Revolutionary Soldiers Monument
In 1831, when the original wall was built, a sandstone monument was erected over the grave site. Inscribed on each of the four sides are the following tributes:
On The Southwest Side
"Virtue, Liberty, and Independence."
On The Southeast Side
"Within these walls surrounding they
Can yet be thought to claim a tear;
Oh, smite thy gentle breast, and say,
'The friends of freedom slumber here.'
"We here their humble graves adorn, -
We, too, mayfall and ask a tear, -
'Tis not the beauty of the morn
That proves the evening shall be clear.
On The Northwest Side
"Their names, though lost in earth below
And hence are not recorded here,
Are known where lasting pleasures flow,
Beyond the reach of death and fear"
"Their feet have trod misfortune's sands,
Their lives by hardships worn down;
They're gone, we trust, to better lands,
To brighter sunshine of their own."
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On The Northeast Side
"Sacred to the memory of Twenty-two Revolutionary Soldiers, who in the fall of 1777, when the American Army had encamped at the Valley Forge, were lodged in the German Reformed Church, (in sight) then occupied as an hospital; who there, distant from their homes, uncomforted by friends and kind relations, deceased in the spring of 1778, of a fever then prevailing in the camp; who were interred in this ground and where they slumbered in their peaceful but neglected tomb (except that Mr. Henry Hipple Sr., preserved the ground,) until the Union Battalion of Volunteers of Chester County, aided by the generous and patriotic people of this vicinity, resolved to have them enclosed and a monument placed over them; the foundation of which accordingly was laid on the l9th of November, 1831, upon which occasion regular military ceremonies were observed, and a funeral oration delivered, to perpetuate the profound regard due the individuals who paid the forfeit of their precious lives for our sacred rights, and for privileges which they were never permitted to enjoy, and to contribute to generations unborn, the memory of the precious price of the Liberty & Independence of our happy Union. They have raised this monument onthe 25th of October 1833, and which they also dedicate to the memory of a number of other Revolutionary Soldiers who, the same time and same manner, deceased in theLutheranChurch (then used as an hospital and are buried near it and in other places of this vicinity)."
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