Hoping to avoid the political troubles that had plagued them in Britain and the problems of urban life they saw in the United States, the Priestleys built a house in rural Pennsylvania.

Following the French and Indian War (1755–63) and the forced migration of Native American tribes westward, German, Scots-Irish, and other European immigrants settled in the central Susquehanna Valley, including in the area that would become Northumberland, Pennsylvania.

[1] Northumberland was laid out around a central village green in 1772, on land originally purchased from the Iroquois by the Province of Pennsylvania in 1768, as part of the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix.

[2] The Priestley property, which was purchased in 1794 at a total cost of £500 (£ 72,600 in 2025) from Reuben Haines, who had secured the patent to the land for Northumberland,[4] comprised four lots of the original village plan (numbers 29–32).

According to J. D. Bowers, who studied Priestley's influence on Unitarianism in America, "[f]or a decade Priestley served as the inspiration and leading force in the spread of Unitarianism in America and the formation of numerous societies that followed his teachings on congregational formation, the education of youth, lay preaching, and espousing one's faith in the presence of opposition from (and to) both the Protestant majority and a competing liberal faction.

Determined to ensure the future economic stability of his family, he bought land and settled in Northumberland by July 1794, which was "five days of rough travel" north of Philadelphia.

[27] Priestley yearned for a more cosmopolitan community than Northumberland provided, writing to his sister that it was "seemingly almost out of the world" and complaining that he had to wait a week for news.

Dr. Priestley also likes it and of his own choice intends to settle here, which is more than I hoped for at the time we came up...This country is very delightful, the prospects of wood and water more beautiful than I have ever seen before and the people plain and decent in their manners.

[32] Shortly thereafter, Thomas Cooper, a friend of Joseph Priestley's, published a pamphlet in Britain titled Some Information Respecting America, meant to encourage others to settle in Pennsylvania and offering instructions on how to do so.

The French translation, Renseignemens sur l'Amérique,[33] was, according to one scholar, "carefully phrased in legal terminology" and "lucidly outline[d] an ambitious financial venture".

Apparently technically unrelated to either of these schemes, but influenced by Cooper's, poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, full of idealism and angered at Priestley's treatment in Birmingham, intended to emigrate to America and establish a utopian community which they called "Pantisocracy" (derived from the Greek for "equal rule of all").

[35] They assembled twelve couples who were interested not only in demanding physical labor but also in a life of the mind, but none of them had enough money to embark on the project, which required much capital.

Philadelphia was excessively expensive, and this a comparatively cheap place; and my sons, settling in the neighborhood, will be less exposed to temptation, and more likely to form habits of sobriety and industry.

His political fortunes took an even worse turn when Cobbett obtained a set of letters sent to Priestley by the radical printer John Hurford Stone and the liberal novelist Helen Maria Williams.

[40] On September 19 of that year Joseph wrote: "This day I bury my wife....she had taken much thought in planning the new house and now that it is far advanced and promises to be everything she wished, she is removed to another.

[42][43] Priestley continued the educational projects that had been important to him throughout his life, helping to establish a "Northumberland Academy" and donating his library to the fledgling institution.

[57] The Priestley family held Unitarian church services in the drawing room and Joseph educated a group of young men until the local Northumberland Academy that he helped found was completed.

[60] The house was accented with Federalist highlights, such as "the fanlights over the doors and the balustrades on the rooftop belvedere and main staircase", marking it as distinctly American.

It was built facing the Susquehanna River so that visitors arriving by boat could be welcomed by the family and because conventional 18th-century aesthetic theory held that countryscapes were more beautiful than townscapes.

Priestley built a high wall blocking the view of Northumberland and added a belvedere to the top of his house to more easily survey the landscape.

[69][73] Some restoration of the house was done in the 1920s,[69] and a small, brick building—intended as a fireproof museum for Priestley's books and scientific apparatus—was built on the grounds and dedicated to Pond's memory in 1926.

[79] The PHMC was supported by "The Friends of the Joseph Priestley House" (FJPH), who help with the visitor center, tours, special events, and outreach, as well as with clerical and museum work.

Extensive research on the laboratory within the house was completed in 1996, including excavations that revealed two underground ovens, as well as evidence of a primitive fume hood.

[53][71] After Joseph's death, Thomas Cooper sold a collection of some of his friend's apparatus and other personal belongings to Dickinson College in Carlisle,[83] which exhibits it each year when presenting the school's Priestley Award to a scientist who makes "discoveries which contribute to the welfare of mankind".

[50][91] In 1988, the Northumberland Historic District, including the Priestley House (which it describes as a "gem" and one of the finest Federal style buildings in central Pennsylvania), was listed on the NRHP.

[94] On March 4, 2009, the PHMC released a report examining its 22 museums and historic sites and recommended discontinuing operations at six, including the Joseph Priestley House.

[103][104] The restoration, which had been planned for years,[105] was paid for by private donors and included "handicapped accessibility, new roofing, heating and air-conditioning and new interior walls, ceilings and lighting".

[103] The FJPH plan to install a timeline of Priestley's scientific work and times in the Pond building, as well as a video about his laboratory techniques and impact today.

[65] The date was chosen to mark the hundredth anniversary of Priestley's experiment producing oxygen by heating mercuric oxide with a magnifying lens and sunlight.

On August 1, 1974—what has been labeled the bicentennial of the discovery of oxygen—over 500 chemists attending the third Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at State College traveled to the house to celebrate "Oxygen Day".