American Revolution

Boston, MA

This marker notes the site of the mansion of Thomas Hutchinson, built about 1687 in Boston's North End. Hutchinson served as the colony's royal governor in the tense years before the Revolution, and his fine home stood as a symbol of Crown authority. It was famously ransacked by a mob during the Stamp Act protests of the 1760s.

Franklin Township, PA · est. 1974

This Chester County farm was the 1734 birthplace of Thomas McKean, one of the most consequential founders few remember. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he served simultaneously in the politics of two states and famously urged Caesar Rodney's dramatic ride to break Delaware's tie for independence. He later became Chief Justice and then Governor of Pennsylvania.

Shillington, PA · est. 1947

Thomas Mifflin was one of the most active political figures of the Revolutionary generation, serving in the Continental Congress and as a soldier before becoming Pennsylvania's first governor under the state's 1790 constitution. His country estate here, called Angelica, was his home through the turbulent 1770s and 1780s when the new nation was being forged. Today the Berks County Farm and Home occupies the ground where his estate once stood.

New York, NY · est. 1923

Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet "Common Sense" helped ignite the drive for American independence, died in 1809 at a site here in New York City. The marker quotes his creed from "The Age of Reason" — "The world is my country. To do good is my religion" — words that captured his belief in reason, human brotherhood, and liberty across the Atlantic world. Born in England in 1737, Paine wrote for revolutions in America, France, and his native British Isles.

Bordentown, NJ

In 1783, as the Revolution he had championed drew to a close, Thomas Paine bought this Bordentown house and lived in it off and on until his death in 1809. The author of "Common Sense" and "The American Crisis" had done as much as any writer to rally colonists to independence. Here in New Jersey he kept up his restless pursuits in politics, science, and invention between travels to Europe.

Morristown, NJ

Thomas Paine was the pamphleteer whose words helped turn a colonial rebellion into a revolution. His American Crisis series, begun in the dark winter of 1776, opened with the immortal line about times that try men's souls and was read aloud to Washington's cold, discouraged troops across New Jersey's Revolutionary landscape. An Englishman by birth who later became a French citizen and an adopted American, Paine went on to write Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, works that carried the era's arguments about liberty and reason far beyond the new nation's borders.

Pleasant Township, PA · est. 1947

During Colonel Daniel Brodhead's 1779 expedition against the Seneca, an advance party clashed here with thirty or forty Native warriors in a brief but sharp skirmish. It was the only fighting of the entire campaign and, by the marker's reckoning, the sole Revolutionary War engagement in northwestern Pennsylvania. The rest of Brodhead's march met little resistance as it moved through the Allegheny country.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1986

When Congress moved to build a Continental force in June 1775, it authorized its very first battalion — nine companies of riflemen raised here in the Pennsylvania backcountry under Col. William Thompson of Carlisle. These frontier marksmen marched to join the siege of Boston, and the unit later became the First Pennsylvania Continental Regiment. Their muster placed Carlisle at the founding of the American army.

Reading, PA · est. 1989

In June 1775, with war just underway around Boston, the Continental Congress took a momentous step: it authorized its first troops raised directly under national authority—rifle companies drawn from the frontier. Captain George Nagel's company, filled with Berks County marksmen, mustered at Reading that July and then set off on a grueling march of roughly 350 miles to reinforce the American siege of Boston. These backwoods riflemen, prized for their accuracy, were among the first soldiers to serve the united colonies rather than a single province.

Chambersburg, PA · est. 1991

In June 1775, as war with Britain flared, Congress authorized the colonies' first battalion, and Capt. James Chambers raised a company here in what was then Cumberland County. These frontier riflemen marched roughly 450 miles to help besiege the British in Boston, among the earliest Pennsylvanians to answer the call to arms. The battalion evolved into the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, with Chambers commanding as colonel from 1777 to 1781.

Sunbury, PA · est. 1987

In June 1775, as war with Britain began, men recruited around Sunbury joined Captain John Lowdon's Company—part of Thompson's Rifle Battalion, the first battalion Congress authorized in all the colonies. Among its riflemen was Timothy Murphy, whose extraordinary marksmanship would later make him a legend of the Revolution.

Pine Creek Township, PA · est. 1947

According to local tradition, settlers of the West Branch frontier gathered beneath the Tiadaghton Elm on July 4, 1776, and drew up their own resolves declaring independence — reportedly before word of the Continental Congress's action had reached them. These pioneers, governed by the self-organized "Fair Play men," lived beyond the formal reach of the colony and made their own rules. Their bold declaration became a cherished symbol of frontier self-government.

