American Revolution

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1993

In January 1776, at Robert Bell's print shop on this ground, the first edition of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" rolled off the press and into the hands of a colonial public still hesitant about breaking from Britain. Written in plain, fiery language, the pamphlet made the case for independence and a republic governed by a written constitution. It spread through the colonies with astonishing speed, selling in the tens of thousands and shifting public opinion just months before the Declaration of Independence.

Harford County, MD

This marker commemorates the Bush Declaration, proclaimed here in March 1775 when Harford County's elected representatives pledged resistance to British measures more than a year before the national Declaration of Independence. It also records that this spot served as the county seat from the county's founding in 1774 until 1783. The inscription claims it as the first declaration of independence adopted by a duly elected body of the people.

Mount Pleasant, SC

The King's Highway began as a colonial post road, stitched together in the 1700s to connect the seaboard settlements from the northern colonies down through the Carolinas. By 1791 it had become the natural route for President George Washington's grand Southern Tour, a deliberate journey through the young nation's newest states to bind them to the federal government in person. This marker, set beside that old road in Mount Pleasant, was raised by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1932 to mark the bicentennial of Washington's birth.

Abington Township, PA · est. 2023

In the tense December of 1777, General Sir William Howe marched British and Hessian troops out of occupied Philadelphia hoping to smash the Continental Army once and for all. Over several days of skirmishing along the heights of Edge Hill, Washington's soldiers held their entrenched ground and refused to be dislodged. Unable to force a decisive battle, Howe pulled back to the city while Washington led his army onward to the hard winter that awaited at Valley Forge.

Concord, MA

On April 19, 1775, at Concord's North Bridge over the Concord River, colonial militia and the advancing British regulars exchanged the volleys that opened the American Revolution. Ordered by their commanders to hold, the assembled minutemen returned fire when the British fired first, and a British soldier fell here — among the earliest to die in the war. This granite obelisk, raised in 1836, marks the ground where organized armed resistance to the Crown began, immortalized soon after as 'the shot heard round the world.'

Concord, MA

This guide marker stands along the old road between Chelmsford and Concord, pointing travelers the last two miles toward the North Bridge. That bridge over the Concord River is one of the most storied spots in American history: on the morning of April 19, 1775, colonial militia and minutemen faced British regulars there and were ordered to return fire, the opening of the Revolutionary War. Roads like this one carried militia companies from surrounding towns toward the fighting that day.

Harford County, MD

William Paca was one of Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independence, born in 1740 on a Harford County plantation just south of this spot. A lawyer and patriot during the Revolution, he went on to serve as governor of the new state of Maryland and later as a federal judge before his death in 1799. This monument was placed in 1930 by the Daughters of the American Revolution chapter that bears his name, marking the countryside where a future Founder spent his earliest years.

Abington Township, PA · est. 1992

Founded in 1714, Abington Presbyterian Church stood at the heart of one of Montgomery County's oldest colonial communities, with its adjoining burial ground opening in 1719 and receiving its first recorded interment in 1728. The grounds saw Revolutionary War skirmishing as armies maneuvered across the Philadelphia countryside, and generations of pastors, educators, and war veterans were laid to rest here. The cemetery links Abington to the wider intellectual worlds of Philadelphia and Princeton through the notable clergy and teachers buried within it.

South Whitehall Township, PA · est. 1929

Born in Grabs, Switzerland, Abraham Blumer crossed the Atlantic to serve the German Reformed congregations of the Lehigh Valley, ministering at Jordan, Union, Egypt, and Allentown from 1771 to 1801. During the Revolution he also served as chaplain to the First Battalion of the Northampton County Militia. He spent three decades tending to the spiritual life of his frontier congregations and is buried in this cemetery.

Lavon, TX

John Abston, a Virginia-born veteran of the American Revolution, followed his family west across a lifetime — to Missouri in the 1830s and finally to Collin County, Texas, in 1853, when he was already past ninety. After his son Jesse died, the family set aside a small burial ground here, and Abston's own interment in 1856 was the first. By family tradition, Abston's daughter-in-law Sarah later gave a house and land to a former slave, Elias Bellew, in exchange for tending the graves — giving the site its other name, the Old Bellew Cemetery.

Roanoke, VA

On a quiet knoll near Roanoke lie Col. Elijah McClanahan and his wife, Agatha Strother Lewis, members of one of frontier Virginia's most prominent families. Agatha descended from the storied Lewis line: her grandfather, Gen. Andrew Lewis, commanded colonial militia at the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War and rose to brigadier general in the Revolution. The marker preserves the memory of an early settler family whose roots stretched across the mountains as Virginia pushed westward in the late eighteenth century.

