Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: October 1992 Volume 30 Number 4, Pages 167–170

Notes and Comments

Page 167

Arch at Valley Forge Dedicated 75 Years Ago

Seventy-five years ago this summer the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge Park was dedicated. It was the first federal recognition of this historic site.

Following the creation of the Valley Forge Park Commission and the establishment of a state park at the site of the 1777-1778 winter encampment by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1893, a growing patriotic sentiment and a rekindled interest in the site attracted national recognition. A bill was introduced in the Sixty-first Congress by Congressman Irving P. Wanger, of Montgomery County, "providing for the erection of a memorial arch at Valley Forge". (In the original bill two arches were to be constructed, to be placed at two of the entrances to the Park, at a cost of $50,000, but when it was went to the Senate it was amended to substitute one arch for the two, at a cost of $100,000.) The bill was approved on June 25, 1910.

The arch was designed by Professor Paul Philippe Cret, who taught architecture at the University of Pennsylvania from 1903 to 1937. Its design is somewhat similar to that of the Arch of Titus in Rome, with embellishments reflecting our own history. (Interestingly, the funding for the memorial came from the defense budget of the Secretary of War.)

In the biennial report of the Valley Forge Park Commission made in March 1919 is a description of the arch and the dedication ceremonies.

Page 168

On its upper north face is the dedication

To the officers and private soldiers
of the Continental Army
December 19, 1777 June 17, 1778

Over the arch is the following:

Erected by the authority of the Act of Congress
June 25, 1910

On the upper south face of the arch is Washington's tribute to the so diers of Valley Forge:

"Naked and starving as they are
We cannot enough admire
The incomparable patience and fidelity
of the soldiery."

Washington at Valley Forge, February 16, 1778

And over the arch is a biblical quotation (from Revelations 7:16):

"They shall hunger no more
Neither thirst any more."

Within the arch, on the right, is a bronze tablet bearing the obverse of the seal of the United States and, below it, the names of the following general officers at the camp:

Commander in Chief

George Washington

Major Generals

DeKalb	Mifflin
Greene	Steuben
Lafayette	Stirling
Lee	Sullivan

Brigadier Generals

Armstrong	Patterson
DuPortail	Poor
Glover	Scott
Huntington	Smallwood
Knox	Varnum
Learned	Wayne
Mclntosh	Weedon
Maxwell	Woodford
Muhlenberg	Pulaski

[Pulaski's name was apparently added below Woodford's at a later date.]

On the left side, within the arch, is a bronze tablet with the reverse side of the seal, and also the concluding lines of Henry Armitt Brown's classic oration delivered at Valley Forge on June 19, 1878, on the 100th anniversary of the departure of the army from its winter quarters.

Page 169

"And here
In this place
Of Sacrifice
In this vale of humiliation
In this valley of the shadow
Of that death out of which
The life of America rose
Regenerate and free
Let us believe
With an abiding faith
That to them
Union will seem as dear
And Liberty as sweet
And progress as glorious
As they were to our fathers
And are to you and me
And that the institutions
Which have made us happy
Preserved by the
Virtue of our children
Shall bless
The remotest generation
Of the time to come."
Henry Armitt Brown

Ceremonies formally transferring the Memorial Arch from the United States government to the custody and care of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took place 75 years ago, as noted, on June 19, 1917. On that day a convocation of dignataries assembled here. Invitations had been extended to members of Congress at Washington and of the Pennsylvania Assembly at Harrisburg, to be guests of the Commonwealth on that occasion. A special train of Pullman cars on the Reading Railroad was provided for their convenience and comfort.

Ninety-four members of Congress were present. Senator Philander C. Knox came over from Valley Forge Farm, and six other senators, including Hiram Johnson of California and Warren 6. Harding of Ohio (later President Harding) were also in attendence, alonq with 87 members of the House of Representatives, twenty from Pennsylvania, including Thomas S. Butler, whose district encompassed both Tredyffrin and Easttown townships.

A grandstand was erected a short distance south of the arch, decorated with flags and bunting, and chairs were provided for the public. The Philadelphia Plaza Band furnished the music; nearby was stationed Battery C, National Guard of Pennsylvania, to fire the salute. Also in attendance were a doctor and nurses from the hospital at Norristown, who had volunteered their services.

The presiding officer of the day was William Henry Sayen, Esq., of Wayne, president of the Valley Forge Park Commission. He first called on the Rev. W. Herbert Burk, rector of the Valley Forge Memorial Chapel, to open the proceedings with a prayer.

Page 170

Making the presentation of the National Arch to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was the Hon. Champ Clark, Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives. Concluding his lengthy remarks, Speaker Clark noted,

"It is said that republics are ungrateful; but by erecting this magnificent memorial arch to Washington and his soldiers the Congress demonstrates to all the world that we hold in most grateful recollection the men who suffered and died here 139 years ago in order that our feeble infant Republic might live. ...

"And now, Governor Brumbaugh, on behalf of the Government of the United States, I present through you as the chief magistrate of Pennsylvania to the old Keystone State this splendid memorial arch in honor of Washington and the men who made Valley Forge another shrine for freedom. May it, defying the corroding tooth of time, stand as a sign and token of our love and gratitude so long as the Schuylki11 seeks the sea. ..."

Accepting the Arch for the Commonwealth was Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh. In accepting it, he commented,

"[W]e shall cherish it, guard it, honor it, as fitting emblem of this vastly more enduring arch of human liberty whose foundations are set in the soil of suffering at Valley Forge, and whose summit crowns the hills of Valley Forge.

"This is Pennsylvania. She has ever led in all that national enterprise commands, and she today, accepts this memorial as a new pledge of national fealty and world-wide democracy. Where stand Valley Forge and Pennsylvania, there stand the hopes, the aspirations, the glories of human kind.

Following Gov. Brumbaugh's remarks a salute was fired by Battery C, the band played the "Star Spangled Banner", and the Rev. Frank Curtis Putnam, of the Radnor Presbyterian Church, gave the benediction.

The large audience then dispersed, and the guests of the Commonwealth visited Washington's Headquarters and other park sites.