Mifflin’s country seat, overlooking the falls of the Schuylkill, was one of his three homes; the other two were a farm in Berks County and a town house in Philadelphia (ROSSMAN description begins Kenneth R. Rossman. Thomas Mifflin and the Politics of the American Revolution. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1952. description ends , 174; and see SNYDER description begins Martin P. Snyder. City of Independence: Views of Philadelphia before 1800. New York, 1975. description ends , 157, 193).

Richard Peters (1744–1828), secretary of the Board of War (1776–81), was later appointed by GW a judge of the United States District Court for Pennsylvania. His country seat, Belmont, where he carried out large-scale agricultural experimentation, was on the west side of the Schuylkill below the falls (BAKER [2] description begins William Spohn Baker. Washington after the Revolution: MDCCLXXXIV - MDCCXCIX. Philadelphia, 1898. description ends , 76n). mr. penns seat: Lansdowne, an Italianate house built c.1773 by lieutenant governor John Penn. Located on the west side of the Schuylkill about halfway between the falls and the Middle Ferry, Lansdowne was later incorporated into Fairmount Park (see SNYDER description begins Martin P. Snyder. City of Independence: Views of Philadelphia before 1800. New York, 1975. description ends , 169, 173).

William Hamilton (1745–1813), a wealthy Philadelphia patron of the arts, was particularly devoted to landscape gardening. Hamilton employed trained gardeners and was responsible for the introduction of many new plants. When Meriwether Lewis sent plant specimens back from the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–6), some were forwarded to Hamilton by Thomas Jefferson for experimentation. In Mar. 1792 Hamilton shipped a small collection of plants and cuttings to Mount Vernon, including several species which GW had not planted before. Today GW is visiting Hamilton at Bush Hill, located just north of the city. He had inherited the property from his uncle James Hamilton upon the latter’s death in 1783 (see SNYDER description begins Martin P. Snyder. City of Independence: Views of Philadelphia before 1800. New York, 1975. description ends , 156, 159).

Benjamin Chew’s daughter Margaret (Peggy) Chew (1760–1824) married John Eager Howard (1752–1827) on 18 May 1787. Howard had served as an officer of Maryland troops under Nathanael Greene during most of the Revolution, participating in the Jersey campaigns with GW before being reassigned to the southern theater, where he distinguished himself. In 1788 Howard was elected governor of Maryland. This party was probably at the town house of Benjamin Chew, on Third Street between Walnut and Spruce streets. The house, built in the 1770s for William Byrd III of Westover, was later bought by Benjamin Chew, who was proscribed as a Tory during the Revolution. During the winter of 1781–82, GW made the Chew town house his headquarters (see EBERLEIN description begins Harold Donaldson Eberlein and Cortlandt Van Dyke Hubbard. “Music in the Early Federal Era.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 69 (1945): 103–27. description ends , 103–27; VIRKUS description begins Frederick Adams Virkus, ed. The Compendium of American Genealogy: The Standard Genealogical Encyclopedia of the First Families of America. 7 vols. Chicago, 1925–42. description ends , 5:730).