• Turnpike Toll House and Potter Row at 5843-45-47 Germantown Avenue
  
• The Toll Gate and John Smith House on the Southwest Corner

• Left: p. 125 (woodcut of toll house and Potter Row)
• Right: p. 213 (photograph of toll gate and Smith House).

Background:
The Germantown and Perkiomen turnpike was finished in 1801. Until the time the city took over the road in the early 1870's, a toll booth stood on Germantown road opposite Rittenhouse Street. From this location the last toll keeper, Enos Springer, not only collected tolls, but also sold everything from sleds and ladders to chickens and pigeons. The toll booth stood in front of a pharmacy in Potter Row. In 1809 the property belonged to the estate of Henry Beck; his son Baltus made leather breeches here. The old Potter-Beck home had a half-door and pent roof, but nineteenth-century additions to the front altered the original building into stores.

Across the street, on the southeast corner of Germantown and Rittenhouse stood blacksmith John Smith's three-story house. This house was built on the site of an older house owned and occupied during the Revolution by John Smith's father, Pennsylvania German Peter Smith. By the end of the nineteenth century, this house was owned by Keyser and the meadow to the rear had been built up solidly with houses facing West Rittenhouse Street.

All buildings since demolished.

Additional Sources:

• GHS: Box 11, envelope 5: "The Old Tollgate below Centre St." (photograph of original wash and ink drawing in John Richards' sketchbook, p. 20).

• GHS: Jellett, Edwin C. "Germantown Historical Miscellany," p. 233: "Old Poor House Lane" (October 8, 1898 news article).

• GHS: Johnson, George Clarence. "Pictorial Germantown Road...," p. 88 (text).

• GHS: (L1-11) Keyser, N.H. Germantown Scrapbook, pp. 27- 28 (newsclippings on Old Germantown Pike and Enos Springer).

• GHS: Keyser, Naaman. History of Old Germantown. Manuscript notes for v. 2, pp. 27-28 (unpublished typewritten text).

• GHS: Photo Box 1, p. 5: "Toll Gate in front of house of John Smith, south corner of Germantown avenue and Rittenhouse street" (same photograph as shown above from the Campbell Collection, vol. 33, p. 213 at the HSP).

• GHS: Photo Box 11, envelope 8: "First Presbyterian Church, old Blg-5847-5851 Gtn Ave." (photographic print #641 pos. 433 featured in "spaces and Places" exhibit, 1980. Also shows the extreme upper end of Potter's Row with part of the gable end of an old two-story stone building to the rear).

• GHS: Photo Scrapbook 5, p. 46: "Building of the Germantown Young Men's Christian Association, 1873-1892. Formerly the Building of the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown. East Side of Germantown Avenue, South of Haines St. (same photographic image as in Photo Box 11, envelope 8; however, this image includes slightly more of Germantown Avenue on either side of the YMCA).

• GHS: Streets Box 1, envelope 1: two news columns about Germantown turnpike and Enos Springer.

• HSP: Campbell Collection, vol. 33, pp. 125 and 213: 3 news clippings with images and text which include the Old Toll House, Potter buildings and the John Smith house.

• HSP: Perkins Collection (Compiled by Helen C. Perkins, 1900-1909) includes:
  • vol. 61D, p. 36: "Old Toll House, Main and Rittenhouse Streets, and Enos Springer" (image and manuscript text).
  • vol. 62, p. 57: reference to the tollgate in "A Pen Picture of Old Poor House Lane Fifty Years Ago" (newsclipping dated November 20, 1903).
  • vol. 62, p. 60: reference to the John Smith house in "A Pen Picture of Old Poor House Lane Fifty Years Ago" (newsclipping dated November 13, 1903).

• HSP: Richards, John. Old Landmarks in Germantown and Vicinity, 125a: "Springer's Tollgate on Main Street below Centre St." (ink and wash drawing).

• HSP: Shoemaker Collection, folio 15: "Toll Gate. Germantown Road Op Rittenhouse St." (zinco lithograph and manuscript text).

• Hotchkins, Rev. S. F. Ancient and Modern Germantown, Mt. Airy, and Chestnut Hill. Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler and Co., 1889. P. 142 (text about the John Smith house).

• Quaint Old Germantown: Sixty Views of Ancient Landmarks Drawn on Zinc by John Richard 1863-1888 and Collated by Julius Friedrich Sachse. Philadelphia, 1913, plate XII: "Old Toll Booth" (zincotype). Available at HSP and GHS.