By Thom Nickels
Did an Irishman design the First Bank building at 3rd and Chestnut Streets?
The first time I heard this question posed I asked myself, “Can something this major be a mystery?” And yet in all probability it is a mystery, or not quite a mystery as much as it is perhaps a case of post colonial hoodwinking; a project manager/developer type using the real architect’s plans and then promoting himself so relentlessly that the Irish architect in question, James Hoban, didn’t have the nerve to claim credit for one of the most fantastic buildings in Philadelphia.
The “architect” credited with designing the First Bank, Samuel Blodget (1757-1814), served in the Revolutionary War where he was captain of a New Hampshire militia. After the war he made his fortune in East India trade, moving from Boston to Philadelphia. Blodget, ever one to scout out a good deal, married “up” when he won the hand of the daughter of Rev. William Smith, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1792 he slipped from the straight and narrow when he became entangled in some shady real estate speculations, declared bankruptcy and spent time in prison. He entered the design competition for the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. but then abruptly dropped out of the running. Roger Moss, author of Historic Landmarks of Philadelphia, writes that Blodget “died an obscure death.”
Photo | Wikimedia Commons
The First Bank was built between 1795 and 1797 in the Classical/Revival style to resemble the buildings of ancient Greece. It has often been noted that the front of the building resembles a stage set while the sides are all plain brick.
Irish architect James Hoban was born in 1758 in County Kilkenny. Trained as a wheelwright, carpenter and architectural draftsman, he immigrated to Philadelphia in 1785 after the Revolutionary War, moving to South Carolina two years later. A meeting with George Washington helped inaugurate his architectural practice. He designed the War Department building in Washington, several hotels, and entered the White House design competition. Trained in the Neoclassical style, Hoban won the White House project and was awarded a cash prize of $500. His White House design resembles the Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament in Dublin, a building that Hoban always admired.
Hoban and Blodget were acquainted before Philadelphia’s First Bank was built in 1795. In 1793, Hoban, in fact, had presented his designs for a new Washington, D.C. hotel to Blodget, an indication that Blodget was really what we would term today a project manager or developer.
Photo | Wikimedia Commons
Despite his architectural achievements, Hoban was not celebrated during his lifetime. He seems to have done his work quietly, residing in Washington until his death in 1831. Hoban contributed to the founding of Georgetown University and his son was a Jesuit priest.
Part of the problem in determining who really designed Philadelphia’s First Bank may have to do with the fact that Hoban suffered a terrible fire in the 1880s in which all of his business correspondence was lost. Was a contract of sorts between Blodget and Hoban lost in the flames?
Most documents that detail the history of the First Bank suggest that Blodget worked on the building with Hoban. There’s also a far-flung source that pinpoints another Irishman as the architect of First Bank, Christopher Myers. What’s fascinating about Myers is that not much is known about the man except for some obscure ads in the Federal Gazette of 1795 stating that Myers was “Bred under his late father, Architect of the Board of Works in Ireland.” Myers’ name comes up as one of the so called Superintendent Architects during the construction of the Capitol building.
I spoke to Tom Caramanico, president of the engineering company McCormick Taylor, Inc., and Executive Director of Friends of Independence National Historical Park (FINHP has taken the lead in raising funds for the restoration of First Bank) about the Blodget-Hoban mystery. He said that the National Park Service’s view is that Blodget was in fact the architect, but added, “They can’t say anything else if they can’t nail the truth of it down.” The truth, of course, being that Hoban allowed Blodget to get involved with the building as a project manager.
Caramanico added that when he met Philadelphia historian Roger Moss, author of Historic Landmarks of Philadelphia, at a lecture that Moss told him that Samuel Blodget was definitely not the architect of First Bank. “Moss in fact said that Blodget was a scoundrel and a nobody, and he was pretty adamant about it.”
Caramanico says this makes sense to him. “This is a beautiful building. I don’t know how a guy who is a project manager or a developer could design a building like that. If today a project manager or developer wanted to create a building like that, what would they do? They would hire an architect. It makes perfect sense to me especially if you can document that James Hoban had some other projects with Blodget. If that were the case, well, why would he not have turned to James Hoban to do this?”
Matthew Baigell, a scholar from Rutgers University, concurs.
Photo | Wikimedia Commons
“A businessman rather than a designer of buildings, [Blodget’s] oeuvre is known to consist only of the Bank and a plan he submitted in the competition for the U.S. Capitol in 1792. I would like to suggest that he had little to do with the design for the Bank and that on the basis of the following evidence presume that James Hoban, the architect of the White House, ghosted Blodgett’s work for him.”
“This story about Hoban being the architect is something I would love to document,” Caramanico said. “One of the first things that the Independence Historical Trust is going to do is some research. This is one of the stories that we are going to chase down.”
As for the renovation of First Bank, Caramanico says the project needs more funding but he expects those needs to be met.
“When the building opens, we are not going to call it a museum but there will be exhibit space which will tell the story of the first financial center of the United States. It will be all about Alexander Hamilton and everything that happened in this building. This was America’s first Wall Street, after all.”
The projected opening date is 2024. “I feel confident about 2024,” Caramanico said.