President's House United States

Legendary

Home to George Washington and John Adams during their presidencies.

For 48 years, a public restroom stood on the spot where the first two presidents of the United States lived and worked. Nobody thought much about it.

Then in 2002, a historian discovered that the entrance to the new Liberty Bell Center sat just a few feet from where George Washington had housed the people he enslaved. The story got out, and Philadelphia demanded something better.

The house was built around 1767 by Mary Masters, a wealthy widow, one block from what is now Independence Hall. In 1772 she gave it to her daughter as a wedding present.

The Revolutionary War came to its doorstep. When the British captured Philadelphia in 1777, their commander, General William Howe, moved in.

The British abandoned the city in June 1778. American General Benedict Arnold took over the house next, and it was here that he began secretly writing to the British, the start of the betrayal that made his name a byword for traitor.

In 1790, Philadelphia became the temporary capital of the United States while Washington, D.C. was being built. The house was the closest thing to a White House the country had.

George Washington lived here from 1790 to 1797. He brought nine enslaved people from his Virginia plantation to run the household, including a cook named Hercules and Martha Washington's maid, Ona Judge.

Pennsylvania law said any enslaved person who stayed in the state six months became free. Washington quietly sent his workers back and forth to Virginia to reset the clock.

Ona Judge escaped anyway, in May 1796, slipping out while the family ate dinner. Washington tried for years to get her back. She died free in New Hampshire.

John Adams moved in after Washington, living here from 1797 to 1800. He owned no enslaved people, but he never spoke out against slavery either.

When the capital moved to Washington in 1800, the house became a hotel, then shops. It was demolished in 1832.

Walk through the brick outline that marks where the walls once stood, next to the Liberty Bell Center. Look down for the glass floor showing the kitchen foundations where Hercules cooked. Read the names of all nine enslaved people carved in marble, and find the bronze footprints marking Ona Judge's escape.