120 Elfreth's Alley

They were built sometime between 1724 and 1728.   Andrew Edge, who built House 120, was a tanner and one of the founders of Philadelphia’s First Baptist Church.    In 1728 he discovered that he owned not the lot he had built on, but the lot next door where Thomas Potts had recently completed House 122 – an that Potts actually owned his lot! Deeds were executed to exchange the two properties.

Edge’s daughter Susanna and her husband, carpenter Richard Hall, lived in the house before building their own next door at House 118; his other daughter, Mary, also lived in the house with her husband, mariner Nathaniel Russel, until he was declared dead after failing to return from a privateering cruise in 1759.  Remarried, Mary placed an advertisement to sell the house in the Pennsylvania Gazette, noting, “it is very convenient for any Person that follows the Water.”

Later residents of House 120 included grocers Joseph and Samuel Pryor and cooper Jonathan Sleeper, a Quaker whose brother, James, lived nearby in House 126.  House 120 was one of the many that housed Philadelphia police officers in the early 20th century.  Frederick Fadum, a first generation American, was living with his wife and two daughters in the house when the 1900 census was taken.