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The Lawnside Historical Society will celebrate its 35th anniversary on Sunday, Sept. 21, at the Wayne R. Bryant Community Center. In addition to new exhibits, guests will be treated to dinner and a performance by actor Millicent Sparks, who will play Harriet Tubman.
What’s the Peter Moss House?
The Peter Mott House was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
The three-floor dwelling was built by Peter Mott around 1844, with an addition erected in 1870. Once part of sprawling farmland, the house now sits within a development in a quiet cul-de-sac. The New Jersey Turnpike can be seen through a back window of the house, through the trees.
“This property fell into arrears on taxes and it was being sold to a developer who wanted to build 22 attached homes on this site,” said Linda Shockley, president of the Lawnside Historical Society.
The Peter Mott House was saved by the Lawnside Historical Society in the early 1990s. It reopened as an Underground Railroad Museum in 2001 after it was restored. (P. Kenneth Burns/WHYY)
The Narberth Development Corporation wanted to clear the plot and make way for townhouses. That’s when Clarence Still, a descendent of abolitionist leader William Still, was able to convince the developer to save the building, Shockley said.
“This started in 1989, when he first accosted this gentleman,” she said. “By 1990, we determined you have to have an organization, you have to have a nonprofit organization that can raise money to buy the house.”
The organization’s mission became to protect Mott’s legacy and the home he shared with his wife, Elizabeth. Still became the founding president. Shockley succeeded him in 1994.
The historical society received the deed to the house on Feb. 20, 1992, according to its website. Two years later, it was added to the state and national registers for historic places. That allowed the society to collect more than $500,000 in grants and donations to pay for repairs and restorations to the property.
“We had to dig a new foundation ‘cause the house was built on sand,” Shockley said. “You know what the Bible says about the house that was built upon the sand.”
Shockley described how crews moved the house to the back of the property so they could build a new foundation for the building. They also needed to make sure that the building was restored to standards from the Secretary of the Interior.
A replica of the box Henry “Box” Brown used to ship himself to Philadelphia to escape slavery in Virginia on display at the Peter Mott House in Lawnside, New Jersey. (P. Kenneth Burns/WHYY)
In 2001, the Peter Mott House was opened to the public as a museum of the Underground Railroad, attracting a wide range of visitors from students to researchers. The house had undergone much needed repairs in recent years. In addition to donated furniture from the period and other artifacts, there is also a replica of the box that Henry “Box” Brown used to ship himself to Philadelphia to escape slavery in Virginia.
