Last Updated on January 10, 2020 by Christopher G Mendla

My GF and I took a trip to the Mercer Museum in April 2017. It’s a fantastic, interesting place to visit. Henry Mercer, a wealthy Doylestown eccentric built the museum to house what he saw as an endangered part of Americana. The solid concrete structure houses about five floors of artifacts.

The Mercer Museum is one of three concrete structures built by Henry Chapman Mercer. The others are Fonthill Castle which was his home and the Moravian Tile and Pottery works.

For more information, see The Mercer Museum Site.

There are thousands of exhibits large and small. Henry Mercer wanted to preserve early american life. The exhibits include tools and furnishings from every walk of life and trade. He was paranoid about fire so he build his tile works, house and museum using concrete. 

The museum houses a huge collection of cast iron fireplace panels and stove. The decoration on the panels is amazing. The main part of this collection is housed on the top floor. Below is an ornate stove which is just one example of hundreds of pieces. 

The museum is quite large with a lot of artifacts. The floors offer different angles of the larger artifacts hanging from the central open space. each floor has a number of ‘cells’ each dedicated to a specific trade such as tinsmithing.