Philadelphia
Where independence was born—and countless ghosts were made. Yellow fever killed 5,000 in 1793. Revolutionary spirits walk the streets. Benjamin Franklin appears at the American Philosophical Society.
In Philadelphia, the ghosts of American independence walk streets lined with the oldest continuously occupied buildings in the nation. This city served as the crucible where a new nation was forged, where revolutionaries risked their lives signing documents that would change history, and where Benjamin Franklin conducted his legendary experiments into the nature of electricity. But Philadelphia’s history is not all glorious proclamations and scientific breakthroughs. Epidemics swept through its streets, leaving thousands dead in mass graves. War brought horror and sacrifice. The accumulated weight of over three centuries of human drama has left Philadelphia rich with spectral activity, a city where the Founding Fathers still attend to unfinished business and the victims of plague still seek rest they never found.
The History
According to historical records, Philadelphia holds a unique place in American history. Founded by William Penn in 1682 as an experiment in religious tolerance, it grew to become the largest city in colonial America. Here the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and the Constitution was drafted eleven years later. From 1790 to 1800, Philadelphia served as the capital of the United States, hosting the federal government while Washington, D.C. was under construction. The city witnessed the triumph of revolution and the tragedy of epidemic, the birth of modern democracy and the deaths of thousands to disease and conflict.
Independence Hall
No building in America carries more historical weight than Independence Hall, where the most consequential documents in the nation’s history were debated, drafted, and signed. The men who gathered there in the summer of 1776 knew that signing the Declaration of Independence was likely signing their own death warrants if the revolution failed. That intensity of purpose and courage seems to have left an impression on the building itself. Visitors report encounters with figures in colonial dress, men who appear suddenly in the chamber where the Declaration was adopted, gazing at modern visitors before vanishing. The sounds of debate and argument echo in empty halls, as if the Continental Congress remains eternally in session.
Benjamin Franklin
America’s most versatile genius spent much of his life in Philadelphia, conducting scientific experiments, founding institutions, and participating in the political life of the colonies and the new nation. His spirit seems reluctant to leave the city he helped shape. Franklin’s ghost has been reported at the American Philosophical Society, the intellectual organization he founded, where his apparition is seen examining books or gazing out windows at the modern city. The Philadelphia Library, another Franklin foundation, reports similar sightings. Most famously, the statue of Franklin at the Library Company supposedly winks at visitors, though whether this represents supernatural activity or urban legend remains debated. In Christ Church burial ground, where Franklin lies interred, visitors throw pennies on his grave for luck and sometimes report seeing the great man himself, inspecting the offerings left by admirers.
City Tavern
The Founding Fathers were not always at work on weighty matters of state. When their deliberations ended for the day, they frequently repaired to City Tavern, the unofficial social headquarters of revolutionary Philadelphia. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams all drank and dined within its walls, building the personal relationships that would sustain the fragile young nation through crises to come. The tavern closed long ago, was demolished, and then reconstructed on its original site. Yet the spirits of its original patrons seem to have found their way back. Staff and visitors report encounters with figures in eighteenth-century dress, the sound of toasts being raised and glasses clinking, and the unmistakable atmosphere of revolutionary camaraderie that once filled the establishment.
The Yellow Fever
The summer of 1793 brought catastrophe to Philadelphia. Yellow fever swept through the city, killing approximately five thousand people, roughly ten percent of the population. The wealthy fled to the countryside while the poor died in their homes, their bodies left unburied for days. Mass graves received the victims, hasty interments that provided little ceremony and less peace. The trauma of that epidemic left a permanent mark on Philadelphia’s supernatural landscape. The spirits of yellow fever victims are reported throughout the city, particularly in areas where the disease struck hardest. Their appearances are often accompanied by the smell of sickness and the sound of mourning, echoes of the worst summer in the city’s history.
Washington Square
What is now a pleasant urban park was once a potter’s field, a burial ground for the poor, the unknown, and the victims of epidemic. Revolutionary War soldiers lie beneath the grass, as do thousands of yellow fever victims hastily interred during the crisis of 1793. The Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier stands as an official memorial, but the unofficial memorials are the ghosts that walk the square after dark. Soldiers in Continental Army uniforms are seen on moonlit nights, and visitors report feeling watched by presences that can be sensed but not seen. Washington Square is, quite literally, built on bones, and those bones have not forgotten the bodies they once supported.
Sources
- Wikipedia search: “Philadelphia”
- Library of Congress — American Folklife Center — American folklore archive