City of Albany, NY

In the summer of 1754, delegates from seven British colonies gathered at Albany while war with France loomed on the frontier. Out of that congress came the Albany Plan of Union, a bold proposal for the colonies to govern common affairs—defense, treaties with Native nations, and westward settlement—through a single president-general and a grand council. Though the colonial assemblies and the Crown alike rejected it as too radical, the idea of a united colonial government took root here decades before it was realized.

Boston, MA

Alexander Hamilton was one of the young republic's most consequential Founders — a Revolutionary War officer and aide to George Washington who became the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. In that role he built the financial architecture of the United States, from a national bank to the assumption of state debts, setting the country on a path toward commercial and industrial strength. This statue, the inscription notes, was raised not by a government but by Thomas Lee, a private citizen of Boston, a reminder that Hamilton's legacy was championed by ordinary Americans who saw his hand in the nation's prosperity.

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.

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.

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.

South Whitehall Township, PA · est. 1947

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.

Carthage, NC

In 1781 the Alston House was the scene of a sharp skirmish when Loyalist partisans under David Fanning attacked the Whig militia of Philip Alston during the Revolution's brutal backcountry fighting. The house later became the home of Benjamin Williams, four-time governor of North Carolina. The site preserves the memory of the neighbor-against-neighor warfare that scarred the Carolina interior.

Boothbay Harbor, ME

This marker stands where a stone fort and barracks once guarded the Boothbay region during the American Revolution. Along Maine's rugged coast, local soldiers manned such fortifications to watch the harbors and waters against British raids and privateers during the War for Independence.

Town of Fishkill, NY

During the Revolutionary War, the high ground above Fishkill in the Hudson Highlands held a chain of signal beacons—great piles of wood and brush kept ready to be set ablaze. Lit in sequence, these fires flashed warning across the valley of British troop movements, giving the name to nearby Mount Beacon and the city below. This monument, raised generations later on an Independence Day, honors that early-warning system and the vigilance it demanded.

Billerica, MA

On the morning of April 19, 1775, as British regulars marched toward Lexington and Concord, John Hancock and Samuel Adams were fleeing for their lives. The two Patriot leaders had been staying in Lexington when Paul Revere's midnight warning sent them scrambling for safety, and their path led them here to the Amos Wyman farmstead in the countryside north of the fighting. At this modest homestead the men who would soon be marked for arrest by the Crown found food and shelter while the first shots of the Revolution echoed across Middlesex County.

Schuylkill Township, PA

This burial ground holds the Anderson family and was dedicated by Isaac Anderson, who served as a first lieutenant in the Chester County militia during the Revolution in 1779 and later represented Pennsylvania in Congress from 1805 to 1807. His life traced the arc from citizen-soldier of the Revolution to lawmaker of the early Republic.

Village of Tarrytown, NY

Here on September 23, 1780, three local militiamen — John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart — stopped a traveler on the road near Tarrytown and discovered he was Major John André, the British adjutant general carrying papers that exposed Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point. Their refusal of André's bribes unraveled one of the Revolution's most dangerous conspiracies. André was later hanged as a spy, and the three captors became early American heroes.

Erie, PA · est. 1946

"Mad" Anthony Wayne was one of the boldest field commanders of the Revolution, remembered for his daring bayonet assault at Stony Point. After the war he led the young United States Army to a decisive victory over a Native confederation at Fallen Timbers in 1794. Returning east from that western command, he fell ill and died at the lonely lakeside garrison of Fort Presque Isle in December 1796, and was first buried beside the blockhouse there.

Morristown, NJ

During the bleak winter after his daring victories at Trenton and Princeton, George Washington made Morristown a refuge for the Continental Army, and Colonel Jacob Arnold's tavern served as his headquarters from January to May of 1777. While the general planned from the tavern on the town green, his troops encamped in the nearby Lowantica Valley, rebuilding an army worn thin by the campaign. Morristown's hills and distance from British-held New York made it a natural stronghold in the middle years of the war.

Twiggs County, GA

Arthur Fort (1750–1833) came to Georgia as a boy from North Carolina and served as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War, sitting on the Council of Safety during the conflict's darkest days. As a Wilkinson County legislator, he introduced the bill that created Twiggs County in 1809, then settled and died there. This marker honors the founding public servant near his burial place in the Bullard community.

