William Wilkins and His Homestead

Annie Clark Miller writes of William Wilkins in “Old Houses and Estates in Pittsburgh” for the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine in 1926,

A landmark that should have been preserved by the citizens of Pittsburgh for its historic association and distinctive beauty was the homestead of the Hon. William Wilkins. For ninety years this estate was known as Homewood and had the reputation of being the most fashionable and aristocratic country seat in Western Pennsylvania.

Judge Wilkins was a graduate of Princeton College and a law student under James Ross, Esq. He became Judge of the United States District Court, General of Militia, United States Senator, Minister to Russia and Secretary of War.

His first residence was on Water Street, a very plain, big house, next to the old woolen mill which stood on the site of the present Monongahela House. Here he entertained President James Monroe in 1817 and General Lafayette in 1825. Later he moved to Soho, then a beautiful suburb.

In 1832 he purchased 650 acres of land which included parts of sections known today as Homewood, Smithfield and Homewood cemeteries, Gunn’s Hill, Swissvale, Edgewood and Wilkinsburg. Virgin timber covered much of his estate and a clearing had to be made where the great house was built.

It is said Judge Wilkins sketched his own designs and plans for his house while in England. He was his own architect and contractor, just as Thomas Jefferson designed and built his own Monticello in Virginia. Homewood became a record of intelligence, culture and refinment of a great Pittsburgher, who in his day was in touch with the achievements of the old world.

The architecture was distinctive among the early American houses; the style was that, of the Greek period of English renaissance, as rare as it was beautiful.

The entrance drive was an approach through a magnificent avenue of maple trees, about the situation of Murtland Avenue, with a circular sweep around the rear of the house where was the carriage entrance.

The buildings were grouped like a great southern plantation, the forest forming a screen from the house. There were stables, coachhouses, servants quarters, springhouses, wood and ice houses, bake ovens, all of similar architecture to the smallest detail. Ruins of one of ths outbuildings and the gate keeper’s lodge house survived until recent years and showed the same pillared porticoes and careful detail as the mansion itself.

The central section of the house towered two lofty stories with great Greek Doric columns reaching to the roof from the portico, which was guarded by two granite lions.

The long, French windows of the drawing room opened to this portico. At either end of the central building were wings or offices with Doric pilasters between the French windows.

When the house was being dismantled in 1922, local architects and students of architecture secured permission to preserve doorways, arches, cornices and ledges as models and examples of fine architecture. The exterior columns, with their cornices and entabulation and some interior wood finish, were preserved by the Director of the Department of Fine Arts of the Carnegie Institute, who plans to give them a place as an exhibit for architectural study.

At one end of the great drawing room was a most elaborate carved mantelpiece and at the other end was a marble console table on which stood a marvelous bronze clock, some thirty inches tall, which had belonged to Marie Antoinette. The clock now belongs to a granddaughter, Miss Sandar, of Philadelphia. The Homewood silver and china were gathered in many foreign shops.

Tall pier-glasses towered between the windows and a crystal chandelier threw its reflection in the mirrors and on the polished floors. This chandelier now hangs in "Homewood," the residence of William Wilkins of Wytheville, Virginia. Beautiful books lent their charm and lustrous silken draperies added grace to the rooms where distinguished men and women were guests.

William Wilkins was a political power in his state. Mrs. Wilkins was Mathilda Dallas, daughter of George Dallas, Vice President of the United tates, and their house was naturally the place of entertainment for all notables traveling to the West. Among such guests were General Jackson, General Zachary Taylor, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Thomas H. Benton.

Upon his return from his diplomatic residence in Russia, Mr. Wilkins brought with him many fine pieces of bronze, porcelain and silver. He had a gift for each relative and friend and an anecdote was a part of each presentation.

A Dresden china tea set is the cherished possession of a granddaughter, Miss Matilda Dallas Hutchison, of Evanston, Ill. Miss Hutchison was much interested to see in the Russian Exhibit of the Chicago Exposition in 1894, duplicates of two figures in Russian iron, which had been favorites of her grandfather’s. One was a figure of Napoleon and the other of Falstaff.

The tract of land known today as Frick’s Woods (the gift of the late Henry C. Frick to the city for a public park) was part of the Wilkins Estate, and later became the summer home of Mrs. James A. Hutchison, a granddaughter of William Wilkins.

It was always called “Gunn’s Hill” by the Wilkins family. Just over the hill, looking toward Wilkinsburg, was an old cabin built of logs, some twenty feet square, that was preserved by the family because it was said to have been the scene of the last Indian massacre in this locality, when the old settler Gunn and his entire family were killed by the Indians.

When this property is formally dedicated as a park, some effort should be made to restore the old traditional name, “Gunn’s Hill.”