Roadside genealogy, Oley Township edition, part two.

Today's fly-by: the Henry Fisher House on Route 662, the limestone Georgian that the Historic American Buildings Survey calls the finest of its kind in Berks County. Built between 1798 and 1801 for $6,000 by master carpenter Gottlieb Drexel, and occupied by direct descendants of Henry and Susanna Fisher ever since.

I nearly had the wrong Susanna. There is a Susanna Fischer (1788-1841) in my tree, and for a moment I thought I was looking at the lady of the house. But my Susanna was ten years old when the foundation was laid, and she was a Fischer by birth, not by marriage. The Susanna of the house was Susanna Ruth, who married Henry in 1781. Mine turns out to be my 4th-great-grandaunt from a different Fischer family entirely. Berks County kept two of them going, and my tree runs through both.

The house itself is closer kin. Its builder, Henry Fisher (1758-1823), matches by parents and birthplace as the older brother of my 5th-great-grandmother Rosina Fisher. Henry, his father, and a brother all served in Captain Conrad Eckert's Berks County militia company during the Revolution.

I went to Oley Valley High School with Fisher kids. It never occurred to me to ask which Fishers. Apparently, mine.