Germantown Avenue, south side below Tulpehocken
Johnson/Peterson House
Thomas H. Shoemaker Collection, folio 23
Historical Society of Pennsylvania

"Mrs. Marion Y. Peterson's Home. S Cor Germantown Road & W. Tulpehocken St." (photograph showing the house before Mrs. Peterson's major additions)

Also included in the Shoemaker Collection is the following manuscript text, dated 1890:

"No. 5146 Main St."

"This house, now Mrs. M.Y. Peterson's, situated corner of Tulpehocken and Main St., is an old one as the original stone work shows, but unfortunately there is no date stone and the deed fails to speak of the house in its descriptions. The additions made by Mrs. Peterson do not hide entirely the outline of the house as it was. The house was certainly, from what I can learn, built in the last century. From 1743 it was known as Johnson's until 1850 when it passed into the possession of the Fallon's, John Fallon having married Susan Johnson. They opened Tulpehocken St. and sold off the lots etc. The brief of title shows that from 1687 to 1852 the property was in one family. On 9.25.1687 Herman Isaacs Op den Graeff conveyed to Aret Klinken 25 acres...April 1st 1697 Arnold Cassell to Aret Klinken 50 acres contiguous to the other. It will thus be seen that Aret Klinken gradually gathered this tract together as his means increased. 12.10.1707-8 by will Aret Klinken devised to his wife Nifke Klinken all his estate until his son Anthony became of age...March 30.1717 Paul Engel and Catharine, his wife, to Anthony Klinken 3 acres...Nov. 29, 1743 Anthony Klinken & Sybill, his wife, conveyed to their son-in-law John Johnson 128 acres in the inhabited part of Gtn...8.8.1791 John Johnson willed to his son Anthony 50 acres he had purchased of his father-in-law Anthony Klinken. March 13.1823 Anthony Johnson to his son Justus...55 acres more or less. 2.25.1846 Justus Johnson willed his property to his wife and five children and...it passed into the hands of his son-in-law John Fallon, and was divided up into the present lots. Jan. 30.1873 John Fallon and wife conveyed to Marion Y. Peterson, a small piece of land, she having already purchased the house and lot. Thus from 1687 to 1873, this piece of ground had been in one family almost two centuries.

"J. B. Crowson, whose wife was a Johnson, tells me that Anthony Johnson built for his son Klinken, this house. Klinken's health failing he abandoned the house which he had used as a store and erected one on the lands of his father which they called 'Waterloo' afterward owned by John Welsh, on Green & Carpenter Sts. His wife was named Tybout; her parents arrived here from France during the yellow fever epidemic and one of the family contracting it they came to Germantown in a wagon. No one but old Mrs. Johnson would give them shelter but she in pity took them in, the result being that her son Klinken married a daughter. John Perot married another daughter." "

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