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Our Mission: 137 Years of Monuments

Since our founding in 1888, one of the purposes of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution has been to memorialize the sites of Revolutionary War actions in our region, of which there are many.

In our 137 years, the Society and its Color Guard have commissioned, financed, and erected almost 100 historical monuments and plaques, of which 36 have recently been documented according to a comprehensive survey, done over more than a year, by PSSR member Michael C. Dougherty.

Mike, owner of The Bronze Age, a Villanova company that sets and restores monuments, used old records and shoe leather to locate and assess the condition of every memorial, some of which need cleaning and maintenance.

The first was placed in 1890 – a stone to commemorate General Anthony Wayne’s headquarters at Valley Forge – and the most recent was placed in 2024 – an aluminum plaque at the gravesite of naval hero Gustavus Conyngham at St. Peter’s Church, Third and Pine streets, Philadelphia.

Mike detailed his work in a report entitled “Monuments and Plaques Inventory 2025,” which he presented to President Michael Whelan at the annual meeting in April. The report is now viewable at the society’s headquarters at Historic Waynesborough.

“The PSSR and I are both indebted to Mike Dougherty for his many months of documenting, photographing and compiling the exhaustive list of the monuments and plaques initiated by the society since its inception,” President Whelan said. “The catalog gives us an insight into the work of our predecessors in preserving and presenting the history of the American Revolution.”

Later this year (hopefully, December), the society will rededicate its1893 monument to the Continental Army’s week-long encampment at Gulph Mills on the road to Valley Forge, Dec. 12-19,1777. The monument, which presently sits at Executive Estates Park in King of Prussia, will be moved to the location of the actual encampment near the corner of Route 320 (Montgomery Avenue) and Old Gulph Road. The site is near a present-day Sunoco station.

Mike said his work has been motivated by “my fascination with history and, especially, historical monuments.”

He found a bronze bench at Christ Church in Philadelphia for which the society had no records at all. He thinks there may be at least one more marker he can’t  document.

The monuments are scattered from Old City to Whitemarsh to Phoenixville, from Bethlehem to Allentown to York. One is the famous equestrian statue of Gen. Wayne at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, erected in 1937.

Asked which monument he likes best, Mike replied, “They’re all cool,” but he said his favorite may be the aluminum plaque at the Conyngham grave.

The plaque is laser-engraved with a replica of the commission that Conyngham received from John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, to act as a privateer – a sea captain licensed to raid and capture British ships. The document was lost for nearly a century and a half, and, as a result, Conyngham in his lifetime was unable to receive a Revolutionary War pension.

The plaque, in some way, restores to Conyngham the recognition owed to him, Mike said. To read about this plaque, and the 35 others that were documented in Mike’s survey, please click HERE.