4i 
additional was composed largely of perennial plants in beds, 
enclosed in borders of box, with walks of gravel or "tan" 
extending between. So with varying degrees of extent and 
value were the gardens of Loudoun, Toland, Lorraine, 
Mechlin, Henry, Shippen, Harlan, Conyngham, Handsberry, 
Baynton, Wister, Deshler-Morris, Vernon, Engle, Morris-Lit- 
tell, Wyck, Johnson, Pomona, Upsala, Allen, and Schaeffer 
on Main Street, — and other gardens like those of Wakefield, 
Belfield, Hacker, Spencer, Roberts, Awbury, Gardette, Roset, 
Rosengarten, Chancellor, Toworth, Wistar, Thomas, Spring- 
Bank, and others upon the side lanes. These are illustrative 
only, for there were many worthy gardens not here named. 
The growth of the village, and the improvements in houses 
and gardens were indeed wonderful. Fanny Kemble, who 
early in her American life painted a picture of dreariness, had 
reason to change, and her after description of the same terri- 
tory may well serve as a conclusion to the presentation of the 
development period. In "Records of Later Life" she wrote : 
"One who now sees the pretty populous villadom which has 
grown up in every direction round the home of my early 
married years, the neat cottages and cheerful country houses, 
the trim lawns and bright flower gardens, the whole wfcll laid 
out, tastefully cultivated, and carefully tended suburban 
district with its attractive dwellings, could hardly conceive 
the sort of abomination of desolation which its aspect former- 
ly presented to eyes accustomed to the finish and perfection of 
rural English landscapes" "and it will be difficult for those 
who do not remember 'the' old York Road, as it was called, 
and the country between that and Germantown — to imagine 
the change which nearly fifty years have produced in the 
whole region." 
MODERN PERIOD 
1854 — 1911 
The year 1854 marks the consolidation of suburban 
districts with Philadelphia city. This epoch event did not at 
once prove an advantage to Germantown, though it prepared 
