The Revolutionary Germantown Festival is a neighborhood-wide event honoring the legacy of the Battle of Germantown. The Battle was the first planned attack by the American army during the Revolutionary War and aimed at liberating Philadelphia from British control. Eleven of Historic Germantown’s sites were involved in the October 4, 1777 Battle, with Cliveden as the main stage. The tradition of remembering the Battle through reenactment dates to the 150th anniversary in 1927, where people dressed in their ancestors’ clothing to show their connections to the historic event. Today, the festival tells the diverse stories of everyone involved, from General George Washington, to Ned Hector, an African American Patriot teamster, and even the pacifist Quakers who got caught in the cross-fire.
The Revolutionary Germantown Festival has programming for all ages. Click here for the full itinerary. This event is free and open to the public as an effort to engage the neighborhood in its own profound history.
