George Washington’s Big Surprise

If he didn’t rotate his slaves out of Pa.
every six months … they’d be freed!

The President’s House, 6th and Market Street, is a popular tourist spot in Philadelphia. Most people don’t know nine enslaved people lived here, and one escaped. The site is just across the street from the Independence Visitor Center. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of “Real Philly History, Real Fast.”

“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn taught me one thing: history is written by the winners … or whoever’s in power.

And the over 8-year-long President’s House project in Philadelphia certainly followed that playbook — at least at the start.

The first steps of the National Park Service (NPS) to recognize and celebrate the site of the President’s House at 6th and Market Street in Philadelphia ignored the story of George Washington’s nine slaves who lived here.

In fact, if historian Edward Lawler, Jr., had not written a powerful January 2002 bombshell story in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography — it’s doubtful that most of what you see at the President’s House today would‘ve ever come to light.

Lawler, a hero historian in my book, was among the first to inform NPS officials in 2002 that the entrance to the planned Liberty Bell Center was just five feet from slave quarters at the President’s House … a mind-blowing fact the public should have been told about.

Eventually the NPS was dragged kicking and screaming into telling the full story of George Washington’s slaves … when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital and he was President from 1790 to 1797. But truth did not come easy — either at the Liberty Bell Center or at the President’s House.

At one point, NPS Superintendent Martha Aikens even referred to the President’s House as the Robert Morris mansion and suggested the slavery story really belonged at the Deshler-Morris House in Germantown! To me, that was astonishing.

Fortunately, later superintendents, including Mary Bomar and Cindy MacLeod, were more open to telling the real story.

Democracy is messy … this project was, too!

Only because of persistent historians, outspoken black activists, late-but-important media attention and some fearless government officials did this project ever get completed.

Along the way, it just took over 8 years and $10.5 million dollars to make it happen, says the New York Times.

Fact: George Washington kept 9 enslaved
people at his residence on Market Street

During President Washington’s time at the President’s House in Philadelphia, nine enslaved people attended to his needs. Many of them lived and worked in quarters connected by an underground passage, so they were basically hidden from the public’s view.

When Washington first moved into the house known as the President’s House in 1790, he thought Pennsylvania’s very Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 didn’t apply to him. He was wrong.

Attorney General Edmund Randolph, a fellow slaveowner, warned him that any enslaved person in Pennsylvania living here six months or longer would be granted freedom. So Washington made sure to rotate them out of the state for at least a day, so the clock would reset.

Even so, at least one enslaved person, Ona or Oney Judge, escaped from the President’s House to New Hampshire. Both legally and illegally, Washington went after her. But she never returned.

These footsteps symbolize the escape of Ona or Oney Judge from George Washington while he lived in the President’s House. Nine enslaved people lived here, a fact few people knew until Black Activists protested at this site. Photo by Jim Murphy.

A major discovery

On May 2, 2007, archeologists located the remains of the actual President’s House on the site, an unforgettable discovery. The entrance to the Liberty Bell Center was just five feet away!

As NPS archeologist Jed Levin said at the time, “It was a long shot that any portion of the house would survive. And now we’re learning things we might otherwise never have known!”

Some heroes of this story:

Historian Edward Lawler, Jr.: His article in 2002 started this whole controversy, leading eventually to a truthful interpretation of slavery at both the Liberty Bell Center and the President’s House.

Historian Gary Nash: His appearance on WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane’s program “Radio Times” helped spark important media attention that proved quite helpful. Unfortunately, he died in 2021.

Historian Randall Miller: He and Nash wrote an op-ed piece about the controversy for the Inquirer on March 31, 2002 that resulted in an Associated Press story the next day. Finally the story became a hot national news item.

Michael Coard: His Avenging the Ancestors Coalition kept the pressure on NPS with protests, a letter-writing campaign and petitions with several-thousand signatures; Charles Blockson and his Generations Unlimited agitators were also prominent protestors at the Liberty Bell Pavilion.

Former Philadelphia Mayor John Street: He pledged $1.5 million to support the project; Congressman Chaka Fattah secured $3.6 in federal funds for the President’s House.

Dwight Pitcaithley, chief historian of the NPS; Pitcaithley: “Was shocked to find a chest-thumping, celebratory script, ‘an exhibit to make people feel good but not to think,’ an exhibit that ‘would be an embarrassment if it went up,’ and one that “works exactly against NPS’s new thinking,’ ” said Gary Nash. His intervention was “crucially important” in the Liberty Bell Pavilion’s changes.

