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<div>The Germantown Historical Society is an educational and research center 
dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history of the original 
German Township in northwest Philadelphia. Encompassing the contemporary
 neighborhoods of Germantown, Mt. Airy, and Chestnut Hill, greater 
Germantown is a dynamic and diverse community. The Society houses a 
unique collection of artifacts, books, manuscripts, maps, and images 
documenting Germantown’s many stories. Community residents, historians, 
scholars, anyone interested in &nbsp;experience this history by visiting our 
museum exhibition and exploring the resources in the Pat Henning Library
 and Archives. </div><div> </div><div>The building is the headquarters of Historic Germantown. </div><div>Historic Germantown is a partnership of 16 extraordinary historic 
houses, destinations, and museums in Northwest Philadelphia that have 
joined together to protect, preserve, and share some of Philadelphia's 
prized historical assets.</div>

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Facebook Homepage of the Germantown Historical Society

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Photos of Germantown Historical Society via Historic Germantown Flickr

This local historical society offers a collection of artifacts and a number of exhibits related to the original township of northwest Philadelphia that was home to many German immigrants. The collections include one-of-a-kind books, works of art, furniture, diaries, and manuscript collections drawn from the surrounding neighborhoods in the Pat Henning Library and Archives.

Germantown Historical Society / Historic Germantown

This brief walking tour includes stops at over a dozen historic homes, buildings, markers and museums. Each stop along the tour is within a few feet of Germantown Avenue.

Germantown Avenue Walking Tour

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Cliveden is a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Built in 1767, Cliveden benefits from centuries of dedicated preservation efforts and remains one of the nation’s best-documented and least-altered Colonial houses. Cliveden creates a pride of place, where the past is valued, preserved, and accessible for the benefit of the community.

Built in 1767, Cliveden is a historic Georgian manor that was home to the Chew family for two centuries. It was the home of enslaved workers during the colonial period-a time when slavery was legal in each of the American colonies. It was also the site of an important Revolutionary War battle in 1777, the Battle of Germantown. It was at this location on the evening of October 3, 1777 that George Washington's men attempted to storm the mansion, which had been previously occupied by British forces. The failed attack diverted strength from Washington's main force and helped the British turn back the rebel army. While Washington's men were forced from the battlefield, the five-hour battle demonstrated that the American rebels were capable of a sustained offensive campaign.

Cliveden of The National Trust

The Concord School sits on a corner of the Upper Burying Ground of Germantown, which was established at the beginning of the settlement in 1693. The construction of the stone schoolhouse, originally one story, took place under the supervision of a group of residents, one of whom was Jacob Knor, the builder of Germantown Academy, between March and October 1775. The second story and the bell tower were added to the building around 1818. The first minute book of the school, in use from the school’s early decades through the early twentieth century, is held by The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. According to these minutes, inhabitants of upper Germantown (122 subscribers) collected funds to build the schoolhouse because of “the Distance and particular Inconveniance [sic] through the Winter Seasons of sending their Children to the Lower School and Seeing the number of Children Continually Increasing . . . .” Concord was established as an English-only school, although this probably suggests not that residents of German origin were excluded, but rather that assimilation of German speakers to English-language culture had largely taken place.

The Concord Schoolhouse , open from 1775-1892,  was Germantown's first English language school. The school is sited on a lot set aside in 1692 to serve as a civic burial ground.

Concord School and Upper Burial Ground

The Johnson family, who inhabited the house from 1770-1908 were peace-loving Quakers. Prior to their anti-slavery efforts in the 1800s, they also weathered fierce fighting in the Revolutionary War.&nbsp; John Johnson, Sr.,&nbsp;and his wife, hid in the cellar of their home during the Battle of Germantown, in 1777.&nbsp; While their home was invaded and food and goods were taken, their religious&nbsp;beliefs kept them from defending what was theirs.&nbsp; The house suffered damage from both muskets and cannon-fire, which can still be seen today.Later, in the 1800s, Samuel Johnson and his wife Jennet Rowland Johnson moved into the ancestral home. The couple, along with extended family, were abolitionists, belonging to groups like the American Anti-slavery Society and the local group, the Germantown Freedman's Aid Association. As members of these groups, the Johnson family was instrumental in the workings of the Underground Railroad.&nbsp; With the Johnson's help, many runaway slaves were given safe passage, food and shelter, and the chance to seek freedom and a new life. The family home was built in 1768, of dark stone, and now sits on less than an acre of land, however at its construction, the Johnson family owned much more land in Germantown.&nbsp; The architect of the structure was Jacob Norr.&nbsp; Much of the original building material can still be seen in the house today- Dutch doors, as well as original woodwork, hardwood floors, cabinets and glass.&nbsp;&nbsp;Upon visiting, one can expect to see many objects belonging to the family on display. The Johnson's family artifacts, as well as anti-slavery objects like shackles, and educational materials are all on display in the museum, and the stone exterior still displays the signs of the Battle of Germantown in 1777.

