Background:

Benjamin Davis lived on this site in 1809. William Botten, an English soldier in the War of 1812 who died in 1848, resided here for many years; his son Joseph Botten, the postmaster, was living in the house in 1840. By 1887 the house was a "liquor saloon" run by Edward Doyle and Joseph Kerrigan.

This early two-story stone and stucco building was replaced with a Queen Anne style commercial/residential building c. 1895.

Additional Sources:

• GHS: Keyser, Naaman. Notes for v. 2 (north of Chelten), History of Old Germantown, p. 47 (unpublished typewritten manuscript).

• GHS: Photo Box 1: "House of John Knorr (left), West side of Germantown avenue, north from Walnut lane" (copy of photo made 1859 for John Fanning Watson--same image as shown above from FDB Richards Collection at LCP).

• GHS: Photo Scrapbook 2 : Johnson, George Clarence, compiler. "Pictorial Germantown Road & the Vicinity & Some of its Inhabitants, p. 108 (print of 1859 FDB Richards photograph shown above).

• HSP: Shoemaker Collection, folio 12: "W Cor Germantown Road & W Walnut Lane" (text and photograph).