00:26 - Hello.

00:27 - Welcome to Carpenters Hall.

00:28 - My name is Michael Norris and I'm the executive director.

00:31 - Carpenter's Hall is an architectural and historical

00:34 - landmark here in Old City, Philadelphia.

00:38 - It was built in the 1770s by the Carpenters Company of Philadelphia,

00:43 - which was a trade Guild of Master Builders

00:47 - and is now a professional association

00:50 - of architects, engineers and contractors.

00:53 - The buildings most significant for hosting the first Continental Congress

00:58 - in the fall of 1774, as well as being a prime

01:02 - example of Georgian architecture here in the United States.

01:07 - Carpenter's Hall has been a landmark here in Philadelphia

01:11 - for hundreds of years, and we're open to the public

01:15 - and are excited to be part of the 250 anniversary of our nation.

01:20 - And let's go inside to learn some more.

01:28 - We are now inside Carpenter's Hall.

01:30 - This is the room where the first Continental Congress

01:32 - met in the fall of 1774.

01:35 - Those delegates came here in response to the punitive measures

01:40 - that were enacted in Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party.

01:45 - And all across the colonies, leaders were alarmed

01:48 - about about those measures and wanted to get together to figure out

01:52 - how to have a kind of a collective response to them.

01:56 - So the delegates convened here

01:59 - in in the fall of 1774.

02:02 - They included George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams.

02:08 - So, so many of our founding fathers

02:10 - met here for the first time, met each other for the first time.

02:14 - So that was an important outcome as well, building the relationships

02:18 - that would carry through through the revolution.

02:21 - And what they did here really was form a consensus, form a coalition.

02:26 - Right.

02:26 - They created the Continental Association, which was the first time

02:30 - the colonies had agreed to work together to have a collective,

02:34 - unified, strategic response to England.

02:38 - So that association really became the seed of of of what?

02:44 - Of the United States.

02:45 - We say Carpenter's Hall is where the United and United States was born.

02:50 - And it's because before the first Congress, there wasn't unity

02:54 - across the colonies in terms of what to do about their grievances with England.

03:02 - So after the meeting, they issued a list of grievances.

03:08 - They petitioned the king.

03:10 - They decided to meet again if those grievances were not met.

03:15 - That meeting began the second Congress

03:18 - began in 1775.

03:22 - But that was after the revolution had actually started.

03:26 - And so that meeting was held at the state House, which we now call now.

03:31 - Now we call Independence Hall.

03:33 - But the first Congress really set the stage for that,

03:37 - created the coalition across the colonies.

03:40 - And allowed the congressional leaders and the delegates to form

03:44 - their relationships that could help them govern during the during the revolution.

03:51 - So that's why the events here

03:53 - are significant to the founding of Arc of our country.

03:57 - This gentleman behind me is Peyton Randolph.

04:00 - He was one of the delegates to the first Continental Congress from Virginia,

04:05 - and he was elected to be the president of the first Continental Congress.

04:10 - So he presided here in 1774.

04:15 - There was a

04:16 - deliberate attempt to include Virginia in the leadership of the Congress

04:21 - because most of the pre-revolutionary activity had taken place in Massachusetts.

04:27 - But again, the leaders knew that Virginia, as the largest colony,

04:32 - would need to have a role and to sort of be bought into a collective strategy.

04:38 - So having a delegate from Virginia

04:40 - be the president of the Congress was a good way to achieve that.

04:43 - Unfortunately, Well, Peyton Randolph actually

04:46 - passed away in 1775,

04:49 - so he was unable to be the president of the second Continental Congress.

04:53 - That honor went to a guy who became a little bit more famous named

04:57 - John Hancock, who got to sign the Declaration of Independence after

05:01 - he was elected to replace Peyton Randolph as as the president of the Congress.

05:12 - Another significant meeting that took place here at Carpenters

05:15 - Hall was in June of 1776 when we hosted the Pennsylvania provincial conference.

05:22 - And that was a gathering of delegates from Pennsylvania, specifically

05:27 - from all the different counties in Pennsylvania, who met here

05:31 - to authorize a new constitution for the commonwealth.

05:36 - And that meeting occurred simultaneously with the Second Continental Congress,

05:40 - which was meeting up the street at Independence Hall

05:43 - and the death of Pennsylvania delegates here.

05:47 - We're trying to influence the decision to vote for independence,

05:51 - that the Pennsylvania delegation to the Continental Congress

05:55 - was on the cusp of approve.

05:58 - In just a few days.

