Background:
Two and a half story stone and stucco house, with elegant woodwork and extensive rear additions. Built in 1806 by Rev. Blair for his son Samuel Blair, Jr. Owned by John Button from 1835 until his death in 1882, when his grandson Priestly Button inherited the house. Owned in 1912 by Dr. Richard Deaver. Demolished 1935.

Button pioneered the steam powered manufacture of hosiery in the Philadelphia area, having brought two machines with him when he immigrated from England in 1830. In 1835 Button erected a mill building at the rear of this property; over the next decades substantial additions were made. The Button hosiery enterprise was known as the Germantown Hosiery Mills in the late nineteenth century. The Buttons owned a number of properties is the area, including an elegant stable across East Walnut Lane and the Victorian mansion of Conyers Button on West Walnut Lane.

Additional Sources:

• GHS: Box 11, env. 3, #111: "Deaver (Dr. Richard Wilmot) House, 6105 Germantown Avenue" (print from Glass Negative Sanborn #46, VIII-5-1904; front view of house showing impressive hedge).

• GHS: Johnson, George Clarence, compiler. Pictorial Germantown Road & the Vicinity & Some of its Inhabitants, vol. 1, p. 86: "Germantown Pa." including a view of the factory buildings of "Germantown Hosiery Mills, Conyers Button & Co." (photograph, courtesy of Charles A. Rath, of a commercial engraving, dated 1884).

• GHS: Photo Box 0, env. 1: John Button House (photograph probably taken from an upper floor of the Shippen-Blair house across the street; side view of house showing rocking chairs on the side porch, side hedge, curved two story arbor along side of rear ell, and part of factory roof behind the house).

• GHS: Photo Box 1:
  • p. 26: "North corner Germantown avenue and Walnut lane (photograph by Samuel Castner, Jr., 1904--same image as listed above in Box 11, env. 3, #111).
  • p. 96: "Blair House, rear view, northeast corner Germantown avenue and Walnut lane." (photograph taken in 1930 by a city photographer at the direction of Mayor Mackey; taken in the summer showing overgrown arbors and hedges as well as rear of 6105 Germantown Avenue).

• GHS: Photo Scrapbook 2(1), pp. 111-112 (text and two photographs).

• HSP: Photo Collection, Box 43, Folder 3 Germantown residences envelope: "6105 Germantown Blair House" (Historic American Buildings Survey 1934, and four photographs, providing views from SW and SE, details of main entrance and of door to side porch as well as glimpses of neighboring houses).

• HSP: Shoemaker Collection, folios 9 and 17: Button-Deaver home, 6105 Germantown Avenue (two photographs and manuscript text).

• HSP: Society Print Collection, Blair House (6105 Germantown Avenue) Historic American Buildings Survey (site and floor plans, detailed drawings of woodwork, facades and cross-sections of the house).

• Jellett, Edwin C. Germantown Gardens and Gardeners. Germantown: Horace F. McCann, 1914, p. 81 (text).

• The Manufactories and Manufacturers of Pennsylvania of the Nineteenth entury. Philadelphia: Galaxy Publishing Co., 1875, pp. 255-256 (text ).