Grumblethorpe was the home of the Wister family in the present-day Germantown section of Philadelphia, who lived there for over 160 years.

[2] The stones for the house were quarried on the property and the joists were hewn from oaks in Wister Woods, also owned by the family.

The land was a prime source of marketable crops and animal husbandry from the 1740s to the 1870s, and it decreased in practical use only when the farmstead grew smaller in the late 19th century.

While the Wisters were staying in another home, British General James Agnew occupied the house as his headquarters during the battle.

[5] In the 1960s, the house was restored and refurnished to match the original period, removing an early 19th-century Georgian-style façade, and now serves as a museum.