PHILADELPHIA, PA — George slept here. And there. And everywhere.
George Washington, America’s first president, is known for his time leading the ragtag army as the general in the American Revolution, hunkering down at Valley Forge, crossing the Delaware River into Trenton, N.J., and even taking on the British army at a skirmish in Whitemarsh Township.
As America celebrates Presidents’ Day on Monday, we take a look at Washington’s time and that of Abraham Lincoln in the Philadelphia region.
Washington considered Philadelphia a favored city, according to information found on various websites.
As a central hub of the Revolution and early republic, Washington arrived for the Second Continental Congress in 1775, presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and lived there as president from 1790–1797, using the President’s House.
During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic, Washington relocated to the Deshler-Morris House in Germantown to escape the disease and conduct cabinet meetings.
Lincoln, meanwhile, briefly stopped in Bristol Borough on Feb. 21, 1861, during his inaugural train journey to Washington, D.C.
The event is commemorated with an interactive, $60,000, 75-foot monument featuring steel, life-size silhouettes of Lincoln and the crowd, located at 300 Pond St, near the former Pennsylvania Railroad track.
President-elect Lincoln’s Bristol stop was his 84th on a 93-stop journey, where he addressed a crowd of over 1,000 residents on his way from Springfield, Illinois, to his inauguration.
Lincoln’s body also passed through the borough by train following his assassination.