Conrad Weiser Homestead

The Weiser homestead is one of many troubling Pennsylvania ancestor worship sites—perhaps containing some fabric from the era of Weiser's occupation of the site but mainly rebuilt by later users and then so significantly altered by well-meaning interventions as to be rendered nearly meaningless. In the early twentieth century the site itself was replanned with an ill-conceived reflecting pond added, surprisingly, by the Olmsted firm. New additions have been made to the site in historic garb for public rest rooms, garages, and other service facilities, further confusing fact with fiction. Nonetheless, the earliest buildings, particularly the tile-roofed outbuilding, are good examples of the continuity of German craft practice.