Unity Township, PA · est. 1946

In a quiet hollow south of this spot stood the final home of Arthur St. Clair, a Scottish-born soldier who gave much of his life to the young United States. He fought as a general in the Continental Army, served in the Continental Congress, and became the first governor of the vast Northwest Territory that would one day form the heart of the Midwest. He died in relative obscurity, and his grave lies at Greensburg.

Greensburg, PA · est. 1995

Born in Thurso, Scotland, Arthur St. Clair rose to Major General in the Continental Army during the Revolution and served as President of the Continental Congress in 1787. He was later appointed the first Governor of the Northwest Territory, the vast lands between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers being opened to American settlement. A longtime Westmoreland County figure, he spent his last years on Chestnut Ridge and is buried just east of this marker.

York, PA · est. 2001

In 1777, with the Revolution's outcome still uncertain and Philadelphia in British hands, the Continental Congress met in the York County Courthouse. There, on November 15, they adopted the Articles of Confederation — the young nation's first written constitution, binding the thirteen states into a single government. The Articles carried the United States through the war and the difficult 1780s until the present Constitution replaced them in 1789.

Albemarle County, VA

Ash Lawn–Highland was the Albemarle County plantation home of James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, who lived here from 1799 to 1828. Monroe deliberately settled near his friend and mentor Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, and the two estates sit within sight of one another in the rolling Piedmont countryside. While here, Monroe served as governor of Virginia, secretary of state, secretary of war, and ultimately president, presiding over the era of the Monroe Doctrine. This marker was placed in 1985 by the Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate the site.

Athens, PA · est. 1947

Where the Chemung meets the Susquehanna, this river junction has funneled travelers for as long as people have moved through the region — long enough that Native peoples knew it as Teaoga, and later generations as Tioga Point. Connecticut settlers laid out a village here in 1786, but a decade earlier the same ground had served as a staging area for General Sullivan's 1779 Revolutionary campaign against the Iroquois towns of central New York. Its position made it, for centuries, the natural gateway between the New York interior and Pennsylvania.

Auburn, MA

In the New England town of Auburn, just south of Worcester, this park gathers the memory of local citizens who took up arms across more than a century of the nation's history. Its span — from the American Revolution through the trenches of World War I — reflects the long tradition of the citizen-soldier in Massachusetts, a state whose towns sent men to nearly every major American conflict. Rather than marking a single battle, the park honors the accumulated service of a community, the kind of quiet civic memorial that anchors countless New England commons.

Elysian Field, TX

Bailey Anderson (1754–1840) fought as a young soldier through eleven years of the Revolutionary War across Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, losing his father and two brothers to the conflict. A restless frontiersman, he pushed westward across a lifetime — from Virginia and South Carolina to Kentucky, where he sat in the state legislature, then Indiana, and finally East Texas around 1818, weathering Spanish attempts to expel American settlers. He is buried in the nearby family cemetery on land granted to his son, a soldier of the Texas Revolution.

Lancaster, PA · est. 1971

From 1773 to 1780, Francis Bailey ran a printing office on this Lancaster site, serving as official printer to both the Continental Congress and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In an age when the press was a weapon of revolution, his shop turned out patriot documents—including Thomas Paine's "Crisis No. 4," one of the essays meant to steel American resolve through the darkest stretch of the war. Bailey is also credited with being among the first to call George Washington "Father of His Country" in print.

Milesburg, PA · est. 1947

Where Spring and Bald Eagle Creeks meet stood a Delaware Indian village named for the noted Munsee chief Woapalanne, whose name translates to "Bald Eagle." During the Revolutionary era this settlement was a staging point for raids against frontier settlements, part of the brutal borderland warfare that engulfed central Pennsylvania. The chief's name endures across the region today in creeks, mountains, and towns.

Edenton, NC

The Barker House was home to Thomas Barker, North Carolina's colonial agent to England, and his wife Penelope, remembered as the reputed leader of the Edenton 'Tea Party' of 1774. That October, some fifty women signed a public resolution to boycott British tea and cloth, one of the earliest recorded political actions by American women. The house stands three blocks south, overlooking Edenton Bay.

Baton Rouge, LA

In September 1779 the fighting of the American Revolution reached the Gulf Coast, where Spanish forces under Governor Bernardo de Gálvez captured the British-held fort at Baton Rouge. As Spain's ally-in-effect against Britain, Gálvez opened a southern front far from the thirteen colonies, and this marker recalls the men who fought there. It stands as a reminder that the Revolution was won on a wider map than the eastern seaboard alone.

