Museum will require dedication of public
Last Friday, several dozen people gathered in the garden of the David Bradford House on one of those perfect late-summer evenings, under a cloudless blue sky, the setting sun’s golden light splashed upon the limestone walls of Washington’s oldest structure.
The event was the rededication of the site by the David Bradford House Historical Association, and it took place exactly 50 years after a public ceremony opened the house as a state museum on Sept. 18, 1965, following a six-year restoration project.
Built in 1788 by David Bradford, an attorney who six years later would become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, the two-story stone house with its elaborate mahogany interior trim must have seemed a magnificent mansion at the time, perched as it was beside a muddy track lined with crude, log buildings.
A string of owners over the years found many uses for the house, as a furniture store, a grocery and an undertaker’s business. But by the 1940s, it had fallen into disrepair. Christmas trees were being sold out of what once was its parlor.
Fortunately, a number of local residents recognized the house’s historical significance and launched a campaign to save it from demolition. The effort to save the house was enormous and expensive and not undertaken without criticism. The project could not have happened without state support, and many thought the use of their tax dollars wasteful.
And the restoration and furnishing of the museum was just the beginning of a long financial commitment. The museum needed people to run it and the money to maintain it. The Bradford House relied upon local contributions and the support of the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission to keep the museum in operation for more than four decades.
Several years ago, however, the state cut off funds to the Bradford House and several other Pennsylvania museums and historic sites. If the house were to survive as a public attraction, it would have to do it entirely through local support.
The historical association’s board of directors aggressively sought that support, and the public has responded with enthusiasm.
The museum is run almost entirely by volunteers. Not only has the David Bradford House survived without state support, it has thrived, completing a costly exterior restoration and constructing a replica log kitchen at the rear of the property. And the association’s board of directors is close to completing a purchase of the house from the state.
Public awareness of the museum has increased. During the Whiskey Rebellion Festival in July, an estimated 1,000 people toured the house. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve never been in the house before,” was commonly heard that weekend.
The LeMoyne House, operated by the Washington County Historical Society, experienced the same sort of traffic and reaction. It is our hope that someday the two organizations will merge and benefit from a unity of purpose.
If the David Bradford House is to survive as a museum for the next half century, it will require more than awareness. The maintenance of the museum is a worthy cause to which we urge our readers to contribute.