1696 Thomas Massey House

Story

The 1696 Thomas Massey House is one of the oldest English Quaker homes in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a 2-story brick and stone house, originally constructed by the English, Quaker settler, Thomas Massey in 1696. It is located on Lawrence Road near Sproul Road in Broomall, Pennsylvania.Thomas MasseyThomas Massey was born in the village of Marpoole in Cheshire, England. He was a Quaker and an indentured servant to Francis Stanfield, who arranged for him and seven other indentured servants to emigrate to America. Thomas set sail from Chester, England aboard the ketch "Endeavor". He landed in Philadelphia, PA on September 29, 1683 at the age of twenty. After Thomas worked off his indenture, he received of land from his master and another 50 acres from William Penn. In 1692, at age 29, he married 22-year-old Phebe Taylor, who had arrived on the same ship as Massey. Together they had seven children: Esther, Mordecai, James, Hannah, Thomas, Phoebe and Mary Thomas died in 1707 or 1708 and Phebe remarried two years later. His oldest son, Mordecai, inherited the house. It was owned by the Massey family until 1925.Building HistoryThomas Massey built the original brick section in 1696 as an addition to an earlier wooden house. Thomas's son Mordecai Massey likely tore down the wooden house and built the first stone addition during the 1730s. A stone walled kitchen was added in the early nineteenth century with a second story above the kitchen added about 1860.