Caleb Pusey, formally Caleb Bartholomew alias Pusey, was a Quaker lastmaker and a friend and business partner of William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. Pusey came to the colony from England in 1682, having been born in the parish of Lambourn, to manage Chester Mills for Penn. Situated on Chester Creek west of Philadelphia, they were the first Proprietary grist mill and sawmill in the colony. From 1701, Pusey served as a justice of the provincial supreme court. Pusey became involved with the local Quaker community, as well as local government. He wrote a number of pamphlets, several in defense of William Penn. The Caleb Pusey house, at 15 Race Street, Upland, Pennsylvania, is likely the oldest house in the state. Caleb Pusey, a Quaker, came to Pennsylvania from England in 1682 with his wife Anne Worley and her two sons, Francis and Henry, from her first marriage. He and Penn had arranged to ship a prefabricated mill on The Welcome, in order to erect it in the colony. By the first winter in Pennsylvania they had only completed a pit-house as a residence, and lived in severe conditions. Anne had a miscarriage that winter. Pusey began their one-story house in 1683. It was constructed in two stages, probably finished a couple of years apart. A storage attic is above the main level. By 1696 Pusey and his family occupied the completed house and hosted the Quaker services of the Chester Monthly Meeting. It is built from native stone in the vernacular tradition of yeomen's houses of Berkshire, England, Pusey's home county. Bricks have been interspersed randomly through the construction, probably replacing missing stones. In 1717, the Pusey family moved to East Marlborough Township, where he was involved in politics. The Landingford property was later owned by a succession of people, including industrialist John Price Crozer. The house was privately owned and occupied until about 1950. Also on the property are the Pennock Log House, built by a descendant of Pusey's in 1790; and the Crozer School, built by Crozer for the children of millworkers at his factory. Some of the many thousands of artifacts found during twentieth-century excavations on the property are on display in the Crozer School. Crozer also built the Upland Baptist Church and millworker housing in the area.
Weather vane
In the late 1840s, a resident discovered an iron weather vane, believed to be from Pusey's mill. Initials on the weather vane are those of the partners William Penn, Samuel Carpenter, and Caleb Pusey. The weather vane was donated to the Philadelphia Historical Society, then gilded and displayed on a roof in Harrisburg. It is now occasionally displayed at the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia. The Friends of the Caleb Pusey House are trying to arrange for the weather vane to be returned or loaned to the house museum.
