JAMES CROUCH HOUSE - WALNUT HILL
By Nancy Avolese
James Crouch was born in 1728 in Virginia. He served in the French and Indian War in 1754. He married Hannah Brown on September 22, 1757. They bought 1,000 acres and built this two-story colonial stone home in Lower Swatara Township and called it "Walnut Hill" sometime prior to 1764.
Together they had four chidlren, Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Edward.
During the Revolutionary War, when James Crouch was a Sergeant he served in the Battle of Quebec and was captured by the British. He later became Captain and was an officer of the Associators Battalion and paymaster for the battalion. He served during the entire war. James died on May 24, 1794.
His son, Edward, was born at Walnut Hill on November 9, 1764. Edward also joined the Revolutionary War for it's final years when he was seventeen years old. Edward married Margaret Potter.
Edward served as a member of the US House of Representatives from 1804-1806. He died on February 2, 1827.
The property remained in the family until 1872 when John Motter purchased 164 acres of the property from Mary Crouch Jordan. This is when John Motter hired Daniel Reichert to build the Star Barn and the outbuildings in 1877. He also had Reichert design a Tuscan column porch on the stone house and added cast iron grillwork and two life-size cast-iron lions (see last photo). The lions were cast by W.W. Jennings.
Through the years, the property has been owned by Mr. Lewis who restored it in the late 1990s and others who have enlarged the farmhouse.
The property is located at 203 Nissley Drive.


Sources:
pennlive.com, June,18, 2013
Revolutionary War Patriots' Historic Houses of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Armstrong Printery, 2015.
Elizabethtown Advocate, July 6, 2017