Birch's Views of Philadelphia was an 1800 book of prints drawn and engraved by William Russell Birch (1755–1834) and his son Thomas Birch (1779–1851). The 27 illustrations of the city are extraordinarily valuable to historians because they document Philadelphia architecture and street-life at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The City & Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington, an iconic portrait of the elm tree in Philadelphia where tradition holds that William Penn signed the Treaty of Shackamaxon with the Lenape Indian tribe in 1682
Image: Birch's Views Title Page
Image: Plan of the City of Philadelphia Birch's Views Plate 3
The President's House was a mansion built from 1792 to 1797 by the Government of Pennsylvania and located on Ninth Street, between Market and Chestnut Streets, in Philadelphia, then the temporary national capital. Intended to persuade the federal government to permanently stay in the city, this house intended for the president of the United States never housed any president. In 1800, the property was purchased at public auction by the University of Pennsylvania for use as a new, expanded campus. The university demolished the building in 1829 and replaced it with two new buildings.
The House intended for the President of the United States, in Ninth Street Philadelphia, by W. Birch & Son (1799)