Five presidential attractions around Philadelphia

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum of medical history offers two key pieces of presidential miscellany:  a tumor removed from the jaw of Grover Cleveland, twenty-second President of the United States, and a some vertebrae from the body of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin.The Mütter Museum is located at 19 South 22nd Street in Philadelphia's Center City.  Admission is $15 for adults, and $10 for youth and students.  It is open seven days a week.Located on Independence Mall, in the Liberty Bell Center's backyard, the President's House is an archaeological reconstruction of what served as the presidential mansion from 1790 to 1800, when Philadelphia was capital of the United States.  The exhibit includes a skeletal footprint of the house, information about the early days of the presidency, an overview of each room's function, and an extended discussion of the house's slave quarters, and the men and women who lived there during George Washington's term.The President's House, like the Liberty Bell Center itself, is free and open to the public.  The Liberty Bell Center is open seven days a week.Located on Philadelphia's Independence Mall, the National Constitution Center makes it its mission to help the public understand the substance and operation of the American constitutional process, judicial, legislative, and executive.  Its main exhibits offer a multimedia, theatrical museum experience that takes visitors from 1787 and the founding of the Republic to the present.  The Center features model voting booths, a "national tree" of one hundred citizens who have transformed American history, and the opportunity for children and adults alike to insert themselves into the process, to take the presidential oath of office.The National Constitution Center is open seven days a week at 525 Arch Street, on Independence Mall.  Admission is $17.50 for adults, and $11 for children 4-12.View the list »
James Buchanan's gravesite, in Lancaster, PA

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President's Day has now come and gone, but Philadelphia's presidential points of interest are here to stay. The City of Brotherly Love is better known for its colonial history than its connections to the highest office in the land. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has, in fact, only produced one President, James Buchanan. And he is widely regarded by historians as one of the least effective.

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Still, the city and its surrounding area are filled with a smattering of presidential errata, from museum pieces, to historical parks, to well-kept graves, that are sure to educate and entertain even the least-interested of presidential aficionados.

What follows is a list of five presidential attractions in the Philadelphia area, some straightforward and some offbeat, that every area expert on the Executive Branch must see.

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  • Located on Philadelphia's Independence Mall, the National Constitution Center makes it its mission to help the public understand the substance and operation of the American constitutional process, judicial, legislative, and executive.  Its main exhibits offer a multimedia, theatrical museum experience that takes visitors from 1787 and the founding of the Republic to the present.  The Center features model voting booths, a "national tree" of one hundred citizens who have transformed American history, and the opportunity for children and adults alike to insert themselves into the process, to take the presidential oath of office.The National Constitution Center is open seven days a week at 525 Arch Street, on Independence Mall.  Admission is $17.50 for adults, and $11 for children 4-12.
  • Located on Independence Mall, in the Liberty Bell Center's backyard, the President's House is an archaeological reconstruction of what served as the presidential mansion from 1790 to 1800, when Philadelphia was capital of the United States.  The exhibit includes a skeletal footprint of the house, information about the early days of the presidency, an overview of each room's function, and an extended discussion of the house's slave quarters, and the men and women who lived there during George Washington's term.The President's House, like the Liberty Bell Center itself, is free and open to the public.  The Liberty Bell Center is open seven days a week.
  • The College of Physicians of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum of medical history offers two key pieces of presidential miscellany:  a tumor removed from the jaw of Grover Cleveland, twenty-second President of the United States, and a some vertebrae from the body of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin.The Mütter Museum is located at 19 South 22nd Street in Philadelphia's Center City.  Admission is $15 for adults, and $10 for youth and students.  It is open seven days a week.
  • Set in Lancaster County, near Philadelphia, Wheatland was the home of James Buchanan, fifteenth president of the United States.  Bequeathed to the Lancaster County Historical Society in the 1930s, the property's Federal-style main house, along with several outbuildings, have been preserved on more than four acres of land.  The house now features rooms furnished in a period-appropriate, mid-nineteenth-century style, including many items that once belonged to President Buchanan.The James Buchanan House is located at 1120 Marietta Ave., in Lancaster, PA, a little bit more than an hour from Center City Philadelphia.  The site is open Monday through Saturday from April to October, and Fridays and Saturdays in November and December.  Tours are available by appointment from January through March.
  • James Buchanan died at the age of 77, in 1869, at his Wheatland home in Lancaster, PA.  He is buried at the nearby Woodward Hill Cemetery, at a site featuring a monument, a well-tended garden, and an American flag.  The site includes information about Buchanan's presidency, his career as a lawyer, and his later life in Lancaster.Woodward Hill Cemetery is located at the corner of Hazel Street and South Queen Street in Lancaster, PA.  Admission is free.
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, Philadelphia Neighborhoods Examiner

Adam D. Zolkover is a folklorist, a writer, and an educator. He is the owner of, and primary contributor to, Twice-Cooked.com. There, he blogs about cooking, eating, and travel, sometimes photography, and always, always politics.

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