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The house was built in 1772 by David Deschler, a wealthy West India merchant, the son of an aide-de-camp to the reigning Prince of Baden, and Margaret, a sister of John Wister and Caspar Wistar. After the retreat of the American forces at the conclusion of the Battle of Germantown, Sir William Howe, the British commander, moved his headquarters from Stenton to the Deschler house.
Many a sweet-bosomed girl and bright-browed boy, poring over high-school text-books, little dreams that I made that higher education possible by my corn demonstration at Wistar. And farm management! I know the waste of superfluous motion without studying a moving picture record of it, whether it be farm or farm-hand, the layout of buildings or the layout of the farm-hands' labour.
The Wistar house, at the southwest corner of Fourth and Locust streets, to which architectural reference has previously been made, was built about 1750 and for nearly three quarters of a century thereafter was the scene of constant hospitality and lavish entertainment.
Where eight-and twelve-paned sashes were used for the principal windows of the house, the foreshortened windows of the third story usually had eight-paned upper and lower sashes, as on the Morris house, the Wistar house at Fourth and Locust streets, Whitby Hall and Chalkley Hall in Frankford. Most Philadelphia houses, whether gable or hip-roofed, have dormers to light the attic.
Benjamin Wistar Morris, D.D., Bishop of Oregon, in his sermon based on St. Luke, chapter v, verse 4: "Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught."
Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware; Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs.
The famous old Wistar house at the southeast corner of Fourth and Locust streets is a case in point. Pedimental dormers were the rule, sometimes with round-headed windows. Elaborate molded wood cornices were a feature, often with prominent, even hand-tooled modillions.
Waterworks, killed by the Croton and Cochituate; Ben Franklin, borrowed from Boston; David Rittenhouse, made an orrery; Benjamin Rush, made a medical system: both interesting to antiquarians; great Red-river raft of medical students, spontaneous generation of professors to match; more widely known through the Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties; for geological section of social strata, go to The Club.
Who else knows corn? There is my demonstration at Wistar, whereby I increased the annual corn-yield of every county in Iowa by half a million dollars. This is history. Many a farmer, riding in his motor- car to-day, knows who made possible that motor-car.
In 1799 the house was occupied by Doctor Caspar Wistar, the eminent anatomist, known to the élite of the city and nation for his brilliant social gatherings and as the man for whom that beautiful climbing plant, the Wistaria, was named.
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