Another trip into Philadelphia was on our schedule.
This trip was to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
The Liberty Bell bears a timeless message: "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof."
The bell rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. Today, we call that building Independence Hall. Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower in 1751 from the Whitechapel Foundry in London. That bell cracked on the first test ring. Local metalworkers John Pass and John Stow melted down that bell and cast a new one there in Philadelphia. It's this bell that would ring to call lawmakers to their meetings and the townspeople together to hear the reading of the news. Benjamin Franklin wrote to Catherine Ray in 1755, "Adieu, the Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones and talk Politicks." No one recorded when or why the Liberty Bell first cracked, but the most likely explanation is that a narrow split developed in the early 1840's after nearly 90 years of hard use. In 1846, when the city decided to repair the bell prior to George Washington's birthday holiday metal workers widened the thin crack to prevent its farther spread and restore the tone of the bell using a technique called "stop drilling". The wide "crack" in the Liberty Bell is actually the repair job! But, the repair was not successful. The Public Ledger newspaper reported that the repair failed when another fissure developed. This second crack, running from the abbreviation for "Philadelphia" up through the word "Liberty", silenced the bell forever. But, after all this there is no evidence to show that the bell rang on July 4, 1776.
Our visit to Independence Hall was very humbling to me. I couldn't stop thinking that I was in the very same place that the founders of the United States met and discussed and wrote both The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The building was completed in 1753 as the colonial legislature (later Pennsylvania State House) for the Province of Pennsylvania and was used in that capacity until the state capital moved to Lancaster in 1799. It became the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1783 and was the site of the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787.
When it was originally designed and built, Independence Hall had no tower or steeple. These were added around 1750. The wooden steeple had rotted by 1773 and was removed in 1781. In 1828, the city hired architect William Strickland to restore the original steeple. Strickland deviated from the original design, incorporating a clock and additional ornamentation.
Tickets are needed to go inside the building. They are free and you are given a time for your tour. Our tour guide was absolutely wonderful and really kept things interesting. And I will always remember his really bad toupee.
I loved how beautiful it was as we entered.
The building is Georgian Architecture and every attempt has been made to restore it to it's original glory.
This was where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court met during the 1700s (The US Supreme Court met in another room in the complex).
This is the US Supreme Court. We had popped in their briefly before our tour started.
This is the Assembly Room.
It was here that the Declaration of Independence was debated and ratified in the summer of 1776. It was hot that summer and fearing that spies would be trying to see what was going on the windows were closed. And remember what those gentlemen wore in those days.
The room has been set up as it would have been during that fateful summer.
Only one chair is the original. George Washington used this chair for nearly three months of the Federal Convention's continuous sessions. James Madison reported Benjamin Franklin saying, "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun."
I just couldn't believe that I was in the room where it all began. It didn't come easy. They argued, some actually fought, they debated but in the end.........compromise and it was the beginning of the United States of America. I still can't believe I am in same room where George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and many others worked so hard to make this a reality.
From the Assembly Hall we went up the well worn stairs to the second floor.
The U.S. Senate met in this room on the second floor of Congress Hall. It has been beautifully restored.
Much of the furniture in this room is original.
As I recall the guide said the rug was a recreation of the original. It has the seals of the original 13 colonies locked together.
The House of Representatives met on the first floor. It is rather simple and features mahogany desks and leather chairs. The glare was bad in the room so I never did get a decent photo.
Larger-than-life portraits of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were gifts from France who backed the United States in the Revolutionary War.
They were given to the U.S. in 1785 a few years before the King and Queen were guillotined in 1793.
I got a powerful feeling here. I seemed to be overcome by thoughts of the men who designed our country and the very documents which still guide us to this day. If only we will follow.