Washington Memorial Chapel: Bells at Valley Forge

Standing inside Valley Forge National Historical Park is a stone Gothic chapel that most visitors pass without stopping, which is a mistake. The Washington Memorial Chapel is an active Episcopal parish and a national memorial to George Washington, and it holds one of the most unusual musical instruments in Pennsylvania.

The chapel itself was begun in nineteen and three, designed by Philadelphia architect Milton Medary, and built entirely with private funds over many decades as a living memorial to Washington rather than a monument of bronze or marble. The congregation wanted something that breathed, a place of ongoing worship rather than a sealed cenotaph.

The bell tower came later. Construction began in nineteen forty-one but was halted by the Second World War and did not resume until nineteen forty-nine. When it was completed and dedicated in nineteen fifty-three, the tower held fifty-six bronze bells covering a range of nearly five octaves and weighing a combined twenty-six tons. Two additional bells, cast in France, were added in nineteen sixty-three to bring the carillon to fifty-eight bells. It ranks among the largest carillons in the world, and carillonneurs perform concerts here regularly, the deep harmonics carrying across the park and into the surrounding hills.

Inside the tower chamber hangs the Justice Bell, cast in nineteen fifteen as a near-exact replica of the Liberty Bell. It became a symbol of the women's suffrage movement, traveling from county to county across Pennsylvania to promote the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Once the amendment was ratified in nineteen twenty, the bell returned to Valley Forge, its clapper still chained to prevent ringing, a deliberate statement: it would not ring until women had the vote. After the ratification was secured, the chain was removed and the bell rang for the first time. It has been in the tower since nineteen forty-three.

The combination of a Revolutionary War memorial, a working carillon, and a suffragist artifact makes this chapel an unusually layered place.