The President's House: Slavery at the Seat of Power

The President's House site at 6th and Market Streets is where George Washington lived during his presidency (1790-1797) — and where he kept nine enslaved people, including Oney Judge, who escaped to freedom in 1796. An open-air memorial installed in 2010, directly adjacent to the Liberty Bell Center, was built to make visitors confront the contradiction between American ideals of freedom and the reality of slavery at the nation's founding. In 2026 the federal government removed its panels and, after a court fight the city is still pursuing, installed new ones in July that name the nine but set their story within a broader account of abolition and civil rights.