Built in 1768 and located in Philadelphia, the John Johnson House is a reminder of the struggle that many runaway slaves faced before the Civil War. The Colonial Georgian-style home was built by Dirck Jansen as a wedding gift to his son, John Johnson, Sr. The home is one of the only remaining structures affiliated with the Underground Railroad in the city. Harriet Tubman and other abolitionists led escaped slaves to the doors of this residence in the years leading up to the Civil War. The home is now a National Historic Landmark and also serves as a museum that preserves and interprets the history of the Underground Railroad. 

John Johnson House

William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania and one of the most well-recognized proponents of Quakerism, had an incredible influence on the cultural and religious history of not only Germantown and Philadelphia, but the entirety of Pennsylvania and its neighboring colonies.&nbsp; Throughout his young life, Penn was an outspoken believer in Quakerism following his conversion sometime around the time of 1666.&nbsp; His faith led to repeated conflicts with his family, the government of England, and numerous other churches of the time.&nbsp;

Penn was imprisoned repeatedly, disowned by his family, pulled from education at Oxford, and stripped of his inheritance as a result of his steadfast conviction in the teachings of the Quakers.&nbsp; Penn’s father was a storied admiral and became Commissioner of the Royal Navy shortly before Penn converted to Quakerism, which meant that his subsequent religious outspokenness was both public and controversial, leading to years of strife between his family, the government, and himself.&nbsp; After numerous rows and reconciliations, Penn’s family decided it would be best to send him to Paris and, later, the rest of Europe, to keep him busy and out of the public eye in England.&nbsp;

William Penn and his father did ultimately come to a mutual respect for one another, largely facilitated by his mother, Margaret Jasper, who hoped for peace between the two without further damage to their family’s public standing.&nbsp; Before his father passed, William Penn was written back into his father’s inheritance, and the changing political landscape of England allowed for his father to ask a favor of the royalty of England: that William would be kept safe, protected from further persecution by the crown.&nbsp; As William grew in both faith and age, he would come to appeal the crown for a mutually beneficial solution to the rise of the Quaker faith in England.&nbsp; Penn requested a North American colony to which the Quakers could emigrate.&nbsp; Following surprisingly little negotiation, Penn found himself in the possession of an enormous tract of land to the west of New Jersey.

Penn’s colony would come to be named Pennsylvania by King Charles II, who had great respect for William’s father, Admiral Penn.&nbsp; The charter and foundations of government for Pennsylvania were built on Quaker principle, focusing on reducing the severe punishments for crime that were popular in England, building a jury-based legal system, and forbidding behaviors deemed as “idle,” including theater, gambling, and revelry.&nbsp; Despite restrictive social rules, Pennsylvania was welcoming to those of many religious faiths, with religious freedom as a core tenet of the colony’s governmental policy.&nbsp; Because of this open-minded view of religions, many persecuted Germans and Dutch joined him in his journey to the New World.

The Mennonite Meeting House would prove to be the first place of worship for Mennonites, Anabaptists, and Baptists in the Germantown area.&nbsp; Germantown was a hotbed of theological discussion as faithful of various religious backgrounds chose to either integrate into the Quaker faith or stand independent of them.&nbsp; A substantial local congregation of Mennonites chose to build their own chapel, separate from the first church built in Germantown.&nbsp; This simple log church, constructed in 1708, was the first Mennonite church on the continent and was located at the corner of Germantown Avenue and Herman Street.

