Erdenheim Farm

In 1765, Johannes Georg "George" Hocker (1733–1820), a German immigrant, paid £1,600 to buy 200 acres in Springfield Township west of the Wissahickon Creek.^[2] He named his farm "Erdenheim", to mean "earthly home".^[3]

Aristides Welch purchased the mare Pearl from Atherton Blight, a Philadelphia attorney, and created Erdenheim Stock Farm in 1862, on about 150 acres east of the Wissahickon Creek.^[4] Blight bred some of the finest Thoroughbred racehorses in the United States.^[5] In 1872, he purchased the British stud Leamington, who sired the champions Iroquois, Harold, and Saunterer at Erdenheim.^[6] Welch expanded his land holdings to 280 acres, including the old Hocker farmhouse.^[7] By 1881, his stables held more than a hundred horses.^[8]

The road to Norristown (now Flourtown Road) forded the Wissahickon Creek at Erdenheim Farm. The circa-1866 construction of a bridge at Lancasterville Road (now Stenton Avenue) led to the closing of the public ford, and the diversion of Flourtown Road northward through the Lukens Farm.^[9]

Welch sold the stock farm and its Thoroughbreds to Norman Kittson (1814–1888) for $100,000 in 1882.^[10] The property included a 1-mile racetrack, a 1/2-mile track, and a covered 1/8-mile track. To this, Kittson added the Lukens Farm, bringing his land holdings to about 400 acres.^[11]

Following Kittson's death in 1888, his estate auctioned off the Thoroughbreds.^[12]

Kittson's son Louis sold the stock farm and the Lukens Farm to Robert N. Carson (1844–1907) in 1896.^[13] Carson had made his fortune in Philadelphia streetcar lines, first horse-drawn, then electrified.^[14] He altered the old Hocker farmhouse into a "rustic" summer house.^[15]

In his will, Carson bequeathed 100 acres of the stock farm and a $5 million endowment to found Carson College for Orphan Girls (now Carson Valley School), modeled on Philadelphia's Girard College for Orphan Boys.^[16]

George D. Widener Jr. (1889–1971), a grandson and heir of Peter A. B. Widener, lost his father and brother in the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. That same year, he purchased Erdenheim Farm (minus the 100 acres that had gone to the girls school) from the estate of Carson's widow. Widener had architect Horace Trumbauer alter and expand Carson's "rustic" house into a 60-room Colonial Revival mansion, "Erdenheim" (1916–17), and design a number of matching barns and outbuildings.

Widener became a major figure in Thoroughbred horseracing, serving as president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame from 1960 to 1968.^[17] His champions included Jamestown, winner of the 1930 Belmont Futurity Stakes; Eight Thirty, winner of the 1940 Massachusetts Handicap; and Jaipur, winner of the 1962 Belmont Stakes.^[18] Widener kept his Thoroughbreds at Erdenheim Farm and Old Kenney Farm (now Green Gates Farm) in Lexington, Kentucky. Jack Joyner was Widener's trainer, between 1917–1932, and lived at Erdenheim Farm until his death in 1943. Bert Mulholland began working for Widener in 1923 and was his trainer between 1933–1967.

Widener wed Jessie Sloane Dodge (1883–1968) in 1917.^[19] They were married for more than fifty years, but had no children. Upon his death in 1971, he bequeathed Erdenheim Farm and his entire estate to his nephew, Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr. (1923–2006).

Widener's cousin, William McIntire Elkins (1882–1947), purchased an adjacent 95-acre tract and hired Trumbauer to design his mansion, "Briar Hill" (1929–30).^[20] Elkins's widow sold the mansion on 47 acres to Dr. Stephen J. Deichelmann in 1948, who converted it into Eugenia Hospital, a psychiatric facility.^[21] The land along Flourtown Road, she sold to Widener.