05:59 - So the authorization here to support independence

06:04 - and to create a new constitution for Pennsylvania

06:08 - really led to the establishment of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

06:12 - And in 1982, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania actually designated

06:16 - Carpenter's Hall as the birthplace of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

06:25 - So this

06:26 - banner that you see behind me was created in 1788,

06:30 - and it was carried by members of the Carpenters company

06:33 - in a procession, a big parade that happened in Philadelphia

06:37 - after the ratification of the Constitution.

06:41 - The framers of the Constitution met here in Philadelphia in 1787,

06:46 - and they signed the Constitution at Independence Hall that year.

06:50 - But after they signed it, it had to go out to the states

06:53 - to be ratified before it went into full effect.

06:57 - And after two thirds of the states had ratified the Constitution.

07:02 - There was a big parade here in Philadelphia.

07:04 - That parade actually took place on July 4th, 1788.

07:08 - And the reason it was especially exciting

07:12 - to Philadelphia that the Constitution had been ratified

07:16 - is because Philadelphia became the capital of the U.S.

07:20 - And it was known that if the Constitution went into effect,

07:23 - Philadelphia would be the nation's capital.

07:25 - And that, in fact, is what happened.

07:27 - And in the 1790s before Washington, D.C.

07:31 - was established, Philadelphia was the capital of the new nation.

07:35 - And all of that was celebrated

07:37 - in a in a big parade called the Grand Federal Procession,

07:41 - which included members of the Carpenters company and many other

07:44 - voluntary and civic and social organizations.

07:52 - This room was one of two

07:54 - rooms here on the main floor of Carpenters Hall.

07:58 - And so the first Continental Congress took place here in the East Room.

08:02 - So this space that's now nice and open would have been filled with

08:07 - lots of chairs and desks for the delegates to sit at and to have their sessions.

08:13 - Our the historic furniture that we own was taken out

08:18 - of Carpenters Hall in 1777 in advance of the British occupation of Philadelphia.

08:23 - So that's a main reason that that much of it has survived to this day.

08:29 - That's not true of Independence Hall, where the British also occupied

08:33 - that building and burned a lot of the furniture in there

08:37 - because it was that cold winter, the same winter that Washington

08:40 - was out at Valley Forge, and they needed firewood.

08:44 - And in fact, today, many of our historic chairs are actually on loan

08:48 - to the National Park Service.

08:49 - So when you visit Independence Hall and go into the assembly room,

08:52 - many of the chairs that you see actually belong to Carpenters Hall.

08:57 - So it's a nice way for us to have them be visible

09:01 - and to support the efforts of the Park Service.

09:11 - This is

09:11 - one of two framed member roles we have in the hall that list

09:15 - all the members of the Carpenters company in 300 years of history.

09:21 - We've had only about 1000 members,

09:24 - and we those members are listed here on the roll call.

09:28 - So it gives them a sense of connection and

09:33 - connection to the legacy of their former members

09:37 - and allows our visitors to know that the Carpenters company is still

09:41 - an active and vital organization.

09:43 - We have about 210 current members, and they are committed

09:50 - to preserving the hall and making sure that the space stays open to the public.

09:56 - And we want to come and commemorate their connection and support by

10:00 - by listing them here in the building.

10:08 - This is one of two models of Carpenters hall we have in the building.

10:12 - This one was made in 1974 to celebrate our anniversaries in that year,

10:17 - and it really was created to show the construction of the building

10:21 - how buildings in the 18th century were actually built

10:25 - at a time when there was no electricity and no hydraulics.

10:28 - And so you can see how wooden scaffolding was established.

10:33 - You can see men working on the site.

10:38 - And so it gives us a way to show how

10:42 - construction techniques help members of the Carpenters company would have built

10:46 - this building and other buildings like it in Colonial Philadelphia.

10:51 - You can see part of our Cedar's original Cedar Shingle Roof,

10:55 - which we no longer have.

10:57 - So that's another reason this model depicts,

11:01 - you know, parts of the building that that don't exist anymore.

11:10 - This model is our newest addition here at Carpenters Hall.

11:14 - It was a custom design and hand built for us

11:18 - out of about 50,000 pieces of Lego.

11:22 - And we love the Lego because it not only is very

11:26 - enticing to our younger visitors, but it also really connects

11:31 - to the idea of the carpenters company, of people who build and design stuff.

11:35 - Many of our members today got interested in designing and building buildings

11:40 - by playing with Legos as kids, so we bought a Lego model of the hall

11:44 - would be a great way to continue that legacy.

11:48 - And not only do you get a wonderful depiction of our historic exterior,

11:53 - but the building, the model also captures the interior of the space

11:58 - as it was in the 18th century, including the room

12:01 - where the first Continental Congress was held and the room on the second floor

12:06 - where Benjamin Franklin hosted the Library Company of Philadelphia.