East Bradford Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the largest battle of the Revolution unfolded across the fields and fords of Brandywine Creek. British troops under Lord Cornwallis, having crossed the creek's upper branches, wheeled southeast near here in the early afternoon to strike the rear of the American right wing commanded by General John Sullivan. Confused and contradictory scouting reports had left Sullivan unable to form a proper line in time.

Kennett Township, PA · est. 1952

Here, in the early morning hours of September 11, 1777, General William Howe divided the British army for a two-pronged assault on Washington's line along the Brandywine. Knyphausen's column pressed east to fix the American center at Chadds Ford, while a wing under Cornwallis marched a long roundabout route—north, then east—to fall upon Washington's exposed right flank from behind. It was a textbook flanking maneuver that echoed Howe's tactics at Long Island the year before.

Kennett Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, some 11,000 Continental soldiers under George Washington took position along Brandywine Creek to block a British thrust toward Philadelphia. They faced roughly 18,000 British and Hessian troops under General William Howe. In a long day of maneuver and hard fighting near Chadds Ford, the outnumbered and outflanked Americans were driven from the field.

Birmingham Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the fields around Birmingham Meeting House became the crisis point of the Battle of Brandywine, the largest single-day engagement of the Revolutionary War. British and Hessian troops, having flanked the American army by a long march, struck Washington's right wing here late in the day. General John Sullivan threw together a defensive line that fought hard before being pushed back toward Dilworthtown, while reinforcements from Chadds Ford bought time for the army to withdraw.

Chadds Ford Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the fields around Chadds Ford became the setting for the largest land battle of the American Revolution. George Washington positioned roughly 11,000 Continental troops to block General William Howe's drive toward Philadelphia, but Howe's larger British and Hessian force outflanked the American line. The defeat opened the road to the rebel capital, which fell to the British later that month.

Chadds Ford Township, PA · est. 1952

As darkness fell on September 11, 1777, the Battle of Brandywine wound to its close with the British holding the ground and Washington's defeated army pulling back toward Chester. Amid the confusion of the retreat, the young French volunteer Marquis de Lafayette — wounded in the leg — worked to rally the withdrawing Continentals, while Casimir Pulaski's cavalry screened them from pursuit. Both foreign officers were early proof that the American cause had drawn allies from across Europe.

New Castle County, DE · est. 1952

This marker traces the tactical crux of the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, where General Anthony Wayne held the American center near Chadds Ford, facing west across the creek. While Washington's attention was fixed on Cornwallis's flanking march three miles to the north, General Knyphausen's British and Hessian division forced a crossing of the Brandywine and drove Wayne's men back. The double blow — a flanking column and a frontal assault — unhinged the whole American position.

Screven County, GA

In the winter of 1779, British and American armies faced each other across the Savannah River, with control of Georgia and possibly the whole war in the balance. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln maneuvered to flank the British, but on March 3 Gen. Augustine Prevost's forces executed a bold night march and surprise assault that shattered Gen. John Ashe's American command. The rout ended in disaster, redeemed only by the desperate last stand of Georgia Continentals and militia under Gen. Samuel Elbert and Col. McIntosh, who fought until nearly all were dead or wounded.

Boston, MA

On June 17, 1775, this shoreline saw British reinforcements come ashore during the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the first major engagements of the American Revolution. Though the British ultimately took the hill, they suffered staggering losses against the entrenched colonial militia, proving the Americans would stand and fight. This tablet marks the landing point of those reinforcements.

Charlotte, NC

On September 26, 1780, British forces under Lord Cornwallis marched into Charlotte and clashed with local Patriot troops led by William R. Davie. Though the Americans were driven off and the town captured, the stubborn resistance around Charlotte contributed to the region's reputation for defiance — Cornwallis reportedly dubbed it a "hornet's nest" of rebellion during the Revolution's hard-fought southern campaign.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

On October 4, 1777, the Revolutionary War came to the doorstep of Cliveden, the elegant country home of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Benjamin Chew. A British regiment barricaded itself inside the stone mansion and beat back a determined American assault, and more than seventy men fell on these grounds. Though Washington's army was defeated, the audacity of his coordinated attack impressed European observers.

Mandeville, LA

On September 10, 1779, Captain William Pickles won a naval fight off this shore, and on October 16 the British living between Bayou Lacombe and the Tangipahoa River formally surrendered to him. The action helped bring the Revolutionary War's Gulf Coast fighting to a close in Spanish Louisiana. It was part of the wider struggle in which Spain, allied against Britain, pressed the British out of the lower Mississippi region.

