Burdick House Condition Assessment and Treatment Report, New Philadelphia National Historic Site
Raths, Raths & Johnson, Inc.. 2026. Burdick House Condition Assessment and Treatment Report, New Philadelphia National Historic Site. Historic Structure Report. National Park Service. Interior Regions 3, 4, 5
The 1941 wood frame Virgil Burdick house is square in plan (approximately 30 feet by 30 feet) with regularly spaced double-hung windows. A thin brick masonry veneer covers exterior walls which were originally clad in clapboard. It has a pyramidal cap roof with front and back-facing dormers. A hipped roof porch extends across the front façade; it is supported by tapered square columns on brick masonry bases. A wood frame barn and shed are also extant features of the homestead. Virgil Burdick was a member of a White family from New England which settled in New Philadelphia in the mid-1800s. The goal of the Condition Assessment and Treatment Plan is to present a brief site history, document a feature condition assessment, and recommend a conceptual level treatment plan for potential use as a park visitor contact station. A Determination of Eligibility was prepared concurrently with the report with the finding that the Burdick Homestead is not eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Established in 2022, New Philadelphia National Historic Site preserves the townsite of the first known town planned and legally registered by an African American before the Civil War. Located in western Illinois, New Philadelphia was founded in 1836 by Frank McWorter, a formerly enslaved man from Kentucky who bought the freedom of himself and 15 family members. The rural community flourished at first but later declined and dissolved in 1885.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Raths, Raths & Johnson, Inc.
- Date of Issue
- 2026-06
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- NEPH
- Keywords
- American Foursquare, contact station, Frank McWorter, Illinois, National Historic Landmark, New Philadelphia Historic District, Virgil Burdick Homestead
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International