An opportunity to enter and tour Growden Mansion gives the public a look at restoration work at the historic landmark.
The turnout came despite the weather, according to Bensalem Township, which shared video of the open house showing the mansion's before-and-after progress.
The Mansion's History
The Bensalem Historical Society says Joseph Growden built a home that his son expanded about 1730.
The estate traces back to Joseph Growden and his son Lawrence, who each purchased 5,000 acres from Pennsylvania founder William Penn, according to the Cornish Diaspora. Joseph Growden settled on the property in 1683 and established the original estate.
Digging Next Door at Gibb House
While the mansion itself has ongoing renovations, the neighboring Gibb House has its own active excavation underway. Stony Hill Archaeological Research and the Mercer Museum are leading a dig there to investigate the structure's age and original purpose.
Growden Mansion, located at 5408 Neshaminy Valley Drive along Neshaminy Creek, is also known historically as Trevose Manor and is a local historical landmark.
A Founding Father's Frequent Visitor
The mansion's Revolutionary-era history includes a notable connection to Benjamin Franklin, who was friends with Joseph Galloway and made many visits to the estate, according to the Bensalem Historical Society.
Local Bucks County tradition has long held that Franklin conducted his famous 1752 kite-and-key electricity experiment on the Growden Mansion grounds, though modern historians generally agree the experiment actually took place near Philadelphia, according to Patch. The legend persists in local ghost stories and regional tourism lore even as historians distinguish it from the verified record.
Loyalty, Betrayal, and a Wife Left Behind
During the war, Joseph Galloway fled with his daughter to London, and the property was confiscated, according to Age of Revolutions.
Galloway's wife, Grace Growden Galloway, stayed behind at the mansion after her husband fled, keeping a detailed diary as she unsuccessfully tried to legally assert her inherited property rights before being forcibly evicted, according to the Age of Revolutions. Married women under colonial law could not hold separate land titles, a legal barrier that shaped her doomed fight to keep the property.
The Estate's Name
The home was called “The Manor of Bensalem,” according to the Bensalem Historical Society.
The mansion grounds also contain a stone outbuilding known as The Vault, which served as a secure archive during the colonial era to store early Bucks County deeds, land records, and political documents belonging to Franklin, per Wikipedia. The outbuilding still displays bullet holes attributed to Revolutionary-era skirmishes, a physical reminder of the political violence that once touched the property.
Restoration work has taken place at the mansion.
