The Tom Thumb restaurant on the site of the Declaration House in the 1940s. Independence National Historical Park, 1947.
Where the Declaration was written
In 1776, while attending the Second Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson and Robert Hemmings, the man he enslaved as his valet, lived and worked in Jacob Graff's house, away from the city's noise. There Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. The site has changed many times since.
The Graffs' new house
- June 1, 1775: Jacob Graff bought the lot at 7th and Market Streets from Edmund and Abigail Physick and built a three-and-a-half-story brick house.
- April 1776: Jacob and Maria Graff moved in with their infant son Frederick.
- May 23 to September 3, 1776: they rented the second floor to Jefferson — a parlor and bedchamber. Hemmings most likely slept in the garret, the attic space at the top of the house.
In 1825, Jefferson recalled: "I lodged in the house of a Mr. Graaf, a new brick house 3 stories high of which I rented the 2d floor consisting of a parlour and bed room already furnished...in that parlour I wrote habitually and in it wrote this paper particularly." Besides Congress and the Declaration, he did committee work, wrote letters, and shopped for goods scarce in rural Virginia.
The Graffs belonged to Philadelphia's thriving German community north of High (Market) Street. Jacob, a third-generation American whose grandparents came in 1741, joined his father's contracting business; they rented brickyards, likely made and laid brick, and built properties to rent and sell.
Later owners
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| July 28, 1777 | Graff sold the house to his neighbor Jacob Hiltzheimer, who noted the payment in his diary |
| 1798–1801 | Hiltzheimer died of yellow fever; his daughter Mary and her husband inherited the house and sold it in December 1801 to Simon and Hyman Gratz |
| 1802–1808 | Simon Gratz added a fourth floor, turned the 7th Street door into a window, added a new door, and removed original stairs and hallways |
| 1881–1883 | the Gratz family sold it; it was torn down |
| Later | owners included the Penn National Bank, in a granite building by architect Frank Furness; in the 1940s, the Tom Thumb lunch spot |
| 1975 | the Park Service rebuilt the house as it looked in 1776, for the Bicentennial |
Visiting today
The house at the southwest corner of 7th and Market has exhibits on the first floor. On the second, Jefferson's bedroom and parlor are recreated with period furnishings, including copies of his swivel chair and the lap desk on which he wrote the Declaration.
More: an overview of the Declaration of Independence, and John D. R. Platt's Historic Structures Report on the Graff House (NPS, 1972), on its construction and changes.
Sources
Based on "The Declaration House Through Time," Independence National Historical Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source spells his name "Hemmings"; it is often written Hemings.
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