John Test

1651-1706

The following account was written by Robert Turner who arrived in Philadelphia aboard the Lyon in 1683. In 1684 Turner built the first brick house in the city and, having been recently on the Delaware river noting improvements to the city, he wrote a short description of the architectual evolution of the new city. He observes:

"Now as to the Town of Philadelphia it goeth on in Planting and Building to admiration, both in the front and backward, and there are about 600 Houses in 3 years time. And since I built my Brick House...which I did design after a good manner to incourage others, and that from building with Wood, it being the first, many take example, and some that built Wooden Houses, are sorry for it: Brick building is said to be as cheap: Bricks are exceeding good, and better than when I built...and now many brave Brick Houses going up, with good Cellars. Arthur Cook [speaker of assembly, privincial councillor, and chief justice] is building him a brave Brick House near William Frampton's on the front.... John Wheeler, [merchant and distiller, ship-owner and trader] ...is building a good Brick house, by the Blew Anchor.... Samuel Carpenter has built another house by his.... Humphery Murry, [first mayor of Philadelphia 1691-1692] from New York, has built a large Timber house, with Brick Chimnies. John Test has almost finished a good Brick House, and a Bake House of Timber."

In a footnote to this quote the editor, Albert Cook Myers, observes that "John Test (d. 1718), a non-Quaker merchant, from London, had probably come over to West New Jersey with John Fenwick's colony in the Griffin, in 1675. He was a resident of Upland (Chester) as early as 1677, and as late as 1679. In 1681 he was made sheriff of Pennsylvania by the court of Upland, and in 1682 the first sheriff of the newly-constituted Philadelphia County. His brick house was at the northeast corner of Third and Chestnut streets. In later life he removed to Darby, and died there as an innkeeper.




The source of this letter is actually William Penn who quotes the letter in A Further Account of the Province of Pennsylvania and its Improvements, for the Satisfaction of those that are Adverturers, and enclined to be so, 1685.

Source: Albert Cook Myers, ed. Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey, and Delaware: 1630-1707 (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1953), pp. 270-271.



Penn's A Further Account of the Province of Pennsylvania and its Improvements, for the Satisfaction of those that are Adverturers, and enclined to be so,