My Valley Forge Trip: Photos

When you first go into the welcome center at Valley Forge you are greeted by free standing displays like this one that are organized thematically.

The museum houses a lot of object from the extensive Newman Collection and some of them are on display.
There are reproduced and original redans and redoubts throughout the park.
There are also repoduction log cabins that are supposed to look like what the soldiers at Valley Forge erected. There are two types of cabins here today. The one below was built by the NPS and is based on the specifications that Washington gave to the soldiers about building cabins.
Here is a repro bake oven. These were fairly commom in both American and British camps. The original was probably bigger and had six or seven ovens around the entire mound.
Here's the inside of one of the NPS huts.

The triumphal arch. I have no idea what this piece's story is in relation to the rest of the park. Valley Forge pretty much consists of a bunch of different memorials that don't relate to each other in any way and don't make sense.

The PHMC also built huts in the 70's when they still owned the site. These were built by examining archeological findings of what the huts really might have looked like. The NPS is letting these basically just fall down now. The inside of a PHMC hut.
You drive past lots of monuments.
This house was restored by the same guy, Brumbaugh, who restored the Boone House.

A lot of the features are similar on each house. Note the shutters on this one are exactly the same as the ones on the Boone House. Washington's HQ. He, twelve other people, and Martha were living here.
What Washington's bed may have looked like. The summer kitchen is attached to the rest of the house by an arch. Pretty unique architectural feature, historians are not even sure if this would have been one there when Washinton was here.
There are storytellers planted throughout the site. This guy was very good.
More monuments.
Vermeer's HQ. Also a good example of an eighteenth century hall and parlor. They don't normally have this building open and Jim was really jazzed that it was.
The house was pretty much gutted at one point so nothing in it was original. Everything, right down to the doorway molded is based entirely based on supposition. The Washington Memorial Chapel. It made the whole trip worhtwhile.
This is what you see when you look up.
Some of this gets a little too patriotic and religious for comfort.