 

In 1770, the aging log church was rebuilt into a larger building, the same building that resides on the corner to this day.&nbsp; Within, a number of documents, pieces of furniture, tools, and fixtures that were created and used by contemporaries of Penn and the other religious leaders of the Pennsylvania colony.&nbsp; The Mennonite Meeting House has benefited from devoted and careful preservation that grants it a unique position in the historically powerful Germantown: It is one of the few remaining examples of the incredibly important role that religion, and the freedom of religion, played in the formation of the Pennsylvania we know today.

Built in 1770, the Mennonite Meeting House of Germantown, Pennsylvania still stands to this day as a snapshot of Mennonite history and the religious mosaic that existed in colonial Pennsylvania. Much of Germantown’s history was written by members of the Quaker faiths, some of whom were historically Mennonites, bringing portions of their faith into the continually growing community in Germantown. The Meeting House has been preserved well, and, as of the creation of this article, it is under the care of the Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust, which administrates educational tours and open houses on weekends throughout the spring, summer, and fall months of the year.

Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust

Ora Washington was
born in Virginia on January 16, 1899.&nbsp;When
Ora Washington’s sisters passed away she was introduced to tennis at a local
YMCA near her home in Philadelphia. Within only one&nbsp;year, Washington&nbsp;was
a&nbsp;leading player in the&nbsp;national&nbsp;association for Black women.&nbsp;After only four years of experience in the sport, Ora
Washington won the ATA’s Women’s singles championship.&nbsp; She held on to that title for a long seven
years from 1929 to 1936 and was a well-known African American woman as well as
an athlete. Many well-known tennis players in her time knew and talked highly
of her talents and looked up to her. Even though she loved tennis Washington
decided to highlight her talents in other sports such as basketball where she
played center for the Germantown Hornets and the Philadelphia Tribunes. 

Upon retirement from professional athletics, Ora Washington

coached and offered free tennis lessons at the public courts in her hometown.
She died in 1971.

Ora Washington was one of the premiere female athletes of the early 20th century. She excelled in both tennis and basketball, but because of racial discrimination, she was rarely able to compete with white athletes. According to Arthur Ashe, Washington may have been the best female athlete of the 20th century. 

Ora Washington Historic Marker 

Wyck served as the ancestral home of one family from 1690 to 1973: the names most prominently associated with Wyck are the Wistar and Haines generations. Today, Wyck engages over 7,000 visitors annually with programs that incorporate the house, outbuildings, landscape, and objects saved over 300 years, revealing the enduring relevance of Philadelphia history in contemporary life. Wyck was established as a 2.5-acre historic site in 1973, and since 1978 the Wyck Association has administered the site. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991, Wyck is a truly remarkable survival of historic Philadelphia life in a densely urban neighborhood. The site consists of a colonial house with innovative 1824 alterations by architect William Strickland, the oldest rose garden in its original plan in America, and a collection of 100,000 family papers and more than 10,000 family objects, furniture pieces, and historical curiosities. Additionally, our site features perennial gardens, a woodlot, fruit trees, extensive vegetable and herb gardens, as well as a collection of outbuildings from the late 18th century through the early 20th century (a carriage house, greenhouse, ice-house, and smoke house). The legacies of Wyck’s prior owners—Quakers who represented the city’s leadership in business, natural history and science, and education reform—are the values of innovation, social responsibility and environmental sustainability. The Wyck Association perpetuates these values through its programming. In 2007, the Wyck Association restored the fruit and vegetable gardens that had been on the Wyck site for centuries. The Home Farm is multi-functional, growing food for an on-site Home Farm Club, providing an interactive outdoor classroom for local children and adults, and preserving historic agricultural traditions. Our farm programming connects historical and modern-day ideas of agriculture, horticulture, preservation, and community. Today Wyck’s audience includes visitors interested in broadening their knowledge of history, horticulture, and urban agriculture; Germantown children needing safe outdoor space and opportunities for hands-on learning about history, farming, nutrition, and environmental science; and Germantown and Mount Airy neighborhood residents seeking affordable, locally grown and chemical-free produce as well as quality programming for adults, children, and community. In 2015, our Board of Directors adopted a new strategic plan, which has set a course for improved organizational efficiency, identifies new programmatic goals, and presents a vision for Wyck that emphasizes the values of innovation, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability. Our mission is three-fold: to maintain the site so that it is both well-preserved and enjoyed; to produce engaging programs that use history to empower participants to improve their lives and the world we share; and to act as a catalyst in the revitalization of Germantown.

