VALLEY FORGE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, PA: Honoring a Critical Moment in American History

Visitor Center, Valley Forge National Historical Park, PA. George Washington on his horse.

“On December 19, 1777, more than 12,000 soldiers and hundreds of civilians marched in Valley Forge. They began to build what would become the fourth largest city in America, with 1,500 log huts and two miles of fortifications. Lasting six months, the encampment was as diverse as any city. Residents were free and enslaved, wealthy and impoverished, speakers of several languages, and followers of several religions.”

Valley Forge, in the wooded hills and open fields a few miles west of the city of Philadelphia, is now a National Historical Park. On a beautiful fall day in October, I visited Valley Forge with my husband and daughter. I was reminded of what I had learned in school about the American War of Independence but discovered a lot more.

Map posted along trail.

We started at the Visitor Center where we got maps for our self-guided tour. The park comprises more than 400 acres and is crisscrossed by 35 miles of hiking and biking trails. One can also do an auto tour on the10-mile road through the park, with 9 stops along the way. Stop #5, on the opposite side of the park from the Visitor Center, is the house that was used as George Washington’s headquarters.

After looking at the displays in the Visitor Center, we climbed the stairs to the theater level where we watched an introductory film about the history of Valley Forge. In the film we saw re-enactors dramatizing the events of that cold, wet winter of 1777-1778 when the results of the war hung in the balance, as well as commentary about the events of that winter.

Replicas of log housing used by soldiers at Valley Forge.

Outside the theater we followed the Joseph Plumb Martin trail into the park to the site of Muhlenberg’s Brigade (Stop #2), where a series of log huts reproduced the living conditions the soldiers experienced that winter. Inside each hut were informational displays. 

A small fireplace was the only source of warmth inside the log shelters.

Our visit was on a pleasant fall day, but it is hard to imagine that the small huts would provide much comfort in the midst of winter.

Cannon mounted in redoubt, facing east toward Philadelphia.

Nearby a fortified defense called a redoubt was embedded at the top of a hill. Gaps in the earthen wall were provided for cannons. Sharp sticks protruding outward to deter attack. (Several other reconstructed redoubts are located throughout the park.)

Exterior of redoubt.

From the redoubt we followed a path back to our car parked near the Visitor Center and did the rest of our visit by road. 

Numerous markers along the road honored various military leaders and participants in the Revolutionary War.

National Historical Monument.

The largest monument in the park is the National Memorial Arch.

Fall leaves at Valley Forge.

In our morning’s visit to Valley Forge we did not have time to visit every monument or explore all the trails, but we got a good taste of the landscape that is the background for one of the most critical times in American history.

Valley Forge National Historical Park is located at 1400 North Outer Line Drive, King of Prussia, PA 19406. There is no entrance fee to visit the park.

For more information go to www.nps.gov/vafo

HIPPOS IN THE POTOMAC? George Washington University Statue, Washington, D.C.

GW's River Horse, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Did hippopotamuses once swim in the Potomac? No. But at the entrance to the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. there is a charming statue of a hippo with a marker suggesting that they once did. The story was invented just for fun in 1996 by then University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg when he presented the bronze statue as a gift to the University's Class of 2000. 

The hippo's nose is slightly worn by passersby rubbing it.

Text on plaque next to the hippo: 

Legend has it that the Potomac was once home to these wondrous beasts. George and Martha Washington are even said to have watched them cavort in the river shallows from the porch of their beloved Mount Verson on summer evenings. Credited with enhancing the fertility of the plantation, the Washingtons believed the hippopotamus brought them good luck and children on the estate often attempted to lure the creatures close enough to the shore to touch a nose for good luck.

Gate to Kogan Plaza

As one proceeds past the hippo through the gate to Kogan Plaza in the central campus, large sculptures line the walkway.

Walkway to Kogan Plaza.

The focus of Kogan Plaza is a classical dome surrounded by gardens and seating areas, providing a pleasant place for students and visitors on their way to the library or other university buildings.

Suffusion, sculpted by Arthur Carter.

Joyce, sculpted by Sam Martin. Dedicated to the Memory of Joyce Brady Yaeger.

While George Washington may not have observed hippos in real life, he is present in the garden, seated on a bench as a bronze statue, looking as if he has just stopped for a moment to admire the scenery or to chat with passersby.

George Washington, Gary Lee Price, Artist.

After my walk through Kogan Plaza I continued down 21st street and stopped for a short visit at the George Washington University Museum, currently featuring an exhibit of Islamic prayer rugs.

Prayer carpet, Caucasus, 1890-1910.

I happened to pass by the GWU campus on my way to my hotel during a recent visit to Washington, D.C. I had not previously had the opportunity to visit the university. It was a pleasant surprise in the midst of a busy city.

Dome, with Gelman Library in background.

 

Churches of Carlisle, PA, an Introduction, by Judith Stiehm (Guest Post)

First Presbyterian Church, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

My friend Judith Stiehm is a political theorist who teaches at the Florida International University in Miami.  She spent a year in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, doing academic research at the library of the Army War College.  On weekends, she explored the town and surrounding countryside.  She has graciously allowed me to share the introduction to a non-academic book she wrote about her visits to the churches of Carlisle.  I think you will enjoy her perspective on this central Pennsylvania community.

