{"nrhp_refnum":"90001411","name":"Douglass, John, House","other_names":["Governor Sproul Birthplace"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Sproul Rd., S of PA 896","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kirkwood","county":"Lancaster County","state":"PA","lat":39.86537194500005,"lon":-76.00808602799998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-09-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A stone farmhouse with a wooden bank barn, a log smokehouse and the ruins of a stone carriage shed, on a farmstead in Colerain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one-half mile south of the Andrew's Bridge village historic district. The core house is dated by a carved 1769 tablet, with later additions.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house is one of the few remaining 18th century houses in Colerain Township and the oldest in this part of the Octoraro Valley. It is presented as an excellent local example of a vernacular stone farmhouse showing evolutionary growth and Georgian design precedents, and its barn and smokehouse are called representative of local nineteenth century farmstead outbuildings.","narrative":"A stone farmhouse in Colerain Township, Lancaster County, built in two principal phases, with its core dated by a carved 1769 tablet in the south gable. The two-and-one-half-story house is a three-bay, two-room-deep structure that later gained a two-bay addition after 1815, giving it a five-bay front. The walls are local limestone laid in random fieldstone with flat-stone arches over the first-floor windows. The farmstead includes a bank barn with circular-saw marks and a rare queen-post floor system, a log smokehouse with a V-notched frame, and the stone walls of a carriage shed. Built by John Douglass, who lost the property at a sheriff's sale in 1769, the house passed through several local families. In 1856 it was bought by Clarkson Brosius, a Quaker farmer whose family was active in the Underground Railroad. Later owner Dora Sproul's son, William Cameron Sproul, became governor of Pennsylvania from 1919 to 1923. The house is valued as a well-preserved example of regional stone farmhouse building.","period_of_significance":"1769 - 1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Georgian","criteria":["C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:35.858101-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90001411.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001411/e1478e3067-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001411/e1478e3067-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Douglass_House_LanCo_PA.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Douglass_House_LanCo_PA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995093","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Douglass_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6229934"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/lancaster-county/douglass-john-house-90001411/"}