Fetter's Mill Village Historic District

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

Fetter's Mill Village Historic District is a historic district along Fetter's Mill Road and Pennypack Lane in Bryn Athyn Borough, Montgomery County, listed in the National Register in 2006. It covers 7 acres, with five contributing buildings and three contributing structures in the Colonial and Federal styles.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and B, with local-level significance in art, industry and transportation. Its period of significance runs from about 1740, the date of its earliest building, to 1954, when construction in the district continued.

Physical character

Its buildings have stone and stuccoed walls on stone foundations, roofed in asphalt shingles, with iron used in some structures. The district centers on Fetter's Mill, the mill owner's house, a barn, a wagon shed and a milk platform, fed by the mill tail race. The farmhouse has a front gabled roof, a stuccoed corner chimney and a Queen Anne porch. The Bryn Athyn and Alnwick Grove train stations stand along the former rail line, with a railroad bridge and an iron bridge nearby.

Historical context

The Philadelphia, Newtown, and New York Railroad, chartered in 1860, laid track through the district in 1878, and the Philadelphia & Reading leased it in 1879. The Beatty family bought the mill and farm in 1895, and John R. Conner ran a studio in the wagon shed from 1914 to 1931, after artists had set up studios there around 1900.