How the Inquirer both helped … and didn’t

A major front-page story on Sunday, March 24, 2002 by Stephan Salisbury and Inga Saffron addressed the slavery issue at the President’s House. Two days later the Inquirer devoted a full page to the issue.

Before this, though, the Inquirer coverage seems to have been very one-sided. The paper carried a full letter from NPS Superintendent Martha Aikens about the slave quarters controversy on April 7, 2002, under the (misleading) headline: Park Tells the Story of Slavery. But it failed to carry a response from the Independence Hall Association.

What’s more, Gary Nash writes, “We were mindful that for several years, the Inky had rejected various op-ed pieces written by Ed Lawler on ‘A Forgotten Landmark,’ where he explained how many wonderful stories could enlighten, entertain, and challenge mythical remembrances of the past if only INHP would broaden its vision.”

So the news side eventually grabbed onto the story. But the editorial side seemed to be favoring the NPS.

At that time, Nash said: “Millions of visitors are going to go into the Liberty Bell not knowing they are walking over the site of Washington’s executive mansion, indeed walking over the slave quarters he built at the rear of the house …. We have here a conjunction of liberty and slavery on the same site!”

By 2004, once the media had picked up ever more of the story, things changed for the better. The Inquirer wrote over a dozen stories, 3 editorials, and 6 op-ed pieces. WHYY radio interviewed many of the people involved. And even the NPS revised its views.

The power of the press

In 2005, Lawlor wrote: “How things have changed in three years. In 2002 a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer couldn’t persuade her editor to approve a feature story on the President’s House for President’s Day weekend.”

The NPS was also rethinking its position. After rejecting any mention of slaves at the Liberty Bell Center, or placing the stone outline of the building in the foyer, saying it would confuse visitors, NPS eventually placed a large sign about slavery at the entrance to the Liberty Bell.

In 2007, almost 300,000 people stopped at temporary platforms near the site of the President’s House and asked questions of the archeologists digging there. They certainly weren’t confused.

Interesting oddities:

Before George Washington and John Adams lived in this house, many other important people stayed there. Among them: Richard Penn, William Penn’s grandson; General William Howe, commander-in-chief of British land forces in the Colonies; Benedict Arnold, the military governor and eventual well-known traitor; and financier Robert Morris, who owned it.
President George Washington called the elegant three-story brick mansion in Philadelphia “the best single house in the city.” Then he made modifications to it.
According to The White House Historical Association, at least 12 U.S. Presidents were slave owners at some point of their lives. Nine relied on enslaved labor at the White House.

Fast Facts:

Project Name: The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a Nation

Location: 6th and Market Street, across from the Independence Visitor Center

Cost: $10.5 million

Opened: 2010

Claim to Fame: President George Washington and John Adams lived here with their families between 1790 and 1800. Unknown to many, Washington kept nine enslaved people with him during his time here in Philadelphia.

This large sign now greets visitors to the Liberty Bell Pavilion. It reminds us that “liberty was not originally intended for all.” And that “One of two smokehouse rooms in which three enslaved men slept — Giles, Paris, and Austin–once stood in this area.” Photo by Jim Murphy.

Some Sources:

Coard, Michael. “The ‘Black’ Eye on George Washington’s‘ “White” House.’” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 129, no. 4 (2005): 461–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093821.

Conn, Steven. “Our House? The President’s House at Independence National Historical Park.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 135, no. 2 (2011): 191–97. https://doi.org/10.5215/pennmaghistbio.135.2.0191.

Dunbar, Erica Armstrong, “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge,” New York: Atria Books, 2017.

Jeppson, Douglas Mooney et al. “The Archeology of Freedom and Slavery: Excavations at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia.” Prepared for the National Park Service and City of Philadelphia. URS Corporation, National Park Service, and Independence National Historical Park, 2009.

Kurjack, Dennis C. “The ‘President’s House’ In Philadelphia.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies20, no. 4 (1953): 380–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27769454.

Lawler, Edward. “The President’s House in Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 126, no. 1 (2002): 5–95. www.jstor.org/stable/20093505.

Lawler, Edward Jr. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 126, №1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 5–95 (91 pages) Published By: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Nash, Gary B. “For Whom Will the Liberty Bell Toll? From Controversy to Collaboration.” The George Wright Forum21, no. 1 (2004): 39–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43597891.

Stillman, Damie. “Six Houses for the President.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 129, no. 4 (2005): 411–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093818.

Zinn, Howard, “The People’s History of the United States.” New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.

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