There is no better place to hear what America’s historians and history teachers think about the American Founding than in Philadelphia’s historic Old City. While recently on a guided walking tour through the neighborhood, my guide—a prominent scholar of 18th-century Philadelphia—was so overcome with emotion at a particular site that he breezed past a more notable landmark.
The first stop was the Old London Coffee House on the corner of Market and Front Streets, a hub for colonial life since its establishment in 1754. Philadelphians would meet there to discuss politics, hear the news of the day, and conduct business. One such historical detail about the coffee house captured the emotions of my guide: slave auctions used to be held in front of the building.
As he was choking back tears, he led my group right past another landmark just a few doors up the street. A plaque on the building noted the site of John Dunlap’s print shop. The Irish-born Dunlap emigrated to the colonies in the 1750s to apprentice at his uncle’s Philadelphia print shop. His uncle left the business in his care in 1766, and Dunlap eventually bought it outright. He went on to serve in the Continental Army during the War for Independence and saw action at Princeton and Trenton.