Wyck is a National Historic Landmark house, garden, and farm in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia that served as the ancestral home to one Philadelphia family for nine generations (1690-1973). Here, traditional Quaker culture blended with a passion for innovation. The people who lived and worked at Wyck expressed these values through their commitment to education, horticulture, natural history, and preservation. Today, the Wyck Association connects this family and its rich history to the Germantown community through programs that focus on history, horticulture, and urban agriculture, using the past as inspiration for the present. Our 2.5-acre, centuries-old site plays an essential role in the life of our 21st-century urban neighborhood, using buildings, landscape, and collections to provide educational, cultural, and nutritional resources for our neighbors and visitors.

The mission of the Wyck Association is to preserve and interpret Wyck, one of America’s most authentic historic sites, to engage learners of all ages, and to strengthen our neighboring community.

Wyck Historic House, Garden, & Farm

The name of the museum is based on the response of African American men when they were labeled "spades" because of their color. Rather than allow this to be a derisive term, many Black men decided to embrace the moniker and declare their intention to be "aces"-the highest ranking card in the game of poker, spades, and other card games.

The ACES Museum offers a variety of programs and exhibits related to the experiences and service of African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and other minority military veterans who served in World War II and other conflicts. The museum was created by a non-profit foundation that was incorporated in 2000 and began programs related to military history in 2001. 

ACES Museum

The Germantown White House was originally built by David Deshler in 1752 as a summer getaway, having only four rooms. In 1772, however, Deshler expanded the house upward and outward, adding 9 full rooms and expanding the height to three stories. When Deshler passed away in 1792, his family sold the now-luxury home to Isaac Franks, a Colonel and veteran of the Revolutionary War. Isaac Franks was in ownership of the house when President George Washington, on a trip back from his home, Mount Vernon, in Virginia, received news of a quarantine in Philadelphia and turned aside to stay in Germantown until the quarantine cleared. This event would come to be known as the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and would claim the lives of over 5000 Philadelphians. Doctors at the time did not understand the treatment or the spread of Yellow Fever (which is spread by mosquitos, generally among very dense areas of population.)In order to facilitate continued meetings of his cabinet, President Washington chose to rent the Germantown home that Isaac Franks had purchased a year earlier. He had first stayed in a different home, known then as the Dove House, but then decided that Franks’ Germantown home would be a more suitable temporary residence. While, at first, he stayed there with only a few enslaved servants at his side, his wife, family members, and more slaves arrived later in the stay to accompany him. Washington’s first stay at the house lasted less than a month but won his approval strongly. He later returned to the house, in the summer months of 1794, to enjoy what he called a “fine airy place” outside of the heat of Philadelphia. During this stay, he brought Martha Washington, his wife, Oney Judge, Austin, Moll, and Hercules, who were enslaved servants he kept close, and two of his grandchildren. A few years after the Washingtons’ stay in the house, in 1804, Elliston and John Perot purchased the house and maintained it until Elliston died in 1834. Upon his passing, the Deshler house was sold to Samuel B. Morris, who had married into the Perot family. As of the publication of Keyser, Kain, Garber, and McCann’s History of Old Germantown in 1907, the Morris family was still living in and preserving the historicity of the home. According to Keyser, Kain, Garber, and McCann, even after Samuel Morris’ death in 1859, “great care has been taken to preserve the original appearance of the interior of this stately and interesting old mansion” including the maintenance of “the old sofas and tables, [of which] none have been in the family for less than a century.” Samuel Morris’ son, Elliston P. Morris, inherited the home and was caring for the home at the time that History of Old Germantown was published. The Morris family donated the home to the National Park Service in 1948, and it has been preserved as a historic home ever since.

The Germantown White House, also known as the Deshler-Morris House, of Germantown, Pennsylvania is one of the oldest and best-preserved presidential residences in the United States.  It is most famous for being the retreat of First President and decorated general George Washington on two separate occasions, once in 1793 and once in 1794.  It was also the primary residence of British General Sir William Howe following the bloody Battle of Germantown in the American Revolutionary War.

