Peter Wentz Farmstead

Peter Wentz Farmstead
East of intersection of Routes 73 and 363
Worcester, PA 19490
(610) 584-5104

The founder of Pennsylvania was, among many things, a visionary and a great real estate promoter. Eager to find a solution for the religious persecution of English Quakers, William Penn had proposed to the King an audacious scheme involving the mass emigration of Quakers to North America. In return for the cancellation of a large debt owed by the Crown to Penn’s father and a promise to remit to the King and Queen a fifth of all the gold and silver mined in the province (it turned out there was very little), William Penn received on March 4, 1681 a charter granting him sole proprietorship of a huge tract of land which he named the Province of Pennsylvania.

In order to attract settlers, Penn wrote a glowing prospectus promising religious freedom as well as material advantage, which he marketed throughout Europe. Territory north and west of Philadelphia was settled by Welsh Quakers; to this day many cities and towns in the region bear the names of Welsh municipalities. The colony’s reputation for religious freedom also attracted significant populations of German and Scots-Irish settlers.

The Peter Wentz Farmstead demonstrates how the German settlers of Pennsylvania lived and adapted to the culture of their new surroundings. Its builder, Peter Wentz, Jr., was the American-born son of a German Protestant who chose to settle not in a town or village, but on a farmstead in the upper reaches of the Philadelphia region.

When the elder Peter Wentz died in 1749, his sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters divided the estate. Those holdings covered almost 1,000 acres. Peter Wentz, Jr. had apparently begun developing the 300 acres allotted to him before his father’s death; around 1744 he built a stone barn and a log house on that plot. After coming into his inheritance he went to work in earnest, building the nine-room stone farmhouse that still stands on the property. Finished in 1758, the house is one of the largest and grandest in the neighboring countryside. In the autumn of 1777, General George Washington chose to use the farmhouse as headquarters while preparing for the Battle of Germantown.

Those 300 acres remained in the Wentz family until the late eighteenth century, but the longest ownership of the farmstead was by another family of German descent. Melchior Schulz bought the property in 1794 and the Schulz family continued to live and farm there until 1969, when it was purchased by the County of Montgomery.

The farmhouse was restored and the house furnished to reflect their appearance at the time of the American Revolution. The farmhouse is surrounded by a 90 plus acre plot that is managed as an eighteenth century working farmstead. Gardens, orchards and fields are cultivated as they would have been in the period.

The Wentz house was built in the Georgian architectural style. The Georgian style was constructed with a variety of regional differences but characterized throughout America by its square or rectangular symmetrical structure and aligned windows. Multi-paned double-hung (or “sash”) windows with thick muntins (the grid dividing each sash into smaller panes) were aligned horizontally and vertically, with five second floor windows positioned directly above the first story windows with the center window placed above the front door. The upper story windows were set very close to the cornice (the decoratively molded ledge projecting from the edge of the roof).

This is a replication of the type of Pennsylvania German kitchen garden the Wentz family may have had in the 18th century. A garden would be placed in a sunny, well-drained area near the house, convenient for retrieving vegetables and herbs for cooking and maintained primarily by the women of the household.

A reconstructed barn houses farm animals that are typical of the period.

Tours of the house are given through the course of the day, but visitors are not allowed to take photographs. I asked Frank Welsh, President of Welsh Color & Conservation, Inc. for permission to use photos taken during and after restoration work. During his preliminary investigation, Welsh discovered colorful sponge-painting and brushed decoration on many of the house’s plaster walls and dadoes. He then collaborated with a paint chemist to formulate paints with historically accurate colors and textures. The photo on the left shows the first-floor hallway, where original sponge-painted decoration is exposed at the jamb of the front doorway. The photo on the right is from the second-floor room at the northeast corner, where exposed original finishes on the plaster dado are surrounded by restored decorative painting. You can find out more about Frank’s restoration work on the Peter Wentz Farmstead by taking a look at this page on the Welsh Color & Conservation website.