Included are two photographs and manuscript text:

• folio 14: The Engle House, & old tannery building. Germantown Road ab W Haines St." (photograph and manuscript text dated 1890). This view of Engle house, showing tannery, iron fence, and frame house to the right is identical to the view found in two copies of a sketch, Perkins, vol. 61D, pp. 45 and 47.
• folio 17: "Doorway Benjamin Engle House built 1758. Facing the Town Hall, Germantown Road ab W Haines St." (photograph).

Manuscript text dated 1890 (found in folio 14):

"This old house was built by Benjamin Engle in 1758. It is on the Main St. next above the Town Hall, formerly Samuel Harvey's. Bemjamin willed it to his con Charles. Whow villed it to his son George, who gave it by will to his con Charles B. Engle who now occupies it. In the rear the family, for many years, had a tannery, the shed and buildings of which still stand. I can just remember when it was run as a tan-yard, with its piles of tan, but it has been closed for at least twenty years past. It was the last of the many tan-yards once in operation in Germantown, but which the cutting down of the forrest trees and consequent scarcity of bark gradually drove out of existence.

"All the old wood work has been retained in the inside of the house and the iron-bound chests of the early emigrants of the family are still preserved. The name of the ancestor, Paul Engle, is on the oldest marked stone in the grave yard at Skippack, dated 1723. In 1703, Paul Engle declined to be a burgess in Germantown, for conscientious reasons.

"Elizabeth Engle, wife of Charles, saw the wounded General Agnew carried past her house on a door.

"Chas. B. Engle, the present owner, was born in 1812. He recently called my attention to a white flint stone, almost a cube, about 24 inches square which stands at the lower side of his gateway. Its original position was alongside of the house to prevent cars from striking. Casper Heft...told him, when a boy during the battle of Germantown he was in the cellar of his house opposite next to Snyder's (?) drug store, that after the fight he saw the British soldiers gather up a quantity of muskets and smash them to pieces over this old stone. This Casper was a drover and calf butcher."

Back to the page for this location