Pine Creek Township, PA · est. 1947

This marker honors the Tiadaghton Elm, where tradition holds that pioneer settlers of the Susquehanna's West Branch resolved their independence from Britain on July 4, 1776. Living on the far frontier beyond the colony's official authority, these settlers governed themselves and acted on their own convictions. The famous tree associated with the event long stood near the junction of the Susquehanna and Pine Creek.

Pender County, NC

A self-made patriot from North Carolina's Cape Fear region, Timothy Bloodworth rose to serve in the first U.S. Congress and later in the U.S. Senate from 1795 to 1801. He is best remembered as a leading Antifederalist who fought against ratifying the new U.S. Constitution in 1788 and 1789, fearing it handed too much power to a distant central government. His stance placed him at the heart of the great debate over how the young nation should be governed.

Lower Providence Township, PA · est. 1969

Timothy Matlack was a firebrand of the Revolution who helped shape Pennsylvania's new government while taking up arms for independence. He sat in the Continental Congress, served as a colonel of Philadelphia Associators at the Battle of Princeton, and helped found the Society of Free (or "Fighting") Quakers for those expelled from the pacifist Meeting for supporting the war. Long a fixture of Pennsylvania's revolutionary government, he was reinterred near this spot in 1905, decades after his death.

Elkton, KY

Todd County, formed in 1819, remembers a Virginia-born frontier soldier who helped wrest the Illinois country from British control. John Todd fought at Point Pleasant in 1774, came to Kentucky in 1775, and rode with George Rogers Clark's daring 1778 campaign, afterward serving as civil commandant of the new Illinois County. A champion of setting aside land for public schools, he was killed at the disastrous Battle of Blue Licks in 1782.

Moore County, NC

In February 1776, as North Carolina's Loyalists rallied to the Crown, area Tories gathered at Alexander Morrison's home in the Cross Hill community before marching toward the coast. Their advance ended at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, where Patriot militia routed the Loyalist force in one of the Revolution's first Southern victories.

Town of Clarkstown, NY

In the tense autumn of 1780, American General Benedict Arnold conspired with British Major John André to hand over the strategic Hudson River fortress at West Point — one of the most infamous acts of treason in the nation's history. André was captured while trying to reach British lines, and the plot unraveled, turning Arnold's name into a byword for betrayal. This marker stands near where that fateful meeting took place.

Village of Haverstraw, NY

On a September night in 1780, American General Benedict Arnold met secretly with British Major John André along the Hudson to arrange the surrender of the vital fortress at West Point. André was seized while attempting to return to British lines, exposing the conspiracy and cementing Arnold's reputation as the archetypal American traitor. This marker recalls the wooded ground tied to that betrayal.

West Bradford Township, PA · est. 1915

Here at Trimble's Ford, the British army under Howe and Cornwallis waded across the west branch of the Brandywine on the morning of September 11, 1777. The crossing was part of the wide, secret flank march that would bring them down on Washington's exposed right by afternoon. A quiet country ford became, for one day, the hinge of a major Revolutionary battle.

New Bern, NC

Completed in 1770, Tryon Palace served as the colonial capitol and residence of North Carolina's royal governors, and then as the first state capitol until 1794. Its lavish construction, funded by taxes, stirred backcountry resentment that fed the Regulator movement. The building burned in 1798 and was meticulously reconstructed in the 1950s.

Gaston County, NC

In the tense summer of 1775, as news of Lexington and Concord rippled south, the citizens of Tryon County in the western Carolina backcountry gathered to put their defiance in writing. Their resolves pledged resistance to what they called British tyranny and affirmed their rights as free people — one of a wave of local declarations that swept North Carolina that year, well before the Continental Congress declared independence. Signed here in August 1775, the Tryon Resolves joined kindred documents like the Mecklenburg and Tryon-area resolutions in giving the Revolution its grassroots voice in the Piedmont.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2005

Near this spot stood Tun Tavern, a colonial Philadelphia public house that operated from 1693 until 1781 and, by tradition, served as the recruiting ground for the first battalions of Continental Marines. When the Continental Congress authorized two battalions of Marines on November 10, 1775, the fledgling corps drew its first volunteers here—a birthplace the Marine Corps still honors with its motto, Semper Fidelis.

Exeter, NH

Across New England, towns like Exeter have long marked their commons and public squares with tributes to the men and women who wore the nation's uniform. Rather than commemorating a single battle, this memorial gathers all of that service under one dedication — a civic act of remembrance repeated in countless American communities, especially in the wake of the twentieth century's great conflicts. Exeter, an old Revolutionary-era seat of New Hampshire government, is a fitting place for such a gesture, where local memory of duty and sacrifice runs deep. The plain, formal language reflects a shared vocabulary of honor meant to speak for generations of veterans at once.

