Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
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Source: July 1985 Volume 23 Number 3, Pages 97–98

The Peter Latch House

Grace K. Winthrop

• Sources

Page 97

Am interesting old house in Tredyffrin is located at the corner of the Old Lancaster Pike and Valley Forge Road, across from the old Lamb Tavern (now "Roughwood").

The house was built in several sections.

The earliest part, the west gable end, bears the date 1763 on its date stone. At this time James McAin owned the house. It consisted of one large room on the first floor, with two doors leading to the outside. These doors are lined with copper, for protection from the Indians. (The only other known copper-lined door in the area is at the old St. David's Church.) Another interesting feature of the room is the large fireplace; a four-foot door inside it leads into a tiny room that was presumably used as a smoke house. There were also three small rooms on the second floor, and an attic above them.

The second section was added in 1802, when John Clymer owned the property. This section has two rooms and a hall on the first floor, with attractive mantels and a wooden cupboard with wooden paneled doors. There are three rooms on the second floor. These rooms had no connection with the three little rooms on the second floor of the earlier part. An old custom is the reason for this. At that time, in the country it was an unwritten law that a wayfarer should never be turned away at night. This house sat along a well-traveled road, the Lancaster road. With this arrangement, the wayfarers used the rooms in the old section and the family felt secure in the new section. This was not changed until many years later when the Newmans bought the property.

Page 98

In 1833 Peter Latch, a cabinet maker by trade, bought the property. He added the third section, the frame east wing. The house remained in the Latch family for almost a hundred years, until 1931 - hence its name.

Peter Latch died in 1878, but his wife and son continued to live here until they died. In 1918 his granddaugher, Mary Latch Linton, inherited the house. Her husband, Samuel B. Linton, was a very interesting man, a civil engineer and engraver. In 1860 he had a position with the United States Coast Survey. He made some of the first maps of the Atlantic coast using block print. He made the first map of Nevada after it was accepted into the Union, and a map of the last battle of the Civil War. He was living in Richmond at the time.

In 1864 he married Mary Latch. They moved to Chester County, in Uwchlan Township, in 1877. While living there he became a school director, and started the first classification for a grading system in public schools. He was also active in church work, organizing a Community Sunday School, and worked with J. Newton Huston to organize the Prohibition Party of Chester County.

In 1890 he and his family moved into Philadelphia. Here, among other things, he did engraving for the Pennsylvania Railroad, particularly the mural in the old Broad Street Station.

In 1918 Linton retired and moved into the Latch House in Devon with his wife and daughter. He lived here until his death in 1927; his wife and daughter remained until they sold the property to the Newmans in 1931.

The Newmans made extensive renovations, taking the many coats of paint off the old woodwork and bringing the house back to its colonial period. They owned the property for ten years, and in 1941 sold it to Alfred G. Buehler, the present owner.

Sources

Historical Marker Survey of 1935 : Elizabeth C. Wilson

Tax records in the Chester County Court House

Newspaper articles from the Daily Local News

Conversations with the Newman family