MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR (Mark)

Carpenter’s Hall, located in Independence National Park, Philadelphia is the official Birthplace of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

During the early portion of the American Revolution it was also the key meeting house for colonial delegates.  It was then, and remains now, privately owned by the Carpenter’s Company, which is the country’s oldest extant craft guild.

​The building was constructed entirely of hand tools, some on display in the hall.  The construction technique is shown in the model below:

When the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, they turned the building into a hospital for American POW’s as a way of showing what happens to people who opposed the Empire.

​Next to Carpenter’s Hall is the Museum of the America Revolution.  The Museum has done an excellent job in presenting interesting facts about the Revolution that often are not found in history textbooks.

This is a piece of history I had never heard about before.

This is a depiction of 14-year-old London Pleasants who joined the Loyalists as a bugle player in order to gain his freedom:

If you were an enslaved person or had escaped slavery, and you pledged loyalty to King George III and fought with the Loyalists, you were guaranteed freedom and relocation to any place in the British Empire you wished to go once the war was done; you had a better guarantee of freedom fighting with them. 

When George Washington arrived to take command of the Revolutionary Army he rode into camp as a huge brawl was taking place.  He literally went around physically separating men who were in fist fights.  

The various state and county militia could not agree on much of anything.  Washington realized the job of turning this mob into a cohesive force was going to be a much tougher job than he had originally thought.

One of the more wrenching stories of the early portion of the war is of James and Charles Peale during the New York New Jersey campaign. 

James was an officer leading his men while trying to reinforce the retreating Revolutionary Army.  On the road he saw a retreating officer limping away from the battlefield with torn clothing and no coat.  James got down off of his horse and wrapped his cape around the officer.  The retreating officer said, “James, is that you?”

Charles was so changed physically from the stress and privations of the battles that his brother James had not recognized him. 

The Peale family, including the sons and daughters of both brothers, became one of the most influential families of painters of the era.  (You can read more about their influential careers at the links at each brother's names, above.)

​The last exhibit is of some of the first photography done in the United States of the survivors of the Revolutionary War era.  

​Also on display is the actual tent used by George Washington throughout the entire war.  Even if he was quartered in a house, he used the tent as his office, and it was pitched in the center of camp.  ​To see that 250-year-old tent is amazing. 

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