Shippen House
Lancaster, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Site of house occupied, 1751-1781, by Edward Shippen; lawyer, judge, Chairman Committee of Observation, and grandfather of Peggy Shippen Arnold. An earlier occupant was Thomas Cookson, first Burgess of Lancaster County.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Edward Shippen was one of colonial Lancaster's leading citizens, a lawyer and judge who chaired the local Committee of Observation as the Revolution approached. His home stood here for three decades in the mid-1700s, an era when Lancaster was among the largest inland towns in the colonies. He is remembered too as grandfather of Peggy Shippen, who married Benedict Arnold and became entangled in the most infamous treason of the war.
Why it matters
The site links a prominent Pennsylvania family to both the civic leadership of the Revolution and its darkest betrayal, showing how personal ties threaded through the era's public drama.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Edward Shippen
- · Peggy Shippen Arnold
- · Thomas Cookson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Presbyterian Church
Lancaster, PA · est. 1984
This Lancaster congregation traces its roots to 1742, completing its first building here in 1770 with the current edifice dedicated in 1851. Its first regular pastor, the Rev. John D. Woodhull, was a Revolutionary patriot, and among its members was James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States. The church's long life spans the colonial era, the Revolution, and the antebellum decades of national growth.
St. James' Church (Episcopal)
Lancaster, PA · est. 1980
Founded in 1744, St. James' Episcopal Church has stood at the heart of Lancaster through the entire span of the American Revolution and the early Republic. Among its vestrymen was George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and its churchyard holds a remarkable roll of patriots, including Continental Army general Edward Hand and jurists who helped build the new nation's legal order. The present building, begun in 1820, replaced the colonial structure raised in the 1740s and 50s.
George Ross
Lancaster, PA · est. 1950
George Ross settled at Lancaster around 1751 and became a soldier, jurist, and ardent patriot in the cause of American independence. As a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The site of his country house, nine blocks north on Ross Street, is now marked by a monument; Ross died in 1779, in the midst of the Revolution he helped launch.
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Lancaster, PA · est. 1975
Founded in 1730, this Lancaster congregation stood at the heart of a bustling colonial town where the Pennsylvania frontier met the settled east. Its early building even hosted a 1762 Indian treaty council, a reminder that diplomacy with Native nations often unfolded in the plainest of civic spaces. The stone church dedicated in 1766 still guards the graves of two Pennsylvania statesmen of the Revolutionary era, Thomas Wharton and Governor Thomas Mifflin.