Background:

Francis Daniel Pastorius (died 1719), leader of the settlers who arrived in Germantown in 1683, built this two-story dwelling at 6013 Germantown Avenue. In 1748 his grandson Daniel Francis Pastorius built the Green Tree Tavern immediately to the northwest of the homestead. In 1796 the founder's great grandson, a tanner also named Daniel Francis Pastorius, constructed his dwelling (now the Pastorius-Dunton house at 25 High Street) to the southeast of the original Pastorius home.

When the Pastorius homestead was demolished c. 1872, some of its materials were used by Dr. William R. Dutton in alterations and additions to the Pastorius-Dunton house. At least one other Pastorius dwelling, a farm house, still stood behind the Pastorius-Dunton house even after it was moved to 25 High Street to make way for the construction of the new First Methodist Church in 1898.

Additional Sources:

• GHS: Johnson, George Clarence, compiler. Pictorial Germantown Road & the Vicinity & Some of its Inhabitants, vol. 1, p. 99: rendering of the three Pastorius Houses (image, pre-1860).

• HSP: Campbell Collection, vol. 33, pp. 179-84: Pastorius-Dunton house on Germantown Avenue and on High Street, old house in the rear, Pastorius homestead, and Green Tree Tavern (photos and engravings including the one above. For the image on page 182, showing the Pastorius homestead on the left, see the Pastorius-Dunton House).

• Jellett, Edwin C. Germantown Gardens and Gardeners. Germantown: Horace F. McCann, 1914, pp. 12-14: description of Pastorius property and gardens in the first days of settlement (text).