Schuylkill Township, PA · est. 1960

Before it became hallowed ground, Valley Forge was a working village that grew up around an iron forge started in 1742. When the British marched through in 1777, they burned the forge and part of the town. That winter of 1777–78, George Washington made his headquarters in Isaac Potts' house here while the Continental Army endured its legendary encampment nearby.

Schuylkill Township, PA · est. 1960

The famous winter camp at Valley Forge takes its name from a real working community that began around an iron forge built in 1742. British troops torched the forge and part of the village in 1777. During the encampment of 1777–78, George Washington quartered in Isaac Potts' house, a surviving piece of that original settlement.

Morganton, NC

Waightstill Avery served as North Carolina's first attorney general from 1777 to 1779 and sat in the provincial congresses that steered the colony toward independence, also taking the field as a colonel during the Revolution. His home, "Swan Ponds," stood a few miles southwest of present-day Morganton in the Catawba Valley frontier.

Wallingford, CT

The land here was bought from Montowese in 1638 and settled in 1670 by planters from New Haven and Stratford, who named it for an English town. Fiercely patriotic — home to a 'True Sons of Liberty' chapter and to Declaration signer Dr. Lyman Hall — the town later traded its farming roots for lasting fame in the silverware industry.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2008

Rising in Philadelphia during the Revolution, the Walnut Street Prison held a turbulent mix of humanity from 1775 to 1838 — common felons, debtors, captured British prisoners of war, and loyalist Tories alike. Its crowded cellblocks stretching from Walnut to Locust Street were the scene of repeated riots, but the institution also became a proving ground for early American ideas about punishment and reform. It was eventually superseded by the vast, radial Eastern State Penitentiary.

Mount Olive, NJ

In the Revolutionary War, armies moved and fought on horseback, and the animals bore staggering hardship — hauling artillery, carrying officers into fire, and dying by the thousands from wounds, exhaustion, and disease. George Washington, celebrated in his own day as a superb horseman, is remembered here through Blue Skin, one of the gray mounts he rode during the war. This memorial uses a lifelike painted replica of that famous horse to stand in for all the anonymous steeds that shared the soldiers' suffering and never came home.

Warwick Township, PA · est. 1948

Warwick Furnace was raised in 1737 by Anna Nutt and Company, a rare colonial ironworks led by a woman, in the wooded iron country of Chester County. Here in 1742 workers cast the first Franklin stoves, Benjamin Franklin's efficient new fireplace design, and in the following decades the furnace turned out shot and cannon for the American revolutionaries. The furnace and its ore mines lay scattered across the surrounding hills, feeding a young nation's fight for independence.

Hopewell Township, NJ

On the bitter night of December 25, 1776, George Washington ferried the Continental Army across the ice-choked Delaware River in a daring surprise maneuver, then marched inland through freezing sleet toward Trenton. The gamble came at one of the Revolution's darkest hours, with enlistments expiring and the cause near collapse. The next morning his troops overwhelmed the Hessian garrison at Trenton in a stunning, nearly bloodless victory. Markers like this one trace the routes and river approaches the army used on that pivotal march.

New York, NY · est. 1914

On June 25, 1775, George Washington was entertained at the Hudson Street home of Leonard Lispenard while traveling from Philadelphia to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take command of the newly formed Continental Army. The Sons of the American Revolution placed this tablet in 1914 (replaced in 1932) to mark the spot.

Riverside, CA

In 1932, the Rubidoux Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution planted eight trees here to mark the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. The Washington Bicentennial was a nationwide year of pageants, plantings, and dedications celebrating the first president. This living memorial captures that patriotic moment in Riverside.

Upper Makefield Township, PA

Near this spot on the night of December 25–26, 1776, George Washington led the Continental Army across the ice-choked Delaware River in a daring surprise maneuver. The crossing set up the victory at Trenton the next morning, a stunning reversal that revived the flagging American cause at one of the Revolution's darkest moments. The Pennsylvania bank where the troops embarked is remembered as one of the war's most storied sites.

Upper Makefield Township, PA · est. 1947

On the night of Christmas 1776, George Washington and his men crossed the ice-choked Delaware River from this vicinity, enduring sleet and bitter cold in a daring gamble. Marching through the storm, they surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton the next morning and won a decisive victory. Coming after a string of demoralizing defeats, the triumph revived a patriot cause many had feared was collapsing.

