Smith, Henry, Farm

Built of brownstone in 1806 by Henry and Catharine Smith, the farmhouse stands on a small knoll above the Swatara Creek in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Its five-bay, double-pile plan follows the Georgian arrangement, with Federal-style details such as an Adamesque transom, a fluted-column mantel in the west parlor, and fluted balusters on the open stair. A datestone with an inscription in English is set between the eastern second-floor windows. Beside it stands a bank barn of brownstone, completed in 1845-47, with a cantilevered front, extended granaries, and peck marks on its threshing-floor timbers, a German labeling method. A rubblestone vaulted cellar lies southeast of the house. The house is regarded as one of the earliest large brownstone houses in the area, and its interior survives more intact than neighboring farmhouses. The barn shows the late development of stone barn ventilation. Both buildings reflect German building practices combined with the Federal style of the period.