A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania
History
A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania
Architecture -- Pennsylvania; Art -- Pennsylvania; Historic buildings -- Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania -- Guidebooks; Pennsylvania -- History
MARKET SQUARE, Battle of Germantown fought here, September 25, 1777;
here was the market house, prison, stocks, and public scales; in
February, 1764, several hundred Paxtang boys, from banks of the
Conestoga and Susquehanna Rivers, encamped here; they came east to
murder the peaceful Moravian Indians, sheltered in Philadelphia, and
were met by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Willing, Benjamin Chew, and
others, who persuaded them to return. Monument erected in 1883, to Civil
War soldiers and sailors, pedestal with tablets, containing names of
Germantown soldiers and sailors, at base are two coast defense mortars
from the Civil War, two bronze cannon on wheels from the United States
Arsenal; the enclosure is of musket barrels and bayonets, used during
Civil War, and broken cannon from British frigate _Augusta_, sunk by
American batteries during Revolutionary War. MARKET SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH, originally German Reformed, built in 1733; Count Zinzendorf
preached his first sermon in America here, December, 1741, and last on
leaving, June, 1742; Washington worshiped here while living in the
Morris house opposite; a battalion of Ninth Virginia, captured by the
British, was confined here.
5442 Germantown Avenue, MORRIS HOUSE, Washington’s summer residence, in
1793-94, built by David Deshler, 1772-73; Sir William Howe occupied it
after the battle in 1777; in 1804, it was bought by Mr. Perot for a
country residence, and became the property of his son-in-law, Mr.
Morris; the yard is kept in the simple elegance of colonial times. 5450
Germantown Avenue, in 1790 residence of Thomas Armat, who lived later at
“Loudoun.” 5452 Germantown Avenue, erected in 1711 by John Ashmead,
great grandfather of Captain Albert Ashmead; front rebuilt 1790. 5454
Germantown Avenue, occupied in 1742 by Count Zinzendorf; commencement of
Moravian Seminary, now in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Saving Fund Building,
site, residence of Jacob Tellner, first stone house built in Germantown;
William Penn present at the roof raising; he once preached here.
School House Lane and Greene Street, GERMANTOWN ACADEMY, built, 1759;
colonial, native stone; founded by Christopher Saur, and others of
German birth, to furnish education in “English, High Dutch, and the
German language.” It has always held high rank as a school; the bell was
brought to Philadelphia in 1774, in the tea ship Polly, the cargo was
not allowed to land, it was taken back to England, and returned here
when the war was ended; telescope used by Washington during battle, when
the building was used as a hospital, is here; several British soldiers
were buried in the yard; cricket was first played in America here, by
British officers; Bank of Pennsylvania was brought here, escorted by
McPherson’s Blues in 1798, during the second yellow fever epidemic in
Philadelphia; gymnasium on Green Street, modern. On School House Lane,
farther west, is Cricket Field of the William Penn Charter School.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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