Montgomery County PA Archives Biographies.....Berkhimer, George May 21, 1815 - July 16, 1898
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Source: Biographical Annals of Montgomery County Pennsylvania, T. S. Benham & Company and the Lewis Publishing Company, 1904
Author: Ellwood Roberts, Editor

  GEORGE BERKHIMER, son of Jacob and Mary (Rubicam) 
Berkhimer, was a native of
Whitemarsh township, Montgomery 
county, Pennsylvania, where he was born May 21,
1815. He was 
born on a farm rented by his father. He was one of a family 
of
six children, and attended the schools of the day which 
were very inferior to
those of the present time. George 
Berkhimer was trained to habits of honest
industry in 
accordance with the custom of that day in Montgomery, but 
school
learning was a comparatively small part of the 
education of the boy. He
conducted a store with a relative 
for a time, finding that employment more
congenial than 
farming. 

  He married, February 27, 1851, Phebe Ann, daughter
of Levi 
and Hettie (Wilkinson) Shepherd, of Horsham township. After 
his
marriage George and Phebe Berkhimer located at 
Springhouse, in Lower Gwynedd
township, where he remained 
for a year, and then removed to the locality known
as 
Franklinville, in Whitpain township, on the State road, 
(DeKalb street)
about six miles from Norristown, and two 
miles from Gwynedd Friends' meeting-
house. There Mr. 
Berkhimer occupied the hotel, a portrait of Benjamin 
Franklin
on whose swinging sign, yet remembered by some of 
the older residents of the
neighborhood, gave name to the 
place. He purchased the farm and hotel, and
operated both 
for many years. The farm contained eighty-seven acres of 
land,
and Mr. Berkhimer brought it into a high state of 
cultivation. He did not keep
the bar of the hotel, that 
being in the hands of another person, but attended
to the 
comfort of all guests.

  George Berkhimer sold his farm, the hotel
having been 
abandoned because of the diversion of travel in other 
directions
through the building of railroads and otherwise, 
the purchaser being John
Robinson, about 1866. He held it a 
few years, Mr. Berkhimer in the meantime
erecting a house on 
the opposite side of the State road, where he spent his 

remaining days, and where his widow now resides. John 
Robinson, after a few
years occupancy, sold the property to 
William M. Singerly, of the Philadelphia
Record, who spent 
much money upon the buildings and surroundings, and 

transformed it into the "Home Farm," purchasing also in the 
neighborhood
several hundred acres of land, and operating 
then for twenty years or more
until his death. The property 
is now owned and occupied as a summer residence
by General 
William P. Wilson, of the Commercial Museum of Philadelphia, 
all
the farms of Mr. Singerly having been sold.

  Mr. Berkhimer continued to farm
in a small way the acres 
on which his widow resides, until his death, which
occurred 
July 16, 1898. He was buried at St. Thomas' Episcopal 
cemetery, in
Whitmarsh township. In politics he was a 
Democrat, but not by any means a
bitter partisan. He never 
sought or held office, deeming it sufficient to go to
the 
polls on election day and deposit his ballot.

  The Berkhimers are an old
family of German origin, long 
resident in Whitpain and adjoining townships.
They were all 
farmers, and as a family were noted for thrift and 
frugality,
being industrious and energetic in attention to 
business, George Berkhimer was
an exceedingly kindhearted 
man, a good husband and a kind neighbor. He died at
an 
advanced age, thoroughly respected by the entire community 
in which he had
lived so long, and to whose members he was 
so well known. (For further
particulars of the Berkhimer 
family see the biographical sketches of Allen
Berkhimer, 
John Berkhimer and Charles Berkhimer, elsewhere in this 
work.)


 Mrs. Berkhimer's family are old residents of Pennsylvania, 
but they have been
domiciled in Montgomery county only for 
two generations. Her father, Levi
Shepherd, was a miller, 
and resided at Tacony, in Philadelphia county, whence
he 
removed about 1834 to Moreland, in Montgomery county, and in 
1843 to
Montgomery township. Mrs. Berkhimer was born at 
Tacony, but has resided the
greater part of her life in the 
locality where she now lives, she and her
husband having 
removed to Franklinville in 1852, more than a half century 
ago.
Having no children of her own, Mrs. Berkhimer has 
usually been surrounded by
nephews or nieces of herself or 
her husband, with whom she shares the comforts
of her home. 
She is a benevolent, kindly woman, who is widely known and 
highly
esteemed by all who know her.

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