12:19 - We're now on the second

12:19 - floor of Carpenter's Hall, and you're in our historic library.

12:24 - This room is the second library that has occupied this space.

12:29 - In the building.

12:30 - The first library in Carpenter's Hall was the Library Company of Philadelphia,

12:35 - which was founded by Benjamin Franklin

12:37 - and was the first subscription library in the nation.

12:41 - They moved into Carpenter's Hall in 1773

12:45 - and occupied the space

12:48 - until 1790 when they got their own building.

12:51 - So all during the revolutionary period,

12:54 - the library company was housed here in Carpenter's Hall.

12:57 - It was actually one of the reasons they chose Carpenter's Hall to have

13:00 - the first Continental Congress because the library was upstairs

13:04 - and it was offered as a resource to the delegates.

13:07 - If they needed to do any research or remote,

13:10 - you know, readings about politics or philosophy or whatever.

13:16 - So the connection between the library company and Carpenter's Hall

13:20 - is very deep and continues to this day.

13:24 - After the library company moved out, the carpenter's company established

13:28 - its own library, which is what you're seeing now in this room.

13:32 - And this was a lending library for members of the carpenter's company

13:36 - and their families.

13:38 - So we have a lot of books about a lot of topics,

13:41 - and it was designed to be very eclectic and wide ranging.

13:45 - So there's,

13:47 - you know,

13:47 - the things you might expect books about architecture and design,

13:51 - but there's also novels and history and travel and books for kids, right?

13:55 - So a lot of topics are covered because it was designed to be

13:59 - a resource for for members and their families in the end of the 19th

14:05 - century, around 1900, the carpenter's company chose to

14:10 - discontinue the library as a as a service to members.

14:14 - So we we've kind of frozen in time

14:17 - this collection at that moment, although this room itself continues

14:22 - to be actively used by the carpenter's company board and our committee.

14:26 - So it's a historic space, but it's also very,

14:30 - very vital and active in the operation of the company.

14:34 - This frame shows the deed from 1768 when the carpenter's

14:39 - company purchased this plot of land that the building was built on.

14:43 - So the carpenter's company has owned this land continuously since that time.

14:48 - It was the deed was signed by three of our members from the 18th century.

14:55 - One of them, Robert Smith, was also the master builder

14:58 - and architect of Carpenter's Hall, and he was one of our members who signed

15:03 - the deed on behalf of the company and also led a fundraising campaign

15:08 - to find the funds to to build to build the hall.

15:13 - So this deed is our sort

15:15 - of original proof of purchase of of of owning this land.

15:19 - And it continues to

15:21 - be used as the

15:24 - evidence of our ownership of this land

15:27 - to to today.

15:36 - This is the other main room on the second floor of Carpenter's Hall.

15:40 - And the reason it's significant

15:42 - also has to do with our connection with Benjamin Franklin.

15:46 - In 1775,

15:48 - shortly after he had returned to Philadelphia from London, Franklin

15:52 - and John Jay, a colonial delegate from New York at the Continental Congress,

15:57 - were given the task to explore

16:01 - a possible alliance with France in the revolution.

16:06 - England and France, of course, for a long time enemies.

16:08 - So it made sense that if we were fighting a war with England,

16:12 - France could potentially be our ally in that effort.

16:15 - And in order to start that conversation, Franklin,

16:18 - because he had international connections, already

16:21 - had a emissary sent over from the French court

16:26 - to Philadelphia who traveled here in secret.

16:29 - They certainly didn't want the British to know that these meetings were happening.

16:34 - And they met here at Carpenter's Hall

16:37 - because the gentleman that Franklin had hired to run the library company,

16:42 - which was operating out of the space, was also from France.

16:47 - And he was able to interpret those meetings

16:50 - between Franklin and J and the French ambassador.

16:53 - So this and those meetings led to further conversations.

16:58 - The ambassador from France went back to Paris after these meetings

17:04 - filed a report and told the king and the French foreign minister

17:08 - that pursuing an alliance with the Continental Congress to fight

17:12 - the English was was a good thing for France to do.

17:15 - And of course, that ultimately happened.

17:17 - And France became our ally and played a huge role in helping us win the

17:21 - revolution.

17:22 - But the seeds of all of that started right in this room.

17:30 - Well, thank

17:30 - you for joining us on this tour of Carpenter's Hall.

17:33 - I encourage you to visit us in person.

17:35 - We're open year round and admission is free.

17:38 - You can find out more at our website.

17:40 - WW w Carpenter's Hall, dawg.

17:44 - Thanks again and we hope to see you soon.