Alamance County, NC

On September 13, 1781, Whig militia under John Butler clashed with Loyalist forces led by Colonel David Fanning at Lindley's Mill, four miles southwest of here. Butler's men were trying to rescue Governor Thomas Burke, whom Fanning had captured the day before, but they failed and the governor remained a prisoner. It was one of the largest and bloodiest militia battles of the Revolution in North Carolina.

Lackawaxen Township, PA · est. 1948

On July 22, 1779, the Revolutionary War reached this stretch of the upper Delaware. Some 175 patriot militia attacked a force of roughly 300 Loyalists and allied Native fighters led by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who was returning from raids on the New York frontier. The battle turned into a disaster for the settlers, most of whom were killed, while Brant slipped away.

East Whiteland Township, PA

Just five days after the bruising defeat at Brandywine, George Washington tried to make another stand against the advancing British here on September 16, 1777. As the armies maneuvered into position, a violent rainstorm swept in and soaked the soldiers' ammunition, forcing Washington to withdraw before a major clash could unfold — giving the aborted engagement its evocative name, the Battle of the Clouds.

East Whiteland Township, PA · est. 2014

In September 1777, with the British marching on the rebel capital of Philadelphia, Washington's Continental Army fell back from its defeat at Brandywine to regroup along Swedesford Road near the White Horse Tavern. As the two armies maneuvered toward a decisive fight, a sudden violent downpour soaked the soldiers' gunpowder and made battle impossible. The outnumbered Americans used the reprieve to slip northwest, resupply, and fight another day.

Wildwood Crest, NJ

On June 29, 1776 — just days before the Declaration of Independence — the American brigantine Nancy, running a precious cargo of gunpowder up the coast, was chased by British warships and ran aground at Turtle Gut Inlet near present-day Wildwood Crest. Patriot sailors and Continental crews fought a sharp engagement to unload the powder before the ship was lost, then blew up the Nancy to keep her from the enemy. It was one of the earliest naval actions of the Revolution off the New Jersey shore.

Wyoming, PA · est. 1952

On July 3, 1778, the Revolution reached the Susquehanna frontier in one of its bloodiest backcountry episodes. A small force of about 300 patriots under Colonel Zebulon Butler marched out to meet a much larger column of British, Loyalists, and allied Iroquois led by Major John Butler. The patriots were routed, many captives were killed, and terrified survivors fled to the refuge of Forty Fort.

New York, NY

On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island—the first major engagement after the Declaration of Independence—swept across the wooded hills and passes of what is now Brooklyn. Battle Pass, where old roads cut through the ridge separating Flatbush from Brooklyn and Gowanus, was a key point Continental troops tried to hold and barricade against advancing British and Hessian forces. Though the Americans were driven back, Washington's daring night withdrawal across the East River saved his army to fight another day.

Starks, ME

This marker commemorates Colonel Benedict Arnold's 1775 expedition to Quebec, a grueling march that pushed hundreds of Continental soldiers up through the Maine wilderness and along the Kennebec River. The campaign aimed to seize Quebec and bring Britain's northern province into the Revolutionary cause. Cold, hunger, and rough country made the trek one of the war's most punishing ordeals.

Wilson, NC

This monument honors Benjamin Farmer, one of the countless ordinary men who took up arms during the American Revolution and served through the long war between 1775 and 1783. The inscription places him in Captain Lyttle's Company, the kind of local militia and Continental unit that formed the backbone of the Patriot war effort across the Carolinas, where the Revolution's final campaigns were bitterly fought. The stone was set by the Thomas Hadley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, part of the early-twentieth-century movement to locate and mark the graves and service of Revolutionary soldiers before their memory faded.

Boston, MA

Here, beginning in 1719, James Franklin ran the printing office of the New England Courant, one of colonial America's boldest and most independent newspapers. His younger brother Benjamin Franklin served here as an apprentice, learning the printing trade that would help make him famous. Later, from 1769 to 1776, Edes and Gill published the Boston Gazette on this spot — a fiercely patriotic paper that helped fan the flames of revolution.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2002

Benjamin Rush, born on this Philadelphia site, was a physician, teacher, and reformer whose signature joined the Declaration of Independence. A tireless humanitarian, he spoke out against slavery and championed public health and social reform in the young republic. His pioneering study of mental illness earned him the lasting title "Father of American Psychiatry."