Where Is Washingtons Chair Now? Pennsylvania Museum of Art

Curators studied the concrete and documentary evidence to acquire how the Assembly Room was furnished in the 1700s.

NPS photo

Imagine stepping back in time to witness the creation of the nation taking place in the Assembly Room of Independence Hall. What would you run into?

The National Park Service does non know exactly how the room appeared, or exactly where each homo saturday for the Second Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention. But, after decades of research, the park has created the best possible arrangement based on the available concrete and documentary evidence.

Today, visitors see a room with a large chair and tabular array on a raised platform facing two semi-round rows of tables. Windsor chairs are grouped around the tables. Folding screens stand up in each of the eastern (front) corners. Heavy woolen dark-green tablecloths cover each table. A large drinking glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling. Look carefully and you'll see some objects with a connectedness to signers of the Declaration of Independence, like the dark-green shark'south pare instance with spectacles that once belonged to William Ellery (RI), and the goose quill pen that Caesar Rodney (DE) owned. We exercise not know if these objects were really in the Associates Room during their owners' time there.

The room contains two original artifacts (objects that were actually in the room 200 years agone) - the Speaker's chair (now known as the Rising Dominicus chair) and a decorative carved frieze. At that place are a number of historic effects from the 1700s on brandish, including the chandelier and the Windsor chairs. Those engagement to the fourth dimension catamenia but were not in this room 200 years ago. Some other items on display - documents, tablecloths, folding screens, window shades and more than - are mod reproductions, but accurate to the time period. The seating arrangement, with the northern states on the n side of the room (left side, if you lot are facing the Speaker's chair) and the southern states on the southward side of the room, is conjectural. This room reflects elements of both the Second Continental Congress and Ramble Convention.

Colonial Legislature

Pennsylvania'southward colonial legislature - the Assembly - occupied this room from 1735 to 1775. They established the room layout that continued through the time of the Second Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention.

Speaker's Platform
The Speaker of the legislature saturday at a large table on a raised platform in the front of the room. From this prominent position, the Speaker looked out to lawmakers seated at tables that faced him. Past 1773, there were xi tables for the and then xi counties of Pennsylvania.

Frieze
Lawmakers may have gazed upon the decorative cockleshell (sea shell) frieze carving on the wall backside the Speaker. This ornamental feature is the only surviving element of the room'southward original 18th century woodwork. The Penn family crest had a identify of importance on the wall straight below the frieze. Today, a belatedly 1800s copy of the Penn family crest hangs in that spot.

2nd Continental Congress

In the leap of 1775, Pennsylvania'south legislature moved to a room on the second floor of the building while the Second Continental Congress moved into the Assembly Room. The delegates to the 2d Continental Congress canonical the Announcement of Independence in this room on July 4, 1776. 50 men signed the document hither on August 2, 1776. Half dozen men signed the Declaration of Independence afterwards.

Seating Arrangement
When the Second Continental Congress sat in this room, each of the thirteen colonies had a tabular array. The tables are currently bundled to bear witness the northern colonies on the north side of the room, and the southern colonies on the south side of the room. That seating system is conjectural - no documented seating plan survives. A loosely woven green wool textile chosen baize covered each tabular array, every bit it had done during the sessions of the Pennsylvania legislature. Baize captivated sound and stains, and blocked drafts. The green colour - common in courtrooms, offices, and libraries - was perceived every bit neutral, practical, and dignified.

Speaker's Platform
The President of the 2d Continental Congress presided from a chair (but not the i you encounter now) on the Speaker'southward platform in the front of the room. At that place may have been a Bible on the table. Displayed on the table today is a Bible printed by Robert Aitken in 1782.

Chairs
Surviving receipts document that Philadelphia chair makers crafted Windsor chairs for this room. The British may take destroyed much of the original furnishings during the 1777-78 occupation. The Windsor chairs you see today date to 1750-1780, and represent the work of many different Philadelphia makers. They are from the time menses, but not original to the room.

