William Allen, Colonial Philadelphia's Power Broker

The neighborhood of Mount Airy takes its name from the country estate that William Allen built here, and Allen himself shaped colonial Pennsylvania more deeply than almost anyone outside the founding generation. Born in seventeen oh four into a merchant family, he became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, and he used that wealth as civic infrastructure. He helped finance the construction of the Pennsylvania State House, which we now call Independence Hall.

He was an early supporter of Pennsylvania Hospital, one of the first hospitals in the American colonies. He helped establish the Academy and College of Philadelphia, which became the University of Pennsylvania. He founded the city of Allentown.

He served as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. And then the Revolution came. Allen initially sided with colonial interests against British overreach, but as independence drew closer, he broke from the patriot movement and became a Loyalist.

He died at this estate in seventeen eighty, having watched the country he had helped build choose a path he refused to follow.