Troxell-Steckel House
Whitehall, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The house built originally in 1756 by John Peter Troxell and acquired by Peter Steckel in 1768 lies one-half mile west. Restored in 1943, the house is now owned and maintained as a museum by the Lehigh County Historical Society.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Built in 1756 by John Peter Troxell and acquired in 1768 by Peter Steckel, this sturdy stone farmhouse reflects the German-speaking settlers who shaped colonial Lehigh County. Their solid Pennsylvania-German architecture was made to last generations, and this one did. Restored in 1943, it now serves as a museum kept by the Lehigh County Historical Society.
Why it matters
It preserves the domestic world of the Pennsylvania Germans, one of the largest immigrant communities of colonial America and a defining influence on the culture of the region.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In colonial Pennsylvania, few forces shaped the land more deeply than the wave of German-speaking immigrants who poured into the colony through the first half of the eighteenth century. Drawn by William Penn's promise of religious tolerance and available land, they settled the fertile counties of the southeast and built a farming culture that still marks the region today.
Lehigh County lay squarely within that world. By the 1750s, when the house at this site was built, industrious German families were clearing fields, raising barns, and putting up homes meant to last. Their stone farmhouses were statements of permanence—a declaration that they had come to stay.
This was the mid-eighteenth-century backcountry: hard-working, deeply rooted in faith and family, and quietly building the agricultural foundation on which the region's prosperity would rest.
People & events
The house half a mile west of this marker carries two family names, and with them a small story of colonial continuity. John Peter Troxell built the house originally in 1756. A dozen years later, in 1768, it passed to Peter Steckel, whose family would be long associated with it.
That handoff—builder to new owner, one German-speaking family to another—is exactly the sort of quiet succession that filled the colonial countryside. Homes like this were built to outlast their makers, passing through generations and neighbors as the community grew up around them.
The house's later life is a story of preservation. Restored in 1943, it was rescued from the slow erasure that claims so many old buildings, and it is now owned and maintained as a museum by the Lehigh County Historical Society—kept, in other words, precisely so that its story can still be told.
Its place in the American story
The Pennsylvania Germans were one of the largest immigrant communities of colonial America, and their influence ran far beyond their own farms. Their agricultural skill, their crafts, their language and customs, and their distinctive architecture all became part of the enduring character of the region.
A house like this one embodies that legacy in stone. Solid, practical, and built for the long haul, it reflects a culture that valued endurance—of the home, the farm, and the family line. To understand early America, you have to understand these communities, and buildings like this let you do it firsthand.
That it survives as a museum matters, too. It stands for a broader American impulse to hold onto the tangible past, so that the ordinary domestic life of colonial settlers—not just the deeds of the famous—can still be seen and felt.
If you visit
The marker points the way: the house itself lies about half a mile west, so treat the sign as an invitation rather than the destination. What awaits is a genuine colonial stone farmhouse, cared for as a museum by the county's historical society.
Look for the qualities that made these homes last—the weight and craft of the masonry, the sturdy proportions, the sense that this was a building meant to shelter generations. Restored in 1943, it offers a window into the domestic world of the region's early German-speaking settlers.
It makes a rewarding stop on any tour of Lehigh County's colonial heritage. Because it's a working museum, let the historical society's own presentation lead you—and give yourself time to imagine the farm life that once surrounded these walls.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Peter Troxell
- · Peter Steckel
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Troxell-Steckel House
Whitehall, PA · est. 1970
Just west of this marker stands the stone house John Peter Troxell built in 1756 and Peter Steckel acquired in 1768, a survivor of colonial Lehigh County's German farming community. Its enduring masonry speaks to the craftsmanship of the region's Pennsylvania-German settlers. Restored in 1943, the home is now maintained as a museum by the Lehigh County Historical Society.
David Thomas
Catasauqua, PA · est. 2001
David Thomas carried a hard-won secret across the Atlantic from Wales: how to smelt iron using abundant, slow-burning anthracite coal rather than scarce charcoal. Settling in the Lehigh Valley, he built the Crane Iron Works, widely credited as the first anthracite iron furnace to succeed both technically and as a business. His breakthrough transformed eastern Pennsylvania's hard-coal region into an industrial powerhouse and earned him the title "father of the American anthracite iron industry."
Abraham Blumer - PLAQUE
South Whitehall Township, PA · est. 1929
Born in Grabs, Switzerland, Abraham Blumer crossed the Atlantic to serve the German Reformed congregations of the Lehigh Valley, ministering at Jordan, Union, Egypt, and Allentown from 1771 to 1801. During the Revolution he also served as chaplain to the First Battalion of the Northampton County Militia. He spent three decades tending to the spiritual life of his frontier congregations and is buried in this cemetery.
Slate Industry
Slatington, PA · est. 2002
The region around Slatington grew into one of the largest slate-producing centers in the United States after Welsh entrepreneur William Roberts spotted slate near a local barn in 1844. He and fellow Welsh immigrants opened a cluster of quarries, including the vast "Big Franklin" and the "Williams" quarry famous for making school slates. Their work helped fuel the popularity of slate roofing across America in the later 19th century.