18th Century

Tucked into a corner of the wall above a stairway leading to the third floor of the Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa, Del., is a tiny doorway. In 1845, the cubbyhole behind this door sheltered a runaway slave named Sam. When the local sheriff came looking for the runaway, the lady of the house, Mary Corbit, led him right up to the stairway. As she had hoped, the sheriff couldn't imagine that the space behind the door was large enough to shelter a human being, so he turned away to continue his search throughout the rest of the house.

Members of Terpsichore Antiqua perform dances from the 18th century. The group danced Sunday at Windlestrae Park in Horsham during a party to celebrate Montgomery Township's 275th anniversary.

A house and barn built more than 200 years ago will be protected from destruction under a land subdivision plan approved Tuesday by the Charlestown Township Planning Commission. The 18th century buildings on Union Hill Road, owned by Malvern resident Stintson Markley, have both state and national recognition as historic sites. His plan calls for 54 acres to be subdivided into four plots to provide revenue for maintaining the buildings. The plan will be reviewed by the township Board of Supervisors for probable approval in December.

It was billed as an authentic 18th-century day of leisure and entertainment, with storytellers, musicians and games for the children at the Colonial Plantation in Ridley Creek State Park. But if the rainy weather of this summer had occurred 200 years ago, it's not likely that the family members who worked the plantation would have had any time for leisure. They would have been working to put away the waterlogged and weather-thinned crop for the winter. "It would have been a hungry winter - and there wouldn't have been any money made, either," said James Nichols, 31, the plantation's resident farmer.

The one thing Martha Washington and her slave had in common was society's failure to recognize them as full-fledged citizens. Neither the first lady nor her slave could earn a wage. Neither could buy or sell property. Neither could even draw up a will. "When the Founding Fathers said, 'All men are created equal,' what they meant was all men were created equal," said Greg Knouff, a research associate at the David Library of the American Revolution. But "you can't understand the American Revolution by just looking at men. You have to understand women," he said.

Eighteenth-century British author Lord Chesterfield did not think much of dancing but conceded that a young man should learn to do it well "and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act. " Chesterfield had reason to worry. Dancing - at least for the merchant and upper classes - was a social grace that signaled breeding and refinement. Done well, it opened political doors, earned praise and adulation, even helped snare a mate. Performed poorly, it could bring shame and disgrace.

The site of the historic Spring Mill Plantation near the Schuylkill represents a good example of an early American industrial network. From the early 18th century well into the 20th, it was an important part of our area's economic development. Local historian Edward T. Addison Jr., writing in the Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County (spring 1992), says: "The Miller's House is the only complete building of the Spring Mill complex that exists today. It stands as a monument to the once-thriving grist mill established by Davis Williams . . . most likely, 1704.

What could be more perfect than a Louis Quinze armchair, the sublime marriage of form and function, Yves Labbe mused last week as he eyed the battered frame of a formerly elegant Louis parked in the corner of his Norristown wood shop. The chair was missing its back and seat, but Labbe loved it anyway, tracing the line of its leg with his finger. "For me, there is nothing better in proportion and beauty. For me, it is the best," he said, his French baritone rising a little in astonishment.

The manor house and barn stand at the foot of a bold hill that overlooks the Brandywine River where the waters make a sharp U curve southward toward Delaware. Hence the house's name, Big Bend. The place is isolated, hidden, but alive rather than desolate. Big Bend is certainly off the beaten path. To get to the start of that path, one must travel less than a mile and a half south of Chadds Ford along the Brandywine on Route 100. Off to the left is a private country lane whose entrance is marked by two stone pillars adorned by sculpted turtles.

Nicholas St. John, 8, of Naples, Fla., tries a wooden puppet with help from Louise Bleil, of Philadelphia, at Washington Crossing State Park. Games from the 18th century were demonstrated yesterday.

Given last week's historic pop-political culture moment - the first "American Idol" winner to sing at a presidential inauguration - this seems a good time to look at other inaugural firsts. 1. The first president to take the oath from the chief justice of the United States. a. George Washington. b. John Adams. c. Thomas Jefferson. d. James Monroe. 2. He was the first to walk to and from his swearing-in ceremony. a. Thomas Jefferson. b. Andrew Jackson. c. Theodore Roosevelt.

