In 1698, the first owner of the property, Heivert Papen, built a small houseon the corner of present-day Johnson Street and Germantown Avenue. The land passed to Dirck Jansen, one of Germantown's earliest settlers, and was purchased in 1766 by John Johnson, Sr., son of the builder of the nearby John Johnson House. The property was a staging ground of the Continental Army at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. Continental cannons were placed on the front lawn, and fired at Cliveden. John Johnson, III inherited the property in 1797 and built Upsala Mansion. Raised as an English-speaking Quaker, Johnson married Sally Wheeler in 1801, and together they had nine children at Upsala. The building may have been named after the Swedish city of Uppsala, though that is unconfirmed. There is additional speculation that one of the Johnson family members was quite taken with, and subsequently named the house after, the Swedish author, Fredrika Bremer. The small house built by Papen was demolished in 1883. In the 1920s, the annual began re-enacting the Battle of Germantown, including the attack from Upsala Mansion to Cliveden, on the first Saturday of October. Upsala Mansion was owned and occupied by the Johnson family until 1941. Dr. William Johnson, chief of staff of Germantown Hospital, died deeply in debt. In 1941, the property was seized from his widow, Sarah Trowbridge Bartow Johnson. In September 1942, the property was vandalized, and the roof was heavily damaged by fire. The property was put up for auction and the mansion slated for demolition. There were talks about building a supermarket on the site. In 1944, a group of local preservationists led by Frances Anne Wister acquired the house and established a foundation to restore the property. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places January 13, 1972. The house operated as a museum until the early 2000s, when the museum closed due to lack of visitors. The Upsala Foundation merged with Cliveden, which managed the property in cooperation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2016, they put the property up for sale. The house was sold to two preservation-minded millennials, Alex Aberle and Violette Levy, who are converting the house from a museum back into a single family home. To secure the deal, the new owners agreed to allow the annual battle re-enactment.
