there's a reason they're unknown

I've thought about lesser-known or underrated places in Philly, but in most cases I run into one of two problems: A couple are in Old City but are simply drowned in the more important sites (Bishop White House, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Magnolia Garden, etc.; the photo is the Bishop White House dining room; on the fireplace is a gas lamp! Very unusual for the 1790s...), but most just aren't near anything else and thus don't lend themselves well to walking tours.

Stenton House is a nice old mansion from 1730 (as context for how early that was, Ben Franklin was 24 years old in 1730) that was the home of James Logan, originally William Penn's representative in Pennsylvania and essentially the first mayor of Philadelphia. But it's way up in North Philly (it was Logan's country estate) and thus is a trip unto itself.

Memorial Hall, built for the 1876 Centennial Exposition and recently refurbished into the new home of the Please Touch Museum, is also very impressive and has a great exhibit on the exposition (as well as a working historic amusement-park carousel) but is also rather by itself.

Finally, Bartram's Garden (see photo) is in West Philly, along the Schuylkill, and is a great little-known site with a historic home and barn, a garden, a wooded walking trail along the river, a field with a clear view of the skyline, as well as the surreal sense that it feels nothing like the rest of West Philly. Unfortunately, it's down near 54th Street, so even a walking tour of University City/West Philly isn't likely to get down that far.

The American Swedish Historical Museum on Pattison Avenue is fairly nice as historical societies go, and seemingly under-noticed, so I'm still tempted to do a sports complex "tour" of nearby sites. It might not be very long, but it probably doesn't need to be; people could get lost all day in FDR Park...

Being a chronologically-minded person, I also wanted to create a tour where the sites could be completely chronological and give a time-travel effect, but I haven't yet come up with a tour that doesn't involve too much doubling back or the need to send the person to a far-flung stop or two. We'll see.