Duncan-Stiles House

Duncan-Stiles House. Walking Tour Stop 6. This grand three-story Federal-style house “was by far the most expensive private house ever built in Carlisle,” wrote James Hamilton, Jr. in the 1870s. It was planned and built, c. 1811, by Judge Thomas Duncan's wife as a dwelling for her son Stephen and his bride Miss Margaretta Stiles., Marble stairs and a delicate iron railing lead up to the front door. Fluted pillars and a vaulted ceiling in the entry set off the curving staircase that leads to the third floor. Two large parlors occupy the first floor; the rear parlor is an oval with curved doors and windows. A Robert Welford mantel that stood in one of the parlors is now in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art., Sadly, Stephen Duncan's bride died less than three years after their marriage. Mr. Duncan moved to Philadelphia and sold the house to his brother-in-law, attorney Benjamin Stiles., Stiles sold the house in 1840 to Rev. J.V.E. Thorn, an eccentric minister, and his equally eccentric wife Susan Hamilton, daughter of Judge James Hamilton. Mrs. Thorn often said that one of her expressed ambitions was “to see the devil just long enough to get his daguerreotype.” The Thorns were childless, and when Mrs. Thorn died in 1867 she bequeathed her fortune to religious and educational institutions., Photographs courtesy of the Cumberland County Historical Society.