 |
In Independence Town
By Paul Gerald
JANUARY 11, 1999:
The room itself is dwarfed by its own significance. Its only 40
feet wide, 40 feet long, and 20 feet high, but within those walls
the greatest minds of their time debated and signed the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution. From this little room a
new country said, We arent colonies; were a republic.
Standing in the main room of Philadelphias Independence Hall,
you can almost sense the excitement of what happened there. A
whole new country! A chance to start over and do government the
right way! From this room the Continental Congress ran the Revolutionary
War, and 20 years later, when a new government had been debated
and decided on, Benjamin Franklin walked out this same back door
and told a woman that the people have a Republic, if you can
keep it.
All this goes on in what looks like an oddity Independence National
Historic Park, a little piece of the national park system, with
rangers and everything, in the middle of the nations fifth-largest
city. The centerpiece is Independence Hall, which was built in
the 1730s to be the Pennsylvania State House; other than the flooring,
most of the building is original. The square out back is where
the Declaration was first read in public (by a man named Nixon,
which I thought ironic).
The whole area is full of landmarks and interesting information.
One thing that comes up in the tour of Independence Hall, in fact,
is that the famous painting of the signing of the Declaration,
the one on the back of the $2 bill, is off in several ways. For
one thing, the artist had never seen the room where it happened,
and he got it completely wrong. For another, he painted it some
25 years later and had all the people dressed in the latter-day
style of clothing.
Right around the corner is the first hospital in America, co-founded
by Benjamin Franklin in 1751. The main building was completed
in 1755 and is still in use as a museum. Franklin is buried a
couple of blocks away, but hes all over the city, memorialized
in statues and with his name on a long, impressive bridge across
the Delaware River to New Jersey.
The Betsy Ross House, where the famous widow sewed the first-ever
Stars and Stripes, is just past Franklins grave and on the way
to the City Tavern. The Tavern was built in 1773, and in fact
was the scene of the closing banquet of the Constitutional Convention.
The original was torn down in the 1850s, but a new Tavern was
built in the 1970s on the same plan and the same site. The staff
wears 18th-century garb and serves overpriced, mediocre food on
pewter plates; its an interesting place to walk around, though,
and the hot cider with rum is recommended to fight the wicked
Pennsylvania winter.
The Second National Bank building now houses a collection of original
paintings of many principal figures of the day. All the founding
fathers are there, as are two original portraits of explorers
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Most of what remains from
their explorations the original journals, plant and animal samples,
Clarks maps is in the American Philosophical Societys archives
but isnt available for public viewing.
Right out in front of Independence Hall, in a pavilion built for
the purpose, is the original Liberty Bell. Some interesting facts
emerge from the tour there. The famous crack, for example, is
actually much larger than it was when formed; what we see now
are the drilled-out results of the repair job. The bell hasnt
been rung since 1846, when a second and longer crack formed. It
went, ironically, right through the word Liberty on the bell,
but the bell wasnt called the Liberty Bell until it became a
symbol of the Abolitionist movement in the 1830s.
Our tour guide also pointed out that these cracks formed because
the company that made the Liberty Bell never made a bell before
or after it, and it shows this is a very poorly made bell.
The Center City area surrounding Independence Park is a great
place for walking, as is the whole city of Philadelphia. In the
next couple of weeks Ill fill you in on the rest of the reasons
why you should go check out Americas birthplace.

|



|