The Penn Stater Magazine

I have a very vague memory of visiting the Joseph Priestley House in Northumberland, Pa., when I was a kid. Priestley, as I learned as a schoolkid and I assume (and hope!) today’s schoolkids are still being taught, was the discoverer of oxygen.

The Priestley House is a well-preserved and rare example of late 18th-century architecture—basically an English country house built in what was then frontier America. I went there this past Saturday because the house is owned and operated by the state and has been identified as an attraction that might have to close because of a huge shortfall in state revenues. For some reason, I didn’t want to miss the chance to see it again.

I rediscovered that the house is a small treasure and that Priestley was brilliant—not only the father of modern chemistry, but also a theologian, educator, and political philosopher. He was a friend of both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson borrowed many of Priestley’s ideas and used them in the Declaration of Independence.

Also, I learned that Priestley’s house was (1) once owned by Penn State and (2) that its existence today owes a lot to George “Swampy” Pond, a chemistry professor at Penn State from 1888 to 1920. (Pond Laboratory at University Park is named after him.) After World War I, people were seriously thinking of selling Priestley’s house to the railroad and allowing the house to be torn down.

According to Brooke, the very knowledgeable and agreeable tour guide (I was the only person taking the tour), Pond appealed to his former students for funds to purchase and preserve Priestley House. They also raised funds to construct the red-brick structure shown here. A plaque on the building bears Pond’s name and credits him and his chemistry-class alumni for saving the house.

Known as the Pond Building, the red-brick building was once used as a visitor center, but is now shuttered and unused. A group called the Friends of Joseph Priestley House is raising money to improve and develop the property, including Pond Building. The hope is to transform Pond Building into a lecture and exhibit hall.

Alan Janesch is director of the Alumni Association’s Grassroots Network and an occasional contributor to this blog.