William Littell was among the area's first settlers, having received a warrant for the tract of land where the house was built after his service in the Revolutionary War.

[2]: 5  He was a prominent member of the local community, owning wide lands in the area and serving as a justice of the peace after 1795; he died in 1820.

[3]: 868  Besides agriculture, the property was the location of a tannery, which was in business at the time of the house's construction,[2]: 6  and which was profitable enough to make Littell a rich man.

[1] It received this recognition due to its unique degree of preservation, as it was one of few nineteenth-century houses remaining in Hanover Township and the only one that had survived without major changes.

[2]: 10, 11  Among its most unusual features is a hallway window on the second story, which includes details built in a way common in houses of the period but quite rare in Western Pennsylvanian farmhouses.