Allentown
South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded 1762 by the noted colonial leader and jurist, William Allen. Known until 1834 as Northampton. Here the Liberty Bell was hidden in 1777, and Revolutionary wounded hospitalized. City incorporation, 1867. Long a textile and cement center.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
William Allen, a leading colonial jurist, established this settlement in 1762; it answered to the name Northampton until 1834. In 1777 it sheltered the Liberty Bell from advancing British forces and hosted Revolutionary wounded. Incorporated as a city in 1867, it flourished as a center of textiles and cement manufacture.
Why it matters
Allentown's wartime guardianship of the Liberty Bell connects a working Pennsylvania city to one of the most cherished icons of American independence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the middle decades of the eighteenth century, the interior of Pennsylvania was a country of forges, gristmills, and freshly surveyed towns. Settlers of many backgrounds had come to farm the fertile valleys between the Delaware River and the mountains, drawn by the colony's reputation for opportunity and tolerance. It was a landscape being built almost from scratch, one town plat at a time.
One such town was laid out here in 1762 under the name Northampton, which it would keep until 1834. Its position mattered: inland, well back from the Delaware, buffered from the coast by distance and rough roads. In peaceful years that was simply where the farms and mills happened to be. In wartime it became a strategic virtue.
When revolution swept the colonies in the 1770s, the seaboard cities bore the brunt of invasion and occupation. The interior towns took on quieter but vital roles — sheltering people, supplies, and symbols that could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.
People & events
The town began with William Allen, a prominent colonial jurist and man of means whose influence ran deep through provincial life. He established the settlement in 1762, and while the community would answer to a different name for decades, his founding hand shaped its beginnings.
Its defining moment arrived in 1777. As British troops advanced on Philadelphia, patriots feared for the great bell of the State House — a treasured emblem of the independence just declared — worried it might be captured and melted down for munitions. To keep it safe, the bell was carried inland by wagon and concealed here, beyond the enemy's grasp, until it was safe to return.
The town gave more than a hiding place. It also opened its doors to the war's casualties, taking in wounded Continental soldiers to recover far from the front. Behind the drama of hidden bells lies this steadier truth: a revolution needs places to mend its people, and this was one of them.
Its place in the American story
Few objects carry the weight of American identity like the old State House bell, later known the world over as the Liberty Bell. Its survival through the Revolution was not guaranteed — a hard-pressed cause can lose its symbols as readily as its ground. The choice to move it inland and guard it here helped ensure it would endure.
That gives this working Pennsylvania town a quiet but real claim on the national story. It was not the site of a celebrated victory; it was a place of safekeeping, and safekeeping is how fragile things survive long enough to become legends.
The town's later trajectory reflects the country's own. Incorporated as a city in 1867, it grew into a durable center of textile and cement manufacture — an industrial hub that helped clothe and construct a modernizing nation. Refuge in one century, factory town in the next: two American eras written on a single place.
If you visit
Approach this part of the Lehigh Valley thinking about geography as destiny. What now feels like ordinary inland country was, in 1777, a shield — far enough from the river and the enemy to hide something a young nation could not afford to lose.
Let the story here broaden your picture of the Revolution beyond the famous battlefields. Much of the war was won in the margins: in the hiding of valuables, the nursing of the wounded, the patient work of keeping the cause intact between engagements.
For a traveler stitching together eastern Pennsylvania's history, this town rewards a pause. Imagine the tense arrival of a heavily loaded wagon and the careful concealment of its cargo — a small, human act of protection that helped carry an enduring symbol safely through the war and into your own time.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William Allen
Related events
- · Hiding of the Liberty Bell, 1777
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Allentown
Whitehall, PA · est. 1947
Laid out in 1762 by the powerful colonial jurist William Allen, this Lehigh Valley town spent its first seventy years known as Northampton before taking its founder's name. In the anxious autumn of 1777, as the British occupied Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell was spirited here for safekeeping and Revolutionary wounded were nursed in the town. It grew through the 19th century into a humming center of textiles and cement, earning its city charter in 1867.
Allentown
South Whitehall Township, PA · est. 1947
Founded in 1762 by the colonial leader and jurist William Allen, this town went by the name Northampton until 1834. During the Revolution its distance from the Delaware made it a safe haven — the Liberty Bell was hidden here in 1777 and wounded Continental soldiers were treated nearby. Chartered as a city in 1867, it became a long-lived hub of textile mills and cement works.
George Taylor (1716-1781)
Catasauqua, PA · est. 1947
George Taylor, an Irish-born ironmaster who rose from indentured labor to prosperity, made his home in this handsome 1768 house along the Lehigh. Elected to Pennsylvania's provincial Assembly in 1764, he stood against royal government and was sent to the Continental Congress in July 1776, where he added his name to the Declaration of Independence. His restored home is today a National Historic Landmark.
Allentown
Allentown, PA · est. 1947
Allentown was laid out in 1762 by William Allen, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and chief justice of colonial Pennsylvania, and was known as Northampton until 1834. Its most storied moment came in 1777, when patriots spirited the Liberty Bell out of Philadelphia ahead of the advancing British and hid it here, while the town also sheltered wounded Continental soldiers. Incorporated as a city in 1867, Allentown went on to thrive as a center of textiles and cement.