This limestone, 2 1/2-story, side-gabled house was built in 1758 (date stone) on the highest point in the surrounding landscape. The original section was five bays wide, one room deep, with a center hall design. In 1856, the home was expanded to nine rooms, the basement was extended and a second fireplace was added to each floor (Homan). Following construction of the new addition, the facade of the house was plastered for the first time. A front porch was added circa 1880 that spans the center four bays, has turned posts, fairly plain brackets, and a low-pitched hipped roof. Auxiliary buildings to the rear of the house include a stone summer kitchen over an underground meat cellar, an icehouse and an outhouse. The house sits 50' from the township road known as West Snyder Road and appears on the 1876 Historic Atlas of Berks County.
During the 1856 construction period a second semi-subterranean cold cellar was built in the front lawn. In the year 2000, a previously hidden tunnel entrance in the main house basement was found that appeared to lead forward to the 'cellar' by the side of the road. No excavation of the tunnel from the house was pursued, but the area around the cold cellar and the barn was investigated. A Franklin & Marshall College anthropology project produced evidence to support the theory that the abolitionist Quakers that lived here used this cellar to hide fugitive slaves seeking passage northward through the Underground Railroad (Shellenhamer, 2001). An excavation of what was believed to be the opening to a system of tunnels between the cold cellar, the house and the barn led to the discovery of a previously hidden alcove within the cold cellar.
The 'alcove' is 120cm high, 90cm wide and 150cm deep, stone-lined and built into the foundation of the cold cellar. The alcove floor was close to 15cm higher than the cold cellar floor, a design that would keep the cellar water out and the contents of the alcove dry. Artifacts found at this excavation include pieces of undecorated redware that were used as utilitarian food storage containers. Four other redware containers were determined to be chamber pots, whose presence in the cold cellar suggests people spent time in the structure. Many fragments of medicine bottles, cups, plates and bowls were also found as well as animal bones that were butchered and intended for human consumption. A single blue glass fragment was recovered from this excavation. Examination under a microscope showed the fragment was from a faceted bead of the type specifically associated with Africans. These discoveries combined with the abolitionist history of the Parvin family (Homan) led Jason Shellenhammer, a student at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster under the supervision of James Delle PhD., to conclude that this alcove was not created for storing additional food but may have been used to hide escaped slaves.
Circa 1800, a 35' x 61' barn was constructed on the south side of West Snyder Road. The barn has three hewn interior bents, masonry gable walls with vertical slits for ventilation in the mow area, a stone stable wall and the Leigender stuhle roof support system consisting of a truncated principal rafter with double courser tie and braces at either end that characterize the Classic Switzer construction methods prevalent in this area from 1750-1850. A new evolution of barn construction method identified as the Standard Pennsylvania Barn emerged in this area while the classic Switzer was still being built (Ensminger, 67). Symmetrical gable walls, symmetrical interior bents and an enclosed forebay are identifying features of the Standard Pennsylvania Barn and are all present in the Parvin barn making this a rare hybrid of the two construction methods. Circa 1850 an 8' deep extended forebay was added to the south face of the barn that accounts for the current asymmetrical silhouette of the roofline. Crossbeams supported by posts were added to support the extended forebay.
Adjacent to the barn is a nineteenth century drive-in wagon shed roughly 30' x 40' with an internal corncrib. To the west are the remains of a wooden 'bark house,' used in the tannery operated at this location between 1735 and 1916. Behind the barn at the edge of the Willow Creek is a large sycamore tree that is at least one hundred years old. The remaining resources in the district lie to the south of the Parvin homestead along Berkley Road.
https://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Berks_County/Ontelaunee_Township/Berkley_Historic_District.html
In 2000 and again in 2005, archaeological investigations were conducted at the Parvin Homestead, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, reputed by local oral tradition to be an Underground Railroad safe house. The current owners contend that 19th-century occupants harbored African Americans escaping from slavery and that a network of tunnels used for this purpose crisscross the property. Historical research and archaeological excavations were conducted to determine whether tunnels existed on the property and whether any other material legacy of the Underground Railroad could be identified.