Germantown White House (Deshler-Morris)

On November 29, 1832 (on her father's thirty-third birthday),
Louisa May Alcott was born at Pine Place, in the Germantown neighborhood of
Pennsylvania [2; 4]. The family left Germantown to live in Massachusetts when
Louisa was two years old, where her abolitionist father, Amos Bronson Alcott, began
a progressive school and educated his daughters along with the students. Louisa
grew up to become an abolitionist in her own right, as well as a suffragist,
Civil War nurse, and authoress (under the pen name A. M. Bernard) of Gothic
thrillers and children's literature including Little Women [2; 3]. Pine Place is now home to the Cunningham Piano
Company [2].

About Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), was an educator
in Boston who moved to Philadelphia in 1830. He had been invited to the city by
the Quaker Rueben Haines to help establish a progressive school at Pine Place,
affiliated with Germantown Academy. The school promoted discussion and
self-analysis over the more typical memorization and repetition of the day [3].
Louisa's mother, Abigail May, who kept extensive journals all her life, assisted
at the school. The Alcotts also lived at Pine Place, and on Amos' thirty-third
birthday, Louisa was born there on November 29, 1832 [2; 3]. Her elder sister
Anna had been born a year earlier at a nearby boarding house [2]. After Rueben
Haines' death, the school eventually failed, and Amos opened Alcott's School.
However, only a year later the family moved back to Boston, and Louisa was
raised primarily in Boston and Concord, along with her sisters, Anna,
Elizabeth, and May [2; 3; 4]. The Alcotts were friends with transcendentalists Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and worked with them as part of the
Underground Railroad. Amos helped found William Lloyd Garrison’s Preliminary
Anti-Slavery Society and allowed an African American girl to attend his school
in Massachusetts, despite white parents' objections [3; 4]. Abigail was also an
active abolitionist, and had been a member of Philadelphia's Female Anti-Slavery
Committee [3].

The family struggled with poverty, and at 15 years old, Louisa (already
passionately involved in writing) swore to help her family and achieve wealth
and fame before her death. She worked as a teacher, seamstress, governess, and
household servant—the only acceptable employments for a woman at the time—while
writing and publishing poetry and short stories in magazines under the pen name
A. M. Bernard [4]. She used her mother's initials and a masculine-sounding last
name because women's writing was not considered serious at the time [3]. When
she was 22 years old, her first book, Flower
Fables (1854), was published; she went on to write nearly 300 stories,
novels, poems, and articles, including writing anti-slavery articles for The Atlantic and publishing her most
famous novel, Little Women (1868),
which she wrote when her publisher asked her to write "a book for
girls," [4]. During the Civil War, she served the Union as a nurse in
Washington, D.C., though she would have preferred to fight alongside the men,
according to her journals. On the basis of her experience, she published Hospital Sketches in 1863 [3; 4]. While
working as a nurse, she became ill herself and got mercury poisoning during
treatment. Permanent damage to her nervous system resulted, and may have
contributed to her death. Louisa never married, though she had offers, and
spent her life helping her family, the cause of abolition, and the women's suffrage
movement. After the death of her sister, she also raised her niece [3].

Around 1880, Louisa spent a week in her hometown of Philadelphia, where she
visited Germantown Academy to the delight of the girls attending. Louisa's
father died on March 4, 1888, and, at age 55, Louisa died two days later, on
March 6. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, near Emerson and
Thoreau's graves [3; 4]. She had written up to the day of her death. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.germantownhistory.org/">The
Germantown Historical Society</a> at 5501 Germantown Avenue holds books and other
materials related to her life and works [3].

Historic
Marker Inscription:

Louisa May Alcott

The author of “Little Women” was born here at “Pine Place,”
Nov. 29, 1832, to the educator Bronson Alcott and his wife Abigail. An
abolitionist, Civil War nurse, and suffragist, she wrote children’s books and Gothic thrillers. The Alcotts lived in this county, 1830-34 [1].

On November 29, 1832 (on her father's thirty-third birthday), Louisa May Alcott was born at Pine Place, in the Germantown neighborhood of Pennsylvania [2; 4]. The family left Germantown to live in Massachusetts when Louisa was two years old, where her abolitionist father, Amos Bronson Alcott, began a progressive school and educated his daughters along with the students. Louisa grew up to become an abolitionist in her own right, as well as a suffragist, Civil War nurse, and authoress (under the pen name A. M. Bernard) of Gothic thrillers and children's literature including Little Women [2; 3]. Pine Place is now home to the Cunningham Piano Company [2].