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, population 18,000, lists more than fifty churches in its yellow pages, thirty of them within the city limits.  There is no mosque and no synagogue or temple, although there is a phone number for Congregation Beth Tikvah.  Worship is clearly an important part of the town=s culture, a culture which is not only mostly Christian, but also mostly Protestant. Still, the single Catholic church, St. Patrick=s, has not one, but two fine edifices. Since I am to be a part of this community for the next year, I have decided to attend services at a different church each Sunday in order to get a complete picture of the religious landscape of this small American city. Unfortunately, I missed the revival held at the Fairgrounds two weeks ago, but if there is another one in the spring or summer, I will be sure to attend.

.       Large and handsome churches are much in evidence.  They also seem to be the older churches.  I will begin with these to see if the newer, and often smaller, churches became necessary because the older ones had burst their seams, or if, somehow, their spirit faded or their tenets were displaced.

           Carlisle is 20 miles southwest of Pennsylvania=s capital, Harrisburg.  It is the home of the U.S. Army War College, Dickinson College, and Dickinson Law School.  It is embraced by the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the north and Highway 81 to the south. Trucking is a major industry.  One can easily walk anywhere in town, which is roughly two miles by two miles, and one can quickly find one=s way to open country--fertile farm land with the Appalachians on the horizon. The intersection of High and Hanover Streets, once the intersection of two Indian trails, is the town=s center. Churches occupy two of the four corners.  The other two are occupied by the old County Court House, which bears scars from Confederate gunfire during the Civil War, and the new County Court House, a four story, red brick building built in 1960, which replaced a series of market houses.  An Episcopalian church is located on the third corner, and the oldest public building in Carlisle, the First Presbyterian Church, has been on the northwest  corner since 1754. Since my great grandfather was a United Presbyterian minister in Sterling, Kansas, First Presbyterian seems a good place to start.

At ten thirty a.m. on a crisp fall day I begin my four block walk to a service due to begin at 10:45. I pass the oldest house in town at 119 E. High, a two-story, locally quarried, gray stone building with white mortar built right up to the sidewalk.  Behind it is a long but narrow tree-shaded yard. In the next block, I pass the Cumberland County Prison, built in 1854 as a replica of a Norman castle in Carlisle, England. Its fortress-like front is met by gray stone side walls, but a section of tennis-court like fencing and a modern insert, which looks like play-school blocks, gives it the appearance of a Frank Gehry idyll.  Having the barred windows a half block from city center reminds us that prisoners are a part of our society.

            Law enforcement began in Carlisle in 1754 with the construction of the first pillory.  This was also the year of the founding of the First Presbyterian Church--public and private policing, I suppose. The L-shaped gray stone building enfolds a grassy square.  Its sturdy stone tower has never boasted a steeple, though no one is able to tell me why.  George Washington worshiped here in 1794, when, as President, he led the troops that were on their way to put down the Whiskey Rebellion launched by Western farmers who did not want to pay taxes. Can you imagine a current President actually leading troops off to war?

The church=s rectangular sanctuary is sedately decorated with green carpets and dark red upholstered pews downstairs.  The pews in the three-sided balcony are upholstered in textured gray. The walls and pipe organ are white. Bright color is limited to the stained glass windows on three sides of the sanctuary.  Rectangular windows on the main floor, etched with a daisy theme, are paired with roman-arched windows in the balcony.  Once the congregation faced a long side of the ell; now there are thirteen rows with a center aisle that face a short side of the rectangle--more conventional, less egalitarian. Even without additional chairs 400 could participate in Christmas or Easter services. Today there are some 125 worshipers. All are white and clearly of the educated class.  Indeed, the minister=s robe looks greatly like my Columbia University academic gown.  The choir (small) is clad in royal blue with white trim.  They enter from a door behind the pulpit. Their music is supplemented by the "Super Singers@ a group of six children.

          Each pew contains a red booklet to register one=s attendance. It also provides a New Revised Standard Version Bible, published in 1989 in Nashville, Tennessee. It includes a chronology setting Biblical events in history, the Jewish calendar, and a list of Judaism=s seven feasts, thus establishing the Old Testament as Protestantism=s firm foundation. The Bible=s donor is honored with a book plate.  The pew=s hymnal has a bookplate too. 

There are lots of hymns in the hymnal: 150 pages of plain hymns, 100 pages of Psalms set to music, and 300 pages of topically arranged hymns.  There is also an order of service--Assembly, Proclamation of God=s Word, Thanksgiving, and Going in Peace. The offering comes at the end--so you can pay what you think you got out of it, perhaps.

Assembling is done in silence (except for organ music); a poem by William Blake is offered for contemplation:

Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen.

Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard.

Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named.

Unless the heart catch fire, God will not be loved.

.        Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known

In the rest of this first chapter, we learn more about First Presbyterian.  In Judith's book, The Churches of Carlisle, she visits twenty churches, ranging from the large churches in the center of town to smaller congregations such as the New Life Missionary Baptist church, whose home is a two-room cinder block building. Publication of the book is in progress.  When it becomes available, I will let you know. 

Note from Caroline:  I have visited Carlisle numerous times when visiting Art's parents, who, until recently, lived just outside Carlisle in the town of Newville, Pennylvania.  They went into Carlisle for shopping, eating out, other events, and were members of the Carlisle Second Presbyterian Church, located in lovely contemporary style building on the edge of town.