Across the hall is the Declaration chamber, forty feet and two inches long, thirty-nine feet and six inches wide and nineteen feet and eight inches high. As in size, its architecture is substantially the same as the chamber opposite, and like it the two corners near the hall are rounding. Also it is of spacious appearance, light, beautiful and cheerful, a room to inspire noble deeds. Instead of the high judge's bench at the side opposite the entrance, there is a[205] relatively small platform or dais of two steps on which stands the presiding officer's desk in front of a large, elaborate, pedimental-topped frame with exquisitely enriched carved moldings, within which is a smaller frame containing a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. To either side, between fluted pilasters, are segmental arched fireplaces with heavy mantel shelves above, supported by carved consoles, while beyond these are single doors with pedimental heads. Otherwise the room is substantially like that across the hall. They are regarded as the best of the restored rooms of the building, and of the two the courtroom is perhaps rather the better in its greater simplicity.
In the east or so-called Declaration chamber, the second Continental Congress met May 10, 1775; George Washington was chosen commander in chief of the Continental Army June 15, 1775; and the Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. The American officers taken prisoners at the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, and of Germantown, October 4, 1777, were held here as prisoners of war, and on July 9, 1778, the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union between the States were signed here by representatives of eight States. The room contains much of the furniture of those days. The table and high-backed Chippendale chair of mahogany used by the presidents of the Continental Congress and[206] occupied by John Hancock at the signing still remain, and on the table is to be seen the silver ink-stand with its quill box and sand shaker, in which the delegates dipped their pens in autographing the famous document. There are also fourteen of the original chairs used by delegates. On the walls hang portraits of forty-five of the fifty-six signers, also a portrait of Washington by Rembrandt Peale.
In fact, the collection of portraits is largely based on canvases secured from the famous Peale Museum which at one time occupied the upper floors of the building. There are also valuable paintings by Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Edgar Pine, Thomas Sully and Allan Ramsay. The bronze statue of Washington standing in front of Independence Hall on Chestnut Street is a replica of the original one in white marble by Bailey, which was removed on account of its disintegration. Forty-five crayons and pastels by John Sharpless, purchased by the city in 1876, form a notable collection estimated to be worth half a million dollars. What is supposed to be the earliest exhibition of paintings ever held in America was that of Robert Edge Pine, which occurred in Independence Hall in 1784.
On the second floor the principal room is a great banqueting hall extending across the entire building on the Chestnut Street side with its range of nine windows and having a fireplace at each end. There are smaller rooms on each side of the broad entrance[207] corridor; its wide, flat arch has four fluted columns supporting a heavy pedimental head with elliptical fanlight. Architecturally the restoration of the second floor is less happy than that of the first. It is not in the spirit of the work below; nor does it accord with typical Colonial work of pre-Revolutionary days. It lacks that simple, straight-forward dignity of design; that fine sense of proportion; that refinement and appropriateness of detail. The spacing of the paneling of both the wainscot and the fireplace mantels is not characteristic; the detail of the latter is poorly chosen and assembled, and the whole aspect, especially the entrance arch, suggests a studied effort to achieve picturesque effect.
