Pottsgrove Manor
Near Reading, Pennsylvania
The stone mansion just off the road here is Pottsgrove Manor, built in seventeen fifty-two by John Potts, an ironmaster who helped shape this corner of Pennsylvania. Potts built an empire: a thousand-acre plantation centered on an iron forge, gristmills, and a cluster of businesses that, by seventeen sixty-two, formed the nucleus of a thriving community. That community was incorporated as the borough of Pottstown in eighteen fifteen, taking its name directly from him.
The manor itself is a well preserved Georgian home. Today it operates as a historic house museum, offering a rare look at how an eighteenth-century industrial landlord lived and worked in colonial Pennsylvania.