Louisa May Alcott - Pine Place Historic Marker

The Clarkson-Watson House was built by former Philadelphia mayor Matthew Clarkson sometime between the years of 1740 and 1750 and served as his primary residence until the late-1700s.&nbsp; During the early stages of the American Revolution, the House was occupied by the British forces under the command of General Sir William Howe, at which point its large parlor served as a court-martial.&nbsp; Following the bloody Battle of Germantown, in which the Continental Army under the command of General George Washington brilliantly but unsuccessfully attempted to free Philadelphia from General Howe’s hold, the Clarkson-Watson House was used as a temporary meeting place for General Washington and his Council of War (notably including Henry Knox and Nathaniel Greene.)

Following the occupation by the British and the temporary use by George Washington, the House became the residence of His Majesty’s Surveyor General of the District of North America, William Gerhard de Braham, a writer in service to the British Crown who wrote and published the “American Military Pocket Atlas.”&nbsp; De Braham was uniquely fond of the Quakers in the area, adopting for himself some of their attire and practices and regularly attending their services.&nbsp; His other interests included astronomy and American mysticism.&nbsp; De Braham was so involved with the Quakers that he was buried in the Friends’ Burying Ground in Germantown upon his death.

The Yellow Fever outbreak that occurred in Philadelphia in the year 1793 brought many notable historical figures to the Germantown area to stay in homes outside of the range of the quarantine.&nbsp; The Clarkson-Watson House became the temporary home of Secretary of State and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.&nbsp;

When the outbreak cleared, East India merchant Richard Bayley purchased the House and used it as an ale brewery, the products of which he hoped to sell to the East India markets.&nbsp; When the brewery proved to be a profitless venture, Bayley decided to sell the house to the burgeoning Bank of Germantown, which had been founded in 1814 at 5504 Germantown Avenue.&nbsp; The cashier of the Bank of Germantown at the time was John Fanning Watson, for whom the House is the partial namesake.&nbsp;

Watson’s influence on the area, let alone the house, was remarkable.&nbsp; He was the first historian who devoted himself to understanding the history of Philadelphia, publishing the Annals of Philadelphia in 1830, which is referred to by the National Park Service documentation for the house as an important source of regional history.&nbsp; This exhaustive volume was not his only contribution to the historical preservation of the Germantown and Philadelphia areas, however.&nbsp; As a result of his research in the Germantown Area, John Fanning Watson became familiar with the burial sites of a number of soldiers who were slain in combat during the Battle of Germantown.&nbsp; British General Agnew and Lieutenant Colonel Bird, American Major Irvine, and eight of Irvine’s fellow American soldiers were memorialized with quality gravestones paid for by Watson himself.&nbsp; According to History of Old Germantown, Watson also contributed to a major monument which was constructed over the burial plot of General Nash in the Kulpsville Mennonite Burying Ground.

In 1825, the Bank of Germantown was relocated from its location at 5504 Germantown Avenue to the Clarkson-Watson House at 5275-77 Germantown Avenue.&nbsp; Watson lived in the upper floors of the home while doing bank business on the floors below.&nbsp; John Farring Watson lived to the age of 82, passing away on December 23, 1860.&nbsp;In 1971, the Clarkson-Watson House was added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places.&nbsp; It has been preserved well by its occupants, who, in more recent years, have included the Germantown Historical Society and the Cheshire Law Group.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

Originally constructed sometime in the 1740s (no official record of construction exists,) the Clarkson-Watson House is one of the oldest remaining and most historically relevant houses in Germantown, Pennsylvania.  Having served many diverse purposes, from a meeting place of Continental Army generals to the site of a national bank, the Clarkson-Watson House has been a veritable nexus of historic events in the area.  In most recent memory, it has served privately as the home of a local law firm and, more publicly, as the meeting place of the Germantown Historical Society, whose members have worked to preserve the vital pieces of early American history that permeate the City of Germantown.  

