Laurel Hill Cemetery
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Laurel Hill Cemetery, also called Laurel Hill East to distinguish it from the affiliated West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
Laurel Hill Cemetery Gatehouse in 1972
The Yellow Fever Memorial was built in 1855 to honor Philadelphia's "Doctors, Druggists and Nurses" who helped fight the epidemic in Portsmouth, Virginia
The cemetery was designed by John Notman with strings of terraces that descend to the Schuylkill River
"The Silent Sentry" was stolen from Mount Moriah Cemetery in 1970 but was recovered and rededicated in Laurel Hill in 2013.
Charles Thomson
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Charles Thomson was an Irish-born patriot leader in Philadelphia during the American Revolution and the secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, Thomson, a Founding Father of the United States, prepared the Journals of the Continental Congress, and his and John Hancock's names were the only two to appear on the first printing of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Thomson's proposal for the Great Seal of the United States (1793). A modified version was adopted by Congress.
John Trumbull portrayed Thomson standing across the table from the Committee of Five in his 1818 painting Declaration of Independence
Hannah (Harrison) Thomson, Charles' second wife, by Joseph Wright (c.1785)