{"nrhp_refnum":"93000849","name":"Nearpass House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Cemetery Rd., Westfall Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Mill Rift","county":"Pike County","state":"PA","lat":41.418630420000056,"lon":-74.74114071399998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1993-08-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small, one-and-a-half-story wooden dwelling built about 1820 on the edge of the Mill Rift community in Pike County, Pennsylvania, on its original site. It is a post-and-beam farmhouse that once served a subsistence farm.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is the only remaining building from the early settlement of Mill Rift, predating the railroad, and a rare local example of early 19th-century residential architecture. Its age combined with a high level of architectural integrity is presented as distinctive within the Upper Delaware Valley.","narrative":"Built about 1820 as a single-gabled, one-unit-deep wooden farmhouse on the edge of Mill Rift, the house was constructed by Balthus Nearpass, who cleared the land and farmed it. Its post-and-beam frame uses broad-axed beams and sawn planks, and it has a dug-out half cellar with a dry-laid stone foundation. The roof pitch and overall form recall New Jersey and Hudson Valley Dutch building traditions of the period. Peter Knickerbocker added a lean-to on the west end around 1840. The house is significant as the only surviving building from Mill Rift's earliest settlement period, before the Erie Railroad reached the valley in 1848 and brought quarrying and summer boarding houses. Its combination of age and original fabric, including a seven-foot ceiling and six-over-six windows, is regarded as a notable example of early nineteenth-century Upper Delaware architecture.","period_of_significance":"1820-1848","architect_builder":"Balthus Nearpass (builder of the original house); Peter Knickerbocker (lean-to addition, ca. 1840)","architectural_style":"Early 19th century vernacular","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"No longer used as a dwelling; the interior is used only for storage and the building shows signs of deterioration.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:35.887429-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/93000849.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93000849/26ae6a1496-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93000849/26ae6a1496-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Apc106","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nearpass_House_(1).JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Apc106</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nearpass_House_(1).JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75314357","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearpass_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15261441"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/pike-county/nearpass-house-93000849/"}