Philadelphia & Cochranville, PA

Staying in Coatesville, PA

We spent a lovely Sunday in Philadelphia, visiting various sites, eating lunch on the waterfront, and getting out of town around 5:00, while FIFA fans were streaming into town for the 7:00 game
at Philadelphia Stadium.

On Monday, Mark hung in camp, while Gail went to Cochranville to celebrate her cousin Lee Ann’s birthday.

Philadelphia Visits to 1 (2) new National Park Sites:

Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church NHS, where we attended Sunday Services, spoke with the church’s Historian (also a fellow NPS Fan), and walked through th old cemetery. It is Pennsylvania’s oldest church, dating back to New Sweden. It is also Philadelphia’s oldest building, built between 1698 and 1700 for Swedish settlers. After serving as the Swedish Lutheran Church for almost 150 years, Gloria Dei became part of the Episcopal Church in 1845. It was designated as a National Historical Site in 1942, six years before Independence Hall.

Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church and graveyard
Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church Nave, after services
Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church Organ

Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial (#331), the smallest National Park Unit, 4 rooms in an old boarding house. It is where Polish freedom fighter Thaddeus Kosciuszko lived for a time in 1797-98. He first arrived in Philadelphia in August 1776 to support the cause of freedom, which he did for 9 years. A brilliant military engineer, he designed successful fortifications during the American Revolution, most notably at Saratoga and West Point. He then returned to Poland, fought (unsuccessfully) for its freedom from Russia, and spent 3 years in a Russian prison. He then returned to America for a year, living much of that time in this boarding house. We saw was the room where he lived and received notable visitors such as Thomas Jefferson, who said he was “As pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known…”

Thaddeus Kosciuszko NM-Boarding House
Thaddeus Kosciuszko NM-Boarding House Room

Also in Philadelphia

After Thaddeus, we walked to the waterfront by the Vietnam War, Irish Famine, and Korean War Memorials; had lunch and strolled on the waterfront a bit; and visted the Independence Seaport Museum…well, not the museum itself, actually. We visited the Olympia, the oldest steel warship afloat in the world, and took a tour of the Becuna, a World War II-era submarine.

Independence Seaport Museum
Independence Seaport Museum – Becunda Submarine and Olympia Warship
Philadelphia Vietnam War Memorial
Philadelphia Irish Famine Memorial
Philadelphia Korean War Memorial

Coatesville, PA

Also home to the Stargazers Stone, 0.8 miles from our campground. It marks the site of a temporary observatory established in January 1764 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon which they used in their survey of the Mason–Dixon line. We didn’t figure out the parking to go see it (on private land), but got a picture from Gail’s cousin Lee Ann, whose friends at the party pointed out how unassuming it was. We did see the stone wall around it, driving by.