John Morton

Prospect Park, PA · est. 1966

This riverside homestead was begun around 1654 by Morton Mortonson, part of the Swedish and Finnish settlement of New Sweden along the Delaware, and it is among the oldest European-built structures in the region. The family line ran forward to John Morton, the Pennsylvania delegate who cast a decisive vote and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Chester, PA · est. 1954

In the late summer of 1781, the combined French and Continental armies were racing south for the decisive campaign that would end the Revolutionary War. After a grand review before Congress in Philadelphia, the allied columns marched down the old King's Highway toward Wilmington, pausing to camp here at Chester on September 5. Within weeks these same troops would help trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Chester, PA · est. 1954

This ground in Chester marks the site of the first St. Paul's Episcopal Church, built in 1702 in one of Pennsylvania's oldest settlements with roots in New Sweden. Just south lies the grave of John Morton, the Pennsylvania delegate whose vote helped tip the colony toward independence and who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Chester, PA · est. 1954

Raised in 1747 as the "Pennsylvania Arms," this was a well-known stopping place on the old Post Road that carried travelers and news along the colonial seaboard. It gained its lasting name after George Washington paused here in the anxious days following the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, when the British advance on Philadelphia threw the region into turmoil. The building survived more than two centuries before it was taken down in 1952.