Prisoners in Independence Hall: The Riddle of Penncroft Farm

 

Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia

It's always reassuring to find information that reinforces what I wrote and published. The sign above shows that American prisoners (from the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown) were held in the upstairs of the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now called Independence Hall).

Here is what I put in my book, The Riddle of Penncroft Farm:

". . . as I came to the Pennsylvania State House. I peered up at the soaring tower to see the great bell that had been rung to summon folk to hear the Declaration of Independence. The tower was empty. Mystified, my eyes fell to the second-story windows that fronted the Long Gallery—site of elegant state dinners. But Congress had long since fled the city, and no elegant diners peered down from the Long Gallery today. Instead, I spied a crowd of gaunt, ragged men, eyes huge in their skeletal faces.

Horrified, I reined in Daisy and Buttercup. Women in sober Quaker clothes were carrying baskets toward the State House door. I called out to one. “Mistress, who are those men in the Long Gallery?” “The British are using it as a prison,” she answered sadly, “for wounded Continental soldiers captured at Brandywine and Germantown. The blockade made food scarce in the city, and the British expect the Americans to supply food for their own men held here. The American army can barely feed itself, let alone spare any for these poor starved creatures.” I bade her wait. “Here—take some apples for the prisoners,” I called to her, trying not to think how my father would thrash me should he learn what I had done. “And a barrel of perry as well.”

 The Riddle of Penncroft Farm © 1989 by Dorothea Jensen