[7][6] Wyck was the site of an early American brewery from 1794 to 1801,[8] and later became a meeting place of influential American scientists and artists including Thomas Say, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, John James Audubon, Thomas Nuttall, William Cooper, William Maclure, Charles Alexandre Lesueur, Margaretta Morris, Elizabeth Carrington Morris, and George Ord.

[9][10] Wyck is the type locality of the Queen snake (Regina septemvittata), discovered on the second floor of the house by Reuben Haines III and described in 1825 by Thomas Say.

[5] The following year, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette returned to visit the sites of the Battle of Germantown, and was hosted in a reception at Wyck.

Their daughter, Catherine, married Caspar Wistar, a German who became a Quaker and amassed a sizable fortune as a button maker, glassmaker and investor in land.

[6][16] In the next generation, Margaret Wistar (daughter of Catherine and Caspar) married Reuben Haines, a brewer and merchant of English descent from Burlington County, NJ.

The house has been little altered since 1824, when Philadelphia architect William Strickland dramatically rearranged its interior spaces to create an open plan, allowing light to flood each room and bringing the pleasures of the garden inside.