The William Garrett House

William Garrett constructed the house in 1805 on the corner of his father’s Bryn Clovis property. The House is an excellent example of a modified “Quaker Plan” or three-room plan so prevalently used in homes among the Quaker community. He lived there with his wife Anne, and their children Mary Ann, Jemima and William. Garrett came from a family of a rich Quaker tradition, so when he married Anne, a non-Quaker, it was a scandal in the community and he was written out of the Quaker Meeting. Garrett died at the young age of 37 and the home was sold out of the family. It was eventually purchased by Angela B. Matlack, wife of Wilson M. Matlack and daughter of Joaquim Bishop, Sugartown’s platinum refiner. Angela Matlack shopped at Historic Sugartown’s General Store, appearing frequently in Hillery John’s Day Books in the early 1880s. Angela’s husband, Wilson, was a Civil War veteran and served as Captain of the Washington Troop of Chester County, the local unit of the National Guard of Pennsylvania in 1874.