Camp William Penn

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1973

Laid out at the close of the Civil War, the village originally called Camptown rose on the grounds of Camp William Penn. From 1863 to 1865 the camp trained African American soldiers—among the largest such training stations in the North—preparing thousands of United States Colored Troops for service in the Union Army. The community that grew here carried forward the legacy of those who fought for freedom and their own citizenship.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1974

Near here stood "Roadside," the home of Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), a Quaker minister whose moral force helped drive some of the century's great reform movements. A tireless abolitionist, she helped organize the 1848 Seneca Falls convention and championed women's rights, temperance, and peace. Her faith and eloquence made her a leader when few women spoke publicly at all.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1992

Consecrated in 1861, St. Paul's is the oldest church building in Cheltenham Township, founded by Jay Cooke, the banker whose bond-selling campaigns earned him the nickname "financier of the Civil War." Its cemetery, laid out in 1879 and enlarged in 1905, holds Cooke's mausoleum among the graves of prominent residents. The original design by Sidney & Merry was later expanded by the celebrated Gilded Age architect Horace Trumbauer.

Abington Township, PA · est. 2018

Long before abolition became a mass movement, Benjamin Lay—a Quaker, a dwarf, and a man of ferocious conviction—was denouncing slavery in colonial Pennsylvania. He staged dramatic public protests, boycotted everything made by enslaved labor, and wrote a blistering pamphlet against Quaker slaveholders that got him disowned by his own meeting. He lived simply, reportedly in a cave, and his moral witness helped push Quakers to become the first religious body in America to renounce slavery within their ranks by 1776.