Joseph Priestley House - Ownership and Museum

Ownership and Museum

After the deaths of Mary and Joseph Priestley, Joseph Priestley, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Ryland, continued to live in the house until 1811, at which time they emigrated to Britain and sold the home. The house passed through various hands during the 19th century. Judge Seth Chapman purchased the house from Joseph Priestley Jr. on May 13, 1815 for US$6,250 ($ 79,400 in 2013). Chapman died on December 4, 1835, and Rev. James Kay, pastor of the Northumberland Unitarian congregation, and his family lived in the house next. James Kay died on September 22, 1847 and his widow probably lived in the house until her October 2, 1850 death. Charles H. Kay, son of James, had purchased the house in 1845, a few years before his parents' deaths. In April 1865 Charles Kay's children sold the house to Henry R. Campbell for $2,775 ($ 42,100 in 2013). Florence Bingham purchased the house from Campbell for $5,679.53 on January 18, 1868 ($ 99,200 in 2013), and Bingham's heirs sold it to T. Hugh Johnson for $2,000 on October 7, 1882 ($ 48,200 in 2013). Kate Scott bought the house for $3,000 on April 11, 1888 ($ 77,600 in 2013). In 1911 the last private resident moved out of the house, and it was sublet to the Pennsylvania Railroad for its workers (a large railroad yard was built in Northumberland at this time). This led to a general decline in the house and its grounds.

Professor George Gilbert Pond was the first person to make a significant effort to establish a permanent Priestley museum at the Priestley House. After raising sufficient funds, he managed to purchase the home at auction for $6,000 from Scott's heirs on November 24, 1919 ($ 80,400 in 2013). Pond believed that construction of a new railroad line would destroy the house, and so intended to move it to Pennsylvania State College (now Pennsylvania State University). However, he died on May 20, 1920 before this plan could be enacted; the planned rail line was never built and the house proved too fragile to move. The college established a memorial fund in Pond's honor and retained the house as a museum, although Pond's children did not formally transfer the house to the college until April 14, 1932. Some restoration of the house was done in the 1920s, and a small, brick building—intended as a fireproof museum for Priestley's books and scientific apparatus—was built on the grounds and dedicated to Pond's memory in 1926. In 1941 the state legislature tried to have the State Historical Commission administer the house as a museum, but Governor Arthur James vetoed the plan for lack of funding.

On December 14, 1955, the college donated the house to the borough of Northumberland. From 1955 to 1959 the house served as both the borough hall for Northumberland and as a museum. The house proved too costly for the borough to maintain, and was acquired by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1961. Eventually, in 1968 the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) began restoring it and in October 1970 the museum was opened to the public. The renovations included a restoration of the laboratory, a removal of ornamentation added in the Victorian era, a return of doorways to their original locations, and a return of the shutters "to their original locations inside the windows". The PHMC was supported by the "The Friends of the Joseph Priestley House" (FJPH), who help with the visitor center, tours, special events, and outreach, as well as with clerical and museum work.

Between 1998 and 1999 a renovation that was "one of the most extensive changes in the homestead's history" set out to "restore the grounds around the house to exactly the way it was when Priestley lived" there. This involved reconstructing exact replicas of the original carriage barn, hog sties, horse stalls, gardens, fences, and even the privy. These structures were based on T. Lambourne's drawings of the house and grounds that had been discovered in 1983, other records, and excavations. Priestley left no written description of his laboratory, but much is known of his experiments and late-18th-century laboratories. Extensive research on the laboratory within the house was completed in 1996, including excavations that revealed two underground ovens, as well as evidence of a primitive fume hood. The 1998 renovations also included work to restore the laboratory to a condition as close to its original state as possible.

After Joseph's death, Thomas Cooper sold a collection of some of his friend's apparatus and other personal belongings to Dickinson College in Carlisle, which exhibits it each year when presenting the school's Priestley Award to a scientist who makes "discoveries which contribute to the welfare of mankind". The house lost its original furnishings when Joseph Jr. and his family moved back to England. Since it is not known what was originally in the home, it is furnished and decorated with artifacts donated by descendants of the Priestleys and with ones similar to those listed in Priestley's testament of what was lost in the fire at his Birmingham home. A number of items that belonged to Joseph and Mary during their lives both in Britain and America are on display throughout the house, including Joseph's balance scales and microscope. Portraits, prints, maps, charts, and books have been carefully selected to replicate the Priestleys' holdings. A bedroom on the second floor is dedicated to an exploration of the life of an 18th-century woman.

On January 12, 1965, the Joseph Priestley House was designated a National Historic Landmark and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on October 15, 1966. On August 1, 1994, the American Chemical Society named it the second National Historic Chemical Landmark; the dedication ceremony was attended by 75 Priestley descendants. In 1988, the Northumberland Historic District, including the Priestley House (which it describes as a "gem" and one of the finest Federal style buildings in central Pennsylvania), was listed on the NRHP. The district includes one other building already on the NRHP: the Priestley-Forsyth Memorial Library, which was built as an inn around 1820 and was owned by a great-grandson of the Priestleys in the 1880s. Today it serves as Northumberland's public library. The Joseph Priestley Memorial Chapel, which is a contributing structure in the historic district, was built in 1834 by his grandson, and is home to a Unitarian Universalist congregation that considers Priestley its founder.

Under the PHMC, the museum was open ten months a year, closing between early January and early March. In 2007 and 2008 the number of visitors held steady after recent declines. According to the PHMC, in fiscal 2007–08 "total visitation ... was 1,705 with a paid visitation of 1,100 generating $4,125 in program revenue and 2,406 recreational and non-ticketed visitors". The fiscal 2006–07 operations budget for the house and its two full-time staff was $142,901, with $6,900 (five percent) coming from FJPH and the rest from the state of Pennsylvania.

On March 4, 2009 the PHMC released a report examining its 22 museums and historic sites and recommended discontinuing operations at six, including the Joseph Priestley House. The proposed closure of the Priestley House was based on "low visitation and limited potential for growth". Despite public meetings, protest letters, and a general "public outcry" against closure, on August 14, 2009 the state closed the Priestley House and three other PHMC museums indefinitely due to a lack of funding as part of an ongoing budget crisis. The sole remaining state employee at Priestley House was furloughed. That month the Friends of the Joseph Priestley House submitted a plan to the PHMC to operate the house on weekends from May to October with staffing provided by volunteers. The plan depended both on acquiring insurance for the volunteers, the house, and its contents, and on the state passing a budget.

On September 24, 2009 the PHMC and officers of the FJPH signed an agreement to reopen the museum on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The house reopened on October 3, with volunteer staffing from the FJPH. The agreement can be renewed annually and lets FJPH "schedule programs, set fees and be in charge of all the business aspects of running the site". On November 1, there was a "grand reopening celebration" at the house with a dozen costumed volunteer guides and chemical demonstrations in Priestley's laboratory. On November 7, 2010 the brick Pond building was rededicated after an $85,000 renovation, as part of the museum's annual "Fall Heritage Day". The restoration, which had been planned for years, was paid for by private donors and included "handicapped accessibility, new roofing, heating and air-conditioning and new interior walls, ceilings and lighting". The FJPH plan to install a timeline of Priestley's scientific work and times in the Pond building, as well as a video about his laboratory techniques and impact today.