113 Elfreth's Alley

An insurance survey taken during that year describes House 115 and notes “the adjoining house [113] is the same...except it has no windows on the sides.” This house remained in the possession of the Haines/Trotter family until 1851.

Perhaps the first tenant of the rental property was cooper Jonathan Sleeper, who was living at 113 Elfreth’s Alley at the time the 1810 census was taken. Like so many Alley residents, Jonathan lived in several different houses on the street, including House 120, and had relatives (in his case, a brother, James) who also lived on the Alley.

These trends – to move from house to house and to live near (or with) both immediate and extended family – were not limited to the late 18th and early 19th century. In 1920, for example, fireman Patrick Cunneff lived in House 113 with his wife and two sons; twenty years earlier, the Cunneffs – including all five of the children – had resided just up the block in House 121. Vincent Cunneff, one of the sons who had moved out of his parents’ house by 1920, was in fact living in House 138. A policeman, Vincent and his wife had two infant children and were raising them under the watchful eye of grandparents, aunts, and uncles.