today’s visitor, through which a more nuanced explanation of the desires and intentions of the original families can be examined?

Recently the roles of the craftsmen who designed and constructed Mount Pleasant have begun to be woven into the interpretation of the site. The discovery of Thomas Nevell’s account book containing descriptive charges for Nevell and his crew’s work at Mount Pleasant provide information about the site previously unavailable for study. Nevell’s account of his working relationships with his upper and lower apprentices and journeymen carpenters concerning their wages, diet, tools and the particular elements they crafted at Mount Pleasant illuminates the lives of individuals often left out of the discussion at historic house museums. Even less likely to be included in the conversation are the indentured and enslaved servants who were, by necessity, a part of large, complex estates like Mount Pleasant. Five months before the incident in May 1769, during which John Macpherson was confined for 100 days in a shepherd’s cottage on the property, he first advertised Mount Pleasant for sale. On January 12, 1769, along with descriptions of the buildings and grounds, Macpherson announced the sale of two male and one female enslaved Africans that he termed “stout healthy negroes.” One man was described as a coachman, carter and ploughman, the other a gardener. The woman is described as a dairy maid. In the Provincial Tax Assessment for 1769, Macpherson owed 70 pounds on his 105 acres and dwelling and 42 pounds on “4 Negroes.” In June 1769, Macpherson again advertised the sale of the two men recommending them for their “honesty, sobriety, and obedience” and claimed they had had the smallpox.

The Macphersons worked their estate with a combination of enslaved Africans, paid employees, and tenant farmers. In April 17, 1766, John Macpherson advertised for a gardener, requiring him to be a “single Man, of proper Resolution, Discretion, and Humanity, to command several other Servants under him.” The gardener could “enter into Pay on the 15th of May next”. By June 1766, the position was filled by Roger Craig. One of the servants he would be entrusted to supervise was likely the enslaved African gardener Macpherson later advertised for sale. On December 24, 1767 Macpherson was advertising for a family to care for his flock of sheep. They were to have use of “a good house, part of an orchard, pasture for one cow, and a garden rent free.” On October 6, 1778, the last time the Macphersons offered Mount Pleasant for sale by advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette and a year before the estate was sold to fulfill a debt obligation, a tenant dwelling house and spring house, were described as being “at a distance from the other improvements.”

It is difficult today to discover much about the enslaved and indentured servants, the gardeners and shepherds, and the apprentice carpenters, whose lives are interwoven in the creation and functioning of Mount Pleasant. Often the only record of their existence is the recording of a name in a surviving document. Thomas Nevell, in his accounts, has left us with the names of every carpenter who worked on the construction of Mount Pleasant. John Macpherson’s propensity to publicize his grievances has left us with the names of two of the Macpherson’s servants, at least one of whom was an enslaved African. At one point during his capture, initial imprisonment and escape into the main building of Mount Pleasant in May 1769, John Macpherson “called for some of my servants; my Negro woman Nell came.” When Macpherson eventually gained his freedom he in turn banished his wife Margaret and son John, Jr. to Mount Pleasant for the winter of 1769/70. As a consequence of his belief that his wife Margaret was involved in his imprisonment and his being labeled a madman, he demanded from her all the keys to Mount Pleasant and their separation as man and wife. Letters written in April 1770 between John and Margaret, through which they negotiated their separation, were delivered by Bernard, who traveled back and forth between Mount Pleasant and the city almost daily for weeks. Bernard was also charged with the movement of horses and carriages between Mount Pleasant and the city for the Macphersons. It is possible Bernard was the enslaved African coachman, carter, and ploughman John Macpherson several times advertised for sale.

In those letters, Margaret Macpherson requested “the Negro wench Nell” to attend her. By April 1770, now locked out of Mount Pleasant, suffering from “my disorder” which “every day increases” so that “my present situation is such as renders it impossible to do anything effectual for me,” and just two months before her death at age 38, Margaret Macpherson was directed by John to “fix on a house” for herself, her youngest daughter and her servant, Nell.