Tucked into a corner of the wall above a stairway leading to the third floor of the Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa, Del., is a tiny doorway. In 1845, the cubbyhole behind this door sheltered a runaway slave named Sam. When the local sheriff came looking for the runaway, the lady of the house, Mary Corbit, led him right up to the stairway. As she had hoped, the sheriff couldn't imagine that the space behind the door was large enough to shelter a human being, so he turned away to continue his search throughout the rest of the house.

larissa Dillon used to mortify her teenage son by wearing her work clothes - a colonial-style getup - while driving him somewhere. "He'd say, 'Oh for God's sake, Mom, you look like a baby in that bonnet!' " she recalls. But Dillon was - and, at 79, remains - unmoved. That's because for this ardent devotee of 18th-century "domestic arts" in Southeastern Pennsylvania, everything about ordinary life at that time, in this place, is worth exploring. If that means "wearing funny clothes" and sporting what looks remarkably like a baby bonnet at the wheel of her car, too bad. And by the way, it's not a bonnet.

When Gruff Rhys, the leader of the psychedelic-pop group Super Furry Animals, plays a solo show at PhilaMOCA on Sunday, it will be a key stop on the Welsh songwriter's second "investigative" tour of the Americas. Rhys' first such trek took him to Patagonia, where he looked into the roots of Rene Griffiths, an Argentine cowboy singer who is descended from Dafydd Jones, a distant relative of Rhys' who attempted to found a utopian Welsh-speaking community in South America in the late 19th century.

With all the development that has occurred in Philadelphia, archaeologists thought it unlikely they would ever find significant remnants of early Native American cultures. Those artifacts would have been deeply buried, carted away, or crushed. But not long ago, along I-95 in North Philadelphia, they uncovered tobacco pipes, arrowheads, pottery, and other Native American artifacts dating back 3,000 years. Near Mount Holly, they have begun to unearth portions of the African American community of Timbuctoo, founded in the 1820s and a station on the Underground Railroad.

Juan Pedro Domecq Solis, 69, who helped define the evolution of the bullfight in the late 20th century, died Monday in a head-on crash with a truck in Higuera de la Sierra, near his Lo Alvaro estate in southwest Spain. As one of Spain's foremost breeders, he first developed what became known as the "artist bull," bred to enhance sleek yet muscular lines, and later the "athlete bull," aimed at giving a more thrilling performance while facing matadors in the bullring. Known within bullfighting circles simply as Juan Pedro, Domecq had inherited Spain's oldest breeding estate - Veragua, founded in the 18th century - which his grandfather Juan Pedro Domecq y Nunez de Villavicencio had bought in 1939.

MADRID - Juan Pedro Domecq Solis' fighting bulls helped define the evolution of the bullfight in the late 20th century, adding artistry and then muscle to the ancient breed. Domecq, 69, who died in a car crash yesterday, was one of Spain's foremost breeders. He first developed what became known as the "artist bull," bred to enhance sleek yet muscular lines, and later the "athlete bull," aimed at giving a more thrilling performance while facing matadors in the bullring. Known within bullfighting circles simply as Juan Pedro, Domecq had inherited Spain's oldest breeding estate - Veragua, founded in the 18th century - which his grandfather Juan Pedro Domecq y Nunez de Villavicencio had bought in 1939.

Jose Vargas and Jennifer Brennan-Vargas have not sat still since the 2007 debut of their Mayfair BYOB Rylei , recipient of two bells from The Inquirer's Craig LaBan. First, the Vargases relocated in 2008 to Richboro. Then last year, they moved to New Hope's Four Seasons Mall with Thyme , but that one lasted a New Hope minute after what the couple call real estate issues. They have alighted farther inland, operating a restaurant in the circa-1720 farmhouse at Nostalgia, the wedding and banquet facility on Route 202 in central Bucks County.

Since 1703, at least one member of the Mendenhall family has lived on the same patch of land in Chester County, near Chadds Ford. But now Frank Mendenhall, the eighth-generation owner who tools around on a faded old tractor, is in danger of losing what remains of the 200 acres an ancestor bought from William Penn's agents. Mendenhall owes lenders $1.76 million. The debt came from the construction in 2007 of a stable with room for 24 horses and an expansive indoor riding arena. It's called "the airplane hangar" by neighbors because it jolts the eyes and blocks views along a country road lined with elegant farming estates set back at the end of long lanes.

Peter A. Tasch had an enthusiasm for an 18th-century dramatist a bit more obscure than Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1972, Bucknell University Press published Mr. Tasch's work The Dramatic Cobbler: The Life and Works of Isaac Bickerstaff. A 1974 review in the journal Modern Philology declared that Bickerstaff was the enigmatic theatrical hack whose Love in a Village was the most popular comic opera of the 18th century. Mr. Tasch, 76, of Germantown, chairman of the English department at Temple University from 1988 to 1990, died of multiple system atrophy Sunday, July 25, at Pennsylvania Hospital.