Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Frank FURNESS
Born November 12, 1839: Died June 27, 1912. Captain, Company F, 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Trevilian Station, Va., 12 June 1864. Citation: 20 October 1899. Voluntarily carrier a box of ammunition across an open space swept by the enemy’s fire to the relief of an outpost whose ammunition had become almost exhausted, but which was thus enabled to hold its important position. Furness refused his Congressional Medal of Honor, but later accepted it just before his death in 1912. A well known Philadelphia architect between 1870 and 1900, Furness designed banks, churches and synagogues, as well as rail stations for the Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio railroads. His works included mansions, mostly stone, for the wealthy in and around the Philadelphia's "Main Line." Furness studied architecture in France when the war ended, and he designed Philadelphia's Academy of Fine Arts located at North Broad Street at Cherry Street in Phila. He is buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pa, in Section "S."
Although long disdained for what was considered the eccentricity of his architectural designs, Frank Furness has in recent years enjoyed an immense popularity. Born in Philadelphia, the son of the Rev. William Henry Furness, Frank Furness was educated in private schools in the city. He then apprenticed to John Fraser in 1857 but soon joined the New York atelier of Richard Morris Hunt, wherein he learned the medievalized eclectic forms which he would later popularize in the Philadelphia area. His stay in the Hunt atelier was interrupted by the Civil War in 1861, but he returned to Hunt briefly in 1864, leaving that year again to be married and begin his own practice in Philadelphia. Not long after returning to Philadelphia, Furness joined John Fraser and George W. Hewitt in the firm of Fraser, Furness & Hewitt (1867-1871). When Fraser left the firm in 1871 to become Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department, based in Washington, D.C., Furness & Hewitt remained together, taking on the important Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts commission (1871 to 1876). George Hewitt left the firm in 1875; and by 1881 Furness and his chief draftsman, Allen Evans, had established the new partnership of Furness & Evans. In 1886 a number of younger partners were admitted to the firm, including Louis C. Baker, E. James Dallett, William M. Camac, and James W. Fassitt. With this influx, the firm became Furness, Evans & Co., a name which endured long past Furness's death in 1912.
Furness's practice was a general one including a number of stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In addition, the realm of his practice included banks, residences, office buildings and churches. In later years his style fell into some disrepute as the classicism of McKim, Mead & White became more popular; Furness and his followers in Philadelphia, such as Willis G. Hale and Thomas P. Lonsdale, were referred to in a national periodical as "aberrations" in the profession.
Furness was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Institute of Architects in 1869 and held fellowship status in the AlA.
Written by Sandra L. Tatman.
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