Clarkson-Watson House

John Wister built Grumblethorpe in 1744 to serve as a summertime retreat for his family and himself.&nbsp; At the time of Grumblethorpe’s construction, Germantown was rising as a vacation town among the elite of the colonies.&nbsp; Germantown would, over the years, serve as a restful destination for many of the most influential names in early American history, including First President George Washington and founding father, Thomas Jefferson.&nbsp; Many of the homes in Germantown, including Grumblethorpe itself, were also conscripted and occupied by British army forces during the late Revolutionary War.&nbsp;While the period of Grumblethorpe’s history that unfolded during the Revolutionary War is perhaps its most eventful on the surface, the Wister family and their home were actually significantly influential on the area in a number of ways beyond their ties to the events of the Revolutionary War.&nbsp; Most notably, the gardens of Grumblethorpe served to play a major part in the definition of the horticultural landscape of the greater Philadelphia area, both because of the scientific pursuits of the Wisters and the remarkable fertility of the soil on the property.&nbsp; In fact, two acres of Grumblethorpe’s land have been – at least in part – preserved to this day.&nbsp; According to the current keepers of the property, PhilaLandmarks, a Ginkgo tree which was brought from England as early as 1754 still grows on the property.&nbsp; This tree is the earliest known specimen in North America.&nbsp;Most influential in Grumblethorpe’s horticulture was Charles Wister, Sr., the grandson of John Wister.&nbsp; He was a skilled and devoted scientist, building the property’s oft-visited observatory and publishing a detailed weather diary which has been referenced for decades following its publication.&nbsp; Interestingly, it was he who gave the manor its curious name.In 1777, during the heat of the American Revolutionary War, British General James Agnew moved into the home with some of his men.&nbsp; As it would turn out, battle would erupt in Germantown just days later.&nbsp; The Battle of Germantown was a chaotic fight which would prove to be a bloody, yet influential, battle for the Continental Army under George Washington.&nbsp; Sudden fog and inclement weather led to mass confusion among both British and Continental troops.&nbsp; In an ill-fated charge, General James Agnew rode his horse ahead of his troops, directly into a group of Continental soldiers.&nbsp;In the ensuing chaos, General Agnew was forced to retreat, at which point he was shot by a sniper by the name of Hans Boyer, who was a civilian taking cover in the nearby Mennonite Meeting House graveyard.&nbsp; He did not die immediately, instead being rescued by his troops and brought into the parlor of Grumblethorpe.&nbsp; His troops could not stop his bleeding, and he bled out on the floor of the parlor, leaving a stain which, according to multiple sources, still exists in the house to this day.&nbsp; General Agnew was later buried nearby in the “Lower Burial-Ground” on Germantown Avenue, then relocated to a private cemetery in Branchtown.Much of the history of the manor was discovered thanks to the Diaries of Sally Wister, one of John Wister’s grandchildren.&nbsp; Her diaries explore the history of her home before her birth until her passing in 1804, giving incredible insight into both the ordinary and the extraordinary occurrences at Grumblethorpe.























The property has been restored almost entirely to its original appearance, with garden restoration ongoing to this day.&nbsp; A museum is housed on-site, and the property is maintained by Philalandmarks, which offers educational tours and horticultural programs through most of the year.

Like many of the Colonial Era homes in Germantown, Pennsylvania, “Grumblethorpe” was once the summertime retreat of a Philadelphia businessman and his family that later become a long-term residence following the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1793.  Grumblethorpe, which was also frequently known by the name “John Wister’s Big House” after the name of its builder and owner, not only survived the American Revolutionary War but earned a permanent name for itself as the final resting place of British Brigadier-General James Agnew, whose bloodstain is, according to the current keepers of the house, still visible on the floor where he died.

Grumblethorpe

In 1847, Germantown resident William Hood donated an elaborate stone gateway and wall along Germantown Avenue. In return, he was buried just inside the entrance, and the cemetery name was changed in his honor. Today, the cemetery is a beautiful green oasis within an urban neighborhood. The monumental stone entranceway is a significant landmark on Germantown Avenue.

Originally known as the Lower Burial Ground, it is located on land set aside in 1692 as a secular burial ground for residents of lower Germantown. It is estimated that more than 1000 persons are buried within its two acres, including many of the earliest settlers of Germantown and a number of prominent Philadelphians.

Germantown Avenue Walking Tour

Germantown Historical Society / Historic Germantown

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information