This is the oldest state capitol still in active use as the seat of government and the only one to have served as the nation’s capital, witnessing important events that ended the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress met in its Senate Chamber from November 26, 1783, to August 13, 1784, during which time George Washington appeared to resign his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Washington’s actions have been exulted as a critical step in the establishment of civil authority over military rule. On January 14, 1784, the Treaty of Paris was ratified here, officially recognizing the United States as a sovereign nation and marking the end of the war. more

The standard Trajan's Column format of a shaft with a crowning figure here receives further elaboration with a complex base composed of a pedimented podium and sculpted drum, a form based on several contemporary French monuments. In 1781 Congress ordered a marble column to be erected on the site to commemorate the victory over Cornwallis at Yorktown. Nothing was done, and in 1880 the secretary of war, Alexander Ramsey, created a commission and appointed Hunt, Van Brunt, and Ward to study the idea of a centennial monument more

Samuel Hale was a potter who used White Clay Creek to transport his wares. In 1772, he sold the riverside house to Daniel Byrnes, a miller, who enlarged it. Flemish bond brick-work on the front facade (unfortunately sandblasted) contrasts with mingled English and common bonds on sides and rear. General George Washington convened a council of war with the Marquis de Lafayette and others here in September 1777. By 1961, the house was...more

Valley Forge is the nation's memorial to George Washington's triumph over failure, where his American troops were hardened into an effective fighting force with the staying power that ultimately led to victory in 1781. Little from Washington's time survives save for a few eighteenth-century stone houses, a covered bridge, and the appropriate name of an early water-powered forge. The park is graced by two modern memorials, the immense Napoleonic early-twentieth-century limestone memorial arch by Cret of 1912 and the Gothic Revival Thanksgiving bell tower (1915) and memorial chapel (1920) by Zantzinger, Borie and Medary, the architects of elite 1920s Episcopal churches, whose... more