General John Cadwalader was a birthright Quaker who left the Friends and became a Revolutionary War general. He served in the Continental Army under George Washington.
The Cadwalader home on South Second Street was one of the most ornate townhouses in Philadelphia. The house no longer survives, but its memory lives on as one of Philly’s finest Georgian townhouses.

 Above: General John Cadwalader’s plain-dressed Quaker parents: Dr. Thomas and Hannah Lambert Cadwalader. Portraits by Charles Willson Peale, ca. 1772. Image source: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

General John Cadwalader was a birthright Quaker who departed from his family’s anti-war values. His father was Dr. Thomas Cadwalader (above), a prominent Quaker physician and civic leader in Philadelphia. His parents emigrated to Pennsylvania from Merionethshire, Wales, to find freedom for their Quaker faith.
Dr. Thomas Cadwalader was a founder of Pennsylvania Hospital. He served on Pennsylvania’s Provisional Council until the Revolution.
The portraits, above, of plain-clothed Thomas and Hannah Cadwalader reveal their quiet Quaker ideals of simplicity and moderation.

General John Cadwalader’s Parents’ Portraits
in the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

Above: The portraits of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader and Hannah Cadwalader hang in the Powel House Room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On exhibit in this room is some of Philadelphia’s finest Chippendale furniture, which had furnished the Philadelphia townhouse of their son, General John Cadwalader.
The interior of General Cadwalader’s home was one of the finest, most-ornately crafted Georgian interiors in Philadelphia. This high-style Powel House room, above, was also one of the city’s finest Georgian interiors. General John Cadwalader and Samuel Powel were both birthright Quakers who left the Society of Friends to become Anglican. They both moved past their families’ traditions of Quaker simplicity. They chose instead to create two of Philadelphia’s most ornately lavish townhouses.

  "No longer a practicing Quaker, Cadwalader felt no obligation to have his portrait indicate a moderation acceptable to The Society of Friends.” Quote: Dianne C. Johnson, Quaker Aesthetics, page 145. Cadwalader’s ornate townhouse interiors and his lavisly expensive furniture displayed a similar lack of obligation to Quaker simplicity.

  General John Cadwalader was born and raised Quaker; he was a birthright Quaker. (See his parents’ portraits above.) But by 1769 he and wife Elizabeth were attending the nearby Anglican church, St. Peter’s Church. During the Revolutionary War numerous Quakers left the anti-war stance of their Quaker families to align with the Revolutionaries. But many other Friends remained steadfast in their commitment to non-violence.

 The Cadwalader Townhouse on a 1762 Philadelphia Map.
The house does not survive today.

  Unfortunately, the Cadwalader townhouse no longer survives. There are no known images or architectural drafts. But many of the house’s construction receipts survive from the 1770s. Those receipts, along with insurance records, provide a wealth of information about the Cadwalader house and its craftsmen.
This anonymous Philadelphia architectural draft, above, is similar to the plan of the ground floor of the Cadwalader house. Image source: Norris of Fairhill Manuscripts, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

 General John and Elizabeth Cadwalader’s Philadelphia townhouse:
One of the most lavish house interiors of colonial America:

  “I dined yesterday with Mr. Cadwallader [sic], whose furniture and house exceeds anything I have seen in this country or elsewhere.” Quote: Silas Deanne, member of the Continental Congress, after visiting the Cadwaladers in 1774.

  John and Elizabeth Cadwalader’s townhouse showcased “some of the most elegant rococo interiors created anywhere in eighteenth-century America. Philadelphia’s finest craftsmen converged on the site, creating commodious rooms decorated with interior carved paneling, gilt surfaces, and ornamental stucco and plasterwork.” Quote: The Cadwalader Family, Art and Style in Early Philadelphia, Jack Lindsay, page 8.

 Elizabeth Lloyd Cadwalader’s Dowry Silver
From Her Cadwalader Townhouse:

 Above: Elizabeth Lloyd Cadwalader (Mrs. John Cadwalader), painted by Charles Willson Peale, 1770.
Below: Urn and coffee pot from her dowry silver service.

  Elizabeth Lloyd Cadwalader ( family portrait above) was among the wealthiest women in the American colonies. She was heiress to a fortune created by her Lloyd relatives in Talbot County, Maryland. Her father, Edward Lloyd III of Wye House, was one of the largest landowners in Maryland.
Elizabeth Lloyd married John Cadwalader in 1768. Elizabeth received these English silver service items from her parents as part of her dowry. The next year, 1769, Elizabeth’s father advanced funds to her and her new husband to purchase a townhouse on Second Street, Philadelphia.
Shortly after their marriage John and Elizabeth Cadwalader began paying pew rents at the nearby Anglican church, St. Peters Church. Elizabeth’s family in Maryland was Anglican. Her father was a vestryman with the church of St. Michael’s Parish, Talbot County. John Cadwalader had moved away from the beliefs of his Quaker background. Simplicity and pacifism were now only memories of his ancestry.

  The highlight of the Philadelphia Chippendale furniture from the Cadwalader townhouse is the easy chair by Quaker furniture maker Thomas Affleck, created 1770 - 1771 (shown above). The chair is one of the rarest examples of American 18th-century furniture. It remained in the Cadwalader family until the 1950s. Collector H. Richard Dietrich, Jr. purchased the chair at auction in 1987 for $2.75 million. He gifted the chair to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2002.
Lancaster antiquarian John Snyder Jr. had successfully identified the chair through Cadwalader inventory records at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  Dinner with the Cadwaladers
George Washington visits their Philadelphia Townhouse:

 The Site of the Former Cadwalader House
In Philadelphia’s Historic Society Hill:

 Above: The site of the former Cadwalader townhouse includes a row of townhouses constructed in 1816 by financier / developer Stephen Girard. To the left of that row, above, are Neo-Colonial house constructed in the 1960s. Image source: Google Maps.

  The opulent townhouse of John and Elizabeth Cadwalader no longer survives. The house was replaced in 1816 by rowhouses built by banker / real-estate developer Stephen Girard, who founded Philadelphia’s Girard Collge. Three of those Girard rowhouses survive, at 306 to 310 South Second Street.
Stephen Girard reused some bricks and other building materials from the demolished Cadwalader house for his new row of homes. In the 1830s Girard built another Girard Row on Spruce Street.
This Society Hill neighborhood was restored in the 1950s and 1960s, after many buildings had become derelict. Society Hill is now home to one of the largest collections of restored 18th century and early 19th century buildings in the U. S.
In 2025 the assessed value of each of these three townhouses on the Cadwalader site averages more than 1.5 million dollars.

  Philadelphia was among the wealthiest colonial cities of North America. The Cadwalader collection of ornately carved furniture represents the highmark for Philadelphia furniture of that era.
Meanwhile, the most ornately carved Philadelphia townhouse interior to survive from that same time is the Blackwell Parlor, installed at Winterthur Museum. This Blackwell interior (above) is from the 1764 Philadelphia townhouse of Rev. Robert Blackwell, an Anglican rector of Christ Church. Included in the parlor’s furnishings are items commissioned by General John Cadwalader and Elizabeth Cadwalader for their Philadelphia townhouse.
The Cadwalader collection at Winterthur includes sidechairs, a card table, a fireplace pole screen, and a looking glass.

Cadwalader objects at Philadelphia Museum of Art
Cadwalader items at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Cadwalader items at the Historical Society of Pennsylania