Hendrickson House

Now relocated to the grounds of Old Swedes Church, the gambrel-roofed stone farmhouse was built by a Swedish settler late in the seventeenth century at Eddystone, Ridley Township, Pennsylvania (at the mouth of Crum Creek, a few miles up the Delaware River). The Federal Direct Tax of 1798 noted its original dimensions, 30 × 20 feet, and already called it “old.” In the twentieth century, it stood abandoned, surrounded by quarries and brickyards. Baldwin Locomotive Works safeguarded the house for thirty years, but when Vertol Aircraft took over, they prepared to demolish it. Eventually, they were convinced to donate the building, which was disassembled and moved in fall 1958. Only the stones of the walls and the chimneypiece of the first-period hall (south end) are original. Other details are re-creations or miscellaneous salvage. Beams were finished with an adz for authenticity. Hendrickson House serves as a visitor center and genealogical library for Old Swedes Church.