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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK Pennsylvania	Independence National Historical Park
Philadelphia County, in downtown Philadelphia; address: 143 South Third Street Philadelphia, PA 19106. Independence National Historical Park

In this 22-acre park, in the old part of Philadelphia, is located a group of historic buildings that notably commemorates the founding and initial development of the Nation. Probably no other similar group, except possibly that in Washington, D.C., has such broad and special historical significance and is associated with so many momentous national events. These include meetings of the First and Second Continental Congresses; adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which marked the creation of the United States; the labors of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which perpetuated it; and George Washington's second inauguration as President. This area was also the second Capital of the United States under the Constitution, from 1790 to 1800. As the historian Carl Van Doren has said: "On account of the Declaration of Independence, [Independence Hall] is a shrine honored wherever the rights of man are honored. On account of the Constitution, it is a shrine cherished wherever the principles of self-government on a federal scale are cherished."

Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, is one of the most historic buildings in the Nation. There the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence and adopted the Articles of Confederation; and the Convention of 1787 created the Constitution.

Independence Hall was originally the State House for the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1729 the Provincial Assembly set aside funds for the building of a statehouse, and during the next four decades acquired all the property that is today Independence Square south to Walnut Street. In 1732 ground had been broken for construction of the statehouse, completed in the 1750's. Designed in the dignified style of the Georgian period and considered to be one of the most beautiful buildings of the colonial period, it was planned by Andrew Hamilton, a lawyer, and its construction supervised by Edmund Wooley, a master carpenter.

In 1750 the assembly authorized erection of a belltower on the south side of the statehouse, and the following year ordered a bell from England. The "Proclaim Liberty" inscription, engraved on the bell to celebrate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's Charter of Privileges (1701), is the source of the Liberty Bell's name. After the bell arrived in 1752, it was cracked during testing and was twice recast. As the official statehouse bell, it was rung on public occasions. In 1777, before the British occupied Philadelphia, the Government moved temporarily to Baltimore and had the Liberty Bell removed to Allentown. When the British threat subsided, it was returned to Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, where it rests to day. Traditionally the bell cracked once again, in 1835, while tolling the death of Chief Justice John Marshall. It is a worldwide emblem of liberty.

As opposition increased in America to England's colonial policy, Philadelphia, the principal city of the English colonies, became the center of organized colonial protest. In Carpenters' Hall, near Independence Square, built in 1770 for use as a guild hall by the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 to decide how the colonies should meet British threats to their freedom. The Congress united the colonies behind a policy of resistance to oppressive measures. In 1775 the Second Continental Congress met in the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) and decided to move from protest to resistance. Warfare between the colonists and British troops already had begun in Massachusetts. In June the Congress appointed George Washington General and Commander in Chief of the Army, and he announced his acceptance. Congress then organized the Government. On July 4, 1776, it adopted the Declaration of Independence, read 4 days later to the citizens of Philadelphia in Independence Square.

Following the Declaration of Independence came the long hard years of war. During the winter of 1777-78 the British occupied Philadelphia, while Washington's army kept watch at Valley Forge. After the departure of the British, the seat of Government returned from its temporary location in Baltimore to Philadelphia. On November 3, 1781, the Congress proclaimed the news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at York town. Independence practically had been won.

Assembly Room at Independence Hall.

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union had been drafted during the war, and in 1781 the Continental Congress adopted them at Independence Hall. Under the Articles, Congress met in various towns, about half the time in Philadelphia. There, in Independence Hall, for 4 months in 1787, the Constitutional Convention conducted its highly secret sessions to organize a better government. The sessions were held in the same chamber in which the Declaration of Independence had been adopted; no other room in the United States has been the scene of such political courage and wisdom.

Just before Philadelphia became the second Capital (1790-1800) under the Constitution, after the Government moved from New York, Independence Hall acquired two new neighbors: City Hall on the east and the County Court Building on the west. About the same time, the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, was granted a lot in the square. During the period 1785-89 the society constructed Philosophical Hall, the only privately owned building in the square today; visitors are allowed. Beginning in 1790, Congress sat in the new County Court House (now known as Congress Hall) and the U.S. Supreme Court in the new City Hall. In Congress Hall George Washington was inaugurated for his second term as President, as was John Adams, for his single term.

In 1799 the State government moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and later to Harrisburg. In 1800 the Federal Government moved to Washington, D.C., and Congress Hall again was used as the County Court House. During the period 1802-26 Charles Wilson Peale, the eminent artist, operated a museum in Independence Hall. His paintings, purchased by the city of Philadelphia, form the basis for the park's present collection of heroes of the War for Independence. In 1818 the city of Philadelphia had bought Independence Hall from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and has preserved it ever since. In recent years, to enhance the setting of the area, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania began a project to provide a mall in the three blocks directly north of Independence Hall.

Merchants' Exchange Building.

The structures and properties in Independence National Historical Park, most of which are open to the public, include those owned by the city of Philadelphia but administered by the National Park Service. These consist of Independence Hall, Congress Hall (old County Court House), Supreme Court Building (old City Hall), and Independence Square. Federally owned buildings include the First and Second Banks of the United States; the Deshler-Morris House, located in Germantown, Pa., and administered by the Germantown Historical Society; the Dilworth-Todd-Moylan House; the Bishop White House; New Hall; Franklin Court; and the Philadelphia Exchange. Those buildings privately owned and whose owners have cooperative agreements with the National Park Service include Carpenters' Hall and Christ Church. The American Philosophical Society has reconstructed and operates Library Hall, on federally owned land, as its library. The original building had been erected in 1789-90 by the Library Company of Philadelphia.

The First Bank of the United States (1791-1811) and the Second Bank of the United States (1816-36) provided a sound financial basis for the young Nation. The First Bank building, erected in 1795, is probably the oldest bank building in the country; in 1797 the First Bank moved into it from Carpenters' Hall, where it had been located since its inception. The Second Bank building, a splendid example of Greek Revival architecture, was built between 1819 and 1824 and occupied by the Second Bank during the period 1824-36. New Hall, another building in the park, has been reconstructed and houses today a Marine Corps museum. The Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia erected the original building as a new meeting hall, and it served in 1791-92 as the office of the War Department. The Bishop White House, constructed in 1786-87, is an excellent example of an early Philadelphia row house. During the summers of 1793 and 1794 President George Washington resided in the Deshler-Morris House, erected in 1772-73. The graveyard in St. Mary's Church contains the tombs of Thomas FitzSimimons, a signer of the Constitution, and Commodore John Barry.

City Tavern.

Other buildings and sites in the park that are mainly of interest in other periods of history than that treated in this volume include: The Philadelphia Exchange; the Dilworth-Todd-Moylan House; Franklin Court, the site of Benjamin Franklin's home, where he died in 1790; Christ Church; St. Joseph's Church; St. George's Church; Mikveh Israel Cemetery; and Gloria Dei (Old Swede's) Church National Historic Site.

In 1948, upon the recommendation of the Philadelphia National Shrines Park Commission, Congress passed an act that authorized Independence National Historical Park. The purpose of the act was to provide for the Federal Government's part in the preservation and commemoration of Independence Hall, Carpenters' Hail, Christ Church, and surrounding historic sites and buildings, in Philadelphia. This activity includes cooperative agreements with three groups, which own major structures, and the acquisition and interpretation of additional significant sites and buildings east of Independence Square. The entire undertaking is guided by an advisory commission of distinguished citizens.