June 6, 1832, railroad from Philadelphia to Germantown opens
Historic designation and extent
The district was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The original district included the 4500 to 6600 blocks of Germantown Avenue (between Windrim Avenue and Sharpnack Street). In 1987 the district was expanded north to the 7600 block of Germantown Avenue (up to Cresheim Valley Drive), which is the southern boundary of the Chestnut Hill Historic District. The district's two parts contain 579 properties, of which 514 are considered contributing, and only 65 non-contributing. The northwest Philadelphia area, which promotes itself as "Freedom's Backyard,"[7] contains 11 historic districts listed by the National Register of Historic Places, as well as 58 separately listed properties.[8] Eight state historical markers are located on Germantown Avenue. Nearly complete inventories prepared for the National Register of Historic Places, both for the original district and for the expanded area are available.[9][10] A 1907 inventory of historic buildings in the area was printed in the "History of Old Germantown."[11]
Contributing properties in the district include the following. Even street numbers are on the west side of Germantown Avenue, odd numbers on the east. Original construction dates may be approximate.
Listed separately on NRHP. Additions in 1750, 1799, 1806, 1819. Owned by John Wister, an important site during the Battle of Germantown. Stone with wood trim in the Colonial style.
Wistar's Tenant House
5269 Germantown Ave.
1745
Listed separately on NRHP. Addition in early nineteenth century. Stone with wood trim in Colonial style.
Clarkson-Watson House
5275 Germantown Ave.
1745
Additions/alterations in 1775, 1825, 1870, 1910. Stucco on stone with wood trim in Federal style/Colonial style.
Meeting founded 1690. This parcel acquired 1693 and used as a burial ground. Previous meeting houses built 1705, 1812. School founded 1845. Several school buildings on site.
Masonic Temple of Germantown
5423–27 Germantown Ave.
1873
Additions/alterations 1915, 1920. Three stories, stone with wood trim in the Gothic Revival style A previous house on this site was the birthplace of Louisa May Alcott.
Listed separately on the NRHP. Additions/alterations 1840, 1856, 1868, 1887, 1898, 1909. Headquarters of General Sir William Howe during October 4, 1777 Battle of Germantown. Temporary residence of President George Washington, November 1793 (yellow fever epidemic), and Summer 1794. Stucco on stone with wood trim in the Federal style.
Listed separately on the NRHP. Congregation established in 1688 as first Mennonite church in America. One and one-half stories, stone with wood trim in the Colonial style.
Germantown is an area in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by Palatine, Quaker, and Mennonite families in 1683 as an independent borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area, which is about six miles northwest from the city center, now consists of two neighborhoods: 'Germantown' and 'East Germantown'.
Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for the high incomes of its residents and high real estate values, as well as its private schools.
Mount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The Germantown White House is a historic mansion in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest surviving presidential residence, having twice housed Founding Father George Washington during his presidency.
This is intended to be a complete list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Columbia County, New York. Seven properties and districts are further designated National Historic Landmarks.
G. W. & W. D. Hewitt was a prominent architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. It was founded in Philadelphia in 1878, by brothers George Wattson Hewitt (1841–1916) and William Dempster Hewitt (1847–1924), both members of the American Institute of Architects. The firm specialized in churches, hotels and palatial residences, especially crenelated mansions, such as Maybrook (1881), Druim Moir (1885–86) and Boldt Castle (1900–04).
Historic RittenhouseTown, sometimes referred to as Rittenhouse Historic District, encompasses the remains of an early industrial community which was the site of the first paper mill in British North America. The mill was built in 1690 by William Rittenhouse and his son Nicholas on the north bank of Paper Mill Run near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The district, off Lincoln Drive near Wissahickon Avenue in Fairmount Park, includes six of up to forty-five original buildings. RittenhouseTown was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a National Historic Landmark District on April 27, 1992.
Addison Hutton (1834–1916) was a Philadelphia architect who designed prominent residences in Philadelphia and its suburbs, plus courthouses, hospitals, and libraries, including the Ridgway Library, now Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He made major additions to the campuses of Westtown School, George School, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Lehigh University.
Wilson Brothers & Company was a prominent Victorian-era architecture and engineering firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company was regarded for its structural expertise.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Center City, Philadelphia.
The Chestnut Hill Historic District is a historic area covering all the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Northeast Philadelphia.
Willis Gaylord Hale was a late-19th century architect who worked primarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His flamboyant, highly-ornate style was popular in the 1880s and 1890s, but quickly fell out of fashion at the dawn of the 20th century.
The Tulpehocken Station Historic District is a historic area in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Large suburban houses were built in the area from about 1850 to 1900 in a variety of styles including Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, and Bracketed as part of the Picturesque Movement of architecture. In the 1870s styles moved toward High Victorian and Second Empire. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, and it covers about six square blocks, bounded by McCallum Street on the north, the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks on the south, Tulpehocken Street on the west, and Walnut Lane on the east. Thirty-seven buildings in the district are considered to be significant and 118 are considered to be contributing, with only 13 considered to be intrusions.
The Concord School House is a historic one-room schoolhouse in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is operated today as a museum. It is part of the Colonial Germantown Historic District which was named a National Historic Landmark District in 1965.
The Beggarstown School, built c. 1740, is a historic school in Beggarstown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, now part of the Mount Airy neighborhood. It is a rare example of a school building from the colonial era.
Edmund Beaman Gilchrist was an American architect, best remembered for his English-Cotswold and French-Norman suburban houses.
St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church is a historic church building in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, just north of the Germantown neighborhood. The congregation was founded sometime before 1728 and three successive church buildings have occupied the same location since that time. The church was closed in 2016.
Thones Dennis Kunders was an early settler of colonial Pennsylvania.
↑ Philadelphia Historic Resource Survey Inventory, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 2007, p. 42
↑ NRHP 1966? Inventory Enter "public" for ID and "public" for password to access the site.
↑ NRHP 1987? Inventory Enter "public" for ID and "public" for password to access the site.
↑ Garber, John Palmer; Naaman Henry Keyser; C. Henry Kain; Horace Ferdinand McCann (1907). History of Old Germantown. Germantown: H. F. McCann. pp.453.
"Germantown Street Index". Places in Time: Historical Documentation of Place in Greater Philadelphia. Bryn Mawr College. Retrieved December 8, 2016. at Bryn Mawr College
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