Pencoyd (Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania) was a historic house and farm in Bala Cynwyd, Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Located along the north side of what is now City Avenue, the farm originally stretched from the Schuylkill River to Conshohocken State Road (PA Route 23). Settled by John Roberts in 1683, his descendants owned the property for 280 years. The house was built 1684–1690, and demolished in 1964.
Welsh Tract
Welsh Quakers faced religious discrimination and harassment in their native land. A group of Welsh Quaker businessmen met with William Penn in London in late 1681, and secured a tract of in his new colony of Pennsylvania. The Welsh Tract was to be contiguous and stretch northwestward along the Schuylkill River from the City of Philadelphia to Valley Forge. The understanding of the businessmen was that the Welsh Tract would be a separate county that they would control, and in which business would be conducted in their native language. The tract's boundaries changed significantly in Thomas Holme's 1687 survey, with two large riverfront estates for Penn's children carved out of it, along with valuable riverfront properties that Penn granted to his creditors. In addition to these intrusions by non-Welsh landowners, while Thomas Holme's 1687 survey placed most of the Welsh Tract in Philadelphia County, a significant portion of the land was in Chester County and miles from the Schuylkill River.
John Roberts, maltster, emigrated from Llanengan in North Wales. He joined a syndicate of Quaker families, the Edward Jones Company, that had purchased 5,000 acres at the southeast corner of the Welsh Tract prior to sailing to America. On November 16, 1683, he arrived at Philadelphia aboard the Morning Star, with a servant, and possibly his siblings Richard and Anne. On March 20, 1684, he married fellow passenger Gainor ap Robert, daughter of another member of the syndicate.Thomas Allen Glenn, Merion in the Welsh Tract, (Norristown, PA: Herald Press, 1896). Two of their four children, Robert and Elizabeth, lived to adulthood.
John Roberts's original parcel of land seems to have been 100 acres, with the additional 50 acres extending it to the river the gift of his bride's family. The combined 150-acre (60.7 hectare) parcel was the one closest to Philadelphia—a rectangle that ran about a mile west from the river along the Blockley Township line, then north a quarter mile, then east to the river, then south to the starting point. Downstream of the parcel at the Falls of Schuylkill was Netopcum, a Native American seasonal settlement where Lenni Lenape came in spring to fish for shad. Family tradition holds that Roberts began building the stone house on his property in 1684, although scholars date its earliest portion to 1690.James C. Massey, "Pencoyd Farm," The Roberts Estate, HABS No. PA-1087, (National Park Service, March 1964). Roberts and his servant cleared the wooded land to plant barley, for making malt. He named the property "Pencoid"—Welsh for "head of the woods.""John Roberts of Pencoyd," Lower Merion Historical Society.
List of proprietors
In 1912, antiquarian Harold Donaldson Eberlein noted a rare distinction about Pencoyd: "Since the date of the original grant Pencoyd has never been sold nor deeded, but has always passed by will from owner to owner."
1st. John Roberts (1648–1724) — married 20 March 1684, Gainor ap Robert (1653–1722) — 4 children — proprietor 1683 to 1724 Served as justice of the peace for Merion Township, and was elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly. In addition to Pencoyd farm, he bequeathed to his son 750 acres in Goshen, Chester County. He and his wife were buried at Merion Meeting.
2nd. Robert Roberts (1685–1768) — married 17 June 1709, Sidney Reese (1690–1764) — 6 children — proprietor 1724 to 1768 Operated a ferry across the Schuylkill River. Increased the size of Pencoyd farm to 180 acres. Raised cattle and pigs to be sold in Philadelphia market. He and his wife were buried at Merion Meeting.
3rd. John Roberts 2nd (1710–1776) — married 4 May 1733, Rebecca Jones (1710–1779) — 12 children — proprietor 1768 to 1776 Farmer and land surveyor. Original shareholder (1731) in the Library Company of Philadelphia. Established a subscription library at Merion Meeting. He and his wife were buried at Merion Meeting.
4th. Algernon Roberts (1751–1815) — married 18 January 1781, Tacy Warner (1761–1828) — 11 children — proprietor 1776 to 1815 Served in the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry during the Revolutionary War. He married (out of meeting) a daughter of his commanding officer, Col. Isaac Warner. Bought land on the opposite side of the Blockley Township line, increasing Pencoyd farm to 224 acres. Scientific farmer. Built the 1791 stone barn. He and his wife were buried at Merion Meeting.
5th. Isaac Warner Roberts (1789–1859) — married (1st) 20 March 1817, Emily Thomas (1795–1825) — 4 daughters; (2nd) 22 February 1827, Rosalinda Brooke (1800–1873) — 2 sons — proprietor 1815 to 1859 Expanded Pencoyd house. Divided Pencoyd farm in half, between his two sons. He was buried with his first wife at Merion Meeting. His second wife was buried with family members at Laurel Hill Cemetery.
6th. George Brooke Roberts (1833–1897) — married (1st) 9 June 1868, Sarah Brinton (1846–1869) — 1 son, George Brinton Roberts; (2nd) 14 October 1874, Miriam Pyle Williams (1846–1913) — 4 sons, 1 daughter — proprietor 1859 to 1897 Civil engineer. He spent his career with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and served as PRR's president (1880–96). Major expansion of Pencoyd house. Driving force behind the Church of Saint Asaph. His first wife was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery. He was initially buried with her at Laurel Hill Cemetery, but later reinterred with his second wife at Saint Asaph's churchyard.
