The six handshake rule lies at the heart of a small town’s existence. Families blend, business partners unite, and properties change hands.  Documented over a period of days, weeks, or years, and those multiplying degrees ultimately become the building blocks of history.  

This blogging journey of mine is the culmination of what started as a quest to learn more about the history of my house.  And I have plunged deep down that rabbit hole.  Semi-regular trips to Norristown have given way to a budding friendship with a lovely woman at the recorder’s office and a three-inch orange binder containing an orderly display of deeds for my house.  Through successive searches of previous indentured book and page, I have confirmed that this place I call home dates to at least 1834; nearly fifty years older than originally thought.  Impressive, yes, but it is learning the stories of the people that were here before me that I now find even more intriguing.

Ziegler, Scholl, Stottmeister, Koschorreck, Erb, Conrad, Nunn, and me – the eighth on a chain that is the growing narrative of my nearly two-century old, brick colonial.  How cool is that?  Details in the deeds add key early settlers – Hooker, Pawling, Saylor, and Schwenk.  It certainly has not been easy deciphering those early, handwritten pages, slowly fading with time.  And the wording?  Well let’s just say it’s odd by today’s convention.  Surely there are many current residents of Schwenksville with property that begins at a stump, rounds a corner, or ends at a stone.  And I chuckle knowing that I am surely not the first person that had to check in with my pal Google to figure out just how large a perch is.

My house is not grand, but it’s mine and I love her; yes, it’s a she.  Once part of a forty-acre parcel, it is a far more manageable size now – at least for me who tends to her upkeep.  The house came to be via brick and wood sourced locally. I have repointed the exterior once since living here, and plan to carry on with its care as I continue my years in the home’s ledger book.  The flower beds are new and soon to be showing signs of color with the oncoming of spring.  A new one will be planted with seeds gifted to me from my mother this season; a memorial to my beloved dog Sable who left my side after fifteen years last November.  

If I were to draw a family tree of my house, it would be large and include several farmers, two Civil War veterans, a pioneer builder, painter, homemaker, plasterer, three World War II veterans, a steelworker, semi-professional athlete, and those all important roles to the children that grew up here – mom and dad.  I feel truly privileged to add my own crazy story.

People drive by my house each and every day not knowing who lived here and how their stories helped to create what is now the borough of Schwenksville.  And as nearly all previous residents of this dwelling along Game Farm Road have passed, the responsibility falls to me to ensure that this house continues on.