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.

Milwaukee, WI

This bronze George Washington was a gift from Elizabeth A. Plankinton to the city of Milwaukee in 1885, part of the Gilded Age vogue for grand civic statuary honoring the nation's founders. A century after the Revolution, cities across America raised monuments to Washington as a shared symbol of republican virtue and national unity. The sculpture reflects both the reverence for the first president and the civic pride of Milwaukee's leading families.

Perkiomen Township, PA

During the tense weeks around the Battle of Germantown in the fall of 1777, George Washington marched his army through the Pennsylvania countryside, camping at Pennypacker Mills in late September and again in early October. Washington made his headquarters in the house of Samuel Pennypacker while the Continental Army rested and regrouped nearby. This stone, placed by the Historical Society of Montgomery County in 1897, marks the ground where that encampment stood.

New York, NY

The marble arch at the foot of Fifth Avenue was raised to mark the one hundredth anniversary of George Washington's 1789 inauguration as the first President of the United States — a ceremony held nearby when New York City served as the nation's first capital. A temporary wooden arch built for the 1889 centennial proved so beloved that this permanent monument was erected to replace it.

Freehold Township, NJ

On a blistering June day in 1778, the war's northern theater came to a head near Freehold when George Washington's Continentals caught up with the British army as it marched from Philadelphia toward New York. When General Charles Lee's advance troops fell back in confusion, Washington rode to the front, checked the retreat, and rallied his men to make a stand. Trained through the hard winter at Valley Forge, the Americans stood toe-to-toe with British regulars through the sweltering afternoon and held the field as the enemy withdrew overnight.

Morristown, NJ

This marker commemorates Morristown's role as the site of George Washington's military headquarters during two winters of the Revolutionary War — early 1777 and again from December 1779 into June 1780. The winter of 1779–80 was one of the harshest of the century, and the Continental Army endured brutal cold and shortages while encamped nearby at Jockey Hollow. From Morristown, Washington held his army together and directed the war effort through some of its most desperate months.

Halifax, NC

In the spring of 1791, President George Washington undertook a grand tour of the Southern states to strengthen unity in the young nation, and on April 16-17 he stopped in the historic town of Halifax. Crowds turned out to greet the president, who recorded his travels in his diary. The visit tied this Roanoke River town to the nation's first chief executive.

Monticello, KY

Wayne County, established in 1800, honors General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, the fiery Revolutionary War hero who stormed Stony Point in 1779. His deepest mark on the future West came in 1794, when his victory at Fallen Timbers and the resulting Treaty of Greenville in 1795 broke Native resistance in the Old Northwest and opened the frontier—including Kentucky—to a surge of settlement. Wayne died in 1796, soon after his triumph.

Newmarket, NH

Wentworth Cheswell was a remarkable figure of Revolutionary-era New Hampshire — a schoolteacher, town official, and patriot of African and English descent. Widely counted among the first Americans of African ancestry elected to public office, he served his town of Newmarket for decades and is remembered for a Revolutionary alarm ride carrying word of British movements. He bridged the worlds of scholarship, public service, and the fight for independence.

Greensburg, PA · est. 1981

Carved from Bedford County in 1773, Westmoreland was for a time the sprawling frontier of southwestern Pennsylvania and the first place English law reached beyond the Allegheny Mountains. At its early seat of Hanna's Town, backcountry settlers gathered in 1775 to adopt the "Hanna's Town Resolves," a defiant pledge of resistance drafted as revolution stirred in the colonies. Greensburg later rose as the county seat, incorporated in 1799 as the region settled into peacetime governance.

Springfield Township, PA · est. 1947

In the autumn of 1777, with Philadelphia fallen to the British, George Washington made the Emlen House his headquarters from early November into December. From this ground his army fought its last engagement of the year, repulsing a British probe on December 5–6 in what became known as the Battle of White Marsh. Days later Washington marched his weary troops to the winter encampment that would test them: Valley Forge.

Kent County, MD

Lambert Wickes was a Kent County mariner who became one of the earliest captains of the fledgling Continental Navy during the Revolution. Commanding the sloop-of-war Reprisal, he carried Benjamin Franklin across the Atlantic to France in 1776 and then boldly cruised European waters, taking British prizes almost within sight of England and helping press the case for a French alliance. In 1777 the Reprisal foundered in a storm off the Newfoundland banks, and Wickes was lost with nearly all his crew — a death this memorial in his home county still marks.

