[1] Born December 15, 1792, at Gundenham, near Wellington, England, Haviland was apprenticed in 1811 to a London architect.

In Russia, however, he met George von Sonntag and John Quincy Adams, who encouraged him to work in the United States.

This publication was one of the earliest architectural pattern books written and published in North America, and likely the first to include Greek and Roman classical orders.

Due, in part, to The Builder's Assistant, Haviland began to secure what would be his most important commissions in Philadelphia: the Eastern State Penitentiary,[2] the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now Dorrance Hamilton Hall, University of the Arts), and the original Franklin Institute building (now home to the Atwater Kent Museum).

[3] During this time, Haviland unwisely speculated financially on his own projects, including commercial arcades in Philadelphia and New York, as well as an amusement park.