One of the last intact agricultural parcels in Whitemarsh and Springfield Townships (Montgomery County), Pennsylvania, Erdenheim Farm was at the center of the horse racing world from the 1860s until the late 20th century. With parcels owned at various times by such noteworthy Philadelphia figures as Atherton Blight, Dr. James A. McCrea, William A. Coulston, the Lukens family, John Faber Miller, Aristides Welch, Norman W. Kittson, Robert N. Carson, George D. Widener, Jr., and Fitz Eugene Dixon, Erdenheim has accumulated a rich and fascinating historical pedigree. The property also has a number of myths attached to it, including the longstanding rumor that Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy, worked at the farm shortly before the assassination, and the old saw that Lafayette once slept there. In his history of Erdenheim, Eric Plaag separates the facts from the multitude of fictions, revealing the complex and intriguing history behind this important agricultural center straddling the gorgeous and popular Wissahickon Creek.

This history, which includes original photography by Eric Plaag, was privately published by the University of South Carolina in 2012 and is available for review at numerous archives and research libraries throughout the United States, including the Keeneland Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. The University of South Carolina Press will issue a reprint in October 2015.