With its strong stone and oak facade, Grumblethorpe was known as "John Wister's Big House." In the early 19th century, Charles Jones Wister gave the house its name, from the popular comical novel Thinks-I-To-Myself by Edward Nares.
Meigs was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Edward Browning Meigs and Margaret Wister Meigs, and grew up in Washington, D.C. Her great-great-grandfather was the famous obstetrician Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs, and her great-granduncle was Major General Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of the United States Army during the American Civil War.
The southerly branch, Wingohocking Creek proper, followed the path taken today by SEPTA's Chestnut Hill East rail line (built by the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad in 1833 and extended by the successor Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in the 1850s) between Sedgwick and Wister stations.