7th. T. Williams "T. Willy" Roberts (1877–1962) — married 29 April 1915, Ellanor C. Thompson (1890–1938)Obituary, The Princeton Alumni Weekly, November 30, 1962, p. 16. — 4 children — proprietor 1897 to 1962 Restored and expanded Pencoyd, 1913–15, in a Colonial Revival style. Worked in real estate development, and served as a Lower Merion Township commissioner. Last proprietor of Pencoyd.
House
About 1690, John Roberts built a two-story, four-bay, gambrel-roofed house—exterior dimensions: —with stone walls two feet thick.Harold Donaldson Eberlein and Horace Mather Lippincott, The Colonial Homes of Philadelphia and Its Neighbourhood (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1912), pp. 150–52. It faced south (City Avenue), and had large stone chimneys at its east and west ends. Its first floor featured four rooms — an off-center entrance hall with front and back doors and a stair at the north end; a long room running the depth of the house with a large fireplace (kitchen?) to the west; a smaller room with a corner fireplace (parlor?) at the southeast corner; and another smaller room with a corner fireplace (bed chamber?) at the northeast corner. A datestone—not original, added 1913–15, and now in the collection of the Lower Merion Historical Society—reads "J & G / R / 1683."
Under Isaac Warner Roberts the first fire insurance survey was made of the house in 1827. It listed the dimensions of the original house, a one-and-a-half-story stone kitchen, and a "new" one-story stone wash house. He probably built the hexagonal smokehouse with Gothic windows in the second quarter of the 19th century. An 1835 insurance survey recorded his two-story stone addition, a new kitchen with a bedroom above. Fifteen-year-old George Brooke Roberts drew an elevation of his parents' house in 1849, showing the 1835 addition. In his will, Roberts divided the farm in half (including the section in Blockley Township), bequeathing the western half (with Pencoyd house) to son George, and the eastern half (along the river) to son Algernon Sidney Roberts. In 1866, Rosalinda Roberts (widow of Isaac Warner Roberts) converted the 1835 kitchen into a dining room, built a new stone kitchen, and made other additions, including an entrance porch with ornamental cast-ironwork. She added indoor plumbing and the house's first bathroom—an 8 x 8 ft frame addition built atop posts and attached to the north wall. Access to the bathroom was from the stair landing between the first and second floors, with water supplied from a cedar cistern in the attic.
George Brooke Roberts hired architect Allen Evans, of Furness & Evans, to modernize and expand the house, 1883–84. Evans designed a two-and-a-half-story, gambrel-roofed east wing—anchored by a massive "upside down" brick chimney—that extended the length of the front (south) façade to . Evans also may have designed later additions, 1888–89,Mutual Assurance Company, Policy #4613, George Brooke Roberts, Resurvey May 29, 1890. and 1891–92. The house was expanded and altered so greatly that it looked like a quite different sort of dwelling than before. George tore down the wing which his father had built and in its place erected an even larger extension, as tall as the original house but of a different style of architecture. In the course of time he also added in another direction [north] a new drawing room, dining room, morning room and sunporch, relocated the driveway and built various porches and balconies. Indoors the main part of the house was redecorated to conform to the fashions of the day. Roberts also subdivided his half of the farm into generous lots, which he gave to his six children to build their own houses.
T. Williams Roberts inherited Pencoyd, and demolished or refaced his father's Victorian additions. He hired architect Louis Carter Baker Jr., a fellow vestryman of St. Asaph's Church, to restore the house in a tasteful Colonial Revival style, 1913–15."Portfolio of Current Architecture," The Architectural Record, vol. 37, no. 4 (April 1915), pp. 370–73. This included a 4-bay, extension of the front façade (replicating that of the original house), moving the house's main entrance to the east facade, and removing interior walls to make the original house's entire first floor an expansive livingroom. In 1937, Pencoyd stood on about , among other gentleman's farms.Property Atlas of the Main Line, Penna. (Franklin Survey Company, 1937), plate 8. After World War II, Roberts sold land at the northwest corner of City and Monument Avenues to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin for WCAU-TV, the newspaper's local television station. Architect George Howe designed the International Style television studio building (1951–52), one of his final works.
T. Williams Roberts died in 1962. His nephew, architect George Brinton Roberts Jr., made measured drawings of Pencoyd. HABS photographer Cortlandt V. D. Hubbard photographed it in 1963, and architect James C. Massey completed his HABS survey of it in 1964. This activity was in anticipation of the house's demolition and the property's development as a suburban office campus. The Estate of T. Williams Roberts sold the property in 1964, the same year the house was demolished.
A Saks Fifth Avenue department store now occupies the house's site.
Farm
At the end of the 17th century, John Roberts's principal crop was barley (for making malt), but he also grew Indian corn (for livestock) and wheat. His son, Richard, made wheat his principal crop (ground into flour), and provided beef, pork, eggs, fruits and vegetables, and butter to the growing Philadelphia marketplace. By the time of John Roberts 2nd, the wonderfully fertile soil was becoming exhausted. He began mixing lime into the soil, and even built his own kiln for burning lime. The farm's wooden barn was struck by lightning, September 3, 1760, burning it and other outbuildings. He wrote: "all that had a farmer[']s store for man and beast were laid to ashes."David Loth, Pencoyd and the Roberts Family (New York: by the author, 1961). A new barn (probably wooden) was built, funded in part by donations from Quaker neighbors.