The Highlands
Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Built in 1796 by merchant and Pa. state senator Anthony Morris as a refuge for the Morris family during recurrences of yellow fever in Philadelphia. Originally 200 acres, it is noted for its late Georgian-style fieldstone mansion, designed by Philadelphia politician Timothy Matlack. Sold in 1813 to wine merchant George Sheaff, whose family owned it until 1917, when Caroline Sinkler purchased it. She made Colonial Revival renovations.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1796, as Philadelphia endured recurring waves of deadly yellow fever, merchant and state senator Anthony Morris built this fieldstone estate outside the city as a country refuge for his family. Its late Georgian mansion—designed by the Philadelphia figure Timothy Matlack—anchored an original 200-acre property that passed through the Sheaff family for a century before Caroline Sinkler acquired it in 1917 and gave it Colonial Revival updates. The house layers more than a century of American taste, from Federal-era elegance to early-twentieth-century revivalism.
Why it matters
The Highlands traces how the young republic's mercantile elite lived, fled epidemics, and shaped the landscape around Philadelphia—and how later generations, including a prominent woman preservationist, reimagined that heritage.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1790s, Philadelphia was one of the most important cities in the young United States, a hub of commerce, politics, and ideas. But it was also periodically a city of fear. Recurring outbreaks of yellow fever swept through its streets in the late eighteenth century, emptying neighborhoods as those who could afford to fled to the countryside.
For the merchant elite of the early republic, a country estate outside the city was both a symbol of success and a very practical refuge. Land in the rolling countryside of what is now Montgomery County offered clean air, distance from the crowded port, and a healthful retreat when the fever returned.
This was also an era of confident American building. The Federal period brought a taste for elegant, restrained design, and prosperous families expressed their standing through fine homes on generous grounds. The Highlands was born directly out of these currents: fear of disease, mercantile wealth, and the architectural ambitions of a new nation.
People & events
The estate was built in 1796 by Anthony Morris, a merchant and Pennsylvania state senator, as a country refuge where his family could escape the yellow fever that kept returning to Philadelphia. On an original tract of some 200 acres, he raised a late Georgian fieldstone mansion, designed with the help of Timothy Matlack, a notable Philadelphia political figure of the day.
In 1813 the property passed to George Sheaff, a wine merchant, and it stayed in the Sheaff family for roughly a century, a remarkable span of continuity that carried the house through generations of American change. Ownership finally shifted in 1917, when Caroline Sinkler purchased the estate and left her own mark on it.
Sinkler brought the sensibility of her era to the old house, undertaking Colonial Revival renovations that looked back admiringly on America's early architecture even as they reshaped it. In her hands the Highlands became not just a preserved relic but a living conversation between the founding era and the early twentieth century.
Its place in the American story
The Highlands traces, in a single property, how the young republic's mercantile class lived, prospered, and coped with the very real dangers of their time. The decision to build a rural refuge from yellow fever speaks to a world before modern medicine, when flight was one of the few defenses against epidemic disease.
The house is also a layered record of American taste. Its late Georgian fieldstone bones reflect the elegance of the Federal era, while Caroline Sinkler's later Colonial Revival work embodies a nationwide movement in which Americans romanticized and reinterpreted their colonial past. Reading the house is like reading more than a century of changing ideas about beauty and heritage.
And in Sinkler's stewardship there is a distinctly American thread of preservation, the impulse to save, honor, and reimagine the places where earlier generations lived. It is a reminder that our historic homes survive not by accident but because later owners chose to care for them.
If you visit
Approach the Highlands as a place to read time in stone. Look at the fieldstone mansion and try to separate its early Georgian character from the later Colonial Revival touches, two American centuries meeting in one building.
Let your mind travel back to 1796 and the reason the house exists at all: a family seeking safety from an epidemic, trading the crowded port city for open, healthful countryside. Then jump forward to the early twentieth century and imagine a new owner lovingly reworking the estate in homage to the colonial era.
Set in the countryside outside Philadelphia, it makes a rewarding stop for anyone interested in early American life, architecture, and the long human effort to preserve the past. Give yourself time to take in both the house and its grounds, and to feel how many generations have shaped this single piece of ground.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- African American Museum in Philadelphia13.1 mi away · 701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- National Constitution Center13.2 mi away · 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Independence Visitor Center13.3 mi away · 599 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Betsy Ross House13.3 mi away · 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Illadelph Glass Gallery13.4 mi away · 68 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Museum of Illusions Philadelphia13.4 mi away · 401 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
Attractions
- Discovery Center at East Park Reservoir10.6 mi away
- Pennsylvania Railroad, Connecting Railway Bridge11.1 mi away
- Philadelphia Zoo11.4 mi away
- Harbison's Dairy Milk Bottle11.7 mi away
- Rocky Steps12.0 mi away
- American Bandstand12.2 mi away
Food & drink
- Burger King13.3 mi away
- Independence Mall Cafe13.3 mi away · 50 North Independence Mall East, Philadelphia
- Dunkin'13.3 mi away · 634 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- La Colombe Coffee Roasters13.3 mi away
- Philly Pretzel Factory13.3 mi away
- Time & Peace13.4 mi away · 36 South 7th Street, Philadelphia, PA
Places to stay
- Days Inn Philadelphia Convention Center - Philadelphia12.8 mi away · 1227 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia City Center12.8 mi away · 1201 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Clarion Suites Philadelphia12.9 mi away · 1010 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Sleep Inn Center City13.0 mi away · 1020 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Home2 Suites by Hilton Philadelphia - Convention Center, PA13.0 mi away · 1200 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- The Notary Hotel13.0 mi away · 21 North Juniper Street, Philadelphia
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
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Related people
- · Anthony Morris
- · Timothy Matlack
- · Caroline Sinkler
Themes & tags
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