It is with great pride that Statutesandstories.com announces that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania voted today to install a historic marker to commemorate the “Constitution House” on Market and Third Streets in Philadelphia.
Following years of historic detective work, we now know the location where Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton boarded during the Constitutional Convention. While Gouverneur Morris is not a household name, he is widely recognized by historians as the “Penman of the Constitution.”
For decades, Miss Mary Dalley operated an important, centrally located boarding house near Independence Hall. Miss Dalley’s boarding house was frequented by delegates to the Continental Congress, the Confederation Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the First Federal Congress. In addition to housing delegates, she entertained the leaders of the founding generation including at least 15 signers of the Declaration, 12 signers of the Constitution, the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, French and Spanish diplomats, governors, Secretary of War Henry Knox, John Trumbull, Generals Green and Lincoln, and future Presidents George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison.
Several of her boarders went on to become leaders of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the New York Manumission Society. As an entrepreneurial businesswoman Mary employed free African American labor, including Henry who lived at Miss Dalley’s boarding house as early as 1780 and Maria, a nine-year-old, formerly enslaved child from Delaware who became Miss Dalley’s apprentice beginning in 1793.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) is the official entity charged with administering and approving historic marker applications. The PHMC agreed that Miss Dalley’s boarding house deserves to be honored on par with the “Declaration House” on Market and Seventh Street, where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The vote on June 5th by the PHMC to approve the Constitution House marker is perfectly timed to coincide with “America 250” celebrations in 2026. Next year America’s Semiquincentennial will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Miss Dalley’s boarding house is but one example of Philadelphia’s rich history as America’s birthplace, the location where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written and signed.
Statutesandstories thanks the scores of historians and experts who assisted with this project, including the Center for the Study of the American Constitution, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides, the Philadelphia Contributionship, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society. Everyone is invited to join us at the marker installation ceremony in Philadelphia next year, on a date to be determined.
Here are links to read more about Miss Dalley’s boarding house, now officially recognized as the “Constitution House”:
Regarding Free Henry Hypothesis
Here is a link to a video of the PHMC board meeting last year describing Miss Dalley’s Boarding house.
When the video of today’s PHMC meeting becomes available it will be posted below.