Constitutional Convention

In 1786, the Pennsylvania legislature returned to the Assembly Room, but not for long. They lent their room out again from May to September, 1787 - this time to the delegates to the Ramble Convention. And so, what did the room wait like when the men signed the U.Due south. Constitution in this room on September 17, 1787? Well, much as it did during the 2d Continental Congress - with a few exceptions, including the relatively new Speaker's chair, now known as the Rising Sunday chair.

Speaker's Chair (Ascension Sun chair)
In the front of the room today sits the chair known today as the Rising Sunday chair. John Folwell made this chair for the Speaker of the Pennsylvania legislature in 1779. Information technology remains a mystery as to who selected the symbols carved on the chair. Ancient symbols for liberty - the liberty cap and pole - announced on the chair's crest runway. The cornucopias and wheat sheaves on the chair'south back probably speak to Pennsylvania'southward agronomical bounty. This chair achieved lasting fame equally the seat for George Washington every bit the President of the Constitutional Convention.

When the Pennsylvania legislature moved on to the new state capitals - Lancaster in 1799 and Harrisburg in 1812 - they took the chair with them. The legislature returned the chair to the City of Philadelphia for brandish in the Assembly Room on George Washington's birthday in 1867.

It's non until the mid-20th century that the chair became known as the Rising Dominicus chair, but its connection to the idea of a rising dominicus goes back to September 17, 1787 - the day the delegates signed the U.S. Constitution. That mean solar day, Benjamin Franklin remarked that as the men argued that summer, he looked upon that carved sun wondering if it was a rising or setting sun. He said, "I have often ... in the grade of the session ... looked at that sun behind the President without existence able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising and not a setting sunday." For Franklin, that sun - in his estimation a ascension one - symbolized hope for the new nation.

Chronology of the Rising Dominicus chair

• December 1779: The Pennsylvania Assembly paid Philadelphia cabinetmaker John Folwell 200 pounds for the materials needed to build a Speaker'south chair and for the "Land Arms" (a coat of artillery). Presumably, the chair was delivered in early 1780.
• 1787: George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention from the Speaker's chair.
• 1799: The Speaker's chair traveled with the state authorities to its temporary home in Lancaster (the Canton Courtroom Firm and State House, now chosen the Old City Hall).
• 1812: The Speaker's chair traveled with the land government to the new capital in Harrisburg. The legislature convened in the erstwhile Dauphin Canton Courthouse while the new capitol building was beingness built.
• 1822: The new Harrisburg capitol building opened.
• 1835: Philadelphia antiquarian John Fanning Watson recorded seeing the Speaker'due south chair in the capitol building.
• 1855: Philadelphia Metropolis Council commencement petitioned the state legislature for the return of the Speaker's chair.
• 1867: The legislature returned the Speaker's chair to the Assembly Room on George Washington's altogether, February 22, 1867.

What Is The Evidence?

Curators use a variety of documentary evidence (receipts, letters, paintings) as well as the survival physical evidence (similar the chandelier hook) to create the all-time conjectural recreation possible. Of form, they are e'er on the wait out for new evidence to brand a practiced restoration even better.

Here are some examples of evidence used in the recreation of the Assembly Room:
Letters

• Governor John Penn mentioned the family crest located above the Speaker'southward chair in a letter of the alphabet to his blood brother in 1764.

Receipts

• A receipt survives for the buy of baize table covers specifically to help with acoustic problems in the Assembly Room. The receipt is dated 1748.
• Surviving receipts mention both window shades (in the 1750s) and Venetian blinds (later on 1784). The National Park Service decided to display reproduction window shades as a reflection of the earlier receipt documentation, non the afterwards Venetian blinds.

Paintings/Prints

• The engraving called Congress Voting Independence is the well-nigh accurate image of the Associates Room during the Revolutionary War era. Artist Robert Edge Pino began his oil painting in 1784 but died before completing the work. Painter and engraver Edward Savage finished the work simply died before completing the engraving. The Massachusetts Historical Society later acquired the engraving plate, press engravings in 1859. Annotation that the Cruel painting/engraving shows the cockleshell frieze.

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Source: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/assembly-room-furnishings.htm