White Deer Township, PA · est. 1967

In 1774 Catherine Smith, a widow, established a stone house and a complex of saw and grist mills along this stretch of the West Branch frontier. When the Revolution came, she built a boring mill in 1776 that finished gun barrels for the Continental Army, turning a backwoods industrial site into a small arsenal for the war effort. Running such works alone in a contested wilderness was a formidable undertaking for anyone, and remarkable for a woman of her day.

Wilkes-Barre Township, PA · est. 1949

Wilkes-Barre was laid out in 1770 by settlers from Connecticut, who claimed this Susquehanna valley land under their colony's sea-to-sea charter—a claim Pennsylvania hotly disputed. The rival claims erupted into the Pennamite Wars of 1769–72 and again in 1784, while the Revolution brought the brutal Wyoming Massacre of 1778 nearby. Organized as the seat of Connecticut's "County of Westmoreland" in 1776, the town sat at the center of one of early America's fiercest boundary struggles.

Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1949

Wilkes-Barre was laid out in 1770 by settlers from Connecticut, who claimed this stretch of the Susquehanna under their colony's charter in defiance of Pennsylvania. The dispute boiled over into the Pennamite Wars of 1769–72 and 1784, and in 1778 the surrounding Wyoming Valley suffered the infamous Wyoming Massacre during the Revolution. Made the seat of the Connecticut-created "County of Westmoreland" in 1776, the settlement stood at the heart of a bitter contest over who owned the land itself.

Swoyersville, PA · est. 1947

Finished in 1778, this fort enclosed the courthouse of Westmoreland—the county Connecticut had carved out of the disputed Wyoming Valley. It stood only briefly: with the valley overrun by British and Loyalist forces that same summer, it surrendered alongside nearby Forty Fort, another casualty of the campaign that broke the Yankee settlement.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2009

William Allen was one of colonial America's richest men, and his fortune helped build the institutions of early Philadelphia. He backed construction of the State House, now Independence Hall, and helped found Pennsylvania Hospital and the college that became the University of Pennsylvania. He established Allentown and served as Chief Justice of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, but as revolution neared he broke with the patriot cause and remained a Loyalist until his death at his Mount Airy estate.

Hallsville, TX

At sixteen, William Delafield served in a Virginia militia company during the Revolutionary War in 1779, then joined the great westward migration — moving to Georgia in 1785, Alabama by 1832, and finally to Harrison County, Texas, by 1850. Awarded land for his war service, he was remembered by neighbors as an old man in a rocking chair, one leg lost in frontier fighting, who spun tales of times long past.

Hillsborough, NC

William Hooper made his home in Hillsborough, and from this town helped launch a nation. One of North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, he pledged his name to the break with Britain in 1776. His house still stands just to the west, and he was buried only steps away, tying this ground directly to the founding generation.

Duplin County, NC

Appointed North Carolina's stamp master in 1765, William Houston resigned his post under pressure from a public demonstration in Wilmington, one of the colony's fierce protests against the Stamp Act. A physician who practiced at Sarecta, four miles east, he became an unlikely figure in the colonial resistance to British taxation. His retreat helped ensure the hated stamps were never distributed in the colony.

Parkersburg, WV

This flag honors Colonel William Lowther, a frontier militia leader on the western Virginia border in the era of the Revolution. Along the upper Monongahela and West Fork rivers, settlers like Lowther built forts and mustered militia to defend scattered cabins during the Revolutionary years and the Indian conflicts that swept the trans-Allegheny frontier. He became one of the region's best-remembered pioneer defenders around what is now Parkersburg and Harrison County.

Raleigh, NC

William Polk served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, then helped steer the new nation's economy as first president of the State Bank from 1811 to 1819. In 1825, at a house that once stood here, he hosted the Marquis de Lafayette during the aging general's celebrated farewell tour of the United States. Polk's life bridged the fight for independence and the institution-building of the Early Republic.

Iredell County, NC

William Sharpe (1742–1818) served in both the provincial and Continental Congresses during the American Revolution, helping guide North Carolina through the founding era. In 1784 he became the first legislator to propose what would become the University of North Carolina, the first public university in the United States. His grave lies two miles east.

Hallettsville, TX

Orphaned young on the Virginia frontier, William Smothers fought through some of the Revolution's hardest Southern battles — King's Mountain, Guilford Courthouse, Camden, and Eutaw Springs — before pushing west to build forts in Kentucky and found the river port that became Owensboro. He later scouted Texas with Stephen F. Austin's party, helped protect the "Old 300" settlers, and won Mexican land grants in DeWitt's Colony, living to see his descendants fight for Texas independence.