Washington Memorial Chapel Visitor Register

This register documents the hundreds of people who visited the construction site of the Washington Memorial Chapel and the Valley Forge Museum of American History between 1906 and 1910. Acclaimed American painter and illustrator Howard Pyle signed his name and drew a cartoon of George Washington in the register after seeing Washington’s sleeping and office marquee in September 1909, only a month after Reverend W. Herbert Burk, an Episcopal minister from Norristown, Pennsylvania, brought General George Washington’s dining and office marquee to Valley Forge.

Burk began building the chapel in 1903 and dedicated it to Washington. Finished in 1921, the chapel sat beside the museum, which in 1919 expanded into the Valley Forge Historical Society, the Museum of the American Revolution’s predecessor organization. Today, the chapel is an active Episcopal church and hosts weekly worship services. Reverend Burk is buried in the cemetery adjacent to the chapel.

Object Details

• Visitor Register
  Kept by the Washington Memorial Chapel
  Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
  1906-1910
  Ink on Paper
  Museum of the American Revolution